After a fairly quiet week of vacation, I allowed my wife to talk me into going to the one store I hate more than any other store in New Jersey … IKEA in Elizabeth. I don’t think I’ve ever had a pleasant trip to that store. Not just the fact that it was crowded, just that I hate the way the store is laid out. There aren’t isles in IKEA, they just have open spaces and they put stuff there. IKEA is supposed to be very European, I guess it’s only in America that stores have isles with numbers and lanes. It just seems to me that you can walk around in circles for an hour or two and not see everything. I hate it.

I’ve been to IKEA only three times, and the last two times were on a Saturday. I’m not into New Years resolutions, but I resolve to never ever to IKEA on a Saturday ever again for the rest of my life. People everywhere bumping into each other. The parking lot is a horror show. If you buy anything big, you have to pick it up after paying, and the area to load the cars is a traffic nightmare. I think there’s only one escalator and one elevator, and you’re supposed to use one of these big nylon mesh bags to carry your purchases because they don’t want you using a cart on the upper level.

There are also a lot of foreigners at IKEA. I can tell by the accents, and the fact that they’re rude.

I wasn’t sure what to expect on New Year’s Eve. It was busy, but not nearly as bad as my previous trips there. The kids got tired fast from all the walking. Nothing worse than three grumpy kids while you’re looking at furniture and bathroom furnishings. My wife was looking for a desk for Daniel to match the shelves we bought last time we were there. They didn’t have any. I just wanted to leave, so we bought some lamps and stuff for the baby and I beat a path for the exit. One of the only good things about the store is they have a “bistro” which is French for snack bar, and the food and drinks are cheap. The kids had some ice cream and cookies while I made the trek for the car.

Jersey blogger Joe Territo has a suggestion over at his blog, that you flip a quarter into a cup every time you hear the word “tsunami” mentioned on cable news. I have a better idea. How about a quarter every time you hear someone on cable or in the newspaper criticize the United States for being too cheap with aid??

Charles Webster at the Trentonian has an end of the year piece on NJ politics called “Looking back at the ‘Three Stooges’ 2004 comedy tour“. Webster put McGreevey along with the two top democrats in the legislature, Joe Roberts and Albio Sires, as members of the Three Stooges for the way they raided the state coffers for pork barrel projects and patronage jobs.

If I had do assign them as Three Stooges, McGreevey would be Curley, Roberts would be Larry and Sires would be Moe. Not that McGreevey is fat like Curley, but I could imagine him saying “Why certainly!!!” as he tries to poke someone in the eye.

The week between Christmas and New Years is a week where all the top 10 lists come out. Top movies, top music, top news events. Disgraced ex-governor Jim McGreevey made several lists, and it wasn’t for his leadership effort in declaring the blueberry the official New Jersey state fruit.

• World Magazine listed the top news stories from the year, and making the list was “Coming out, stepping down“, the saga of Jim McGreevey.
• Michael Goodwin at the NY Daily News calls 2004 “Scoundrel year“, and McGreevey was joined by Martha Stewart, Bernard Kerik, Jason Giambi, the Dolans from Cablevision and disgraced Bronx politico Guy Valella.
• I didn’t know there was a top 10 infidelity list for 2004, but there is, and McGreevey made the list along with Kobe Bryant and Scott Peterson.
• The NY Times has TV’s Best Live Moments and McGreevey’s August 12th press conference made a very select list, joining Janet Jackson’s nipple and Howard Dean’s scream as one of the year’s most memorable moments.
• There was no “Corruption Top 10″, but if there was I know who would be number 1. AP had a story, “Government corruption cases increase” saying that the number of federal corruption cases has increased 15% over the past four years. Was McGreevey responsible for the entire 15% increase??
• Of course in New Jersey, the McGreevey resignation was #1 according to the Asbury Park Press

Acting Governor Richard Codey has allowed the Salvation Army to set up kettles at NJ state rest stops and train stations and has told the organization that they are invited back in 2005 [link]. Codey was joined by the Salvation Army at a press conference held at the famous Vince Lombardi Service Center near exit 18 on the NJ Turnpike.

Compare Codey’s endorsement of the Salvation Army with the rough treatment from Target department stores. Target banned the red kettles and bell ringers from all of their stores this Christmas season. I would have gone to Target this month while Christmas shopping but I was able to find my stuff at other stores, so I can say I did not give Target a dime this year. I did most of my shopping Kohl’s and Wal-Mart along with Barnes and Noble and Best Buy.

While it pains me to say something nice about a Democrat, here’s a holiday “Good Going!!” to our acting governor.

Looks like the South Orange/Maplewood school district is getting served with a lawsuit for it’s recent move to ban all Christmas songs from it’s annual school pageant [link]. The Thomas More Law Center has agreed to file a lawsuit on behalf of two students in the school district. The Thomas More Law Center is a conservative legal group which describes itself as “..dedicated to the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life”.

As I have said before, there is nothing illegal or unconstituional about singing “Silent Night” in a public school. The numbskulls in South Orange/Maplewood have simply caved in to politically correct pressure. In an effort “not to offend” they have offended the 90+% of the public that celebrates Christmas.

I know several Jewish families, and none are offended by Christmas. I even got a “Merry Christmas” card from one of them. I have worked with several Indian and Pakistani engineers who belonged to various Hindu religious sects, and I don’t remember any of them having a problem with Christmas trees or other Christmas trimmings. If the problem is Moslems or atheists, perhaps the South Orange/Maplewood should be explaining tolerance to them rather than stepping on the traditions of the great majority of this country.

Many liberals seem to think that the recent election of George Bush with strong support from religious folk has somehow emboldened Christians to fight back at attempts to secularize Christmas. To that, I say that for 200 plus years we had creches in public and Christmas carols in public school, and you know what, I think this country was just fine. Part of the fiber of the United States is religious tolerance. Perhaps the troublemakers who are trying to elimiate “Christ” from “Christmas” need to be reminded of that.

While I always enjoy big holidays and events like Christmas and birthday parties, I always get a huge sense of relief once the event is over with.

Christmas eve dinner at our friends house went well. We started this event about 15 years ago, six adults and one child. Now it’s eight adults and 9 kids. We change the menu every year, this year was Italian themed. Our goal is to have this party until our kids are old enough so that they can cook the meal for us old folk.

We got home at about 11PM, so the kids were really wiped out. My wife and I finished wrapping at about 2AM. The kids slept until about 8:30AM, which isn’t bad.

The kids got lots of good stuff. Daniel and Allison mostly liked what they got. Daniel got a few computer games that he has played non-stop. Allison got some Barbie stuff and one of those dance games where the girl dances on a numbered thing with synchronized music while lights flash. They got lots of other stuff (clothes, Legos, CD’s, DVD’s, books), and they seemed mostly happy.

Unfortunately for the kids, we had my family over for dinner, so right after they got finished opening the gifts, they had to clean up and put stuff away. They did not like that too much.

Once everyone went home, I put up my feet and relaxed. Sunday my wife had to work, and I decided not to do anything more stressful then cleaning the kitchen. I actually watched an entire Sunday football game for the first time all year. Boy, do the Jets really stink.

Today was return day as we packed the whole family into the DynamoBuzz station wagon and hit a few stores. I’m off from work until January 3rd, and my goal is to get a few small jobs done around the house without driving myself crazy.

The next 48 hours will be a blur. Tonight we go to a friend’s house for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner, tomorrow is the big day with my mom and dad coming down for dinner.

Hope you all have a great Christmas. Pray for all those less fortunate and for those who have family in Iraq. Enjoy the holiday. Hope you get everything you want.

The Asbury Park Press website has a daily 30 second audio promo with highlights from a story being featured in the paper. The clip also has a pretty snazzy “Asbury Park Press” jingle with a horn section and everything. A very catchy tune.

This may be an attempt to get under Corzine’s skin, but the newly elected New Jersey Republican State Committee chairman predicted that acting governor Richard Codey will be the democrat nominee for governor in 2005 [link]. Tom Wilson, picked to succeed Senator Joe Kyrillos, made the prediction during a question and answer session with the Asbury Park Press. Wilson says basically that Corzine is all money, no substance, and that “..He’s not a strong candidate”. Wilson did not pick a favorite in the crowded GOP field.

The football Giants and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority are negotiating over the future of Giants Stadium and the Meadowlands. The NJSEA so far has only agreed to upgrade the existing Giants Stadium, making some cosmetic changes and adding additional luxury boxes. The football team wants a new stadium, and their counter offer to the NJSEA says the team will pay for the whole thing, ~$700 million, but then the team controls everything, keeping all revenues from games and events [link]. The NJSEA is hestitant to hand over state resources to a private enterprise, but if the Giants are serious it will be hard to say no.

I remember when Giants Stadium first opened. I went to North Bergen High School in the late 1970’s, and you could actually look from the school westward out over the Meadowlands and watch the stadium being built. Back then, it was nothing but swamp. At the time, the stadium was a showcase of the league, but not anymore. Stadiums used to be built and used until they fall apart. Baseball still has Wrigley Field, Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium. Nowadays, stadiums are disposable, built with the thought that in 25 years they’ll be torn down and replaced with something newer and better.

If they are going to build a new stadium, how about putting a dome on it?? The last time I went to a football game there I sat in the upper deck and it may have been the coldest place in the entire state of New Jersey. Not only would a dome stadium be a plus for the fans, but the NFL would probably christen the new domed stadium with a Super Bowl.

Tuesday started my “winter break”. I’m off from work until January 3rd. I didn’t realize until this week that I had so much vacation time left. I almost feel European. The Dutch and French get something like five weeks vacation, that’s about how much I had this year considering I carried over a week from 2003.

My wife has a different idea of vacation than I do. When I think of vacation, I think of lounging around drinking cocktails with little umbrellas in them. My wife’s idea of vacation is do-lists. Not “honey do” lists, just “do lists”. I got home from dropping off the kids at school, brewed up a fresh pot of coffee and sat down to eat breakfast and read the morning paper, and she was already giving me a list of errands and the job of fixing the downstairs toilet. Grrrr….

Did some shopping, will do the bulk on Wednesday and close out on Thursday. No Christmas Eve shopping as of yet.

I was driving through Manville at about 6:55 PM this evening, saw the first snow flakes of the season. It was actually coming down pretty good for about 20 minutes, but nothing was sticking. Daniel and Allison were already making plans for Monday assuming school would be closed. Sorry guys.

The conventional wisdom is that Bret Schundler has the conservative base locked up for next years GOP primary for New Jersey governor. Perhaps his stongest rival for those voters, Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, reaches out to NJ conservatives by leading a Christmas caroling protest outside of Columbia High School in Maplewood NJ [link]. The South Orange/Maplewood school district earned nationwide ridicule for its ban on all religious songs at its school pagents. As Lonegan notes in the article, “..those who claim to speak for tolerance are, in fact, the most intolerant.” The protest concert will also feature Hanukkah tunes.

Lonegan is well known for his anti-tax sentiments, and by tackling this issue he will earn points among NJ conservatives. He was a vocal opponent of tax and borrowing during the Whitman administration, showing he’s not afraid to take on his own party. Maybe he’s got a shot if NJ republicans have second thoughts about giving Bret Schundler another chance at the NJ governor’s race.

No NHL hockey this year due to the labor problems, and maybe I’m the only hockey fan in New Jersy going through withdrawls. But Canada.com is playing the season with computer simulation and has a weekly feature with “Simulated NHL scores”. Apparently the Canadian Press the Electronic Arts NHL 2005 video game to play the season. It beats watching minor league hockey.

Time Magazine names George Bush 2004 Person of the Year.

TPB at unbillable hours has a post with links to New Jersey photobloggers [link]. There aren’t too many out there. As I’ve said before, I’m this close to getting mine on line. I’ve got two weeks vacation starting next week, that will be one of my priorities.

Steve Kornacki at PoliticNJ has a snapshot update on the state of the republican race for governor [link]. His view: nobody has caught on. He says Doug Forrester’s million dollar ad campaign was a bust. I agree. First off, the publics attention was focused on the presidential race, so I don’t think anyone was paying attention to his ads. And his anti-Dan Rather ads were really a questionable use of money. He came across as stiff and unemotional. Maybe because Forrester is stiff and unemotional.

Kornacki notes that Bret Schundler’s campaign has not really taken off yet, but he reminds us that Schunder is probably guaranteed at least 30% of the vote in a republican primary, and that may be enough in a multi-candidate field.

The rest of the field (Steve Lonegan, John Murphy, Robert Schroeder and Paul DiGaetano) is all in single digits in public polls, but given the fact that there is no candidate clearly in the lead, perhaps one of them can capture the public’s attention??

By the way, we got a Christmas card from Robert Schroeder. It was a post card, with a picture of Schroeder and his wife and two kids on one side, and on the other side it had one of those generic “Happy Holidays” type messages. Nowhere on it did it say that he was running for governor. My wife checked the mail and had no idea who he was. You can tell I’m a political news junkie because I recognized him right away.

UPDATE:The Proprietor over at Coffeegrounds also got a Schroeder card and didn’t know who it was, thought it was a mistake. Also getting a card was Suzette who is apparently married to a guy who is very up on current events in New Jersey because he recognized him.

Two days ago I wrote about the democrat attempts to steal the election for Washington state governor. Real Clear Politics has a great summary of the process so far. They compare it to the 1960 presidential election where Nixon lead JFK in Illinois until the end when Chicago mayor Richard Daley “found” enough Chicago votes for JFK to give him the state and the presidency.

The democrats are going on about “Every vote counting, blah, blah, blah…” The problem is that one county, democrat controlled King County home of liberal oasis Seattle, has been miraculously finding thousands of uncounted ballots during the last month in order to reduce the vote margin and swing the election to the democrat. So far they haven’t “found” enough votes so they are trying to get 900 additional “found” ballots tabulated and added to the count. A judge ruled on Friday that these 900 ballots were disqualified by the county and cannot be counted in the recount [link].

The 900 ballots were probably rejected due to an error by the county, but the judge ruled that elections need finality, and for Kings county to be able to reconsider ballots they previously rejected, even though the reason for rejecting the ballots was faulty, opens up a nasty can of worms. In future close elections, what is to stop a rogue county election board from “reconsidering” enough previously rejected ballots to swing an election??

Anyway, stay tuned. With 28 out of Washington state’s 29 counties already finished with the third count, the republican Rossi is still 42 votes ahead. The remaining county, King County, should be done by Thursday. Even without the 900 newly discovered ballots, the democrat may still win. But if not, look for a mother of all court battles to get those 900 newly discovered ballots added to the count.

Looks like Christie Whitman is writing a book, “It’s My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America”. The book is due in a month or so. Amongst other things, she says in the book that “..moderates must speak up or the party could move so far to the right that it will lose its influence and strength.” [link].

She picked a good topic to get media time. Anyone republican who criticizes the republican party, particularly the conservative wing of the party, is guaranteed lots of air time on the morning talk shows, Larry King, CNN and the Sunday News shows. Katie Couric may even give her a whole week of shows like she did for Kittie Kelley when she wrote her Bush gossip fest.

Whitman has been crying about the conservatives since she’s been in public life. I’ve said before on DynamoBuzz that I never liked her. In 1997 election for New Jersey governor, I couldn’t hold my nose long enough to vote for her, so instead I voted for the libertarian candidate, Murray Sabrin. Sabrin got well over a 100,000 votes and those votes denied Whitman a majority of the vote. She barely beat Jim McGreevey that year, 47% to 46%. Paul Mulshine at the Star-Ledger despises her, giving her the tag RINO (republican in name only).

Personally, I think the national republican party has moderated itself. Bush is downright in the middle on immigration, if anything to the left of most of the party. The national party is also spending money like it’s going out of style, and there has been a lot of criticism from conservatives. If Whitman is crying about where the party stands on social issues, perhaps she wasn’t paying attention to the last election. If anything she should be telling the democrat party that their surge away from the center to the far left of American politics is what has doomed them to minority party status. But stuff like that doesn’t sell books.