The Blues spanked the Hawks but the game was fun. High energy and very physical. A split second after the puck drop at the start of the game a fight broke out. Division rivalries are great.

I have no idea if it is indicative of a large or small turnout, but at 7:05am I was ballot #17, meaning that 16 people had voted in the previous 5 minutes. At least it was along my walk to work. It's nice not to detour in -3 degrees and windy.

The roads here have been particularly bad since Sunday's ice/snow storm. It seems like one of the following is true to some degree: Madison has decided that there is too much salt on the roads and has thus switched to gravel exclusively, they have run out of salt, or they have run out of salt and don't feel like paying a premium for more. I know that when it gets bitter cold salt is useless, but Sunday was in the 20's so salt was a decent choice. I vote for the last theory. I assume that the city feels like it only needs to limp through the storms at this point as they hope a melt, however minor, is just around the corner. Theoretically yes, but the 10 day is still solidly below 32. Hockey is going well, cycling not so much.


Anchorage averages 70 inches of snow, Madison 42 inches. The record for Madison was 76. We're in the mid 80's right now and counting. We might as well shoot for the hundo. Yep, it's milder in Anchorage.

I am 100% caught up on Lost and hopelessly hooked. I hadn't planned on this, but here I stand.

The Blackhawks are finally on tv tonight here as the play the Blue on VS. The Hawks are definitely having an exciting year, but pesky St. Louis always is annoying. I appreciate the St Louis pork steak, but Chicago wins the pizza battle hands down. And beef sandwiches.

Tom was completely correct. When renting Lost Season 3 dvds, even though you only get to take new releases home for 2 days, go ahead and rent 2 at a time. 8 episodes in 2 days is almost not enough.

How do people wait 7 days between these episodes?

My gym is, among many other great things, a place for serious Strongman competition training. The atlas stones, milk cans filled with cement, and log press are always available for training. Sunday morning there was a large group from upstate training hard on all of the equipment, bearded and grunting and yelling away as they timed each other on each event, trying their best to simulate actual competition. You could tell that they were serious, but that they also were not around such accurate training equipment back home – they were giddy in being able to use the exact stuff they would be using in competition. I’ve seen plenty of people train with coffee or Red Bull alongside them, but this crew was training with Mt Dew cans everywhere. On Wisconsin!, indeed. I’m sure the strongmen in IL aren’t training this hard.

Hockey Names

One of the many great things about hockey is the names -- saying them, memorizing the pronunciation, etc.

On the Blackhawks now:

Jonathan Toews -- 'taves'
Dustin Byfuglien -- 'buff-lin'
Nikolai Khabibulin -- 'hab-be-boo-lin'

And a fav from the past:
Lyle Odelein -- 'oh-de-line' -- not a tough one to pronounce, but fun to drawl out.

At least a foot it seems. Work closed at 1pm so I caught up on a movie from Turner Classic Movies (Wings of Eagles) and did some reading as well. Walking to work is great on days like these.

I resisted for years when it came to buying a cell phone. It seemed like some deep surrender. Silly. I’m a computer scientist but a Luddite of sorts. My phone started to crap out the other day and I went running to Sprint for a new one as fast as I could. Can’t live without it. Just like the cocaine monkey.

Madison is not Chicago, which is usually great for me, except for today. I miss Paczki day (along with Check Please!, Chi Tung, and beef sandwiches)

I finally developed 2 rolls of film and pushed them up to flickr. The link is to the right.
Geez, one roll had June photos on it.