The time has come

I mentioned before that I sold my motorcycle, my Pre-marriage I am a dangerous man look out ladies transportation. And that was a somewhat painful experience. Not really as it was more of a useless eyesore in my ever more crowded garage.

But now I have begun an even more painful venture. I have places a For Sale sign in my little 1990 Ford Bronco II. This little truck has been my primary transportation for the majority of the last seven years (outside of the year where it sat fallow because I had cracked the heads on it). She is still a very good looking truck too, having spent all but the last three years of her life in the high dessert of central New Mexico. Where cars rarely fall victim to rust and more likely meet their demise in an alcohol related traffic accident. (New Mexico has the highest reported instances of alcohol related fatalities in the US). Now I will be honest she needs some paint, all that dessert wind and sand has worn the lovely pale blue paint off the center of the hood and roof. But she is super clean inside and everything still works, except the cruse control which mysteriously stopped functioning a few months after we purchased it, and the factory stereo which is demon possessed and if you attempt to adjust the volume in any way it goes from one extreme to the other without warning quite annoying at the very least. Over the years we have owned it I have replaced almost every major system starting with the steering pump, alternator, fuel pump, clutch (master and slave cylinders) breaks, and finally the motor three years ago. She almost new, but alas either the Bronco or the Jeep have to go so the older is put up on the sale block.

All this has come about because we needed to purchase a mini van to accommodate the arrival of our third child in December. The upside is that my wife is now driving a much newer automobile (only 3 years old) and I am upgrading to the 10 year old vehicle from the Bronco which is 15 years old. I am enjoying the Jeep already but it is still a little sad to see something that you have had for so long leave. At least this relationship will end better than that of my other vehicles (all of which I KILLED).

At it again?

I tell you what, for a while there I was concerned that I was becoming addicted to blogging, I was reading every blog linked to another blog, I was making mental notes of how my everyday experience could "make a good posting". I was thinking about it way too much frankly.
Then life started getting in the way, the whole "my job is interfering with my blogging" thing when I was transitioning into a new job role at job number one. Then when things started to settle down I started thinking to my self that I really need to post something again. I even got grief from friends about it. Then for a little while I was feeling guilty. I was letting my loyal readership down (all three). I was just surprised to find that once I had to stop blogging on a regular basis it was super hard to get back into the grove.
Well this is my first attempt to get the wheels moving again. So you can start coming back there will be more content in the coming days. No promises of quality but at least the quantity will be better.

My Precious

My Precious
Originally uploaded by DEPjrTX.

Well after what seamed like forever and hearing lots of smack from haters! I got my new toy on Friday and have been playing with it every since.

Ethan's Update

Well I know an update has been long over due but I have been extremely busy lately, work is cutting into my blogging time!

The only thing worth mentioning is that my youngest son had surgery on his eye lids today. He has Ptosis, which is basically droopy eyes. At first my though was “what’s the big deal, lets not start teaching the boy to be vain so early” then his physician explained that it can cause blindness because the weaker eye does not get enough light/exercise. Good thing the same thing is only making me fat.

Any way, we took him in today and all went well as far as we can tell. He has six small incisions (three above each eye) and he is pretty swollen, looks like he has been in a bar fight. But we never let our boys hang out in bars until they are out of diapers at the very least. I will try to post some pictures later, got some good before and after shots now we just need to wait until the swelling goes down to get a better look at the results.

Do you smell that?

I am so glad it is raining this morning! It has been nothing but hot for the last couple of weeks. My poor neighbor replanted his entire yard last fall with a different type of grass, and it is not fairing so well under the 95 plus degrees (Fahrenheit for those of you abroad). I feel for him too because he does fret over it so. I like to have a nice yard and want my grass to look good, but this fellow works too hard. To give you an idea I have not mowed my grass in about ten days. It’s getting a little long, and I plan to cut it tonight after work but I have been letting it get longer because of the heat. My neighbor however cuts his grass every three or four days without fail, and waters at least once a week. All this to no avail his yard is turning a little brown already and we have yet to get into the heat of July an August. Surly by summers end his entire yard will be dead or look it at least. My grass is doing fine except for a couple of small bare patches its green and full pleases me when I look over it in the morning as I am leaving for the space station.
I am not just happy for the rain because of my grass. I love the way everything smells after it’s been raining especially in the morning. It’s like sending the entire world through the washer everything looks clean again. All the dust is removed and the colors look better. Plus that smell, you will never find a dryer sheet that smells that good. Well I hope the weather in your little patch of the earth is just to your liking.

Boys and our toys

Here is a quick update on my iPod saga.

I have been attempting to procure a free iPod through a referral program (here is the back story) this effort started in February and has received sporadic effort at best for my part. Don’t get me wrong it’s not that I don’t want an iPod especially one that I don’t have to pay for. But I just found it hard to even broach the subject frequently enough to make it happen.

Well thanks in part to my good friend Eddie (he got two of the five required referrals for me and found the program in the first place) I am in the final stages! I have all five referrals now and have submitted for approval. This part of process is published as a 7-10 day time frame because they have to check and make sure no fraud is being attempted. Then I assume it will take a few more days to ship after I receive approval. I am very anxious to get my hands on my new toy (the Precious) because I am a Technodork and all boys love toys, but I will be pleased if I get it by the end of July. It’s hard but I keep reminding myself to be patient because it is an expensive toy that I am getting at virtually no cost.

If you would like to get your own precious you can help Dave (the referral that put me over the top) and check out the program here.

the Spur-fect ending!

My Spurs have done it again!

In the lowest-scoring Game 7 in Finals history, the Spurs prevailed 81-74. I could not be happier about this outcome. This team is all class and I am glad they represent my home town and state so well.

Missing in Action

For my three loyal readers I have to say sorry right up front. I have not posted in a very long time. This has been the biggest break since I started blogging and I will do my best to keep it from ever happening again.

Now on to the life updates. First thing on my mind this morning is


Way to go Spurs! Man I love Robert Horry. I have not mentioned this before but San Antonio is my home town and the Spurs are my team (until the fall when the Cowboys start playing anyway) and my boys are making a great show of it. I was a little nervous the last couple of games because Detroit is such a good team and the Spurs showed no heart for two games. This is the Finals baby, you gotta bring you’re A game!

We had a good visit with my sister and her family last weekend. They stopped in on their way to TN for a wedding. They have three kids and they are close to the age of our boys so they all got along wonderfully. I have great memories of my cousins when I was a kid and it made me feel good to see my children building the same type of relationships. The adults sat up on Saturday night talking until 6:30 am! No booze no cards just the four of us sitting around the kitchen table gabbing and laughing until the sun came up. We were all bushed and of course the kids were up at 8:30 like clockwork! And five kids under the age of five are not capable of being quiet especially when the three youngest are boys. My sister and Brother-in-law brought their big motor home and when we drove around town we all went together in it and my oldest though that was the coolest thing. In fact this Saturday when we told him we have to get ready to go to his baseball class he asked if “the really big car is going to be there”. I personally though it was a great visit, but did leave me a little sad missing family and wishing we were closer so we could spend time and allow our kids to get to know their cousins.

The only negative to report is that we all got sick starting with the youngest last Sunday night, then Mamma and the oldest boy on Monday, then finally me on Tuesday. Some sort of stomach virus that ran its course (literally) in about twenty four hours. Nothing more fun that evacuating copious amount of fluid and food particles at various stages of digestion from both ends of the gastrointestinal track. But we are all well again.

I promise I will do better about the updates. thanks for droppin by

My kid aint in this photo**

This past Saturday was meant to be the first installment of my eldest son’s Little Bombers baseball class. Little Bombers is an instructional class to teach boys and girls the basics of baseball, three and four years specifically. I have never been a huge fan of baseball but am enthusiastic about my boys getting involved in organized sports because of the development that kids get when they are involved and enjoying a team sport. Plus it will offer a new activity for me to share with them. Not to mention keeping them active enough to ensure an afternoon nap or an early bed time for Mamma and Daddy to enjoy, wink wink nudge nudge. The first class was being put on Saturday by the local parks and recreation department at 8:45 am. Needless to say my son has been very excited to go he loves to go to the park and the just the opportunity to playing with other kids is enough to get him wound up for days on end because he is very social. We had purchased an inexpensive ball and glove early last week and he has been tagging them around asking each day “are we going to the park today?”. He and I had played catch a little in the kitchen because of the rain we have been getting off and on all week, but nothing compares to getting outside in the sunshine on a grassy field to chuck the horse hide around (as if I know anything about baseball imagery) Unfortunately as I mention we have been getting some heavy rain pretty regularly the last week. So you can imagine my disappointment when I woke up at 7:00am on Saturday to the tap tap pitter pat of rain hitting the skylight in the master bathroom. And sure enough when I looked out our yard was thoroughly soaked. My assumption at that point was that the class would be called so I went back to bed, only to get up an hour and a half later to see that it had stopped raining the sky was clear the birds were singing and the tides had receded. So I spent the remainder of the weekend thinking that in my sloth I had cheated the poor child out of his inaugural venture into organized sports. In an effort to make up for my transgression I took him and his brother to play in the sports field by the church after service on Sunday but still felt a little guilty for him missing out on the chance to play with other yard apes. I called Parks and Rec today so I could find out what notification system was in place to handle inclement weather and not only discovered that there is a specific number for just this sort of update, but my assumption about Saturday had been correct. So woo hoo, I am not a lazy dad I have great intuition. If preschool sports are this stressful I don’t know what I will do when they get older.
** This photo is from a previous year so my boy wouldn’t be in it, this is his first year duh!

What kind of bait do you use to catch one of these?

Fishy find

Tim Pruitt holds a record 124-pound blue catfish that he hooked on the Mississippi River. It was the largest of its kind in state history, officials said. The fish died en route to a Kansas store, where it was to be displayed in a tank, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources said.

dOWNHERE

Say hello to my new favorite band.



check out their site for a sample of their wears

Wow its Friday already

This week has just flown by, mostly because we have all been on a chocolate cake buzz the entire week. I am sad to say that I will miss my good buddy chocolate cake, but alas he is now gone forever. Oh such sweet soft kisses I will truly miss him.

Today we are going to the baby doc for the first time with this pregnancy (that would be an obstetrician, not an infant with a PhD). We are changing doctors from the one who “delivered” Ethan. And by delivered I mean she spent 45 second with my wife each visit where we had to sit in her office for an hour and a half, she also popped in five minutes before my son appeared and promptly left five minutes after.

I still say that my wife delivered Ethan all by herself and for the most part the rest of us in the room were just in her way. My role in the birthing process was to run the video equipment and drive quickly, which I did both exceptionally well. However I failed to capture the climatic event on video in the heat of the moment. I forgot to resume recording again after a brief pause to avoid excessive footage of the lovely Mrs. a’la natural. I did get some great video of the view out the window, but as I framed in on a lovely water feature out in the hospital garden my wife can be heard in the back ground agonizing through transitional labor. I will likely have to dub over the sound to mask the outcries which were a pretty obvious wake up call for me to get back to coaching and stop playing with my toys. Actually I am in awe of the entire process and just grateful just to be a witness to this amazing event.

My wife is already very happy about changing doctors as she has discovered that the new doctor likes to have a sonograms (or ultra-sound what ever) performed early and with some frequency where this is sometimes only performed once or twice, and you know how ladies love baby pictures
.

We are eight weeks pregnant now so the baby is only going to be about .63 inches long (crown to rump) so I don’t expect to be able to see much family resemblance yet. But I am looking forward to my first glimpse of the little one. I will try to post pictures this weekend.

Warning this posting may be hazardous

Due to the strong baby photo content and explicit chocolate cake images the following linked website may cause cavities viewer discretion is advised.**



**Baby lovers and Chocoholics are responsible for their own response. The publishers are not liable for any cravings suffered as a result of exposure to these images.

Ethan's first birthday and hair cut.

Our little man needs a hair cut


I have a feeling that I am not going to like this


this is not my idea of a good birthday event


Well I didn' t like the process but I like the result

You got Five minutes to burn?

I found a link to this over at All Things Christie she has found some of the funniest stuff.

If you dig Yoda you will dig this.

Star Wars on the brain

Okay I know that there are tons of people talking about, blogging about, TV interviewing about Revenge of the Sith right now and we will all be sick of hearing about it in a week or so. But the inner dork will not let me leave the subject just yet. I have come to the conclusion that George Lucas is a product tie in whore, I have seen "Dark side M&Ms" and even a marginally funny Pepsi ad with Yoda. But I am sure that I will be sick of the volume of products that will be hawked in about ten days. What is the worst product tie in you have seen so far?

by the way here is a fair if not good review

How am I ever going to pull this off!

If you have pulse and have not taken up residence under a rock for say the last 27 years you most like have heard of a little film franchise call Star Wars, and are also most likely aware that the third (or sixth) installment is opening this week. And if you are also Uber-dork born in the early seventies like myself you have celebrated your dweeb by seeing all of the previously installments, bought the DVDs and several of the action figures over time, and used all of your skill and knowledge of the force to infect your own offspring with the love of all things Star Wars.

I might as well to get this out in the open right away. I never saw Attack of the Clones in the theater. I know this admission will likely bring about my eviction from the Star Wars Dorkus malorkus club. I did purchase the DVD as soon as it was available to make up for this transgression. In addition to the fact that the Phantom Menace was a huge let down I made the conscious decision to forgo the Attack of the Clones theater experience because our oldest son was at an age for where it’s a huge pain to see a move with young children. He was too old to sleep through the entire film (like he did with Fellowship of the Ring) and yet too young to be interested in the film. He would have been more interested in picking things up off the theatre floor and popping them in his mouth, than sitting in one place for ninety minutes. Plus I was never able to convince my wife that she was much more likely to enjoy the movie if I went without her while she stayed home with the boy. I don’t regret skipping it because, even though I liked Clones much more than Menace, it will never be as good as the originals and I spent less on the DVD than it would have cost to go to the theatre.

However this is a very different situation. This is the last of the Star Wars movies. I know there are all sorts of rumors that the last three will be made sometime in the future, and I can only hope that someone will (anyone but George Lucas, face it babe the magic just aint there) but for now this is my only hope for closure.

Unfortunately our family situation for movie going is not any better, worse in fact as we have another boy who happens to be at the squirmy age and based on the trailer this movie could be very dark indeed which raises concerns when thinking of my oldest. Because though he is old enough to be interested in all of the Star Wars movies (over and over again) he is not old enough to stave off the dreams that sometimes come from grim visual images.

My lovely Mrs. has planned a movie date for the two of us as a present for my birthday that just passed. I am just concerned that by the time we arrange a suitable sitter for the boys and process the paperwork for a second mortgage in order to finance this date the Magic will be all gone, and I will have heard one too many people say “it was alright but I was kind of disappointed” (sound familiar?) and my excitement will fade. Then I will cave in from frustration and decide to wait until it comes out on DVD, missing the last Star Wars on the big screen. Help me Obi-wan you’re my only hope!

It’s my birthday, What did you get me?

Today is my birthday, and I am breaking a tradition that I have held with few exception for near twenty years. In honor of my own birth I take the day off and either spend it doing something only I am interested in doing or spend it at home doing nothing at all (which is pretty much the same thing). However this year I am working both jobs all day, and money is tight so I will not be buying some frivolous self-indulgent present for myself. I have been taking stock of my life over this week, as I imagine many people do around milestone birthdays (I’m 35 today).

Isn’t it funny how the when you get older the milestone birthdays get farther apart? I mean when you a kid it’s almost like every year is a big deal. Yeah your one, two, three, etc… well I guess it gets kinda lean until ten, then thirteen is a good one, then your waiting for sixteen, eighteen twenty(only cool cuz your not a “teen” anymore), twenty one Big big deal, then they start spreading out. Twenty five is important because your old to everyone in your age group. Then thirty Oh man, where you have to relinquish any vestiges of cool that you may have kept hidden from your college days. But then it’s all about the ten year marks from then on, fourty fifty etc etc….

While pondering my life I have come to one conclusion above all other. No matter how emotionally immature I tend to act I have inexplicably be come an adult somewhere along the way. And frankly this has happened with out any consent from me!

Yeah I have all the trappings of a grown up; a Lovely Mrs., 2.2 kids(one in the oven), two cars, in a two car garage, in the house that will be ours in just three hundred twenty-four more payments, thinning hair, and bulging waistline. Yep I have arrived!

I know that some may not look at this inventory and find much appeal but that’s fine with me, I love my life and would not trade if for yours for all the tea in China.

If you want to help me celebrate or maybe feel obligated to get me something for a birthday gift just help me get an iPod for free, here is the Link to my previous blog and her is a Link to a buddy’s blog that has his in the mail.

Video killed the radio star…

But a cell phone could save your marriage. My wife and I do not have a land line home phone. We both have cell phones and talking to each other is “free” with our plan. In addition to normal phone calls we frequently send each other text messages, something on the order of four or five hundred short messages per month between the two of us.

We have found that this comes in very handy when you need to ask a quick question or want to send a warm fuzzy to your honey. If I have several phone calls going at work at one time (which happens often) the lovely Mrs. can still pose a question with me and I can respond when I have a moment free without having to put everything on hold for a quick call. We have gotten so proficient with this that we can have complete conversations using short messages.

The only glaring disadvantages are that you can only send messages that are under one hundred and sixty characters long, and it’s a little cumbersome to type on the little phone keypad, even with the (t9) software on our phones.

Both of these become a benefit to the peace if you are having a heated text message discussion. By advantage I mean that it takes you a little longer to formulate a message and therefore you will have more time to consider your response before you fire a heat seeking sarcasm missile across the bow of your loved one. If you are of a mind to civil within the confines of a disagreement it always helps to have some time to consider your response before you roll your M1 Abrams through a field of emotional land mines.

With the combined elements of a standard issue low self-esteem, and rapier like wit I have over the years honed my skill as a verbal pugilist to the point that I don’t even have to think before a stinging response can be launch without hope of retraction into the soft underbelly of almost any would be foe. But alas this not the sort of skill that enables one to become a cherished spouse who deals with loved ones with kindness and mercy. So in an effort to keep my internal Bruce Banner calm and collected I have begun to utilized all conceivable methods to throttle down the emotionally unraveled live conversations when the subject appears likely to lead to hurt feelings. So for providing me a buffer that enables me to overcome my emotional immaturity I say thank you, to who ever invented text messaging through a cell phone.

Boys will be boys

Shortly after my lovely Mrs. and I were first married I discovered that she is a somewhat easy to scare, now I don’t mean this in a real fearful sort of “we are all gonna die!” I mean in it in the “stop jumping from behind doors and scaring me. I almost peed my pants, you jerk”. This discovery has brought me great joy over the years (and a red hand mark on my person from time to time).

I have become quite skilled at the art of laying in wait for my unsuspecting victim then bellowing a loud Raarrr at the instant before they become aware of my presence. It was only a natural progression to subject my children to the same type of high jinks.

I was all to pleased when I began instructing my oldest in the art of “go scare mamma” I love seeing him softly trot off into another room with a look of excitement and the posture of a predator, shoulders drawn up and hands raised into a little claw poses. I wait nearby to hear the sound of his attack ,which I find as enjoyable as acts perpetrated by myself directly. I must say that my son has been a victim of my surprise attacks and those of his mother as well, a number of times and has easily adapted many of my techniques. In addition he has shown natural skill and athleticism that all athletic coach would be looking for and simply can not be taught.

Now that we have a second son I have begun the training program for him as well. This program as always started with teaching him what it is like to be the prey in a surprise attack. This became especially focused once he began to walking freely around the house. Yesterday my heart strings were plucked as I watched my eleven month old son quickly toddled down the hall after his mother saying Raaarrr without any prompting from me. It is so pleasing to see a little predator begin to sharpen his attack skills. It warms my heart to imagine the perpetuation of this sport into the homes of my unsuspecting Daughters-in-law.

Though it may be cliché, all I can say is. That’s my boys.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

In 1995 my little Hyundai Excel hatch back died, something about not changing the oil for a couple of years and just adding oil to compensate for the constant leak not being sufficient. So I was without a car for a couple of years, which was not cool but I managed. My apartment was only a short walk to the bus line which was a short ride to a major bus hub, where you could catch a bus to virtually anyplace in the city.

It is a well established fact that riding the bus is not Hip at all for an American male, this is a lesson learned about the ninth grade when you become both completely enthralled with the opposite sex and simultaneously aware that others attending your school are licensed drivers who are not forced to travel to and from with the “little kids”. Not that you can’t list a dozen reasons why utilizing any mass transit system is a good thing, but it’s just not going to do a lot for your “rep” to be riding the bus in high school or there after.

So imagine my indignation at being forced to ride the bus as a twenty-something. Sure I could (and did) bum rides from friends and co-workers, but this gets old fast (mostly for them, didn’t bug me except the asking). Also picture trying to portray yourself as a suave and virile male to the ladies with hip lines like, “would you like to go to dinner, and drive me” or “Yeah I would love to meet up with you and your friends. But the bus stops running on that line at 9:00”. Oh yeah I was quite the man about town.

Well I ask you what could be the polar opposite of the afore mentioned situation? No I didn’t buy a Ferrari! I bought a motorcycle. It was such an odd transaction too. I worked with a guy who rode a motorcycle to work several days out of the week and I told him on several occasions that I would like to purchase it from him. I would say things like “why don’t you sell me that bike, it would look much better with me riding it ” (real modest huh) none the less he always rebuffed me saying he would never sell it.

After a few months working together he is about to leave the company and in fact was missing in action for a couple of weeks before he was scheduled to make his exit. When he briefly returned he almost immediately comes and offers to sell me the bike, there is just one snag. He doesn’t own it! He is buying the motorcycle from the rightful owner on a payment plan, and offers to let me take over this arrangement. I jumped at the chance. So began a somewhat strained relationship with the owner, who was in fact not the outright owner but had a lien against the bike with their bank.

This all transpired in September of 1997 and by that time I was completely smitten with the future Mrs. to the point that I abandoned all ties to San Antonio, loaded the personal possessions that I could not sell or give away in the back of a pick up (including the motorcycle) and moved to Albuquerque to be within wooing distance.

My little Motosickly was pretty good to me. Even in the cold of mountain spring I rode that bike as my sole source of transportation. Alas when we finally wed the little motorcycle was not sufficient transportation for the two of us on a daily basis and so I purchased a little car from my sister and brother-in-law and the motorcycle began to see less and less road time.

Fast forward a few years and we are moving from Albuquerque to Kansas City and I load the bike into truck again for another thousand plus mile relocation, this time following a job and in a large box truck rental. Over the years preceding the motorcycle had fallen into some disrepair; little cracks in the saddle, a ding here and there, a broken turn signal. But put on the battery charger for a while and she would willingly launch me on another adventure, wind in my face and bugs in my teeth. But once we get to Kansas City the poor motorcycle is almost completely ignored. We had a baby son to play with and the weather in Kansas is not well suited to two wheeled adventures most of the year, and so for the first year she sat in the apartment carport in front of the primary family transportation collecting dust.

A year after our move to Kansas City we purchased a home and load up to move again, when it comes time to load my faithful bike on the truck I realize that she has fallen into further disrepair; the control cables have frozen presumably from moisture and rust, the water reserve tank has cracked, and the little crack in the saddle has become a big rip. She is in such a sad state that I could not even roll her into the truck because the clutch could not be disengaged allowing the rear wheel to roll free. So it became a two man job just to move the bike from one spot to another. And once she was parked in the garage of the new home I never moved her. The only use made of the motorcycle for the last two years has been an oversized rack for my string trimmer and an occasional climbing toy for my oldest son.

Well last night the seven and a half year relationship was ended, I sold her to a young man who has both the desire and mechanical ability to bring her back into road worthy condition. I am a little sad and a little relieved to see her go but at some point all things come to a close. Now the huge obstruction in my garage is gone and all that remains are the happy memories of wind in my face.

You can never be prepared for everything.

Yesterday afternoon the lovely Mrs. and I were not communicating very well, actually we had some confrontational phone conversations before I left work.

I was on edge about some issues I was having with our bank (no money and checks in the mail) and she is feeling sick so she is not as patient with my grumpiness as she normally would be.

She had to go to the doctor because she was felt like she might have Strep Throat and a piercing headache. I was trying to get out of the office and go home to watch the boys so she could go to the doctors office unfettered, and just as I am attempting to run out a small crisis breaks out and despite my attempts to;
a) Quickly resolve the matter and be on my way.
b) Put off addressing the issue until it fit my life schedule.
C) Ignore the issue all together.

I end up delayed to the point where I am no use in the stand in child care department and have even caused her to be late for her appointment with not enough time to throw the sprouts in the car to take them along. And because I didn’t call home in with notification of my delay in sufficient time to prevent a negative impact on the launch window, this resulted in an additional miscommunication session.

Suffice it to say I am feeling kind of guilty for being completely useless in the “helpful spouse during bouts of illness” department and indignant about the lack of points scored in the “it’s the thought that counts” category.

So as men often do I respond to the over all situation by being a grumpy poo poo head. At this point all phone conversations have come to a stopped and by the time I leave the office I imagine that like me, the lovely Mrs. is stewing in preparation for a face to face show down. On the drive home I was trying to get in the proper frame of mind so I don’t just go in acting like a mean flame thrower. Well that wasn’t working so I was still pretty cross when I walked in, I come in the front door and notice there is a homemade sign handing over the doorway to the dinning room that reads.

We are Having a Baby!!!!!

How about that? Needless to say there was lots of hugging and no fussin. Just me feeling quite foolish for being such a grump. Ain’t life grand?

Why won’t they just make it stop!

I am being tortured at work. Have you ever been in a situation like this? Where something in your place of employment is just making you completely uncomfortable every single day, and you can stop thinking about it even when your not there? See I have this issue where I pass by this window every day several times a day and can’t help being disturbed by the image I see outside. Frankly I am appalled that the company I work for is so intimately associated with this object of my torment on top of it all. I have mentioned before that I work in a large corporate “Campus” with lots of buildings. In fact I work on the second floor in one of the many buildings, so when I visit the break area to retrieve my lunch from the fridge or buy a soda etc. I can see other buildings across a short distance and from the slight elevation I can even see into other buildings, sometimes I can see people and even discern what they are doing. Here is where my torture begins, One of the buildings in the middle of my vista is a lovely three story brick building with a curved arching metal roof with a dark patina finish and a large expanse of clear glass windows twenty foot tall across the entire third floor. From my vantage point you can easily see people passing these windows, and if you pause for a short period you can’t help but notice that people pass this entire expanse of windows most of them very quickly, actually many of them appear to be running! Now I am ashamed to admit this but I think my company is supporting some sort of physical fitness center. I mean the depravity of individuals can not be stopped at times but for an entire company to endorse even go so far as supporting this kind of moral sickness is just putting my stomach in knots. Here I am a over indulgent soft in the middle thirty something trying to maintain my palatial waistline. This kind of guilt trip staring me in the face everyday is nearly more than I can take! I mean it’s gotten so bad that I am even starting considered going over there and taking part in this “healthy” activity garbage. Oh won’t you please offer advice on how I can resist the temptation to sink to the level of improving my physical wellness?

Tickled pink!

Be very very quiet… shh we can’t let “them” hear. I will take this opportunity and risk consequences of spoiling a surprise, and announce that I am going to be promoted! As of May 1st (baring some unforeseen corporate executive kibosh) I will be changing roles with my company. There I said it, it’s published and if you work for the same company as me you can blab it around but that will mean that I know your reading my blog (that I only write or post on lunch/break) when you should be working. So if you don’t want me to rat you out to your boss and ruin your entire future with the company keep it quiet!

Now for the even better news, for once I was pleasantly surprised by the figures as they were related to me in the monetary details segment of the super secret conversation with my manager. As with every other change in position I will make detailed calculations and theoretical assumptions about how much I can make in a position or what I am going to be offered and even when I am relatively conservative in my conclusions I am most often disappointed at the final outcome. Memory recalls discussions like;

Me “well I feel with my experience and qualifications I couldn’t accept less than one million dollars a year for this position”
Hiring manager most often replies with something like “we will give you a buck seventy-five and a free tee shirt with the company logo”
I respond “deal!” because I am an excellent negotiator.

But this time I am pleased with the money, granted by corporate world standards I am pretty much getting another company tee shirt but who cares what the world thinks!

The only odd part is that we do seam to be keeping this a secret here at work. Now I don’t know if this is in consideration of a formal announcement from management or simply an effort to sneak the approval forms in to a pile of innocuous forms awaiting executive approval unnoticed. But either way I am sure that the cat will be fully out of the bag come Monday!

I am a scammer!

I want to be like monkistan when I grow up so I stole his counter!

Back in the Saddle again

Well I am back at work this week after a well deserved week off. I mentioned before that I didn’t do anything of note, outside of a celebration dinner with the lovely Mrs. and the boys. I back at work (both jobs) now and getting into the swing of things again.

An opportunity for advancement may present it’s self very soon at job nubero uno. In short one of the senior analyst in our department has left the company he “resigned” (riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight) any who this has created an opening that I will surly have a strong shot at. The position would not be the rocket ship to glorious fortune and adulation or a fast track to Life Goal Career or anything but still represents a progression in my career path and includes some marked advantages over my current position, which is good because they have decided that a trained chimp (or untrained for that matter) could provide much better job performance in my current position than myself. I feel like I am a shoe in for the position, the only thing I am truly wondering about is how much more, if any salary would be attached. If I received an increase to the “minimum” salary for the job grade it would be notable cabbage bump, but I have my suspicions that there is a not completely secret (yet unpublished) company policy of only giving 5% salary increases even with a promotion, as some sort of pencil pusher number jockey’s method of cost control. Which probably earned some pinhead a plastic pyramid shaped desk trophy for recognition, six weeks before they axed him. Part yet another cost restructuring effort which would earn some executive another six figure baffle in his golden parachute. But I digress, though I may be a little jaded and sarcastic about the entire corporate job universe I remain decidedly optimistic about the future.

Vacation Holiday I love you…

Sorry about not posting much for the last week or so, I have taken time off of work and have only had minimal access to my computer (busy biting my boys and chasing the wife around, if you know what I mean) I haven’t been doing anything of great importance so I will spare you the details. I do have to mention that Monday was our 7th anniversary! woo hoo, seven years and she still hasn’t gone off the deep end and dispatched me in my sleep, what a truly patient woman the Lord has given me. Other than that I have been spending lots of time out doors trying to get grass to grow in the three or for trouble spots in my front lawn ad the rest of the time just hanging out with my family. Hope to have more to post in the next couple of days; Saturday is back to the salt mine with job part duex, and Monday back to the full schedule

in the mean time it back to a full regiment of professional napping.

Comfort foods

I was listening to All Things Considered on NPR yesterday on my way from job uno to job part deux, and the interview was with the author of “the Language of Baklava” which sounded like an interesting book because of the food imagery and the sensory queues used to illustrate the scenes in the story. But more than that the story got me thinking about my own food memories. I started thinking about my childhood and my Grandmothers cooking and the warm memories of being a child in her home while meals were being prepared.
My grandmother was raised in a small town is south Texas (as am I) where people are often still raise with a different perspective on manors and respect for others. She is a short lady all of four foot eleven at her stature apex, she is a round little lady with a warm heart and welcoming disposition toward everyone. As far as I know everyone in my parent’s generation or younger who has ever had the pleasure of meeting her knows her simply as Nanny and this is a moniker that truly fits as she held a critical role in the upbringing of not only her own children, but their children, and even some of their children as well. Everyone of my family members have been shooshed from her kitchen at some point, and most of the males have had their paw smacked lovingly for being caught in the act of pilfering a nibble or roll from the stovetop before a meal was fully prepared and laid on the table. After listening to the this program I found my mind wandering back to Nanny’s kitchen where I was wrapped in the aroma of chicken broth wafting through the air from the five gallon pot boiling on the stove. My little Nanny would be standing at the counter adjacent to the stove with her heavy plastic pastry sheet rolled out with a soup can holding each corner in place on the counter preventing it from rolling back up into it’s permanently coiled posture. She would be working a large wooden rolling pin back and forth messaging a lump of dough into a flat quarter inch thick sheet which she then cuts into strips a couple of inches wide and a few inches longer. Each of these overgrown noodle looking pieces of dough would be slipped into the bubbling pot for a warm transforming bath where they become the most delicious dumplings one could ever imagine. Now I know that some may say that dumplings are intended to be lumps of dough or neatly rolled balls, but I would gladly offer my Nanny’s flat dumplings in a taste bud show down with anything you could offer. I recall many meals where I would ask for a second portion and when instructed to help myself I would intentionally avoid the chicken and ladle through the pot to find the biggest remaining dumplings as if panning for gold. I have to say that my own mother and stepmother, as well as a few other ladies I have known make an excellent pot of chicken and dumplings. But if my Nanny asked me to I would gladly throw rocks at all these offerings in trade for just one bowl of her chicken and flat dumplings.

Truly truly disappointing

We went on our field trip yesterday but I do not have any pictures of my beautiful mosaic piece I created which will make you become completely jealous of my incredible artistic abilities, because I didn’t make anything! Here is the entire story. We were allowed to pick any project that cost less than twenty dollars, and the company would pay for it because it is a company sponsored team thing. So I picked a rectangle and was going to lay out my design in the middle. But when I asked the for a cutter to shape the glass to

the Mosaic Nazi said “well I can make a couple of cuts for you, but yours would require a lot of work”
I said “Well I am willing to do the cutting myself, I just need the nippers to do it”
Mosaic Nazi said “well that’s really to complicated, you would need to come take a class and maybe be working on something that would be more than thirty five dollars, and sign a waver blah blah blah”

She didn’t ask anything about my skill set or for that matter she didn’t ask me anything, She was kinda condescending like her stupid mosaic shop was full of work from the master craftsmen and I was only qualified to finger paint. I don’t like the clunky pieces where the colors are all jumbled up and there is no pattern, just cramming pieces that fit on a stupid form. I would have more fun with a coloring book. Oh well I am disappointed that my artistic drive still goes without being satiated.

Field trips woo hoo!

My group at work is going on a half day “Team Builder” today (I prefer to call it a field trip because I am childish) I don’t know who originated the idea of work Team Builders but I think its brilliant! You get to get away from work and do some goofy task in an effort to grow closer as a team unit blah blah blah yada yada yada. Yeah whatever man! Any excuse to get off the cube farm is a good excuse to me. We are going to play arts and crafts and I am really looking forward to it. I have not had an opportunity to exercise my creativity in a tactile sense for a very long time. I already have an Idea of what I want to do; it’s called an Irish Trinity Knot. I don’t know all the details of how I am going to compose it but I know that this symbol is going to be the central focus. I will post a picture of what I make for you to admire. Oh don’t be jealous, just get back to work looser! Ha ha

Won't you play along?

I have desided to speak in a rediclous vernacular the rest of the day. And it ith going to thound like thiiis. I will not ansther questhtions about why I thound like thith way I will thimply anther with “what do you mean?” which will thound perfectly normal and should confound my victhems even more!


come on you know you want to, if you can't do that voice try another! it will be fun.

Wipe that stupid smirk off your face

I have not been this generally happy in years. I don’t mean to gloat I just can’t help saying it out loud. My wife and I are communicating like never before, which improves all the other aspects of our marriage (if you know what I mean, wink, wink, nudge, nudge).My boys are both healthy and are so well behaved that I am totally impressed with them, plus I am amazed every day at how quickly they are growing and how smart children are at such an early age. Both of my jobs are going well, no drama and that’s the only thing that I find hard to deal with. Our finances are on a plan to get better, things are pretty much the same except we have a plan to manage our money and we are working the plan. I have to say that I know why all these things are in order at this time. I have been spending more and more time in prayer these days. Our church started a program of twenty four hour a day prayer on March 1st and it has run every day for the month of March and was just extended through the end of April. They had sign up sheets with one hour slots and a room set aside just for this purpose. The Mrs and I were only able to sign up a couple of times last month but we signed up for about ten hours this month. I can feel the changes in myself that are taking place simply because I am thinking more about God and what he wants for my life.

Stupid blogger!

I wrote the posting below before I ran out for lunch today and when I published it blogger made my entire page a blank white page!

I guess this is catching on faster than they can keep up with. Anyway sorry for the delay.

Been a while

Sorry I have not posted in a while. After my last posting I had a couple of days away from work, only to return to a hectic month end and frantic start to the new one. Followed by a beautiful weekend! Man the weather was most excellent, in the high 70’s or low 80’s both days. I have to say spring here in the Midwest can be very enjoyable. Right now though the only thing on my mind is lunch, I am starving! Okay with my waist line that is pretty unlikely. I am feeling very hungry though. I am meeting my good friend Eddie for lunch, walking across the “campus” to one of the dining facilities that is located in the middle and convenient for both of us. I am looking forward to the walk outside too, spring has sprung! Come back later and we can talk about how much I hate daylight savings time changes.

Up periscope!

Well I am going to share a story with you that may make you want to never read this blog again for fear. Let me start as always with a little back story. Did you know that March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness month? Well it truly is and to commemorate the festivities I have signed up to have a live action movie shot in my colon! Okay that’s not exactly true but almost. I am going for a colonoscopy on Wednesday, talk about fun. Speaking of here is a fun fact “Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, second only to lung cancer. In 2005, an estimated 104,950 new cases will be diagnosed, and an estimated 56,290 patients will die of the disease” that’s a happy thought isn’t it?
Now before I get you all worked up to the best of my knowledge I am perfectly healthy (for someone who’s overweight and gets virtually no physical exercise), but I think you might be coming down with something serious. The reason for the roto-rooter action is that my father had colon cancer in his early thirties and subsequently had all but a small section of his large intestine removed. Fortunately for us he survived a harrowing experience with the big “C” and will likely live to be a very old (and mean too). Because of this family history I am considered “at risk” and must ensure that I am checked regularly to ensure that I am able to grow old enough to be a burden to my children. I spoke with my doctor who sent up my exam and told him that I have my head up there most of the time as it is and would be happy to look around and tell him what I see but he was insistent that a professional butt doc must perform the exam. Hey I am just trying to do my part to keep medical cost down.
I am not really that concerned about the procedure itself, I am more preoccupied with the preparations. First I am to have no solid food for the entire day tomorrow (which is enough to make a guy like me bite someone’s arm off because it looked kinda like a Snickers bar through the fog of starvation) and secondly I have to take laxatives to expedite the evacuation of the brown bombers. Nothing sounds more appealing than bringing on what amounts to an intentional case of Montezuma’s revenge. So if you see me walking quickly down the hall with a panicked look on my face, for the love of all that is clean and good don’t try to stop and chat me up!

Burnt bean juice story goes on!

I want to give a quick thanks to Monkistan and Freddy for their recommendation that I purchase a French Press to satiate my coffee jones. The Mrs. and I have made use of it every day and find the minimal labor involved produces a much better product than a conventional America coffee maker. I think I would like to discover the finer points of making really strong coffee as mine has given me the impression that I am making weak coffee. That may because it lacks the rancid acidity and crude oil consistency of the institutional mud provided free of charge by my employer in a thinly veiled effort to make the hamsters turn the wheel faster. If you have any suggestions about reasonably priced whole bean coffees please let me know.

Ahhhhhhhhhh

What an awesome week! Well I guess any week where you only go to work for two days and get paid for five is bound to compare favorably to others that aside I did have a good week. I accomplished most of the things on my “to do” list on my days off. Funny how people think any time off of work is “Vacation”. My boss put a very fine point on this last week for me when she returned from three days off, where she had taken a “Trip”. Simply put Vacation is where you go somewhere with your spouse (or significant other for the sake of political correctness) and you relax and have fun. A Trip is when you go somewhere and take your children with you, note the distinct difference and the conspicuous absents of FUN and Relaxation. And further “Time Off” is where you are not at your place of employment but are getting paid. Each of these has a diminishing allure but still remain much more appealing that any day at work, I don’t care if you have casual Fridays or not. Alas I digress, my point is that I had three days off that were both productive as I was able to accomplish everything on my list of chores that the weather would permit, and relaxing to the point that I was spending a greater volume of time with the people I love that the other sheep on the cube farm.

An indignant father

My wife and I took our youngest son to the doctor during my time off work this week. He has a condition called Ptosis (pronounced TOE-sis) this is a medical term for drooping eyelid. This is not a life threatening condition but unchecked could lead to degraded or even loss of vision. This is a kind of shocking thought, that your child could conceivably loose sight in one of his eyes. We have been instructed to begin therapy to strengthen his weaker eye by covering his “good” eye for an hour a day with a patch and return for a follow up visit in a month. The visit with the doctor left me with the distinct impression (though not the confirmed diagnosis) that my son will end up needing surgery to correct this, but his physician prefers to pursue this kind of treatment when a child is closer to two years old. Ethan will be a year old in May. I am grateful that this doctor would rather evaluate his development for a while before putting my boy under the knife this makes me feel some comfort that this is neither irreversible nor so urgent that drastic steps must be taken immediately to reverse the current course of his condition. Frankly my feelings are a little mixed up about this entire thing, on one hand I know this is not a horrible thing and with proper care could be corrected, but on the other hand no one wants their child to be burdened with anything remotely negative let alone something that could be considered a health issue. Though I know this is not possible for anyone who walks the same earth that you and I do. I feel a little selfish too, knowing that there are parents in the world at this very second who have no idea where their child will get their next meal and the last thing they did eat was not likely to qualify as a meal by our standards. But at the same time I am upset that my child has to overcome this at all even though he is far too young to understand or even perceive my indignation. I don’t know were I to go with this and can only assume that I needed simply get this off my chest. If you pray, or even if you don’t please think of my little boy and all the other little defenseless sprouts that need us to look out for them and when you do, wish them well. Maybe it will do you and I some good to take our minds off the petty little issues that clutter up our lives for a moment or two and think of someone else.

iPod update!

Okay so here is the latest update on my free iPod effort. I spoke to my brother in Dallas and he has signed up for the Block Buster offer, so now I have three of the four referrals needed. I was hoping to have all the requirements completed and have my new toy in hand by now, but alas this not the case. If you are a kind hearted soul who would like to help me get a very expensive toy without having to pay for it or if you are interested in getting your very own iPod for free check out my original posting for more info.

It pays to be resourceful

I recently spoke to a co-worker who had the break pads replaced on the front of his car and the rotors turned and it only cost him $130.00 or so. I replaced the pads on mine, and put on new rotors (the old ones were scored beyond correction) and bought a new small floor jack and jack stands for $100. I got the job done and only spent $60 on the job and the rest on boy toys. So I am feeling pretty full of myself this evening! I would be gloating even more except I have to do the rears tomorrow, which I was not expecting. I mentioned that I am off job numbero uno for the first three days this week but I am about to leave for job part duex. But three chores on the list are done; garage cleaned (good enough for credit anyway), jeep breaks fixed (the part that was planned), and door handle replaced (this one only took me a year to get to). Hopefully tomorrow will be as productive. I am sure it will, because we take our youngest Ethan to the doctor in the morning then, we are going to swing by and get our French Press. Caffeine always helps with productivity!

Holy Cow!

What a week, I have been unable to post anything of substance all week! I am so glad that it is Friday, not that my week is over I still have Job Part Deux tonight and tomorrow. I am taking the first three days off next week from Job Numero Uno. Not that I have a special event or anything this will be the last of my carry over vacation from last year, so it’s use it or loose it by the end of March. I plan on being a productive boy around the homestead; Break job on Honey bunny’s car, Yard work getting the lawn ready, cleaning the garage, repairing some of the window screens and a gate, plus a couple of other handyman projects. I am going to make a list so I make sure and get some stuff done while I am off. If I don’t plan it out I am likely to just flop around the house and sleep a on every available piece of furniture, not that I want to, just because I am so good at it and feel obligated. I can’t promise that I am going to be blogging much in the next five days but you never know. So if you don’t come back for a couple of days you never know what your going to miss.

I have been on blogabout

Okay so I figure I need to throw out some explanation for my lack of productivity this week on the blog. I am not attempting to make excuses but there are a number of mitigating factors, first I have been busy at work (attempting to salvage a month that was all but written off in the first three days), second am still in a kind of funk, I wouldn’t consider myself grumpy any longer but I am not in my normal state of mine, and finally much related to the second point my creative juices have not been so juicy this week. I like it when I have a funny story or can write about something that I feel I can lend a unique perspective, and this week I have neither fell funny or had any perspective at all just going through the motions like the Duncan doughnuts guy (you know “time to make the doughnuts”). I have been spending a lot of time reading other peoples blogs, and frankly that has just made my blog feel even more insignificant. If you check out the volume and depth of material some people are able to put into daily postings you have to wonder why you were not told before now that you are a potato head! Anyway I can feel my stride coming back, so check back for more dribble from my leaky brain. In the mean time check out some of these blogs that I just found, you may have already seen them but if you haven’t you should. americanwarmonger, View from the Pew, Sigmund Carl Alfred, the Anchoress. And when you have cleaned you plate of that you can have some pudding, but not until. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?

Warning pass at your own risk

I am in a nasty mood today, earlier I would have said that I was “feeling grumpy”. At this point I would have to say this mood has only managed to fester and turn me into the equivalent of the mean old man who lived on the neighborhood corner in your childhood. You know the one I am talking about that man who kept, and most certainly destroyed any toy that had the misfortune of wandering into his yard. I have no idea what manifest this foul attitude in me today, I am generally a pretty pleasant guy. I had a pretty good weekend (maybe too short, but when are they not) and nothing of note has occurred that would have set my emotional rudder on a course for Oscars can, but who knows. At this point all I can say is, Stay off my freaking grass you punks! I’ll call the cops on you; don’t think I don’t know where you live. Your parents know you are out of the house dressed like that? Mumble mumble grrr rrrr.

I could not comment on your blog today

So Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to my blog. Sorry your previous comments do not show. I am too lazy to copy and paste them over but I hope you will like the functionality of Haloscan better than what you were getting before.

What's with Blogger?

Yesterday I had to fight to get my own posting up and today I am not able to post comments on other peoples blogs. Now how am I gonna waste a bunch of time at work on a Friday afternoon!

I just learned something funny. I normally write my postings in MS word because I can't spell; as some of you may have noticed by my debt free posting where I wrote debit everytime I meant debit, that posting has since been revised(thanks Eddie). Anyway I compose a post in MS Word then copy it into Blogger,edit the HTML there, and post it. For this posting I just started typing away in blogger because it was going to be just the short two liner above. Then I think to myself "better spell check dummy" so I hit the spell check button on the tool bar. Now here is the funny part, the spell check utility did not recognize "Blogger" or "blogs" ha ha, woo hoo man that's good stuff. What? Well maybe I don't care if you don't think it's all that funny! I thought it was.

You ever wake up with a song in your head?

I wake up with some obscure song in my head pretty frequently. I don't realize it’s there until I am in the shower, and I find my self humming a song out loud or in my head while scrubbing away at my noggin. It’s always some odd song too, not one that I may have heard the day before on the radio or in a movie and most certainly nothing that is in my CD collection. This morning’s selection was “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, and of course I did not know all the correct lyrics so I end up making large parts of them up as I play the tune in my head. So when I get to work I am compelled to look up the lyrics online. I was not surprised to find no less than five sites with incorrect lyrics listed above the official site. I have no idea what caused this particular tune to peculate up from the nether regions of my mind today but let us contemplate the lyrics that the Boss laid down.

Blinded by the light
Revved up like a Deuce
Another runner in the night
[repeat to fade]

Madman drummers bummers Indians in the summer with a teenage
diplomat In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way in to his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder feeling kinda' older I tripped the merry go round
With this very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing the calliope crashed to the ground

The calliope crashed to the ground and she was blinded by the light,
revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night.

Blinded by the light
Revved up like a Deuce
Another runner in the night
[repeat to fade]

Some silicone sister with her manager mister told me I got what it takes
She said I'll turn you on sonny to something strong play the song with the funky break
And go kart Mozart was checkin' out the weather chart see if it was safe outside
And little Early Pearly came by in his curly wurly and asked me if I needed a ride

Asked me if I needed a ride
And she was blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night

Blinded by the light
She got down but she never got tight
She's gonna make it through the night
She's gonna make it through the night

Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun, but mama
That's where the fun is

Some brimstone baritone anti cyclone rolling stone preacher from the east
Says Dethrone the Dictaphone hit it in his funny bone and that's where they expect it least
And some new mown chaperone was standing in
The corner watching the young girls dance
And some fresh sewn moonstone was messing with his frozen zone reminding him of romance

The calliope crashed to the ground
And she was blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night

Blinded by the light
Revved up like a Deuce
Another runner in the night
[repeat to fade]

Scott with a slingshot finally found a tender spot and throws his lover in the sand
and some bloodshot forget me not his daddy's within earshot save the buckshot turn up the band.

She got down but she never got tight she's gonna' make it through the night.


If you don’t know what a deuce is (or you though he was singing something else) it becomes clear when you read this. I don’t know if this page conveys a true story but it sounds believable. If you find yourself humming “Blinded by the Light” later today it’s just because you have succumb to my Jedi mind powers, come over to the dark side and feel the power!

Late night fun and games

If you can believe my luck I am working right now. If you check the time on this post you will see that it is a ridiculous hour to be doing anything but sleeping. We have some blah blah blah critical upgrade that requires several people to be involved in testing the effected applications. Fortunately for most of the people involved they work at this hour and this will not interfere with their vampire friendly sleep schedules. Once again I am so freaking important to this operation that I get to be on two conference calls where my input is rarely needed. Basically all I am doing is functioning as a relay. Someone on the tech bridge says “everything is back up, can we have the users test?” and I say to the user bridge “everything is back up, can we have the users test?” In fact if the participants from one call were allowed to join the other I could be sleeping! But we can’t allow the techs and the normal users to mingle. You understand how easy it is to pass nerd from one group to another these days. My only consolation is that thanks to the modern conviences I am working from home. I am able to access the company network from my laptop, over a high speed cable internet connection and I have no land line phone so I am using three different cellular phones to connect to ten or fifteen different people in several cities.

Free iPod, the saga continues

Okay so here is the update on my free iPod. So far I have only one person signed up who has completed the offer, a most excellent co-worker (not just for signing up to help me get a free iPod) she signed up for Block Buster online for $10 the first month and you can cancel after that. I have three people that I don’t know, have never heard of or from for that matter, that signed up and have not completed the offer, Cotton picking “lookie lews”. My step-mom signed up the other day but could not get to the offer page. I think this is because she is on AOL (AOSMELL) and it acts weird when you are trying to get outside their virtual amusement park to visit sites on the true internet not owned by AOL/Time Warner. That is an entire discussion for another posting. I intend to start calling my family members to start applying high pressure sales tactics on them this week. Was hoping that I would not have to resort to such drastic measures, I already tried bribery and that didn’t result in any help. I so desperately want this stupid toy that I check the status of my account as many times as I check my home email. And before you go there, No I will not just go out and buy one that defeats the entire idea! I want it and I want it for free! So if I have finally worn you down with my whining here is the link to my referral site.

If you want more information before you sign up here is the link to my posting which includes some details of the offer.

Big Fat Fatty Fatso

Why are people so lazy? I have noticed that a lot of my co-workers will frequently take the elevator to go from one floor to the next rather than take the stairs. I can understand if you have a disability or any other condition that makes it uncomfortable to take the stairs, unless your condition is that your just plain fat. Now don’t get me wrong I am not fitness nut I am well above my “target” weight (as my physician likes to remind me) and in fact I am kinda lazy myself. But when the elevator and the stairs are ten feet apart and I am going DOWN I am going to opt for the stairs. Why would you stand there and wait for the elevator to go down one floor? I noticed this because the building I work in is engineered with our sedentary job lives in mind; parking lots are all at lease one hundred yards away, two sets of wide, gradually sloped stairs for every set elevator, and rumor has it that the elevators have been intentionally slowed to encourage people to take the stairs. This could be true because I have emerged on the second floor from the stairs to witness others emerge from the elevator who I noted entering on the first at the same time I entered the stair well. Don’t we realize that we are killing ourselves slowly? Oh I guess not in a society that would sue a fast food chain for selling food that was not good for us, rather than take responsibility ourselves. On another note, Man I could go for a Twinkie right now!

Burnt Bean Juice

Man I love coffee! I don’t know why but I felt like declaring that. I prefer good coffee but I will drink institutional coffee too. I am not a “Hardcore” coffee drinker though; I only drink one cup a day, I don’t like black coffee (artificial sweeteners and half and half is my favorite) and generally only have coffee on weekdays. My wife broke the carafe for our coffee maker more than a year ago and we just sold the maker in a garage sale instead of buying a new carafe because it was ugly and could only made two cups badly at one time. I sometimes want to buy a good coffee maker for home, but then I think about the fact that I will not settle for a cheap piece of junk that makes mud, and so I am too cheap to spend the money for what I really want. Plus when I want a caffeinated drink at home I will generally just have hot tea (Earl Gray) with honey and milk!

I am going to pee on my laptop.

Okay I admit that is a crude thought not to mention an ugly mental image but let me explain. Bare with me, this requires a little bit of set up.
My job function affords me little personal space because of the large area necessary to accommodate the number of computers and monitors required for my assigned responsibilities. In addition my position is so freakin crucial that when I go to lunch or even take a break for biological accommodations, another person must come in and basically keep my chair warm so that it appears my position is covered. Therefore my work space is more of a public domain than the rest of my neighbors in the cube farm. My one consolation for this is that I have a laptop PC (because I am frequently on call) where most of the people who sub for me have a desktop pc and share a community laptop when they are required to be on call. Although this is a childish thing it is a highly coveted status symbol in this environment. Now I should clarify that I do have a cubical assigned but rarely am able to make use of it with the exception of an occasional lunch consumed there in order to work through my break. What normally happens when someone comes in to cover my lunch is I will undock my laptop and replace it with the on call laptop and take mine to my cube so that I can check my email and post to my blog during my lunch, because I only do this sort of thing on lunch(sure). This week however several others in the group needed to use the on call laptop from a conference room where they were doing an intensive after action review to report on last months performance short comings. This created a situation where the person who came to cover for me did not have access to a PC when I left for lunch. Now the obvious solution was for me to leave my PC behind for them to use, but for some reason this did not sit well with me. It was as if my last foothold on personal space was forced from my cold steal grip, like a bone from a growling pit-bull.
After some discussion with another male peer he conveyed that he had similar feelings about people coming into his work area while he worked the night shift. During the day this same area was occupied by several people but by night he was the entire staffing requirement. He stated that he would be working there alone and someone would enter the area with a completely legitimate reason in order to perform some job related function in the domain where he reined supreme by night and he could feel the hairs on his neck bristle. And thoughts of suspicion would invade his mind, not real malice but more of a cowardly lion glare would manifest. This reminded me of my own feelings in a similar evening job situation. Therefore this must be some male disposition a manifestation of the primal male who lays dormant in all men, and when called upon by will or outside influence can never be completely suppressed. These feelings must be excised from same gene that draws us inexorably to sports like the simulated combat in paintball or rugby. I refuse to immaculate my self for the sake of political correctness and will embrace the caveman in me. I have come to the conclusion that the only way to properly reclaim my rite to dominion over personal space as a male is to mark my territory! Do you think the IT department will service my PC if it is damaged in the process?

The End of a Dream

I don’t know if you have heard of this but HGTV has an annual contest where they give away a “Dream Home”. Each year they produce a television program that tours the home and gives a short history on the build and features. This year the home was built on Lake Tyler near Tyler Texas. I think it’s an awesome home and I would move back to Texas at the drop of a hat. I don’t think I would have designed it the same way if I were building my own dream home because it’s just not designed for a family with young children. My wife absolutely loved it from the lay of the property and design of the home even down to the color of the furnishings within. Alas we were not meant to win the contest, the winning family from the Chicago area was notified on Tuesday and there is a short video on the web site. Oh well maybe the one for next year will be even better and it was fun to imagine ourselves the winner at least we were able to enjoy that. Just curious, what is the most extravagant, or interesting thing you have ever won?

Stupid Groundhog!.

This morning as I pressed the garage door opener revealing a crisp thirty-something degree morning, and I found my thoughts conjuring Spring. It is most certainly around the corner, and will arrive none too late in order to thaw my slumbering will to play in the dirt. As I gander out at the trees and wooded areas on my commute to work I can feel them ready to burst forth with little green shoots and blooms of color aching to shed their dull brown winter coats. I can hear them tell me that they too look forward to the next page in the book of seasons as much as I. This morning I went so far to indulge myself that I envisioned myself plodding along behind my trusty mower providing my lawn the first in a season of manicuring. Then I began making a list of things to be done in the out of doors in order to preen my little plot of ground into oasis of peaceful green in my otherwise synthetic world

Debt Free!

I have been working on a plan the last few months to get completely out of debt! I know some will read this and dismiss the idea right off, but it is possible and I no longer believe that “debt is a tool” as the consumer machine would have us all believe. I came across this guy Dave Ramsey a few months ago and read his book “Financial Peace” which has been revised since the edition I read. I started listening to some of his radio shows which are archived online and the ideas he presents are simple but totally make sence. Then a family member gave is a copy of "The Total Money Makeover” for Christmas. I have been slow to read it due to a lack of spare time, but I am about half way into it and I am getting very excited! Don’t get the wrong idea this is not a get rich scheme, it’s simply a plan for financial freedom. I am not going to go into any details because if you are interested you can check out his site. I have been working on our written budget and a spreadsheet to help us manage everything, and hope to sit down with the Mrs tonight so we can discuss it and start putting a plan into action. I never though I could get excited about paying bills. Just though I would share this with you, Back to the funny business tomorrow I promise.

No news today.

Sorry I was unable to post today. Work was very busy and cut into my lunch time inspiration time. I promise to be more fruitful tomorrow. Now go away! Unless you want to help me get a free iPod =)

Oscar Time!

I would like to contribute my two cents to all of the “buzz” around the Academy Awards this Sunday.


Who Freakin Cares!

Do you really think I should?

The White Shadow

I shall don a new moniker, from now on you can refer to me as “The White Shadow”, not because I resemble Ken Howard or that I played a white former NBA professional retiree who gets a job as a basketball coach in a predominantly black inner-city high school on television, which I most certainly did. The title addition comes from the fact that I have become aware of the fact that I may have a twin, a doppelganger if you will. My friend Eddie and I are a couple of very similar fellows; both mid thirties, married, kids, conservative Christians, some rocky history in our youth, working for the same company, similar juvenile sense of humor, dashing good looks (though I am quite stunning to look and Eddie is merely handsome) and these are only the obvious issues, I am sure there are more. We were discussing this the other day and all the similarities between us and only came up with one obvious difference between us, but what that was escapes me now.

I have learned my lesson

You every go to extra length to defeat a system that is broken simply to satisfy your own wanton desires? I went to one of our many vending machines this afternoon in order to procure myself a tasty beverage (Mountain Dew, the breakfast of champions!) and the mechanism that allows you to use paper money for this transaction was not functioning. In fact I made sure it was not functioning by attempting to place my dollar in the machine no less than five times, and then bent over in an attempt to pear into the device as if I may be able to see why it is not functioning. At this point some less determined folk would have given up and simply wondered to another part of the building to attempt their commerce activity with a different vendor. I am build with more headstrong material (some refer to this as being stubborn). And getting the opportunity to subvert the system that has been put in place by “the Man” which attempts to force me into more exercise against my will, in order to satiate my caffeine/sugar fix brings me great pleasure. I devised a scheme and simply went to the candy machine located adjacent to the soda machine and inserted my dollar in this machine, under the guise of an intended transaction with the Candy Pimp so as to fool this machine into falling into my plot. Once the second machine had fallen for my ruse and accepted my money, I simply pressed the change return button assuming that the machine would be unable to return paper money and would serve as a Silver for Paper monetary exchange apparatus. All though my plot worked in essence, I was sorely disappointed by the sound of a One Arm Bandit that had hit triple cherries on three wheels, as the pawn in my game began to deposit what sounded like a hundred dimes into a loud tin pan! It took me longer to extract the ten dimes from the small noise amplification device than it would have taken me to take the walk that these machines conspired to put me on. But I still got my Dew and didn’t have to take an extra step to get it. Note to self; if the machine will not take your money fat boy, Keep Walkin.

I almost peed my pants

I was listening to NPR on my way home from work, which I often do because as my wife says, “there is very little hippness left” in me anymore, when the show “All Things Considered” played the story on this link. You will need speakers and a few minutes with minimal distractions but you just might get a chuckle.

Click on the title of this post to navigate to the link.

Phone Nerd

How many of you use your cell phone to its fullest extent? I take a ribbing at work from my co-workers because I use my phone so much. I find this quite odd when I work for a phone company. You would think that most people here would be Technology Dorks. And it's not that I talk on my cell phone a lot, but I use the other functions frequently. My wife and I send text message back and forth as many times as we talk, something like 400 a month. I also use the calendar especially to keep my schedule for Job Part Duex and have the reminder alarm set to make sure I am not late. Plus I use the calculator all the time, more than I do the one setting on my desk. I guess I am a nerd! Man there is really no escaping that. I know I would love to have one of those PDA phones, but who has that kind of money to spend on type of duckets on a glorified toy even if you can use all the features! Heavens knows I don’t I am still trying to get you to help me get a free iPod. Come on tell me how much of a nerd are you?

Back to work slacker!

Okay I am back at the office after taking the morning off. I Had to stay home with the boys while the MRS took her mom, sister and nieces to the airport. So I got to sleep in about 30 min later than a normal Monday. Plus eating Super Sugar Crisp with Josh and watching Jimmy Neutron for an hour or so. I tell you what if you think it’s hard to motivate yourself to roll out and drag your zombie carcass into work on a standard Monday morning; don’t try the half day off thing. I totally did not want to come in today. Then true to form when I do get in there is a major outage going on at one of our sites and everyone looks like they have been pulling their hair out all morning. But the outage had only been going on for 20 min before I walked in.

It’s a cruel world out there on the internet.

At this point I have all but given up on getting a free iPod. It seams like such an easy proposition to me; sign up for an offer (one you are likely to do anyway) then find five other people that are willing to do the same. And a company that gets paid based referrals will send you a free iPod. Simple enough, right? Well at this point I only have one person that has gone through with the entire process (she signed up for Block Buster online, which has better offer than you get from their direct site). I got nothing from my friends and family to whom I sent a direct email plea, which hurts! You cut me deep man, you cut me real bad. Not really but you can expect me to see more emails from me to get those of you who share blood and or history with me begging for your participation. My buddy Eddie had a lot of success initially (12 people who registered) when posting on various message board soliciting the kindness of strangers. So I figured I would give it a try and went out to a few boards that I know of and posted a strait forward request to “help me get a free iPod please” and got a few hits from people who at least looked at the offer, and a few less who took the first step to register but have yet to complete an offer which provides no assistance in accomplishing my goal. Still I figured that this was working pretty well. Frankly I expect some flack from strangers when I post on any board and choose to just take the high road and address what I perceive as there main objection without getting into a heated exchange(which is exactly what I think some on these boards are looking for) and ignore the replies that are just spewing hatred. Then I made the mistake of posting to a message board without trolling about a little to see how this sort of post would be received. I made the posting and before I could refresh the page to see if the posting was even being viewed I had been flamed with obscenities by three or four board members, I just took it in stride as always acknowledging the post that appeared to have some valid objection even if it was completely veiled in obscenities, and ignoring the ones attempting to bath me in Hateraide. Before I knew it there were twenty or more venom filled responses to my brief posting. Admittedly I received twenty plus hits on my blog entry that explains the program, before I was banned with prejudice and a pointed obscenity from one of the moderators. Alas this turned out to be a fruitless adventure toward my free iPod effort, but an educational experience none the less. So take a lesson from my foolishness; never wander into a knife fight armed only with a donation bucket.

Mr. Mom

Played hooky from work today, The Mrs had to go to the airport and pick up her Mother, Sister and Twin nieces. And so I am at home with the boys, trying not to make a mess that will get me in trouble when they get back. It should be nice having them in town for a weekend visit. In the mean time we are just trying to keep entertained. I was trying to show my 3year old have to NBA jam on the Xbox(he has learned the Sesame Street games online really quick, so I figured what the hey) but that got boring real fast. I never realized it would be that much anti-fun to beat someone so badly, but I guess the sport is really sucked out of the whole thing when your throwing the beatdown on your own 3 year old son. Oh well maybe we should try some lunch and cartoons.

Stop your sniveling you big baby!

Well I have come to the conclusion that I am a complete baby when it comes to being ill. I am not proud of that fact but I find it near impossible to be chipper or even pleasant with others when I have even the slightest head cold, which is what I believe I have now. I don’t know if I should just go home and crawl into bed but that’s exactly what I want to do, and nothing else. I fear that a “real man” would tough it out and stay on the job. What I really fear is that I will inconvenience some of my peers by making them cover me in my absence, because my job function can not go unmanned as I am completely critical to the operation. Yeah like the guy on the deep fat fryer at McDonald’s. The drive through window for this entire company of 65,000 people would back up for miles if I left my post unmanned!

How does one determine if the symptoms that they are displaying are as a result of a head cold or seasonal allergies? I have never really investigated the detail for the difference. All I know is my nose is not functioning as a method to draw air into my lungs today because it is otherwise preoccupied with the production of snot which it is storing up a great reserve in the open spaces of my cranium to the point where it threatens to leak out my ears as well as my nose!

Two days off worth the price.

I had off both Sunday and Monday this week, I work the second job on Saturday’s and rarely have two days off together. But I put in for the day off a while back to have Valentines Day off from the main job, simply to make points with the Mrs. By coincident was scheduled off the second job as well, I normally work two days aside from Saturday Monday being a common one. So the much loathed little travel alarm which wakes me from slumber more days than not with a “deet, deet, deet” was silenced for two strait days. In it’s place, gratefully at a much later interval in the morning I was roused by a small man say three foot three with as many years, who very much resembles myself, whispering in my ear”daddy what are you dodin?” When it is so uncommon being woken by your first born is quite a pleasurable experience. Opening my eyes from a comfortable sleep to see a sweet face that barely appears over the side of the bed, makes me smile every time.
For the most part the time off was blissfully uneventful, save the quick trip to the park in the early Monday afternoon, to take advantage of the first truly pleasant weather of the year that has fallen on a day when I am not shackled to a desk, And the arrival of a group of DVDs which were not opened until late on the same eve. I do enjoy low intensity days such as these more than I should.
Alas the time enjoyed did not go unmarred; I believe that I have come down with a head cold as I am stuffy, sneezey and ever so slightly miserable, and after speaking to the lovely Mrs, She and the sprouties appear to be afflicted by the same. O well this to shall pass.

Click here and make me feel better

Happy Valentines Day

Staying home with my honey today! I love playing hooky especially when it is on a day for romance! Go out and buy your significant other some flowers, and don’t think that guys don’t like to get flowers too. It makes us feel romantic and we can always dodge not being macho by saying they were a gift. And if you don’t have a significant other go out and buy yourself a small box of real expensive chocolates and keep all to yourself.


Get a free iPod!

Oh man I am spending too much time on this!

Well I guess it is obvious that the focus for the next few days is going to be my effort to get a free iPod. My friend is pretty close to finished. He has more than enough people signed up as referrals he just has to wait and see if the people have accepted one of the offers. There are a bunch of different ones to choose from. Most of them you have seen ads for or even purchased from.

Columbia house DVD club (normal club requirements) this is the one I did because I need some new DVDs anyway.
Citi Platinum Select Card for College Students.
Video Professor (this one is free, I am sure you probably have to pay the postage)
GM Card
Nexiderm ( nice one ad says “beauty without Botox” not one I would want)
USA Today
Blockbuster online (one of my referrals took this offer, she said it’s only $9.95 for the first month and you can cancel after that)
Cheap Trips
Etc etc.

There are twenty different offers to choose from. I heard that the credit card offers take a long time to confirm, but that was just what I read on another message board. I have seen a few articles on line, plus a whole bunch of people on message boards that say they got theirs so I am giving it a shot. Anyway if you want to get an iPod and like me you are too cheap to spend your hard earned ducats check out thelink and get one for free.

I need the help that way I can get it and stop obsessing and move on with the rest of my life!

Free iPods

Lust for inanimate objects!

Why are we so enamored with a television set? Here’s the back story. My job requires that I monitor the performance of thirty-some call centers (no I am not on the phones!) and these call centers are located throughout thirteen different states. Well Weather can be an impact to both the level of attendance in said call centers and the volume of calls into the same. The first part is easy to understand, you get snow in an area like North Carolina or a Hurricane in Florida and naturally people have problems getting to work, or at least a convenient excuse to say that they are. The second part of driving up call volume is a little bit more abstract. It must have part to do with the same idea of people off work at home, with more time to complain about their phone service. In addition local phone service is frequently impacted negatively by the weather, downed lines or water in the old copper lines. There you go long way around. All this mean that I must keep abreast of the weather in virtually the entire United States (our local territories are spread all over). I manage to do this quite well with the resources available on the internet NOAA or Weather imagine that! Well this method is not sufficient for some of the members of my extended group, so they have been lobbying for a Television and access to the Weather channel for some years before I got here (I have only been in this position for 7 mo). Well now they have their wish! A Television set with satellite access was installed last week. Oh joy. Does it enable me to perform my job with any increase in efficiency? No! What does it do that looking at the weather on the internet did not? You ask. It brings in more lookie loos into see the television. With brilliant commentary like “oh T.V., you gonna be watching your soaps in here?” and “alright cool, you got T.V in here. You get ESPN on that thing?” of course I am sure that here are lots of jobs in the world where people are paid exurbanite amounts to watch television programming of their choice. If I were to give that thing even more than a disinterested glance I am sure I would be caught in the act by a passing Vice President and immediately labeled a terminal slacker, and thus blackballed from all future monetary increase or career advancement.

With all this said don’t mistake my attitude toward television I have no animosity for it. in fact it’s quite the opposite at home, asks my lovely wife she hates it and I can’t live without. Hey sign my guest book, or map thingy!