It’s love at first [gun] sight …

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/11/16/shot.marriage.ap/index.html

SAN BERNARDINO, California (AP) — A woman says she still plans to marry the man who shot her in the groin and then held her hostage in his family’s garage for six days.

Tina Marie Stebbins revealed her intentions in a letter released Monday as her boyfriend, Christian Leroy Lindblad, 37, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for shooting her in June 2002.

“I love Christian today as deeply as I loved him before this awful thing happened to us,” Stebbins wrote in a victim impact statement. “We are soul mates.”

She added: “I want to tell you all that I have forgiven Christian. And I pray that Christian has forgiven me for failing him when he needed me most.”

Lindblad and his parents tried to cover up the shooting by treating Stebbins with home remedies, according to a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s report. They also threatened her young sons and her family, the report said.

Critically wounded, Stebbins was airlifted to a hospital after Lindblad mentioned the incident to a family friend who was a firefighter.

Lindblad pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted murder as his trial was about to begin in early October. He has said the shooting was an accident.

Two down …

Another from my group of college friends just got married. 

That phrase is a bit misleading, as I was the first in the group to go.  But anyway, Steve Tiszenkel recently wed the lovely Melissa Blumer.  The ceremony and reception were on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing.  It was all ridiculously fabulous and fun and a whirlwind of activity packed into a too-short weekend that included:

(Friday) 4.25 hours driving to Michigan, dinner and drinks with Larry V, completely missing out on the rehearsal dinner – we never got an invite, and we were hanging out with Larry!

(Saturday) beer and wings starting at 11am, watching Northwestern stage an AMAZING comeback victory over Iowa, making a fairly disorganized liquor run, sprinting into the hotel to get ready for the wedding, helping Steve with his pocket square and cufflinks, helping Chris with his tux shirt buttons (does no one know the finer points of formal dress anymore?), getting the Man to the chapel on time, building a chupah – while wearing my newly tailored and pressed suit – pinning boutonnieres, signing the ketubah (a HUGE honor for me) and then the state forms (in triplicate), ushing to the best of my ability …there’s a blank spot in there and then a lot of dancing and drinks, then more drinks in the best man’s room.

(Sunday) wake up, not be dead, drive 5 hours back to Chicago, rescue the puppy from the kennel (eh, she loves it there), collapse

It was a good weekend in all.  Congrats to Mr. and Mrs. Tiszenkel.  (I’m sorry that Ms. Blumer has to change her last name to something that ridiculous.  It’s almost as bad as my wife going from Dreyfuss to Traubenberg.)

Things I never thought I’d see happen

ChiSox winning the Series.

Steve getting married.

Schools banning children from wearing snowman t-shirts in school.

The Vampire Lestat giving way to Jesus.

A cruise ship OUTRUNNING pirates off the coast of Somalia. 

Me finishing my Master’s degree.

 

 

It’s been a busy weekend.

The genius of rap

The ability to rhyme “Snowman” with “…snow, man” is certainly MENSA material.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/07/snowman.tshirt.ap/index.html

 

Reqiuem for Sunlight

All the clocks have been pushed back an hour.  Hurrah!

We gained an hour of sleep this weekend.  Hurrah!

…

It’s 4.22pm and dark as hell outside.  In about a month, I’ll be driving to work in the dark and getting home in the dark.  I’ll not see Sol until March or April next year.

This stuff is depressing.

and I thought my Bar Mitzvah was bad …

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/31/pastor.electrocuted.ap/index.html

A pastor standing in waist-deep water reached out to adjust a microphone so that the congregation could hear him perform a baptism.  Guess what happened, then click the link.

I couldn’t write material like this …

We were in a teleconference meeting with some of our lawyers from San Diego the other day.  During a brief intermission, the phone was muted and the discussion turned to baseball.  Following a comparison of the pitchers who would be on the mound that evening, my boss (a college-educated, fairly successful fellow) turns to no one in particular and asks …

“Houston Astros.  Do you think there were named that because of astrophysics?  You know, NASA has a facility right there in Houston.  I bet they were named the Astros because NASA uses astrophysics a lot.”

God help me …I report to this man and depend on his written reviews for raises and bonuses.

Victor von …?

Doom hits the big screen today.  And it is expected that the excrement will contact the rotary oscillator, as well.

In such glorious outings as “Scorpion King” and “The Rundown”, I cannot recall Dwayne Johnson ever muttering an obscenity.  He’s a big damn dude and can simply flex his big ol’ chest to seem intimidating (at least from an action movie perspective).  Well, according to The State Journal-Register out of Springfield, IL, The Rock has to “drop the F-bomb” fifteen times in the course of this splatterfest.

Don’t get me wrong – I swear far more than I should, but this just seems very out of character for Dwayne.  He’s such a babyface that I can’t see it.  Come on!  In WWF/E outings, he hams it up so much that people chant along with whatever his current catchphrase is.  And did you see him in “Be Cool”?

Aside from feeling bad for Rock, I’m actually considering this movie for weekend entertainment.  My wife and two other friends were talking about a haunted house on Saturday night.  I think this would be way scarier.

Productization!

A professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon used the word productization in an interview published by CNET News.  Talking about the results of the DARPA Grand Challenge (a robo-race across the desert) …

“It’s not just about a bright idea. There’s a lot of work to do. That business of development and productization and building an enterprise is a lot harder than creating a technology,” said William “Red” Whittaker, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University.

Productization!

I got more than 57,000 hits on Google when I searched for “productization” and that amazes me.  This barely sounds like a word.  Even Sun Microsystems – a firm that uses the word – jokes that it sounds made up.  Are techies making up words to confuse all of the regular people, or am I just out of touch with the new hipster lingo?

I’m not a Sox fan, but …

This was just stupid.  During my morning commute, I flip between a couple of AM stations to hear traffic reports and just general news of the world.  Of course, everything for the last two weeks was about the White Sox (good for them!).  This morning, even more of everything was about the White Sox.  Then, I heard one of the dumbest things ever (in regards to baseball and the Sox).

On WLS 890AM, morning host Don Wade stated that the Sox got through the division series and won the penant “not because they played good baseball, but because the teams they played against played BAD baseball.”  What?!

Four consecutive complete games pitched by four different starting pitchers, clutch hitting (ESPN1000 said no one in Chicago is allowed to boo Joe Crede anymore) and solid fielding aren’t good baseball?

Did Boston and Anaheim both completely choke against an underrated Chicago team?  I’m sorry, but there’s just so much wrong with what that guy said.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Sox fans booed him next time he’s out and about.

Congrats to the ChiSox!  They got some amazing performances from the pitching staff and some really solid play in the field to clinch a spot in the World Series for the first time in almost 50 years.  Bad baseball, my ass.