Sunburned Hand of the Man

We're baaaaaaaack. Just got back from our vacation on the Jersey Shore at midnight last night. It was a great, but tiring, week. Between the four of us, Deb's brother and his family of four, his inlaws, his sister-in-law and her four kids, and Deb's mom, there were a ton of us staying at two condos at the Marriott Seaview in Absecon, NJ. Eight kids total; the same as last year, only this time, the two youngest were mobile. We visited Brigantine Beach a few times, hit the resort pools a bunch of times, got plenty of greenhead bites, drank lots of beer (well, the adults did, anyway), and had a lot of fun. Didn't get to play golf as originally planned, but that's okay. Ran three times in the sweltering heat and got sunburned from the beach, although not nearly as bad as last year. I also had to do some work the first few days down there, inputting edits to book chapters that came in late; I borrowed a laptop from work but had to get creative because the room had high-speed wireless but the laptop was not enabled to work with it. Ended up getting a 256 MB USB storage card, transferred the documents I needed from PC at the hotel's business center, spent parts of two days finishing the chapters, and then emailed the finished versions from the biz center. Not how I originally envisioned my vacation, but it had to be done.

So now we're back, unwinding a bit today. I've got a ton of TiVoed shows (couldn't watch anything last week because I was so busy with work) and downloaded podcasts to get through.

While I was gone, the world kept turning:

• The NHL deal was officially ratified by the players yesterday and the owners today. I watched the draft lottery live on the InterWeb and found that, contrary to the conspiracy theories out there, phenom Sidney Crosby will not go to New York or LA but instead Pittsburgh. That team has been awful the last few years, so combined with Crosby and the new fiscal "equality" imposed by the CBA, the Pens might actually have a decent team next year. The Leafs got the number 21 pick and the Bruins the number 22; the only good news for them is the draft order reverses for the second round, much like in the C. Montgomery Burns fantasy hockey league that I will be participating in this fall. In addition, the league unveiled the much talked-about rule changes for next season (shootouts, the return of tag-up icing, and a bunch of other stuff designed to boost offense and make the game more watchable). Of course, I'm still waiting to hear about what the league plans to do about a TV deal now that ESPN has flown the coop. There are rumors that Comcast may form a sports station to carry the games; of course, I won't get to see it because I have DirecTV, but I plan on getting the Center Ice pay-per-view package again, anyway.
• Got some good reading done on the vacay and polished off Nick Kent's The Dark Stuff, a collection of his rock writing over the years for numerous British pubs. The articles range from the early '70s to 2002, covering some of the most interesting figures in music: The Stones, Iggy Pop, the New York Dolls, Sid Vicious, Lou Reed, Brian Wilson, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Eminem. Moved on to Chuck Klosterman's Killing Yourself to Live, about the author's road trip to visit the death sites of many of rock's inconic figures. Pretty good so far.
• Okay, uh, ouch.