Captain's Table at PF Changs

Captain's Table at PF Changs
Originally uploaded by KillerVirgo

We are having dinner at PF Changs and the ran out if tables so we are
sitting in the kitchen. It's good, becuase they can't spit in our
food; it's bad, because it is noisey.

It is an experience, though.

Visiting North Carolina State Univ.

Visiting North Carolina State Univ.
Originally uploaded by KillerVirgo

Just finished walking the campus of NCSU where my buddy works. The
campus is beautiful. The photo was snapped in one of the courtyards.

Lunchtime at CLT

Lunchtime at CLT
Originally uploaded by KillerVirgo

I am waiting for my connecting flight from Charlotte to Raleigh. I
have a 3 hour layover so headed to my favorite place, Carolina Pit
BBQ. So good. I planned on watch missed tv shows on my computer, but I
left my iPhone headphones in Toronto. I guess I will have to get a new
pair.

Back at UB

Back at UB
Originally uploaded by KillerVirgo

On my way back to Buffalo from Toronto was slow because I hit rush
hour traffic and construction delays. I made it the board at 9:30am
and I was nervous about the questions the boarder patrol might ask. It
was much ado about nothing because it took less than a minute.

I arrived on UB's north campus at 9:45am and I only had 30 minutes to
venture around. I bought a new UB Bulls sweater from the bookstore and
then walked through the student union towards Norton Hall to see my
old advisor.

I got into the main office ask the admin. assistant if she was
available. I told her my name and she placed call. I heard my
advisor's excited voice over the phone and I was told to go to her
office. She greeted me at the door and gave me big hug. We talked for
20 minutes before I had to go. We gave each other a goodbye hug and I
left for the airport.

It was nice to go back to UB.

North Carolina here I come...

Bidding Adieu to Toronto

Tonight is my last night in Toronto before I drive back to Buffalo and then head to Raleigh, North Carolina, to visit my buddy since high school. I haven't seen him in 3 years, so our reunion has been long overdue.

I spent most of the day walking around Toronto, and just taking in the different neighborhoods. I wanted to take pictures but I was listening to music on my iPhone and didn't want to take it out to snap a photo. I didn't want to seem like a tourist. I walked to the riverfront, the CN Tower, the Ontario School for Art & Design, amongst other places in the downtown area.

My buddy Paul lives in Greek Town so there are many Greek stores in the area. We had dinner at a Greek restaurant called Astoria, and it was quite good. I got Lamb Souvlaki and he got Moussaka. No cute Greek waiters, unfortunately, but the food made up for that oversight.

I am heading to my alma mater, the University at Buffalo, before flying out to NC. I want to get a new UB sweater and try to visit an old advisor of mine. This is all depends if I wake up early enough to do all this before my 11:50am flight.

Maybe I should go to sleep?

What's up, eh?

What's up, eh?
Originally uploaded by KillerVirgo

I am currently visiting the socialist country of Canada to see my
buddy Paul in Toronto. I haven't been here in 4 years, and is freaking
cold. We just finished lunch at Jack Astor's and are about (pronounced
a-boot) to see a movie at the Eaton Center.

More Canadian thing to come soon....

On the eve of my departure

On the eve of my departure
Originally uploaded by KillerVirgo

Watching "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" with my 8 year-old nephew. He's
probably to young for the movie, but it is the "edited for tv"
version, so it's probably fine for him to watch.

Almost home

Almost home
Originally uploaded by KillerVirgo

Janet has arrived

Janet has arrived
Originally uploaded by KillerVirgo

At the concert waiting for Janet

At the concert waiting for Janet
Originally uploaded by KillerVirgo

Waiting for Janet.

Rock Witchu

Tonight, Janet will be in Dallas for her Rock Witchu Tour and I am looking forward to going. I bought my tickets in June and I wasn't sure if she would actually come because she canceled 7 tour dates in a row due to an illness. One week ago today, it was announced that the tour will resume as scheduled, which I was happy to hear ... but I received some terrible news on that day. I have been really down this pass week, so I am hoping the concert will help lift my spirits before I fly back to Syracuse tomorrow.

I had an extra ticket so I am taking a friend who really took care of me during my NYC trip in August. So as a thank you to him, I am giving him my extra ticket. If it wasn't for him I was have never gone to NYC and gotten to meet Venus Williams.

I will post my account of the concert tomorrow.

Tennis Tournament 10/11/08 - 10/13/2008

10/11/08

My first singles match didn't go as planned. During the warm-up I re-injured my shoulder and things fell apart from there. I lost the first set 1-6 because I couldn't serve or hit a ground stroke. The second set went a bit better and I was up 6-5 at one point but I was having issues with my serve and lost in a tie-breaker.

I ended up icing my shoulder and taking and Aleve after the match. I wasn't sure if I were would be able to play my doubles match later that afternoon, but the Aleve kicked and I was able to play. My partner and I won the first set 6-0 and thought it would be an easy match. Then we lost the second set 3-6. We turned it on and we won the third set 6-3. The guys we played were really good and we were lucky to make it through to the next round.

After the matches were completed, about 25 of us had dinner at Gloria's. I was in a bit of pain and I decided to get a margarita. The last drink I had was in July 2007 ... and it was a margarita from a casino in Las Vegas. The margarita I had that night was much, Much, MUCH stronger. I had one and I was feeling no pain. I didn't feel drunk, but others thought differently. So they bought me another one to marvel at my drinking persona. I gave half to my friend because I knew I wasn't able to drink anymore. Another friend and I were goofing around because he was drink "drunk" pictures of me so I stole his iPhone. We jokingly tussled and then my friend spilled the margarita on my lap. I tried to dry myself but I was heading home so I didn't mind the wet spot. We said our goodbyes and I went home. When I got home and feel asleep while texting a friend of mine. I was a mess ... but I slept like a baby.

10/12/2008

I played my second singles match against my doubles partner. I was having all types of issues during that match. I couldn't consistently hit the ball and my serve was off again. I lost against my partner in a pro. set 8-4.

My partner and I had our second doubles match following our singles match. We were both warmed up and really to go. We played a team from Austin, TX and we won pretty easily 6-2, 6-3. The team played well and my serve finally returned. There were a couple of bad calls but it didn't affect us much. Overall it was a good match.

We scheduled to play another match at 4pm but the match to determine who would play us didn't finish until 5:30pm, and it was postponed until the following day. I drove home got ready for our banquet which was starting at 6:30pm. We held it at a restaurant called Cowboy Chow, and it was delicious. I will have to go back soon for a proper meal. I was too busy doing tasks for our banquet to enjoy the food, but I had several desserts that were delicious.

After the banquet, I went out to the Round-Up with some friends. I chatted with some people from the tournament and resisted the pressure to dance/drink. I was only there for an hour before heading home. It was dark except for the black lights that illuminated clothing, but it was so loud that you couldn't have a conversation.

10/13/2008

Our first semi-final doubles match was very close. We were up the first set 5-4 but ended up losing 7-5. We regrouped and we won the next set 6-1. We were feeling good but a couple of errors put us down 4-5. The other team was serving with a match point and a forehand they hit went out by an inch. I know people thought it may have been a good shot it was out. We broke their serve and I was serving at 5-5 when a first serve that caught the line was called out. It was called out purposefully because the out call I made the previous game. We held serve, and our opponents held serve -- and we went to a tie-breaker. They had many double faults and we won the tie-breaker 7-2. It was a long match, but it was a good one.

Our final match was held 30 minutes after the semi-final. We were up the first set 5-4, and we needed to break in order to win the set. They held, we held, they held -- and we were into a tie-breaker. We started off well in the tie-breaker but we ended up losing. We regrouped and won the second set 6-3. The third set and my partner and I started making a lot of errors. We down 2-4 but rallied back to make it 4-4. I was on serve, and I was feeling confident because I was only broken in the first set and only had one double fault. I was broken and they went up 4-5. I was really upset and walked off to collect myself because I double faulted at 30-40. We tried to break our opponents but they held and we lost 4-6. My partner and I congratulated each other with a hug and congratulated our opponents.

We didn't win but out of the four tournaments we played in, we made it to the finals three times. Not bad at all.

We are playing in Houston, TX, in November (???).

My Brother

I was preparing my post about my big weekend at tennis tournament when I got a call from my sister telling my brother just died. I knew what the call was about before I answered the phone. Instead of saying "hello," I answered with "what happened?"

On October 3, 2008, my brother was shot in front of our mother's home (please, ignore the comments because they don't know what they are talking about)in Syracuse, NY, and has been in hospital since. I was talking to my sister on the phone last night and we were planning when we were going to back home to see him. We were told that he was improving and will be taken off the ventilator later this week. Since we were told things were improving there wasn't a need for us to come up right away ... we thought we had time ... but we didn't.

Just like the death our father two years ago, we told everything was improving only to receive a call the following day saying that they passed away.

I am not sure what I am going to do at the moment. My sister is flying up to help our mom plan for my brother's funeral either today or tomorrow, but I am not sure what I am going to do just yet. I can't make sense of things right now, but I know won't be able to handle going to his funeral.

Things are complicated and I need a couple of days to think things over.

I will post the tennis tournament blog tomorrow. It's trivial in comparison but I think it will help.

Beyonce Steals Again

Well ... she does an homage to the YouTube video that was posted about a year ago. This is the video for Beyonce's new video for "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)":

• MTV
• Music Videos
• MTV Shows
• Entertainment News

This the video with some ladies doing some Bob Fosse choreography:


See the similarities. Either way the video is hot and I KNOW that I am going to see some gays rocking the look for Halloween Parade this year.

Pet Peeves: Non-Blame Blame

I really dislike when people say, "I am not blaming you, but you didn't ...." If I am not to blame, why does it sound that way?

There were two instances of non-blaming this week at work:

1)We are rolling out a project and I finished my portion 2 days earlier than the deadline. I alerted the other department to perform their testing and I thought everything is fine. Almost a week later I get notified that they wanted to begin testing the following day. I had no problem and it scheduled this task. The day of testing I was at my desk working and I the lead of the other team begins lecturing about deadlines. I let the person know that the deadlines were being met, but they continued the diatribe about if something causes a missed deadline that I should communicate this. At this point I had to point out that I was two days early and it was their department that caused the delay. This person finally left and I let my supervisor know what just transpired and they was PISSED. It all got handled and we met our deadline.

2)A system failed that I am the lead of due to an oversight, and I took responsibility for the failure and alerted the proper people. The next day, files were deleted from a server because after someone in upper management starting playing around with programs. I did my job to started the process to recover the files. The following day it turns out that highly critical files were deleted and the need to recover them was urgent. We started the process in about an hour we recover the files. Later that day a meeting was scheduled to discuss this matter. It started off with the person in upper management who deleted the files accepting responsibility, and stated that the meeting wasn't about blame. Which would have been great if it wasn't followed by this person saying things like "we aren't here to throw [me] under the bus", "we aren't blaming you, but ..." (while referencing me), etc... I took responsibility for the issue, and accepted blame because it was warranted. After that, I was being "non-blamed" for things I had no part in.

Ugh.

Anyway ... so how was your week at work?

Dallas ISD approves 1,100 layoffs

Nearly 1,100 Dallas Independent School District employees will lose their jobs this month under a layoff plan approved Thursday evening.

On the chopping block now are an estimated 550 teaching jobs, more than 400 of which are in "core" subject areas – math, science, social studies and English/language arts.

An additional 500 employees – including teacher aides, hall monitors and clerks – will also lose their jobs as the district scrambles to curtail spending while trying to salvage educational reforms that have boosted achievement in many schools. Click here to read more.

I know some teachers who are worried about their jobs because of this mismanagement. A friend of mine, who works for the DISD, explained the selection process for 10 minutes and I still found the process to be complicated. So the teachers who are staying are going to have more students, but no money to fund their education. The district wasn't great before all this, and now it's going to be even worst.

October 15 is when pink slips will be handed out to employees.

Developing...

Contact

This past Sunday, I went to go see The Duchess (review coming shortly) with FM and is boyfriend IA. I sat next to IA and during the movie he leg made contact with mine, and I just thought it was an accident and didn't flinch. But usually when this happens the person who makes contact would say or make some type of gesture indicating that it was an accident. IA did not. Instead, he leg stayed against my for about 20 minutes, and during that time he was taping his leg which cause mine to move. Still ... I said nothing.

If this were a date, I would be all for leg contact -- but it made me a bit uneasy considering it was my friend's boyfriend.

With all that said, I don't think it meant anything. I think IA just doesn't have the same personal space issue that I do. I just found it interesting. After the movie we had dinner at Black-eye Pea and talked about the Presidential Debate and our uneasiness with V.P. nominee Sarah Palin.

This woman scares me, y'all. Tonight's debate should be interesting.