Family Photo (almost...).  Here we are Sunday Morning at the cabin (Note coffee cup in my hand...)

There was no corralling the dogs -- they were LOVING their freedom!  Betty is behind me and Stash is behind the rock behind Eric.

...the train from work in Newark...

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Can't get out of there fast enough!

I wanted to give a shout out to our friends Juan Jose and Victor in Mexico City. 

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Seconded. Best wishes to you guys and everyone else in Mexico City during this difficult time. 

Oh and Geoff, the best part?  The fact that between New Brunswick and Princeton Junction, the train came to a complete standstill for twenty minutes.  The reason?  Weekend track workers had apparently taken a break for lunch and left equipment on the tracks.  

I've sat between Newark Penn and New York Penn for 45 minutes because of various different track/employee issues.  One of the reasons I don't miss having an office in the City!

Oh and Geoff, the best part?  The fact that between New Brunswick and Princeton Junction, the train came to a complete standstill for twenty minutes.  The reason?  Weekend track workers had apparently taken a break for lunch and left equipment on the tracks.  

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I bet those guys are in a union!

(I kid, I kid!)

Can't get out of there fast enough!

Newark not so bad!  Shoot, know the right places and you can get some great Brazilian, Portugese and Spainish food! 

Generally, in the summer when we head down the shore I try to sneak out of the office around 4 to get the car ready for wifey and chillun but this was one of those times you could not get out of a meeting scheduled for 4:30!  So I packed the truck the night before, got a lift to work and went to the meeting. A two and half hour meeting, a two hour train ride (only because of NJ Transit delays!) and I was at the shore house by 10 pm!  Not a great kick off to the weekend!  But it was a fun weekend nonetheless -- Kaitlin scored a hole in one in mini golf that weekend (on the easiest course in creation which is perfect for a four year old) and we all got much summer sun and fun. 

I bet those guys are in a union!

(I kid, I kid!)

You'd be right!  An example of Union wrongheadedness:  Unions for Public Employees cannot protect jobs, they cannot prevent layoffs.  Basically, all they can do is keep salary levels enforce contractual raises.  The Governor of our state will be furloughing state employees.  Basically he's shutting down government and laying off every employee one day a month starting in May.  The Unions cannot stop this.  The Governor, of whom I am not a fan, but to his credit has done a pretty good of taking steps not to lay off state workers.  What he has proposed is the furloughs and a wage freeze.  The Unions have, heretofore, rejected the wage freeze and are insisting on enforcing contractual raises.  If that happens the Governor will have to lay off state works -- members of these unions -- for fiscal reasons.  So fighting for the higher salaries could mean fewer jobs!  Now that seem wrongheaded to me!

Yeesh. That is wrong-headed. It sounds like these union leaders have their head in the sand about the current state of the economy. Furloughs and wage freezes aren't fun (I know - my own employer instituted a wage freeze for 2009). But they sure beat the heck out of unemployment.

I don't mean to bash unions, as I recognize that they have done some positive things throughout history and still do today, in some cases. Yet far too often, they are a stumbling block to progress, as the example you cite illustrates.

My parents were in a hospital employees union for 12 years when they worked for the VA system. While they found some benefit to being in the union, they also experienced a great deal of frustration that the protection of the union allowed lazy, incompetent employees to collect a paycheck and abuse the system.

Oh and Jesus those little girls are cutie pies!!!!

I wanted to give a shout out to our friends Juan Jose and Victor in Mexico City. 

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Seconded. Best wishes to you guys and everyone else in Mexico City during this difficult time.

Couldn't have said it better.

I once had a guy dump me because he decided he didn't like tall guys

I once had a guy walk out on a date when he found out I was a teacher and didn't have the necessary income level to be in a relationship with him.

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I once dumped a guy because he was shorter than i, he was infantuated by his workout at the gym (that was the only topic that he wanted to talk about) and was "smaller" than i....i was fooling myself, could not work...i was right!