That Stinks

Our garage sale was last Friday and Saturday. Friday was a good day where we got rid of alot of the bigger things. Saturday was pretty bad and we ended up closing it a bit early. Jen and my mother in law are in charge of the sale and they have their own little system down that seems to work out pretty well. Lucky for them they were able to get rid of two of the three boys at my mom's house on Friday to give them a little more of a break. The weather was alright, but it sure would have been nicer if it would have been warmer. The sad part of the garage sale was that someone actually shoplifted from the garage sale. Would that be shoplifting or garagelifting? There are all kinds of people that go to garage sales and unfortunately there are some weirdos. It's sad that they stole from a garage sale, but it's even sadder that they stole a bottle of perfume. Couldn't quite afford that 50 cent price tag? Just sad.

While we were cleaning up I found another little bottle of perfume. (yeah we had alot of perfume that we got rid of). Just for the heck of it I decided to spritz myself. This is where I lean that it's probably a good idea to smell it first or at least look at the name on the bottle. I ended up spraying Celine Dion perfume on myself and man it stunk. Jen even commented when she came back out to the garage that something smelled funny. I almost told her I farted since I would feel less embarrassed than telling her I spritz Celine.

Now the decision of what to do with the money that we made from the garage sale. We have too many things that we could spend it on. Time for a list.

Ultimate Geek

Fabled Optimus Maximus Keyboard has Arrived

Yep. Time to take a second mortgage on your home or break into your kid's college fund. With the singing of angels and a ray of sunlight parting the clouds, the fabled Optimus Maximus Keyboard has descended from Russia design studio Art Lebedev like an orgasm of geekiness. As you should know by now this amazing keyboard features a tiny screen on each key... that's 113 screens in all. What can you do with these tiny screens you ask? Well each key can change it's image dynamically depending on what you doing. Hold down SHIFT and all keys go uppercase. Run Photoshop and you can set it so each hotkey has an image representing it's function. Set a key to monitor your CPU usage or display what iTunes track you are currently playing. You can make a key into a tiny clock with moving hands and play animated gif files or even quicktime movies. Of course all this futuristic technology is going to cost you a pretty penny... but we figure you'll just expense the Optimus and tout it's "incredible increased efficiency when using PowerPoint hotkeys" in your expense report summary.

See the website Here

This is too freakin cool. but at $ 1,600 it's only for the ubergeek

Flashback

Dan just posted this picture on his myspace account. This has to be 1985 or 86. It's amazing how blond my hair is and how thin we were back then. It's also amazing that I wore shorts that small. Dan was a member of the 27th lancers drum and bugle corps out of Boston by way of Akron Ohio. I was sporting the Northrop Drum Line jacket from back in the day.

Dan also has posted the song "what I like about barnyard animals" on his myspace too if you wanted to hear a better version that the one on my blog.

no...seriously

Just had a bit of an odd experience. Jen and I were talking last night and she brought up how we need to get some change money for the garage sale this weekend. I had a mileage expense check and was running around today so I told her that I would stop by and get some change. I almost forgot, but at the last minute I ran into the bank. I tell the friendly teller that I want to cash my check and I want it all in ones. As she was counting them out, all of a sudden, I got kind of embarrassed, since I started thinking that she is thinking "what strip club is he heading too?". Oh crap, do I say something? What does she care?Why do I care? Who is she to judge me? I decide to not say anything and just let it go, but then I have to get a roll of quarters too. Now she is thinking I am heading to a strip club and I am a cheap bastard. So as she is handing me the quarters I let the comment slip "yep, it's garage sale time". Whew I feel better, but I know she really didn't care. She actually tells me of new interest rates on auto loans which will work out well since we are looking for a minivan, and it's always good to have the ammo to the sales weasels. A friend of mine once worked at a bank right next to Stewies strip club, and she would tell me how the strippers would come in after their shifts and either deposit their money or get larger bills for the singles. EWWWW GROSSSSS. Dollar bills are just naturally carriers of bacteria and germs, but dollar bills from a strip club, you know where they have been......

Let's get rid of crap

This sunday is our association's garage sale. This is a good opportunity to get rid of stuff that just clutters the house. And is also motivates me to take a good look at the stuff I have and decide if I really need it. I find myself being alot less attached to things than when I was younger. Yes I was a pack rat as a kid and I have the neon calculator watch to prove it still. Fortunately for me the garage sale falls on Jen's to do list. She and her mom usually work on organizing and working the sale since they have alot of experience. My job is to lug boxes up stairs from the basement or down from the attic (NOW WITH STAIRS!!!!) and to clean the garage. Most years it's just tables filled with little stuff, but this year we have some bigger items including a couch with a pull out bed (Sorry Mary, you might loose your bed when you come to visit) and some end tables that have glass inserts that probably isn't a good idea with three boys around. I was close to getting rid of the sectional couch from the basement, but I figured I need some furnitire for the "sea shanty" basement when I get it remodeled. More about the "sea shanty" basement later. We also are finding this garage sale a good way of purging some of the boys toys. I don't want to deny Christopher the opportunity to play with these toys, but I am sure that there will be enough around when he gets older. We set aside 5 big boxes of toys a few months ago and the boys have no idea that anything is missing. The big fun comes when they see it on the table during the garage sale and rediscover them. I wish I had a little more time to pull up more rock from the backyard since the garage sale is where I got rid of most of it last year. Like past years the garage sale happens on the same day on when I help out the March of Dimes "March for babies" walk so I can't be there on Saturday to help. Probably a good thing since I would have an opinion about stuff and my mother in law hates that :). The big battle will come after the garage sale. I told Jen that whatever didn't sell would be going to goodwill since I am tired of lugging the same boxes full of crap up and down to the attic (even though I now have stairs). If we sell enough stuff and get it down to a couple boxes I might be willing to put them upstairs again. But like every year it amazes me on what people will buy at a garage sale. One person's crap is another person's treasure. This year I am actually going to put a few items I pulled out last year and try e-bay out. I know I have threatened that before, but this time I mean it. Just start out with one item and go from there.

Shake Shake Shake

So this morning we hear a door knob/ door rattling in the hallway. Now usually there is a couple reasons for that sound. Either Andrew was awake and was getting up to early to wake his brother, OR William was up and going in to wake up Andrew, OR that damn cat was pawing at a door hoping to wake us up so we would feed her. Both Jen and I shot out of bed to solve the problem, or shoot the cat. Jen opened Chirstopher's door but Andrews door was still rattling. She opened his door, but he was snoozing in his bed. Weird. She went downstairs to see if she could find out what that sound was. I thought it might have been the cat downstairs pawing the pocket door in the bathroom, but I knew that sound and it was something upstairs. I was a bit freaked, but more tired. Jen and I started talking about what the sound was and most definitions came back to being the cat somewhere in the house. I conjectured that it might have been a earthquake. We have had them before. So we are laying there trying to get back to sleep and the radio comes on scaring the crap out of both of us. So we are listening to the radio and sure enough there was an earthquake this morning down in Southern Indiana/Illinois. Jen and I layed there talking, and the boys woke up shortly after that, so you know we are up for the day. The good part about that is that I actually had enough time to get up, shower, and have breakfast. Usually I don't get breakfast since I sleep till the last possible moment. It's nice to have a relaxing morning with breakfast. I would love to do it every day, but I just can't get up in the morning. So you can either say it was an earthquake, or it was mother natures tribute to Charlton Heston (see above poster)

Trip down memory lane

My brother has been in many bands over the years since high school. One of the earliest was in a band called "Suspended Animation". There have been a couple reincarnations of this band with a few key members over the years, but nothing ever long term. The lineup of the band were some real talented musicians. The actual genre or format of what type of music they played back then was a bit up in the air. They weren't mainstream, and I guess were a bit techno or industial, or who really knows. I am sure he will fill me in. Anyway along with trying to find their "sound" they recorded a couple of songs that I would call novelty songs. Just fun stuff to play that was kinda weird. Anyway, back in 1987 they submitted one of their songs to WXKE for a contest to be on an album called "Fort Wayne Rocks Vol 2" and they actually made it on the album. Well after years of wanting to get a hold of that album so I could make an mp3 out of the song I finally was able to get the album from Dan. I rigged up an old stereo with a turntable (and 8 track) that hadn't been played in 15 years with a cassette deck that hadn't been played in 10 years. I turned on the turntable and nothing happened. But I gave the old turntable a little nudge and it started spinning right round baby like a record player... oh wait.. nevermind. Anyway I was able to get the record to record to a casette and I brought that in to work to convert to mp3. I placed the mp3 onto a movie track so I could post it here. I might try and make an actual video for the song if I get a chance to mess around with it later. I "dropped the needle" on the rest of the late 80's album and it was defiantly an 80's feel to the entire thing. Hard to believe it was 21 years ago when this album came out. So here it is, "What I like about Barnyard Animals" by Suspended Animation from the Fort Wayne Rocks Vol 2 album:

Drop me an email if you would like the mp3 !!

I will post the other song "Big Jake the Trouser Snake" if Dan can ever find it. By the way he is now in anther band called Big Daddy Caddy that hopefully will start playing around in the area. They are a mainstream, pop, kinda band. I will post any info that I get about the band later.

The busy weekends have begun

With the warmer weather comes more stuff to do. This weekend was no exception. Friday night was kind of a throw together kind of thing. The excitement for the night was coming inches from getting into a head on wreck. Driving home in a rainstorm I get to a intersection where the lights are out, so I treat it as a 4 way stop and so does everyone else except one guy who I just barely see at the last second when I was in the middle of the intersection. We will call him Dick. Dick was on his phone and blew through the intersection at 50 miles an hour. I get home at about the same time that Jen and the boys get back from grandma's since they were waiting the rain out a little bit too. Jen starts to throw together a home made pizza, but I stop her since it will take at least an hour and a half to throw it together and decided to run over to papa murphy's. I take the boys with me and they do pretty good, of course greeting everyone as they come into the store to get there pizza. We get home and eat drink and were merry.

Saturday I go out in the morning and get a haircut and drop by mom's house to drop something off. When I get home my father and brother in law are there to help me install my attic stairs. We start working on it and of course the boys have to come out with us to "help". They spend most of the time playing in the cars. Of course it's a cold damp day unlike last weekend or this weekend. So we get it installed and pull down the stairs to cut them to length so they will meet the floor. While taking some measurements, they decide to see how much they will have to cut off. They fully extent the ladder and... crap... too short. They don't touch the ground. My father in law bought the wrong stairs. So they leave to run to Menard's to buy the right stairs. They get back about an hour later and we proceed to tear out the old stair and install the new stairs. Lucky for us we had knew what to do, by installing the "practice" stairs. So the second install went pretty fast. I still have to do some touch up like cutting down the shims and reinstalling the trim, but that's going to wait for this weekend. Jen had to go to work, so I just spend the rest of the day playing with the boys and other general inside stuff.

Sunday we got up and went to church. Dropped the kids off at grandma's so Jen and I could have a "date" at Olive Garden. We did a little van shopping afterwards and saw a few van's that looked kind of promising. Now we just have to crunch some numbers. After that we headed back to pick up the kids. Back home and a pretty quiet night, but a very busy weekend.

Bad news, good news.. turned into bad news

What the heck? I just found out that the outback steakhouse on Clinton just closed. Showed up with a truck one night and loaded it up. Jen said one of the waiters came into Disney and just told her they just showed up and told them they were closed. The official word from Outback was that the one restaurant still in town is ample enough to service the town. The unofficial word is that it wasn't making enough money. How could that be? Good luck getting into the place at almost any time.. especially during the weekends. AND they aren't even open all day long. How can a restaurant not tied to a mall, with lines out the door, only open for part of the day not be making enough money? It makes you want to scratch your head the same way when they closed both Uno's restaurants a couple of months ago. I can hear the rumblings of people blaming the smoking ordinance, but I seriously doubt that was the reason. There is still another Outback on the south side of town, but I seriously doubt we will ever go there. It's a nice place, but you have to drive half way to Columbia City to get to the restaurant... and you can see the stupid place from the highway!

In other what the heck restaurant news. Don Pablos closed too. Yeah I hadn't been there in years, but it was a real nice place for Mexican food.

Anyway, Sunday Jen and I decided to get away from the kids for a bit and have a "date". We dropped the kids off to grandma's, but we took Christopher with us since he was being a bit fussy and mom is still recovering from her back surgery. We end up at Olive Garden which is one of Jen's favorite places. I like the place, but have a hard time deciding what to get to eat. Most places I have one or two favorite dishes, or something I know I like. Yeah I am an old fuddy duddy like that. But this time I decided to expand my horizons a bit. I saw a plate on the "specials" menu that looked pretty good called Fontana Chicken. So I order it whereupon the waitress tells me that it's her favorite, and it's also the last day they will offer it because it was only there for a limited time. I get the meal and it is delicious. Whoo hooo I have a favorite, oh wait, no I don't. The only hope is that they might make it a "regular" item on the menu.

I blame Carrie

I like my waffle maker. We haven't had it that long. Was it a wedding present? I can't remember. Reading Carrie's post about how their last trip to our house inspired her to buy (or make John buy) a waffle maker. Reading her post make me get the taste for waffles last weekend. So I inspired her and she inspired me right back. We I got the waffle maker out and cranked it up on Saturday morning for two specific reasons. One was because it sounded good, and the other was because we didn't have anything else in the house for breakfast. Another good part of waffle/pancake fixings is that if you have at least one egg, a little milk, and some oil you can have a heck of a breakfast. So I am sitting in the kitchen making waffles as fast as the boys can eat them when all of a sudden I see a plastic piece sitting next to the waffle maker. I didn't think much of it since with the boys around I usually find all kinds of things sitting on the kitchen counter, but this one looks familiar. So I lift the top half of the waffle maker and try to get the waffle out and the lid drops all the way back and off. Crap. Nothing like wrestling with a hot piece of metal... carefully. I devise that this piece of plastic that is sitting next to the waffle maker is a plastic piece that sits in the hinge and holds the lid on. Then I remember where I saw the similiar plastic piece. It was a couple months ago when I had the waffle maker out back then. I try and put the pastic piece back in, but I can see that it is broken and not going back in. Lucky for me I was on the last waffle so it didn't matter that much. Later I decided to pop on-line and look for a replacement part. I figure I would rather just replace the two pieces of plastic then throw away a perfectly good waffle maker that we really hadn't used that much. I look and look and look and can't find anything for a faberware waffle maker at all. Finally I go to the faberware website and they don't even list a waffle maker as one of the things that they sell. Not a good sign. So I emailed the company and after a couple days I finally got a response. They gave me a number for the parts department. Cool. Maybe I can get away with just some replacement cost. I figure the shipping will be at least twice what the parts price is. So I call the parts department and sit on hold for a couple minutes, finally a guy comes on the phone and gives the schpeel "thank you for calling, this call it monitored, blah blah blah". Then he asks for my name, no problem, then he asks for my phone number, huh? huh ok, then he asks for my address, What? I refuse and ask why he needs my address to look for a part. He tells me that he needs the address in case they need to send me a part. I say how about we see if you have the part first. So I tell him my part number, he looks it up, and he says "oh is it a little plastic part that holds the hinge together?". I say yep. He says they don't sell that part any more. I might do a little more searching on-line. The parent company might no longer sell it,but if if was that much of a problem piece someone else might still carry it. Crap. So now I am looking around the house to see if I can rig something together. Yeah I know a new one is $25-$30, but it seems like such a waste. I think I might run over to lowes and see if they can fix me up.... Dang-it Carrie

Really???

ok how sad it this. The L.A. times did a whole story about the font that Obama uses.... his font?? seriously?? Man these people need to get a life. The other sad part is that the story was run in the local paper front page on the metro section last week...

Here's an outtake:

Typefaces with big round O’s and tails are considered more friendly, whereas linear fonts evoke overtones of “rigidity, technology and coldness,” according to British psychologist Dr. Aric Sigman who published a 2001 study, “The Psychology of Fonts.”

With artistic flourishes such as a tail on a lowercase “a,” serif styles “conjure images of trustworthiness,” whereas uncluttered sans serif styles “carry less emotional baggage,” he says.

If you care to read the story and have no life : Here

ahhhhh warmth

Finally warmish weather. Man it's seems like this winter has drug on and on. Saturday around 60ish. I was farting around the house trying to fix a friends computer, but was planning on taking the boys outside when Andrew got up from his nap. Andrew finally got up and we all took off outside. I was going to try and clean the garage out, but the boys wanted to slide so we ended up going out to the backyard instead. For Christmas I got a portable fire pit, so I drug that out to the back deck and started to assemble it with the boys "help". I was getting near the completion when Christopher started fussing. So we all headed in for something to eat for everyone. I was able to get Christopher happy enough to get outside and finish the fire pit. Now getting the time to burn stuff. Actually first I have to rake up all of the twigs and stuff that fell out of the trees during the winter, then burn stuff. I decided to call it quits and just spent the rest of the day inside with the boys and sitting next to an open window enjoying the breeze. I want to wait for a bit warmer weather to take Christopher outside for any long periods of time.
Sunday after church, the boys and I headed outside to work on cleaning the garage. It was warmer according to the thermometer, but there was a little breeze that was chilly. I did a quick clean of the garage including putting all the Christmas decorations up into the attic. I was going to wait until I installed my new attic stair, but who knows when I will be able to get help from my father in law. Maybe that's something my brother and I can handle. Next was washing the Jeep. That was well overdue. Again the boys had to "help" and the did for the most part, but Andrew doesn't quite have the concept of pointing the nozzle so I took a few direct hits to the back from the hose as well as William. In the summer when it's 80 degrees I wouldn't mind as much, but it was chilly yesterday. After that and some late lunch the boys and I headed outside for more "slide" time. I hung the swings up and Andrew wanted to be pushed in his chair swing. I could barely get him out of it after half an hour or better. I fired up the grill to cook some bratwurst, so I would push him, turn the brats, push him, turn the brats. I did notice that my grill did not have a good winter. I decided to leave it outside this winter, but I bought a new cover to protect it. The cover was basically ripped to shreds. I also noticed that the burner has a huge hole in it which gives off a huge flame in one area. Also the igniter went out last year as well. So I will have to put together a list and compare the price to replace all of the parts to buying a new one. If nothing else I am going to tear it apart for a serious cleaning which is waaayyyy overdue. So finally Jen was leaving for work so I decided to keep the boys inside to play. Andrew was a crank-butt with no nap and I had to actually kind of keep tickling him to keep him awake until bed time. It felt bad to close the house up again later on in the afternoon, but I feel encouraged by the thoughts that it is going to get warmer and warmer.

William's Birthday

Well the last of the party trifecta happened on Wednesday. After Easter and Christoper's baptism we had the final event at our house. Every year we wonder how best to do birthday parties for the kids. Some years like this one are pretty easy since Jen has to work on Saturday and won't know if she works Sunday until later on in the week. That makes making plans for the weekend an pain in the butt. Anyway we decided to just do a little something at the house on Wednesday (the day of his birthday). I am not sure if he would get more enjoyment out of a party at chuck e cheese or something like that, but he seemed to really enjoy his birthday that night. He was bouncing all over the place, saying that it was his birthday and that he was "5". He is talking more and more all the time which make me feel a little easier about letting him do things. We are talking about getting him signed up for t-ball or soccer this year. I do notice that when he approaches other kids his age and does his babbling speach they kind of look at him funny, but hopefully with more work we can get him back up to speed with the other kids. I think it might be a simple as just having him slow his speech down. I think he tries to talk to fast and it gets jumbled. Anyway back to his birthday. Jen ordered a sandwich tray at Walmart so I stopped by and picked that up. They were pretty tasty and not too much for a huge tray of little sandwiches. I get home and see Jen scrambling to try and get the house ready and things put together for the party. Another layer dip platter for those of us who didn't get any last weekend. Frosting the cake took her a little longer than expected, and she had "help" from the other two.
We had a nice little group with the in-laws, my mom and aunt suzie, and Dan. There was even an illusive sighting of the Crammers. We ate, visited, opened presents and had a nice gathering. The one present that was kind of the highlight of presents were the transformers that uncle Jim got for the boys. Now I missed the original transformers fad when they first came out in the 80's so I never had a chance to play with one of these things, but as uncle Jim quickly found out, you need a master degree in engineering to figure the stupid things out. Even with directions it took some work. I have since transformed them a couple times so I know how they work now. Also there was a car that makes noise and lights up, but the volume is low and not too annoying. The Crammers hung out after everyone else left and we had fun hearing about their trip to Disney. If only there was some way of Keith writing about it or posting pictures.... darn shame. It's hard to believe that William is 5 years old, and acting more and more like a big boy every day.

Christopher's Baptism

(Uncle Jim, Jen and Christopher, me, Julie and Marc)

Sunday we had Christopher's baptism. Lucky for us the house was still in decent condition from Easter last weekend so it wasn't the wholesale tear the house apart and clean kinda day. Jen had to work again on Saturday so I was able to get some stuff done before she headed off for the rest of the day. The boys let me get some stuff done, but once Christopher is awake he wants attention. I was able to throw together this years supply of coney sauce for the hot dogs. One batch freezes well and last at least a year. Jen got home around 11:00 and we were up past 12 working on last minute stuff. Sunday the crew was up early. You would think that would give us tons of time to get out the door, but no we were lucky to make to to church before the mass started. I was hoping to get there early so we could sit with the other relatives. After the service we all mulled around waiting for the priest to get his stuff together. Jen took Christopher to the bathroom to change into his baptismal cloth, dress, whatever. This dress has been in our family and activley used for almost 100 years and it still looks great. (I believe it is heading to Arizona or California next)Before we left for church, there were a couple of real messy sounding rumbles from Christopher's diaper and sure enough he had blown through that outfit. So Jen is in the bathroom changing christopher and trying to get him dressed. There is only one other baby being baptised on Sunday so that baby was trying to be changed in the hallway of the bathroom as well. So the priest comes out to start the baptism and no babies. Finally Jen comes out of the bathroom, and the other baby gets changed into his outfit for the ceremony to begin. The other baby did not want to be there as proven by the crying the entire time. We get started with the ceremony, but the only thing I can see and hear is the movement and sound of our other two children running all over church and yelling. I barely paid attention to the ceremony at all, trying to make sure that the other two didn't light the place on fire by running into candles.

Side Note: talking about burning the church down. My brother told me a story of Easter serviced last weekend. At one point the priest was blessing the alter with incense, which is basicly a large orb with hot ash being swung by a chain. During the the blessing the orb goes flying off the chain and lands behind the alter starting the carpet on fire. I think my brother said he used the wine to put it out. You can see the burn marks in the carpet behind the alter... I should have gotten a picture of it.

Anyway. Here is the video of Christopher being baptised. Yeah I know it's sideways, but I just pulled the camera out of my pocket and hit play. It happened so fast.

So we get down with the ceremony and mull around for a little bit to take pictures and whatnot. Then we all caravan back to our house for lunch. We decided to try and keep it simple by just cranking up the hot dog steamer (which I started before mass) and some sides. We probably should have estimated the number of people better because before we knew it we had blown through 40 hot dogs, all the layer dip, all the chips, all the fruit, and all of the cake. I don't think anyone didn't get food, but it was a little closer than I like to try and be. More visiting with relatives that we had just seen last weekend. I also hooked the Wii up again and let the boys play for a while. I was trying to get the adults to play a little bit too. Around 3 or 4 everyone left, and Jen and I did a quick clean up, which was very quick since there wasn't any food left anyway. I hit the chair and it was nap time. Next is William's birthday party tomorrow, but that isn't going to be that big of a deal this year, after that nothing on the horizon for a while. Whew....