We relaxed on New Years' Eve by staying home.  Unfortunately we did not do anything special on New Year's Day since it was raining all day, except go to the cinema and see A Night at the Museum.  It was interesting and I recommend it to everyone. 

Since the 2^nd it’s been absolute chaos here.  First at the job I think that someone tampered with one of my clients reports and we billed them for December time on one matter instead of November.  That was the version that went to the client.  Hopefully the client won’t complain when we bill them November time in January with the other matters being billed for December time.
 

My mother in law has been in South Nassau Communities Hospital since late December.  We were hoping that she would be getting better and be home by this weekend.   Then last night she took a turn for the worst and suffered congestive heart failure.  My wife and her brothers looked at the living will and their mother’s wishes and it included “do not resuscitate”.  There are no longer any tubes or IV’s, only a non-rebreathable oxygen mask.  As of this moment, she is still alive.  However, she turned 93 in August and lived a long productive life.   

I stayed home from work today to watch my daughter while my wife went to visit this morning.  Around 11 AM I drove to the hospital my daughter so that 7 of us could take part in the bedside vigil (my wife, my daughter, my two brothers-in-law, a cousin, and the wife of one of the brothers-in-law).

My wife and her siblings seem to be taking their mother’s passing well. 
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On happier notes, while I did not get a chance to watch any football games, it’s good to see the New Orleans Saints advancing in the playoffs, as well as the Indianapolis Colts.  I have managed to watch some NBA games on television, and saw the New Jersey Nets blow a nice lead to the Minnesota Timberwolves and lose 109-98.  At work last week I got my annual evaluation.  Out of a possible 5, I got a three.  There is room for improvement, and I plan to do that.  They did give me a raise, so that is a good sign.

Last Thursday I went to the Islip Library to get some videos for my daughter.  As I was heading out I looked and saw an SUV backing out of the parking space and not looking where she was going.  I stopped and blasted my horn and she still did not stop, and ended up backing up into my car near the front wheel well on the driver’s side.  The woman comes out and keeps telling me that she was sorry.  All I said to her was that she should be more careful.  There was no road (parking lot?) rage, name calling, or use of the f-word.  We exchanged insurance information and hopefully her company will pay for the minor damage.  She may have been on a cell phone, since I was coming at her toward her driver’s side, and the setting sun was on the passenger’s side of her vehicle and should have seen or heard me.  

I was practicing scanning on the printer again yesterday and downloaded 9 new pictures from my US Air Force days. 6 of them are in the Yahoo 360 Pix album. The other 3 are from the 1973 side trip to New Orleans and are on my Homestead webpage dedicated to the Big Easy. The URL is

 http://www.minot43.homestead.com/new_orleans.html

Please remember to sign the guestbook.

While I was playing around on the foreign Yahoo Geocities, I managed to create a simple page under one of my other identities that shows four of the pictures and a small blurb.  The following is the URL for a page dedicated to my US Air Force days:

http://uk.geocities.com/four_and3/USAF_pix.html  

We went bowling last night and while the three of us had a good time, I managed to only get an 82 average for the three games.  Oh well, wait until next month.

It looks as if it’s wait until next year for the New Orleans Saints in Chicago, as they just lost to the Bears 39-14.  It would have been nice for the Saints to go to the Super Bowl for the first time in their history, but it was not to be.  However, after so many disappointing seasons in the past, we must congratulate and thank them for a great season now and making it to the NFL’s Final Four.  Later this evening we will see who the Bears’ opponents will be in Super Bowl XLI.
While I was watching the football game, my wife and daughter went to see Dreamgirls at the cinema in West Babylon.  They said that it was a great film and recommend it to all.

This past week there was the usual same stuff (SSDD): go to work, come home, hit the Internet, and hang out at the firehouse.  The Islip Fire Department Band had its practice this past Friday evening in preparation for the two local St. Patrick’s Days parades in March.  I suddenly learned how much I have to practice playing that glockenspiel.  On the fire front, we had not had a working structural fire in Islip (other than the garage near my house last July) since early 2004.  That is, not until yesterday.  The only problem was that my wife was away at a driver safety course and I was watching our daughter (who has autism).  That meant that I could not leave her home alone, nor could I take her with me to the firehouse (she did not want to go anyway) and leave her there.  So I was unlucky enough to miss the call.   If I did try either of those stunts with my daughter, my other half would have divorced me.  I don’t want to end up like several of the other members who no longer have spouses because their priorities were a bit out of tune.  Anyway, I think that we will have another working fire in Islip soon enough.

On Wednesday I managed to get onto AOL Instant Messenger.  My ID is oneonta29, based on the city named Oneonta near Cooperstown and the number that I wore playing softball.  Oneonta NY is also the home of the Oneonta Tigers of the New York Penn League.   I am practicing more on how to get the hang of this service.  I even got buddies from checking out other subscribers.  I sent one of them an IM thanking her for joining my buddy list.  She replies asking who I was.  I responded.  She still looked like she was being imposed on.  I decided to check out her page and there was a link to her page on myspace.com.  She gave her age as 15!  I responded that she is my daughter’s age and that we should end the buddy relationship now.  She agreed.  What I don’t understand was that when I search for friends anywhere (Yahoo 360, AIM, or myspace.com) I always limit the age range to 40 years old minimum (usually 40 to 60). 
I also created an AIM profile page called

http://www.aimpages.com/oneonta29/profile.html.  

We just got back from the movies in Babylon, where we saw The Queen.  Helen Mirren was made up to look very much like Queen Elizabeth II.    We also liked the scenery from the footage shot at Balmoral Estate.