MERRY CHRISTMAS

Doesn't really feel like it. Michelle was at work all day. I did try to make some beer today. Santa got me a home brewery, so we will see hoe that turns out.

Yesterday was our 6 month aniversary. It doesn't seem like we have been married 6 months, but it feels like I have been working with the Public Defenders office a lot longer than 9 months. I guess that is probably a good sign.

Try to get some of the Christmas pictures up tonight. Back to the grind tomorrow. Til Then.

MILK

What a week. My partner in the Traffic Court Room was on Vacation most the week, so I have been pulling double duty. I am beat. But, I have kept up with things. Pretty amazed actually, that everything has gone so smoothly. Tues is going to be pretty bad, butI will worry about that, then.

Christmas is almost here. Michelle and I both agree it just doesn't feel like Christmas. I think it is only going to get worse, since I am not going to make it home for Christmas. Although, I find myself saying that every year, "It doesn't feel like Christmas." I don't know what is missing. Maybe this is just what Christmas is suppose to feel like.

I am hoping we get out a little early tomorrow. That would be nice. I keep thinking nothing is going on tonight, but the Sanders are having an open house party, so I think we are heading there.

Watched "Beerfest" last night. It was a dirty, rounchy comedy with the cast from "Super Troopers". It was pretty funny. Funny to me, but nobody has the same taste as me.

Anyway, gotta get going to meet Michelle. Til Then

MILK

I won. I won. Yul, the survivor Godfather, won the million. I have been in a survivor pool for around 3 maybe 4 years, only cracking the top 5 once. This time, my survior won the whole thing. It was almost as exciting as watching the Cardinals clinch a playoff spot, which isn't too bad.

MILK

Just waiting for people to come to my party. Michelle says that now that I said that people who weren't invited will feel sad. I don't know why. They haven't seen the pumpkin pie I am trying to pass off as eatable. Anyway, did some fiddling with the background and fonts. Michelle says she likes it, and she used to edit a newspaper, so that is good enough for me.

We have a lot of food and like seven people are going to show up. I am going to be eating junk food all day tom. Anyway, maybe I will write something tom. on my day off. Michelle has to work so I will be home alone. Til Then.

MILK

Was looking at pitching stats and found some very interesting things.

Nolan Ryan had 5714 Stikeouts and pitched 5386 innings over his career. That is over one stikeout an inning (1.06). Compare the number 2 guy Roger Clemons .955. Number 3, Randy Johnson avg. 1.196, but has almost 1200 less strikouts. Most don't average over 1 strikout an inning until you get to Pedro Martinez, 15th on the strikeout list, whose avg. is 1.133, but is over 2700 behind Ryan.

Gus Weyhing, who played from 1887 to 1901, holds the record for most hits batsmen at 277. He pitched in 538 games, avg. over 8 innings a game. He beamed a batter on avg. more than once every 2 games he pitched. Not bad for someone who is 34 on the all time wins list.

For this being considered the home run era, you have to go to the 9th spot to find an active player on the list of most HR's given up by a pitcher. By the way, it is Robin Roberts who played from 1948-1966 and gave up 505 HR's. He is the only player to give up over 500 HR's. So it is more rare to have a pitcher that has given up 500 HR's as oppose to a hitter who has hit more than 500 HR's, there are 20 of them.

I gotta go to an eye appointment, so I better be going. Til Next time.

MILK

I was looking at some of my old blogs. Here is one I wrote about John Kerry and views on abortion during the 04 election. I must say, my view really hasn't changed that much in 2 1/2 years. I still think the pro-choice anti-abortion group would take off.

http://milk169.blogspot.com/2004/04/protect-right-to-choose-john-kerry.html

MILK

Here is a funny e-mail I got. Thanks to Jenna.

A priest was being honored at his retirement dinner after 25 years in rhe parish. A leading Senator and a member of the congregation was chosen to make the presentation and give a little speech. He was delayed so the priest decided to say his own few words as they waited.

'i got my first impression of the parish from the first confession i heard. i thought i had been assigned to a terrible place as the very first person who entered my confessional told me how he had stolen a television set and, when questioned by the police, was able to lie his way out of it. He had stolen money from his parents, embezzled from his employer, had an affair with his boss's wife, taken advantage of his friends and given VD to his sister..

I was appalled, but as the days went on I knew that my people were not all like that, and I had indeed come to a fine parish full of kind and loving people.'

just as the priest finished his talk, the republican senator arrived full of apologies at being late. He immediately began to make his presentation and give his talk. 'I'll never forget the first time the parish priest arrived,' said the politician. 'In fact, I had the honor of being the first person to go to him for confession.'

Moral: NEVER, NEVER BE LATE!

Some people. Michelle wrote an aritcle about a chain of people buying starbucks coffee for each other and all the comments talk about is whether the X in X-mas is a bad thing or not.

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2006/12/13/news/doc457f321ddf68f848510458.txt

It was a really nice story, in a world full off not nice stories, and some comment on that fact, but for the most part it is an arguement about the meaning of X. I don't know where it came from and I really didn't know it was bad until this Christmas. I wished somebody at church a Merry X-Mas, and they told me that was wrong.

Whether it was invented by someone who can't stand Christ being apart of Christmas is beyond me. I never used it to insult anyone and I don't think I ever used it to get away from the meaning a Christmas. It is shorter, and I always thought, kinda neat sounding. I had never thought of X as replacing Christ.

But some do, and to each his own. I don't know where the arguments come in that in ancient times X meant Christ and so it isn't bad. And I don't know who invented X-Mas. But didn't we just have this whole arguement in the media a year ago with Happy Holidays. It boggles my mind the reasons we find to bicker about things. No one can be happy unless they are finding fault in what someone else is doing. I didn't understand the Holidays thing anyway. I say all three not only because I like variety, and as stated earlier I thought X-mas was cool, but also becasuse there are other holidays around Christmas. It is the Holiday season. No other time of year has so many holidays bunched together. If Easter was around the same time as fourth of July and Father's Day, maybe we would say Happy Holidays then too, but they aren't.

I have never said Happy Holidays with the intent of hiding that I am Christian. And I know some do, and that may be wrong, but the reason they do it is so that they don't offend someone. Maybe that is just everyone being to politically correct, but that is the world we live in. They aren't doing it to hurt anyone, it is to stop from hurting someone. So I say all three, and I don't feel bad about saying any of them. If you refuse to say Merry Christmas, even on Dec. 23, 24, or 25th, well then, as one e-mail I read puts it, you should go into work on Christmas.

If you miss me a Happy Holidays, I will be most appreciative and respond with Thank You, Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays, depending on my mood at that particular moment in time. None are meant to make a point, teach you a lesson, or hurt you in anyway. I just really hate how we choose to, better yet, need to find things to bicker about. I think the story at Starbucks was a bright spot in an often dark world and I wish more would see it as just that, and not a chance to complain about all the things they think are wrong in the world. Til Next Time.

MILK

It was a long but good day today. Was suppose to get out of work 15 min early, but didn't. Bowled ok. Broke 200 for the first time in about 2 years. The lifeteen planning meeting was a lot of fun.

You know its a long day when your newspaper usually comes to the door at 6:00 AM and you leave before it gets there and it is still sitting there when you get home at 10:15 at night. It does feel like a good tired. Like, you got a lot accomplished. Not too much wasted energy, it was all put to some use. But I am tired and heading to bed. Til Next Time.

MILK

Well, my Bench Trial didn't go yesterday, which isn't to say I wasn't busy. It was a full day and today, I think, is going to be worse.

Had a pretty good weekend. Sunday night, Christmas Party for lifeteen, was pretty fun. A little sad to think we won't be seeing a lot of the teens til the middle of Jan.

It is bowling league tonight, plus the lifeteen planning meeting, so it will be a long day.

MILK

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=54755636

I found this link while playing around on Myspace. It is the "I Have a Dream" speech in full. It also has some pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. I don't know if I have ever heard the entire speech before. He is a very powerful speaker. I am glad to see Myspace can be used for something besides chatting and playing around. I recomend everyone take a listen. It is about 16 minutes long and a great part of our history.

Michelle is getting off an half hour earlier, so I don't get my half hour to write, so this will be a short one. Good thing too, cause I don't have a lot to share.

If you have time, check out Neil's site, linked on the side. He is a very deep writer and always has a way of putting things in perspective.

Next week is going to be a busy week. It is full to the brim of new clients and complicated cases. But that is what I get for having a very easy week this week.

We are heading up to Michell'e parents this weekend to watch her sister sing. I haven't been up there since the begining of June, so it should be fun.

Anyway, I will try to write something Monday. I will have a bench trial Monday afternoon, so maybe I will have something interesting to say. Til then. MILK

Hey everybody. I am at work an extra half hour everyday waiting for Michelle to get off of work and they blocked myspace, any music, and fantasy sports at work, so I figured I would use the time to write here. Maybe some e-mails I get or any outstanding thoughts that come during the day.

Survivor is on tonight and it is probable my best chance at winning the survivor pool I have had since it started. It is jury week here at the court house and I didn't have any that went, so it is pretty slow. But then again, tom. in Friday already.

The myspace is taking off. I was glad to see so many of the old TEC gang showing up on my friends list. Some law school people too I hadn't talked with in a while.

Reminder to all you Catholics, tom. is a holy day of obligation. The Cardinals really didn't do anything during the winter camp as far as filling any holes.

Here is a story Michelle wrote for the Pantagraph that was her own original idea.
http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2006/12/07/money/doc45774375a0450638149631.txt

We are looking into buying a house in the next few months. If anybody has any advise on that or just recently went through it and has tips, please let us know. We have been told it gets easier once you get an agent, which we haven't done yet.

We did get our first Christmas tree, Michelle's first real one. Pics are on the myspace. It is easier to put pics up there than on the Blog.

As always, my journal from the Europe trip is still in the archives. At least I think it is. If you are ever totally bored and want to read some totally random thoughts that came to me while I was over there, it is a good way to waste some time. (Ex: What are African Americans called when they live in France; Even in a different language, coughs and throat clearing all sound the same.)

I was just asked if I wanted to buy a church or school. What would I do with it. It would be a shame to tear it down. Take out the pews and use it as a gym, maybe.

Well, that is all I can think of to write about. Maybe something interesting will happen tom. Maybe it will just be another day. Hope everyone has a good night. MILK