Rock Win! Rock Win!

I just posted this on my sports blog, www.daddyknowssports.wordpress.com.  Thought I would re-post it here because I’m just so thrilled that the Toronto Rock lacrosse team won the game tonight against the Buffalo Bandits down at the Air Canada Centre.

Here is my post;

Rock Win!  Rock Win!!

Whew!  What a game!!!

I finally made it down to a Toronto Rock lacrosse game this year – it was tonight – and it was the Rock’s first playoff game against the yucky, hated Buffalo Bandits. 

Needless to say, those with season’s seats around my seats were shocked that I made it down after missing all 8 regular season games.  I explained that with a newborn and 2 other kids it would be unfair (read: grounds for divorce) to leave my wife with all three of them while I enjoy the hitting, fighting, loud music and scoring that is a Toronto Rock lacrosse game.

But I made it.  Me and K-Hof.

The game:

Toronto managed to jump (err, crawl) out to a 5-0 deficit by the end of the 1^st quarter and by that time there were some eyes looking my way and some mumbling about me being a jinx or something like that.  “If the Rock don’t score by the 4^th quarter, I will leave”, I said.

5-1.

6-1.

6-3 by half time.

By half time when I run to get my large double double from Tim Hortons, I had been given a beer, on the house, by the server (I don’t drink beer but I guzzled this one back!) and high-fived the attendant.  K-Hof, in his first lacrosse game was finally getting into it.  The buffalo fans had stopped their chant of we want 7, and the 3 Buffalo fans in the platinum seats in front of my gold seats, with “SOAP” on the back of their jerseys had stopped being asses.  The rock MUST score.

 7-3.

 Shit!

But the 3^rd quarter usually belongs to the Rock and tonight was no different.  By the end of the 3^rd quarter it was 11-9 Buffalo.

Queue the comeback…

Game over.  13-11 Rock.  The place was electric and I literally jumped out of my seat, straight up in the air with my arms raised as the Rock tied the game.  The whole arena stood for the last minute of the game.

Whew!

One for the memory book.

The free popcorn on the way out was a nice touch.

This is why I will continue to keep my season’s seat to the Toronto Rock.  The sport is awesome and the Rock are Toronto’s on playoff team.  And while I know the Rock outdraw the Toronto Blue Jays early in the blue birds season, the lacrosse crowd is second to none for noise and participation.  Rock games are a spectacle.

Go Rock Go!

Round 2 is coming up!!!

And I just figured out why there were a LOT of freaks downtown today.  The pot rally was today, so all the vampires and stones have crept out of the woodwork…  Oddly enough, even though I have never smoked pot, I do feel it should be legalized.  Legalized not so that kids can smoke up in the park at night before they spray paint the town, but because I want the tax money on the cigs to go into the government’s coffers.  Tax cigarettes, tax pot, tax alcohol.

Things overheard on a Monday morning…

Oh, oh!!!  How exciting.  I found this in my draft folder from September 2nd 2008.  I love these.  This represents snipets of a series of conversations between 2 dimwits who sat in front of me in my former job.  Their ramblings began at 7:30am and went until 9:00am when they both got up and went for their hour long break (with different people).

 

“It’s good to clear the air a bit… Let’s talk about it. He doesn’t really respect my opinion on things, it doesn’t matter. I think it is because of rejection. He can’t handle rejection. He needs to talk about it… Hey, the window is closed…”

“Motion helps you once in a while…”

“… Then someone lets out this nasty stinky fart, and then 10 seconds later, picks up the newspaper, tucks it under their arm and strolls off to the bathroom.”

“If you eat more than 1400 calories, your body stores the rest as fat. You can eat like a pig and gain weight. I could eat Pepsi’s all day and, you know.”

“You know you can’t disagree with me. I don’t know if it’s 100% true…”

“I love the acid / alkaline thing…”

“You start gaining weight, you could be all alkaline, or acid, that’s the problem.”

“So this guy in the UK lived to be 158 years old. They excavated his body. Did a biopsy (autopsy). His colon was clean as a baby.”

“Eating is the problem.”

“Is it alkalinity? Weight control?”

“If we could eat as much as we wanted and keep it alkaline, that’d be cool.”

“Steaks, very acidic. If you eat red meat your acid would go up and up.”

“Can you be a fat person and be healthy? Can you be a super-fat person and be alkaline.”

“Let’s talk about water…”

“Now you are thinking…”

I know you hate doctors… I do too…”

“Why change your carburetor or air filter when you can change your oil?”

 

He he he.  Brings back many memories… None good.  You can’t make this shit up… Seriously!

My back hurts

It’s really tight this morning… I’m in a lot of discomfort because someone decided he was scared and needed to come sleep in our bed last night – at 9:30.  He tossed,he turned, he talked, he moaned, he groaned.  At 4am I noticed my wife was up and on her iPhone checking emails and the sort.  Neither of us slept.

It’s been 2 weeks since the “monsters” came…

It’s been 2 weeks since I had a restful sleep.

 

Help!

Grrrr. Damn monsters…

Keeping my son up at night and getting him out of bed at all hours to come sleep with us…

 

I’m at my wits end.

He told me this morning that he was not going to have dreams about monsters anymore.  Tonight he was going to dream about Elmo and the chicken dance…

It’s 12:47am and he’s still asleep…

Quick!  Time for bed!!!

Follow me on Twitter

I’m legit now.

I give up.

I am no longer anonymous.

If you would like, please follow me on Twitter.  I can be found under the username: Taxman18.

I work in tax, and 18 is a lucky number in Judiasm, and my number of choice for playing sports – like 15 years of ball-hockey.

This blog, for anyone new here from my Twitter account, is about life as a father to 2 boys – almost 5 and even closer to 3, a husband with a lot to learn and a baby on the way in November.  I worked in the public service for over 10 years and they were 10 of the toughest years of my life.  I have been in the private sector for almost a year and love every minute.

If you “tweet” and would like me to follow you, please send me a message.

If you want to read some of my ramblings on sports, hit me up here; www.daddyknowssports.wordpress.com.

If you want to see the more professional side, I have been neglecting my tax blog; www.intaxicating.wordpress.com.

I have opened my kimono for everyone to see.

Back from vacation

Had a great time hanging with my wife and kids.  Kept my annoyingness to a minimum and my patience as high as I could. 

Did a quick check to see that www.urbandaddy.comis a night-life type website and everything on it is spelled “urbandaddy”, which means I shall remain the “Urban Daddy”.  Just wanted to be sure before I made this blog public again. 

I thank all of you who read my ramblings and those who take the time to comment.  Nice to know you are out there.  I still look in amazement whenever my hits for the day exceed 20.  I know it’s small but it’s kind of neat to me.  I appreciate it.

Changes are on the way as is an update from our vacation…

On vacation

No posts this week.

 

On vacation with the family.  Weather looks to be very nice.

 

Can’t wait.

 

By the time you are reading this, we’re already there and having fun.

 

urbandaddy

August 15, 2008

It was one year ago today that the HR recruiter of the company I now work for contacted me on my cell phone to see if I was still looking for work.

Thinking it was yet another recruiter who wanted to see me to pad their stats and prove their worth, I agreed to meet them the following day. 

She urged that I read up on the company through their website.  I did.  I realized the company was either legit, or they had great IT people who created and managed a kick-ass site.

I had every reason to be sceptical… I had a back ground in tax, was a level 3 CGA, had my MBA and had taken, but not completed my Canadian Securities Course.  I was also pushing the project management work that I had completed while working in the government.  This HR recruiter had a position which needed each and everyone of these skill sets…

Uh huh… Sure.

So down I went and met the HR recruiter.  Asked a bunch of questions and knew once I left, I was going back to government hell.

As I left the subway on my way back home, my cell phone rang and it was my wife.  Turns out the recruiter was so impressed with me that she wanted to set up another interview  with two of the GM’s ASAP.  I offered to turn around and go back on the subway, back downtown.  We agreed upon the following day.

I immediately called into the office and took the rest of the week off.  We  were going up to a resort north of the city the following week and I could use the extra day off.

I remember sitting on the bed talking with my gal, both of us laughing at how funny it would be for me to land a manager position considering all the hurdles I had to jump over in the government just to be a team leader, and how they prevented my growth there over and over again.

I went to the interview, asked a bunch of questions, remained calm when presented with the challenges, the task ahead and the risks involved.  After being told for years and years that you’re no good, it is refreshing to talk about successes and feel validated.

I thought the interview went well, but as in the past, expected it to end there.  I went home, wrote up thank you notes and mailed them off to the GM’sand the HR recruiter, but not before stepping off the subway yet again, to arrange a 3rd interview with the VP of Operations at this global company – a telephone interview – to be conducted at this resort we were going to.  This interview lasted 2 hours.  They told me it would take some time, possibly a week to make a decision before making me an offer.  By 3pm that day, I had the offer in my email.

We spent the next week negotiating and I started September 15th – the first official day of the recession.

I love my job!

Today is August 15th.

This week we’re going back to that resort.

September 15th will mark my first year there.

Funny how a year can go by so quickly…

You want her?!? She’s pregnant, remember…

Had lunch with a new friend of mine.  He’s older than me by about 14 years – he’s engaged to my wife friend and him and I have hit it off.  He works near me and we’ve had lunch or coffee together about 5-6 times in the past couple months.  We email each other, talk about how to grow tomatoes (he asks advice and checks in on the progress – or lack thereof – of my 40 + heirloom tomato plants grown from seed.

On Monday we met up and the conversation went something like this;

Him – Hey!  Do you want to go fishing with me?

Me – Errr, I’ll go to hang out with you but I don’t like fishing.

Him – It’s $99.00 and you get picked up, taken up north, fed, accomodations, licenses, fishing and brought back the next day.

Me – Errr, yeah.  Fished as a Boy Scout – sort of.  But, hey!  My wife loves fishing… You should take her!

Him – LOL.  Really.  What happens if we bond over fishing, get cozy at night and I bang her?!?

Me – Without missing a beat – Well you can’t get her pregnant… She already is!

 

Have you ever had a conversation like this with a buddy?  I’m glad he thinks she’s bangable… I certainly do. 

I think it might be time for another change…

I like blogging.  It’s a good outlet for me but since I left that horrible, horrible job at the government I basically went into hiding.  I didn’t want any of my former colleagues to know anything about me.  I hated that they used my writings against me like I was in high-school.  It bugged me.  Still kind of does.

I have been using twitter lately and really enjoy it.  I started during the garbage strike in Toronto and every day I come by and tweet a thing or 2.  I like that it’s 140 letters or less because that’s about all the time I have between work, home-life and wife. 

With tweeting came some publicity of the “me” brand, not the “urbandaddy” or “speakeasy” one.  I’m able to use twitter to find work related information, blab about whatever is on my mind and do that in seconds.

So all this tweeting has given me the idea to either scrap this blog and start again, or go back through the old posts and edit out the controversial ones, go public and start again.  It’s been a year.  Those weenies at the government don’t interest or concern me anymore. 

I kind of want to be legit.

I think…