Lance and Traci's wedding was fun. Friday night was the rehearsal dinner at Shorty's BBQ . The food was very good. I'm not a huge barbecue fan but this stuff was fantastic. The food was served buffet style and included: Pulled pork, pulled beef, ribs, whole chicken, baked beans, green beans, cole slaw corn muffins and bread. Shorty's doesn't load up on the sauce but has two different sauces on the table so you can load up on it. The restaurant is owned by the Mancy's family which owns 3 others in the Toledo area.

The wedding took place at the Mansion View Bed and Breakfast. The mansion is a 10,000 square foot house built in 1887. Pretty cool house to visit but I can't even begin to think of what it would be like to vacuum the place!! I arrived to the mansion about 2-1/2 hours prior to the start of the wedding and I think that we were starting to worry the bride and parents. The bride kept sending people into the room that the guys were supposed to be getting ready in and we were just sitting around shooting the bull and never really moved from our seats. Finally the photographer comes in the room asking if we were ever going to get ready; it took us all of 7 minutes to do so! We were ready a half hour before we needed to take pictures. After the ceremony we took the traditional limo ride around town and finished off about 3/4 bottle of Jamison's (three of us) and two bottles of bubbly. Did the reception thing during which time I totally bombed the toast. I had the first 3 pages pretty much memorized but the rest of it was a disaster. Thankfully no one ever remembers the toast anyhow.

Sunday was pretty much catch up day of cleaning, laundry and running errands.

Lance and Tim

Lance, Traci and Tim

I wanted to thank everyone if I hadn't done so already for the many kind acts of love and friendship that you have shown my entire family during the past week. You all have been more supportive and helpful than I can ever express in words and I appreciated it greatly.

That being said, here I sit at work not wanting to be here in the least bit. Winter has finally arrived outside but I can't help to want to be somewhere other than my desk even if it is outside in the freezing cold.

Lisa and I are going to a wedding on Saturday; actually I am in the wedding so it will be a welcome change from the events of the past week. Our friends (Lance and Traci) are finally getting married after dating for 16 years (if that is what you still call it after that length of time). I am the best man so I am feverishly trying to come up with a witty toast. I'm not too good at the whole toast thing in front of large crowds but I think I can swing it. 16 years of dating gives me all kinds of ammunition for a roast/toast.

Lisa is ready for the baby to be born. She is extremely uncomfortable and just want the whole thing to be done. Unfortunately Lisa also forgets she is pregnant and overdoes it to the point that she exhausts herself; I am constantly telling her to relax and to sit down. Lisa's actual due date is February 7th. My money is on January 30th sometime in the AM. Do I have any other predictions? I just hope she can get through this Saturday (at least until the toast is over).

Shawn has discovered the Internet. I'm not sure many 5 year olds know what the net is let alone actually surf. EBay is the big draw for him now. Shawn gets to eBay and searches for anything that he has an interest in obtaining. Lately it is Hallmark train Christmas Ornaments. He has been successful in placing the winning bid for 2 ornaments with my help (read my money). Last night I went up to his room to find him watching a Simpson's clip that he found on U-Tube during a Google search for "Model train wrecks". I am afraid to walk into his room anymore. One day I will find him surfing Hispanic porn sites. I hope that day is a long time from now!

There's my rambling post for today. Peace out................

I Love You Dad. I will miss you but never forget you.

Tom Ruff 1946-2007

Check out what I got for my birthday. It's pretty cool. No more getting lost or stoping for directions (guys don't do that anyway)!!!

Thanksgiving was way too short. Lisa's family came over for our traditional deep fried turkey dinner. The turkey turned out probably better than ever this year and then me being the bonehead that I am dropped the entire platter of leftover turkey on the floor. No left over turkey for us this year. I probably tossed 12 pounds of turkey in the trash.

Work has been hectic to say the least the past week or so. Lisa and I even showed up in the office on Thanksgiving day to help out the "volunteers" that were working.

Woke up this morning to find our mailbox was hit last night and in two pieces, looks like I have a little project to get the damn thing back together and on the post. One good thing that happened the past couple of days is that I got my Indian's opening day tickets!! Only 133 days til opening day!

The weekend was pretty non-eventful as far as weekends go. Friday night Lisa and I met up with friends of ours (Lance and Traci) for dinner. We went to a pretty decent Mexican restaurant called Abeulo's. It's a chain but the food was pretty good as far as I'm concerned but it was a little too Authentic for Lisa's liking. While waiting for our table, we sat at the bar. I had to have a beer while we were waiting (what else is there to do). I'm actually pretty opposed most of the time to putting anything in beer other than the occasional lime into a Corona or slice of some other citrus into a Wheat Beer but I "took a walk on the wild side" and tried a Micheladas. Micheladas is nothing more than a bunch of lime juice in a beer with ice and a salted rim (Gato). I then tried the Micheladas "traditional style" which is the same as the Gato but they added Tabasco, Worcestershire and pepper. The Gato was pretty good but the traditional tasted horrible. I learned my lesson; never add anything to a beer!

Saturday and Sunday was pretty much spent watching games on television. Lisa somehow contacted pink eye so Shawn had an extended "sleep-over" at Nana and Papa's.

Work is getting really busy and I find myself working later and falling asleep earlier. My goal this week is to begin assembling the baby items like the bassinet, crib and changing table so it's out of the way when all hell breaks loose at work.

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Shawn had a parade and party that Lisa helped plan and pull off. I attended the parade. We ended up hitting most of the houses in our neighborhood before Shawn decide he had his fill of candy and being polite. Halloween sure has changed since I was a kid. There were two regular size Hersey Bars and three regular size bags of M&M's. We don't get many trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood so most of the houses give away handfuls of candy instead of the usual one piece. After trick-or-treating for about an hour, Shawn had more candy than I would have received trick-or-treating for 3 hours.

The night wasn't without its drama. Shawn threw a classic tantrum because he didn't want me to put black makeup on his face. I told him that I was sending him back to the Gypsy we got him from and that turned into a full out cry.

This week we have a parent-teacher conference; it should be a fun and enlightening half hour. Okay, time to deal with my employee "witch" (have to be family friendly here) looks like she just flew in on her broom!

Shawn and a couple of classmates

Pirate!!

Shawn's Classroom

Shawn and Mom on the train