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.