Memorial Day Weekend

Last weekend was memorial day weekend. Three days of either bumming around the house, or getting many projects done. I chose the first option for the most part. I did get a few things off my list, but with the weather being rainy and crappy Saturday and Sunday most of my time was spent watching TV and playing with the kids. I felt kinda bad I didn't get more done, but it felt good to just chill a little bit too. Monday we took the kids up to the in-laws lake place. I wasn't sure we would go due to the gas prices, but decided that it isn't really that far. I was shooting to leave the house around 10:00am, so when we were in the car by 10:30 I was pretty impressed. We got up to the lake on a perfect day. Not a cloud in the sky and it was warm but not unbearably hot. At first we kinda hung around the camper, but then the boys stared walking all over the place which meant that I was walking all over the place. The in-laws neighbor at the lake has a golf cart and asked if I wanted to take the boys for a ride, so with Andrew in my lap we took a slow lap around the area and down to the water to see Grandpa and Uncle Ken out on the lake fishing. It was the boys first ride in a golf cart. Another first is when William and I went down to the water to meet grandpa. The usually ride back up to the camper on the back tailgate of the pickup truck, but William wasn't to sure about doing that. I finally just picked him up and put him on my lap and he loved the ride. It was a little scary since the truck goes up a slight hill on the way back up and I felt like I might fall off the tailgate too since I had alot of weight in my lap, but we leveled out in a few seconds. After a time of visiting and eating with everyone. Anne and Ken took William for a walk and before we knew it he was walking up to the camper with a fish on the end of his pole. Anne took the fish off the hook and handed it to William with the fins down and he held onto it really good. (pic above) I was sure that when it flipped around that he would drop it, but he didn't. We walked back down to the water and put the fish back into the lake. (Funny I don't think fish swim upside down. Maybe he was holding it a little too tight.) Another first is that the boys got to see grandpa and Ken cleaning fish. I know it's a little gross to look at but they didn't seem to care. Grandpa has this real slick way of cleaning fish where all you need is a knife and you can get a fillet from a fish. When my grandfather used to clean fish it was a huge process where we scaled the fish, cut off the meat (including pulling out the guts), pulled off the skin, and then my grandma would de-bone the fillets, but this was much faster and better. About 6:00pm or so we loaded up the crew and headed back to town with everyone taking a nap except Andrew and me. Bath time and Bed time. Next time up we are planning on doing alot more fishing. I haven't been fishing in years and every time I get up to the lake they are either just coming off the lake or heading out when we are heading home, but next time WE FISH!!

A side note: I didn't bring the camera with me so Ken took the picture of William and the fish. It's a little blurry due to being shot through a plastic cell protector. I am going to be getting rid of my cell phone and buying a prepaid due to the fact that I don't use my cell that much and don't want to pay the monthly bill. I am thinking now that I just might buy the cell with a camera in it for just such occasions.

ARRRRRGGGGG

One of the small perks in Jen's employment with the Disney Store is that we got the opportunity to see Pirates of the Caribbean on opening night last Thursday. It also helps that another employee at the Disney store also works for Rave so he has been making some of this stuff happen. Jen used to get free passes to the Parks in Orlando, but doesn't now, so this was a nice perk. We also got to see Meet the Robinsons for free too, but I was actually looking forward to seeing this movie. This time we were actually pressed into working a little bit before the movies began. An hour before the 8:00pm shows we showed up to the theater and our jobs for the next hour were to welcome everyone to the show and tell them that they could turn in their ticket stubs for free pins or temporary tattoos at the store. The hour went pretty quick, but it was surely a challenge to try and give your schpeel to people trying to hurry into the theatres to get good seats. It was really amazing seeing all of the people who dressed up in costumes to see the show. I only thought this kind of thing happened at star wars shows, but it was really fun to see people (mostly teens and young 20's) dressed up. The theatre hired a Jack Sparrow look alike that was real good. He did a little announcement before all of the showings so he was running all over the place since there were at least 11 screens all starting at basically the same time. We finally settled into a screen at 8:20 to see the movie. Captain jack came in and did his little speech, and let the movie begin !!! Nope, gotta get the previews out of the way.... and now the movie.... nope, more previews.... and now the movie.... nope, more GD previews.. and now the movie... nope, more mother ******g previews. I lost count on the number of previews, but do know that it was 8:55 before the movie began. That is over half an hour of previews and that is also total bullshit. I know we were a captive audience, but for a movie that is almost 3 hours long... get on with it !!! Overall I will say the movie is pretty good. It is a little long (as stated before) and it does get real confusing in the middle with who is on what ship, and who made a deal with the bad guy, and who is screwing who over, but it was entertaining. I was looking forward to seeing it on Saturday with the Cramers, but we weren't able to work out babysitting for that night. We were heading out to the car a little before midnight, what a long day and getting up for work the next morning was just as fun. So I would recommend seeing Pirates of the Caribbean.

Little boy walks up to a door dressed as a pirate for Halloween. The guy giving him candy asks, "Where are your buccaneers?" Little boy replies, "Under my buckan-hat on the side of my buckan-head!!!" (oldie but goodie)

Andrew

Andrew had another eye surgery last week to continue to correct the vision on his left eye. His surgery last year was to correct a muscle problem that prohibited it's use, and the surgery last week was another one just to tweak that surgery. They moved the muscle on his eye another 2mm. That is as far as they dare to move that muscle and his eyes look almost completely level now. He still can't look up with his left eye, but besides that you can't really tell that he has an eye problem. We went down to Indy this week for a follow up appointment to make sure every thing was alright and according to the doctors everything looks good. I was thinking that the nightmare of putting this poor kid through surgery was finally over since they couldn't move that muscle anymore, but I found out that they want to possibly do more surgeries in the future (there are other muscles they can move) and they now are back to trying to find out what caused the muscle to be a problem in the first place. I thought his surgeries were over, now they are talking about more. You know what, I really don't want to put Andrew through more surgeries every year for a millimeter here and there. Unless they can totally correct the problem I am not sure that I like the idea of more surgeries. Yeah I will do whatever it takes to give my son the best opportunity for normal eyesight, but as of right now they say his vision is fine. I just have a fear of them tweaking his eyes to make them level and hose up his vision.

Just the parent in me talking.

But hey, he is a happy little pain in the butt. And everything else is going normal (thank God)

Gag!!

When I go out to the floor at my work there is usually a radio tunred on to entertain the workers and they go through their different tasks. It's usually never the same station ever time and ranges from country to hard rock. Usually I just kind of ignore the radio when I help them out on the floor and will sometimes get annoyed by ANOTHER classic rock station playing the same classic rock claptrap that they play every day, all the freaking time. Just to let you know if I ever hear anything by Guns n' Roses again I might heaad up to the top of a clock tower. Man what an overated, overplayed waste of time and space, why do they still get airtime like they are God's gift to classic rock!!!! Anyhowww a newer station that is around town is a station called Vibe 106.3. The second shift supervisor has gotten hooked on this station and it makes me want to puke. Either that or it's her shaking her hips to this crap. The past couple of weeks I have gotten stuck working next to her while she blasts this station. The format is supposed to be a mixture of song that you can dance to from the 70's-90's. The first 5 minutes that I heard this station I was actually kind of liking it until they started playing disco. DISCO STILL SUCKS!!! It's cute every once in a while but this station plays this crap all the time. They sprinkle in a few "dance" songs from the 80's that make me cringe when I hear them since this was the tripe that was out when I was in high school. Worse of all they play the same stuff over and over. I tell you I want to pukey ukey ukey if I hear boogie oogie oogie ever again. When will people ever learn. DISCO SUCKS. Society hated it so much they they killed a genre of music, and these yahoo's think they can make it with this format? Good Luck.

I WANNA ROCK!!

Friday night I get a call from a guy who saw my pile of rocks during the garage sale and is looking at buying the whole pile. I know this is the same guy that has been trying to go way below my asking price a couple of times, but I just kept telling him the price was firm due to the interest that I have gotten. I have actually been selling quite a few stones a little at a time. Usually someone would stop by and buy 10 rocks at a time for $2 a piece so the pile is a little lower than the last time he saw them. He stopped by Saturday morning to look at the pile and offered me a pretty good price for the pile and he would haul them away that day. I figured that I still made over $2 a stone selling him the whole pile, but he didn't know that. He brought his son with him and with myself and the two wheelbarrows we loaded up his trailer in an hour or so. The fun part of loading his trailer, aside from lifting a couple tons of stone into and out of the wheelbarrow, was that we would have to get a run down the hill on the side of the house to run the wheelbarrow up the ramp on his trailer. I kept thinking to myself that I could see the front tire of the wheelbarrow blowing out due to the speed which we were hitting the ramp and the weight in the wheelbarrow. I didn't blow a tire out, but I did manage to find the only rut between the ground and the bottom of the trailer so the tire got stuck and I went over the top of the wheelbarrow, but lucky for me the wheelbarrow stopped at the top of the flip and I went sideways instead of head first into the rocks on the trailer. I was surprised I wasn't hurt, but I can't tell if my sore arms today are due to lifting all those rocks or due to the accident. It doesn't really matter how, they are just sore. But now I have a huge area in the backyard without stone!!!! whooo hooooo!! Now do I grow grass or start that garden that Jen and I talked about? After that I got a few more projects done around the house, gutter guards put up, Jeep washed, garage door cleaned, and a few other things. After Jen left for work and Andrew got up from his nap we ended up just playing outside for the rest of the day. I was trying to plan on running over to the store to grab something for mother's day, but every time I thought I had a plan, it changed over and over and over. So finally I just said screw it and took the boys with me to the store and picked up some flowers and cards for Jen and my mom.
Sunday was an early start with Andrew getting up at 6:45am. We all headed downstairs and I headed for Meijers for doughnuts that Jen wanted for mother's day. We went to church and then the boys and I headed for my mom's house to hang out with her. Jen's big wish for mother's day was peace and quiet and a nap, so the boys and I cleared out for a while to let her chill. (I am thinking that is a good idea for Fathers day too, just on a golf course) About 4:00 we headed for Jen's parents house and spent the rest of the day there with Tom and I spending the majority of time chasing the boys around outside. We picked up Olive Garden on the way home (Jen's choice again) and after putting the boys to bed we had our dinner sitting at the coffee table in the front room like we used to all the time. Jen didn't make it past 9:30 before I heard her sleeping and I was not that awake either. So I headed to be around 11:00 and fell asleep fast whereupon Andrew wakes up at 1:00am crying (teeth) and William wakes up at 2:30 (just because) and the alarm goes off at 6:00am. whew.. The funny part is that I pull into the parking lot today and the only car in the lot is my bosses. I am thinking "it is Monday isn't it?", it wouldn't be the first time that I woke up thinking it was the wrong day, but never to a point where I drove all the way into work. I found out that he gave all of the workers the day off so it was just the office staff today.

Got a new Toy !!

I got a new toy. It's called a Shoqbox from Philips, and it's the coolest little gadget that I have found in quite some time. Jen's Uncle had one of these things at a family get together at the lake last year. The picture doesn't really do it justice in showing how small this thing is. It is a 512meg mp3 player as well as an fm radio all with integrated speakers built into it. The sound is simply amazing, even at full volume. You can set it to play a playlist or shuffle though all of your mp3's. Rechargable battery so you don't have to go through a bunch of batteries. I was pricing one of these out last year and it was around $100 on-line, but Jen's uncle found it for $40 at sam's club. I made a few trips to sam's club and could never find it. I found out that they don't make it anymore. Huh? Why not. Is it too good of an idea? Did Mac get to them fearing too much competition with the i-pod for a better idea. For giggles the other day I looked them up again and found that I could buy one of these things at Amazon.com for around $55 and I was thinking I would just keep looking, but when I tried to find out how much the shipping was I found out that they had a deal that they would give me $30 back for getting a amazon.com visa card. Score!! So I got my little radio for $30 and a new visa card that I will probably just cut up and throw away. Now the project of importing all of my music onto their progam and putting it into the player, and experimenting with all of the inputs/outputs on the back of this thing to see what all it actually does. It's even got an alarm clock!! That's worth $30. Yeah I know it's the little things anymore that excite me....

Snakes and Arrows

The New RUSH album is out !!!!


I thought that I would write a little record (cd) review of the new RUSH album "Snakes and Arrows". I have had a week to listen to it over and over, and overall I would have to say it's the best that I have heard from the boys in quite a number of years. I would actually rank it up there with one of my best from them. In reading some of the background from the making of "Snakes and Arrows" they recall working with a new producer and it truly shows. This album has a different flavor than previous albums and some very tasty "licks" and "rifs". The producer has worked with some other current artists including the "foo fighters" which is probably why there is a newer and fresher feeling to the new album. I think he brought back to front the musicians in the group rather than the total focus on the written word. Not that Neil's lyrics aren't still classic and thought provoking, it's just good to hear them play, which is shown by three instrumentals on the album which totally rock hard. One of the things that bothered me in the past couple of albums was that they would begin a song with a wicked drum beat or lead guitar and bring it to a screeching halt so Geddy could sing. It's just great to hear them Jam from the beginning of the song to the end. I would recommend this album to non-RUSH fans as well and to anyone who enjoys a thumping drum and screaming guitar.



Another thing about the album. I don't really like the cover art that was chosen. I know there is a story of the art corresponding with the "Snakes and Arrows" theme, but I was unimpressed. Over the years the album covers for RUSH have been really cool and rich. Upon opening the album and reading the lyrics the background pictures were fantastic. Even on their website www.rush.com the different pages on their site have these pictures as their backgrounds. I learned that they were photographed/illustrated/animated by a guy named Hugh Syme. I would love to have some of his work framed in my house, but it's one of those things that if you have to ask how much it is you can't afford it. I think I will just enjoy his work as my computer background.

Weekend update

This weekend was very busy in our household. Along with being fantastic weather we had a bunch of projects to work on. Jen's main goal of the weekend was to work on our garage sale with her mom. We spent most of Thursday night dragging things out of the basement and attic to arrange for the sale on Friday and Saturday. The garage sale went very well with Jen and her mom selling some big ticket items (garage sale price-wise) and a bunch of the quarter/dime stuff. You would think after two of these things we would have gotten rid of most of the crap that we had, but after repacking all of our junk we only had one less box then I brought down from the attic. Pretty soon I am just going to haul all of it over to goodwill or the Seminary since it's a pain getting into the attic. Maybe we will take some of the profit from this weekend and invest in attic stairs. One of the highlight sales of the weekend was about $40 in flagstone rock. I finally put out a sign advertising the flagstone and have been selling a few pieces at a time. A few people are interested in buying the whole or half the pile, but so far no takers on the whole thing. One guy keeps calling and telling me that it's too expensive, and I tell him you don't have to buy it. I was kinda surprised that no one bought the whole thing this weekend, but maybe next weekend.
My main activity of the weekend was helping with WalkAmerica for the March of Dimes. I have been on the planning committee for this walk for 11 years now and it feels good to be involved in something that helps babies. The walk went pretty good. Started the day at Headwaters Park at 6:00am but was done and home by 2:30pm, which is fast even for us. My mom's Kiwanis' club sponsored a checkpoint so I went out to visit and thank them for coming out and noticed a few thing while standing there with my mom. How sad is it so see people smoking while walking for healthier babies? You can't wait the 5 miles to start smoking again? Overall I think everyone had a pretty good time. After the walk, the walkers come back to the park and have a little lunch before leaving. This is usually when I start seeing people who were clearly not part of the walk and are just people who hang out downtown and see the opportunity for a free lunch. You want to say something, but hell it's only a hot dog and chips, so we usually just look the other way and we had a ton of food left over. One guy that we gave lunch to actually helped us load some of the water into the truck so I thought that was nice. We actually ended up making a trip down the the rescue mission with the leftovers. The sad part was the whole family who showed up as we were closing up wanting free lunch. I couldn't be that person I don't think. After we cleaned up the park I headed home to help Jen with garage sale stuff.
Sunday we had a lazy start to the day and ended up going outside to work on the front of the house. We worked on one of the front planters where I edged the planter and we moved a few of the misfit plant in the yard to this island (so to speak). Later a trip to Lowes for more stuff and then to mom's for a visit.

Carrie... Carrie... Carrie of Rochester

Yeah I know the title doesn't flow as good as George... George... George of the Jungle, but when I read the story of Carrie and her lastest battle with parking lot barriers (read here) this just stuck in my mind. WAY TO GO CRASH!!!