Jim Dalrymple.com

The Boston Bruins have made moves to solidify their front line this week by signing center Joe Thorton and Travis Green. Two great moves by the Bs. Getting Green back on the roster was definitely a great move, but getting Thorton was an absolute must.

Thorton, in a few short years, has become the backbone of the Bruins — not every team has someone to fill that roll. With the addition of veterans like Brian Leetch, Thorton is free to work his magic with Glen Murray and Samsonov.

If I have one wish for this season it’s that the league keeps to its word and speeds up the game. These no talent players that hook and grab to keep up with players like Thorton need to either learn how to play the game or get the hell out of the league.

I really like what CSS can do for a Web site. I try to build everything now without using any tables whatsoever and for the most part it’s worked really well. CSS itself has come a long way allowing you to do many things including shadows, which is what I’ve been working on recently.

There was really no need for me to have an image gallery on the site since Peter gave me a Flickr Pro account, but it’s one of those things that I wanted to work on for myself. I’m using a really nice piece of gallery software for WordPress called Gallery Manager.

Gallery Manager gives you everything you need and integrates well with WordPress itself. Having that out of the way, I wanted to give the thumbnails and images a nice drop shadow, but I didn’t want to use Photoshop, I wanted it all done with CSS.

So the thumbnails you see on this page have a slight bit of padding and a nice drop shadow, which gives them some nice depth.

I tried it with Safari and it works great, but when I align any of the thumbs to the right Camino and Firefox won’t show the images. Strange, but I’ll keep playing around with that.

Update: Shortly after posting this I found what I was doing wrong to make the images align right in Firefox and Camino. If it doesn’t look right to you, let me know.

Last night Nicole had a party to go to at her friends, so Monique, Michael and I decided to look for a little outing for us. We decided to take a trip in town and see the buskers that gather every year for the Halifax International Buskers Festival.

Buskers — or street performers — from around the world have been gathering in Halifax since 1987. It’s been 15 years since Monique and I went to the festival — that was before we had kids — so we didn’t know what to expect. Neither one of us remembers much about the last time we were there, but we figured it would make a nice outing for Michael.

Among many others, there were acts from Australia, Portugal, Vancouver and a really good act from Halifax called Squid. They were a group of five guys — four playing percussion and one playing bagpipes. It was kind of like Stomp, if you have ever seen that. They were really, really good.

We walked the one-kilometer stretch, watching jugglers with flaming torches, machetes and various other dangerous items. One guy had himself wrapped in Saran Wrap for about 10 minutes and then managed to escape. Silly, but still it was funny.

Overall it was a good night. We all had a lot of fun.

Michael is such a good kid. He really deserves some good news, but this summer seems to be a non-stop run of bad news for the poor kid. The latest came today when he had another appointment at the dentist.

When Michael went to the dentist for a follow-up after the accident, he had feeling in his teeth, so he canceled the planned root canals. He told us to come back in two months and we would see how things were going.

After receiving the report from the ER doctor, they decided to do another check-up. Sadly, Michael had some discoloration in two of his teeth. While he could feel cold in a couple of the teeth, he lost all sensation in the others.

That means he will have to go for several root canals. The doctor said he isn’t giving up yet, but with discoloration it’s pretty much over.

I get no respect. I work hard, so when I sit down to eat to a simple sandwich for lunch I expect a little privacy. Apparently, Twiggy doesn’t think I deserve the privacy or the sandwich.

Twiggy is a really intense dog. She loves to play ball or tug or anything else and when she does, she is completely focused on whatever the game is — she has injured herself for the game.

There are very few times in a day that she ever likes to cuddle. One of those times is if you have food. Sometimes, she is very friendly … too friendly.

Yesterday, I was doing some work and having a sandwich. Twiggy went from sitting in front of to coming up on the couch and staring at me, to pawing my arms and laying on my chest. She finally did get the sandwich.

Click on the pictures for larger views.

I am a huge hockey fan. More specifically, I am a huge Boston Bruins fan. As a matter of fact, when the Bs get eliminated from the playoffs, I stop watching. This year, I think I might be watching until the very end when Joe Thorton hoists the Cup in air.

I was disappointed when they canceled the season last year, but I support the owners in doing what had to be done to stop that maniacal Bob Goodenow. He has been leading the players on a path of destruction for years and it’s good to finally see that ass stopped in his tracks.

The Bruins have made some great signings so far. One of the best has to be Glen Murray. The Bs and Murray agreed to a four-year contract — that is awesome news for us going forward. The Bruins also got Shawn McEachern, a scrappy little player and Dave Scatchard.

Perhaps the best pick to shore up the defense was veteran Brian Leetch. What a great pick for Boston — Leetch will do a lot to help out with the younger players on the blue line. They only agreed to a one-year contract, but they’ll extend that if everything works out.

The players the bruins signed are all older, but they are all experienced stars. Add this to the likes of Samsanov, Thorton, Hal Gill and Patrice Bergeron and you have a Cup winning team.

No, I’m not trying to rewrite a Beatles song; I really want a Walrus. Monique and I are watching “50 First Dates” with Adam Sandler and Jocko the Walrus. That Walrus is so cool, I want one for myself.

Maybe the next raise I get from work, I’ll invest in a big pool for the side yard where the Walrus can live. I can out during the day and teach it tricks — we could even put up a picnic table and have lunch with the Walrus.

Okay, so maybe getting a Walrus isn’t the most practical decision, but it would be fun.