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!!!

RIP Bobby "Boris" Pickett

I had one of those moments last week when I heard that Bobby Pickett had passed away. This 45 (on the parrot label) was one of the first records that I owned as a kid. I played the heck out of the record on my old "Wildcat" Portable (yeah right) record player that was the size of a suitcase. I hear the "Monster Mash" almost every halloween, but forgot there was a man behind it. Hearing it was a time transport back to younger days and was just a fun song. Hearing of his passing takes a little bit of my childhood with it, like hearing about the passing of an old TV actor or Singer that you remember from when you were a kid. I enjoy trying to find out what some of those older actors/singers are up to these days and usually you find out they are still performing (or in rehab... for hip replacement and not drugs). It kind of gives you security in your own mortality knowing that the people that you grew up listening too and watching are still alive. But at least we will have those records and reruns to keep their memories alive.

His reach is getting better

Here is Andrew at Williams burthday party. As much as we tried to keep the food out of reach it doesn't do any good for a 18 month old. CRACKER CRACKER CRACKER CRACKER.

Thanks for the photo Jeff.

Celebrity Look Alike

My Stepmother sent me pictures of her granddaughter (my step-niece?) of her prom pictures. I looked at them and kept thinking that she looked like someone I saw in a movie. Then it hit me, it's the woman from Star Trek:Insurection and Spiderman 2, Donna Murphy. I pulled up some pictures for a side by side comparison and I would have to say they are pretty close. Either way she has really grown up in the past couple of years. (by the way Kirsten is the one in the light blue dress in case you get confused)

Yeah, that was a good idea

When we first bought our house, the first thing that I noticed was the big tree in the front yard. It was too big and too close to the house. During heavy wind it would scrape against the house. The plan was to cut this tree down as soon as we could, and of course it took a year. Saturday my father-in-law called up and asked if I wanted to cut the tree down since he is the one that owns a good chainsaw. We wanted to get the tree down before it got leaves on it to make it easier to deal with. I wasn't sure if we could since the forecast was for rain and snow, but I figured we would give it a shot. We have taken down a few trees together so the actual removal of the tree went pretty smooth. We dropped all of the tree almost exactly where we wanted the piece to fall. Tom cut the limbs of the tree and I piled them on the driveway.
After taking the tree down it was amazing how open the front of the house now looks, but then I noticed all of the stuff that the tree hid. The house needs to be power washed. The trim needs to be repainted. All of the landscaping needs to be done. Bushes need to be ripped out. New plants have to be bought. Mulch must be put down asafp. And a big honkin' stump (honkin' is a technical term) needs to be removed. So the focus is going to change on our house from pulling flagstone in the backyard to front yard rescue. Yeah I know I am just trying to keep up with the smiths next door, but I think it will look nice in the long run.
After revelling in the horror of all the work I had just uncovered by taking down the tree, we made two trips to my in-law house with the wood and brush from the tree. Just as we had unloaded the last of the wood it started to snow. Man we planned that just right.

The mind of a woman

Sunday after lunch with the in-laws we decided to leave the kids with grandma and grandpa and try and get a few projects around the house done. It is soooo much easier and quieter without the little rug rats around. We get home and decide that we will run over to Lowe's and get a few things for projects around the house, and the fact that we have coupons to use (whee). The original plan was for two things, but of course Lowe's is like a candy store to me and I have a list a mile long of things I need or might need someday. But I was trying to be good and not go too nuts. We kept it to $85 (after coupons and gift card) for some essential things for the house. Mostly to finish the kids bathroom remodel. One of the things for the bathroom remodel is replacing the towel ring (for hand towel) and toilet roll dispenser since the two were a hodge podge of pieces. We go down the bathroom accesories isle looking at new fixtures whereupon we find some real nice fixtures made of solid brass that cost an arm and leg. I asked Jen if we truly needed solid brass fixtures for a "ducky" themed bathroom. Probably not. She was fascinated by a toilet roll dispenser that pivoted up to change to roll (pivot... pivot ala "friends") . So we work our way down the isle to the cheaper bathroom fixtures and I see the exact style of fixtures that would match the towel rack already in the bathroom. I mean it is an exact-dead-on match and I point it out to Jen. She tells me that the hand towel ring and the toilet roll dispenser wouldn't match the towel rack!! What? It's an exact match!!! No, she explains it wouldn't match the "newness" of the old towel rack. I paused....... she stared to say something but I just held up my hand, I told her to give me a minute to bask in the obscurity of that comment. ahhhhhhhhhhh riiiiiggghhhhttt. I could be wrong or it might be a girl thing. And we're moving.. and we're moving. The funnier part of the story is that when we got home I tried to reinstall the towel rack (you know the non-newness one) and I found that the brackets were missing, so unless they sell the brackets separate I am going to have to buy a new towel rack anyway. Also the old hand towel ring is now missing.. anyone else smell a conspiracy??????
We also bought a new light for the kids bathroom which I found out was a little smaller than the first light so now I am going to have to tear the light and mirror out to fix the holes and dents left by the last light and then repaint (yellow "ducky" color). Sigh..After this bathroom is our bathroom and the den and then.... and then.... and then...... and then......

post script to this story. Jen read my blog and corrected me. It wasn't the "newness" of the fixture it was the "shinyness" of them. Yeah that makes it make more sence.

Thank God kids are durable

The other day Andew climbed onto the lazyboy and was playing around. He usually does pretty good at behaving himself on the chair, but he was being kind of a daredevil. He reached over the side of the chair to grab something on the floor and I yelled at him as soon as I saw this since I could just see him falling head first onto the floor. He grabbed whatever he was trying to get and sat down like a good little boy. Next thing I know I catch him out of the corner of my eye over the side of the chair, but this time I see him fall over the side and see his feet where his head should be, and right on his head. I race over to the chair thinking he broke his neck or about a million other things when you see that kind of thing happen. He cried for about a minute, but then calmed down and wanted to play again.. whew... Every day Andrew is more and more of a daredevil jumping on the couches and flirting on the edge of safety and danger. I am not sure if he really wants to explore the area or just loves the attention that he gets from jen and I when we yell and run over to grab him. Also at that age he doesn't get that if he gets hurt doing something that he will possibly get hurt again if he does the same thing. But lucky for me kids are pretty durable.
I told my mom this story and it reminded her of a story of my brother Dan. He was playing on the fireplace of our old house on Bradford Drive and somehow slid off the hearth and nailed his back on the bricks scraping it really bad. He gets up screaming and runs toward my mom and somehow passes out mid stride and goes head first into the stereo system. My mom was talking to her mom on the phone and said "I think Dan just killed himself". She runs to comfort him with screaming and blood everywhere, but hey he survived like most kids do. Just like the time I got hit in the face with a garden hoe, but that's another story....

Never play Tug-O-War with a Crocodile

I came across this picture and thought it was either photoshopped or a sick April Fools Joke played by a zoo, but nope a Taiwanese veterinarian lost a tug-o-war (and his arm) to a croc while treating it.

A zoo worker had his forearm reattached Thursday after his colleagues recovered the severed limb from the mouth of a 440-pound Nile crocodile, an official said. The crocodile severed Chang Po-yu's forearm on Wednesday at the Shaoshan Zoo in the southern city of Kaohsiung when the veterinarian tried to retrieve a tranquilizer dart from the reptile's hide, zoo officials said.
The Liberty Times newspaper said Chang failed to notice the crocodile was not fully anesthetized when he stuck his arm through an iron rail to medicate it.
As Chang was rushed to the hospital on Wednesday, a zoo worker shot two bullets at the crocodile's neck to retrieve the forearm, said Chen Po-tsun, a zoo official.
"The crocodile was unharmed as we didn't find any bullet holes on its hide," Chen said. "It probably was shocked and opened its mouth to let go of the limb."
The 17-year-old reptile is one of a pair of Nile crocodiles kept by the Kaohsiung zoo. The crocodile is listed as an endangered species, and is rapidly disappearing from its native African habitat.

That's the definition of having a bad day.

Current Events

Usually I don't take time to comment on current events, but I am so pissed that I feel I must. The story (if you want to call it that) is the current flack with Don Imus. First of all this is such a non-story it's not even funny. He calls the members of the Rutgers womens basketball team "nappy-headed hos". What is all the uproar about? He is a talk show host and he is known for stating his opinion. And that is exactly what that is.. his opinion, and it's not even that bad of a slur. It's not like he called them watermelon, fried chicken eating n*****s. He said it in a joking manor and was not malicious in the comment. He makes this one comment and gets the black extortion machine of al sharpton and jessie jackson pounding at his door demanding his job (and money). These two take any opportunity to get their faces in front of the press for their "cause"(not civil right, but money for them). Imus should have issued an apology one time and moved on. This could have been a freedom of speech issue and Imus rolls over like a puppy and takes it in the shorts. I'm not sure if I am more pissed at this being such the huge reaction to a non-story or the reaction of Imus to roll over like that. Any other "talk show" host would not cave like that. But I guess if you are more worried about your pension then sticking to your guns then "dance puppet, dance". I am sure he will be the tv/radio stations' bitch and do whatever they want to keep his job (pity). Either that or he will take this opportunity to retire or quit to count his money.
In other news they finally determined Anna Nicoles baby's daddy. THANK CHRIST. I am sure we will never hear another thing about this story now..... yeah right.

Happy Easter

I was bracing myself for another nutz busy Easter weekend like last year, but I was pleasantly surprised how it wasn't too bad. Saturday was a pretty lazy day. Jen had to work in the afternoon and I actually got a chance to grab a little nap when I put Andrew down for his nap. All because William let me take a nap. He had his moments when he felt he had to bang on a toy or two, but he wasn't constantly coming over to me and saying "wake up, wake up". Saturday night Jen got home and she stared putting together food for Sunday. Unlike last year where we were frosting cakes and cookies till the wee hours, this year she went for one dish that was relatively simple to put together. It's called dirt, and it's a real tasty pudding/whipped cream dish with Oreo's on top. Yummy. There was a small catastrophe when Jen boiled the eggs to color. Over half of them cracked open during the cool off stage. The cracks were so bad that they couldn't be colored, but they will still come in handy for deviled eggs. While Jen was working on that I was on a quest to finish painting the boys bathroom by the end of the weekend. It was half done, but we just had too much stuff going on to finish. For some reason William really fought us in going to sleep Saturday night so I wasn't able to put a brush in paint until 9:30 or so. I finally got what I wanted to accomplish for the night done around midnight. I figured that if all I had to do Sunday night was roll the walls then I could knock that out pretty quick. Sunday morning the alarm clock goes off at 5:15am and I wake up Jen so she can go to the Sunrise service with her parents at 6:30am. I don't feel brave enough to try and wake up the boys to go to this service just yet. I get up a short time later and get the boys ready for mass. We then all go to 8:30 mass with Grandma. After church we head over to mom's house for brunch. She makes a tasty breakfast casserole with other baked goods. Both the kids get a huge basket full of toys and stuff to play with. After noon we go over to Jen's Aunt Carol's house for lunch. The boys do pretty good behaving themselves and I only have to chase Andrew up and down the stairs about 20 times. We find out that Andrew LOVES Jelly Beans. One of the toys that the kids played with were these plastic guns that shot foam discs. They will be finding these discs all over that house for years and probably in the strangest places. After eating and visiting we head home with some tired kids (and Jen) around 6:00pm. We put the kids to bed (with William fighting us again) and I finally got the bathroom finished around 11:00pm. Overall not a bad weekend, I say that the nap on Saturday helped me for the weekend.

My Son the Movie Critic

Sunday night we got the opportunity to see "Meet the Robinsons" with the rest of Jenny's co-workers from the Disney store. Usually when something new from Disney comes out everyone from the store tries to see it together. It helped this time that one of the co-workers also works at "Rave" so he got us all in for free and he also saved us some of the best seats in the house. SCORE!! Now I saw the previews for this movie and wan't overly impressed or excited to see the movie, but I have been wrong before (I love "Return to Me" even though it's a chick flick). We were taking William with me since he did so well when we went and saw "Cars" in the theatre. I found out Friday that we were going to the 3-D showing and wasn't too sure if William would like that or get the concept, but hey we decided to give it a try. So we head out to the movie Sunday night a little later after a frantic search for our old 3-D glasses from "nightmare before christmas" but only can find one pair. Lucky for us they didn't charge us $2 for the glasses like Carmike did. So we get to the movie theater early and find our contact who gives us our passes to turn in for tickets. As we are stading in line everyone else shows up and starts handing us their passes to us to turn in for tickets so we ended up turning in 19 passes for tickets. I am not sure why we even had to do that since this whole outing with the employees was worked out beforehand but we took care of it (next time we don't get their early) So we go in and we are still a little early before the show. The line for popcorn is a little long and I didn't want to miss the begining of the movie. Another concern that I had for the movie is that William would have to go to the bathroom or that he would have an accident, but hey he has been 6 days without an accident in his underwear. whoo hoooo!!! Or at least a pee accident, he still can't grasp the poopy in the potty concept yet. So I take him into the bathroom and he pees. He finds the automatic toilets and faucets interesting. So we get to our reserved seats (cool) and we decide to sit in the middle since William has just pee peed in the potty and should be good for a while. One of Jenny's co-workers sits next to us with her family. Funny thing is that her co-worker and I went to high school together and were actually friends in marching band where we sat in the same seat on the buses during road trips, so I am relieved that I know the person sitting next to me. I decide that there is enough time to grab some snacks before the show begins. So Murphy's law of lines I pick the wrong one. They are all slow, but for some reason the person running my line is in charge of making the popcorn so she takes on order, fills it, and then messes around with the popcorn. At one point she disappears for a couple of minutes and then come out of the back room dragging a bag of unpopped popcorn, takes her time to fill the tub under the popcorn maker and mixes the next batch of popcorn. I am thinking, "well thank God they aren't busy or anything like that". So she finally gets back to servicing customers. I get up there and order popcorn, pop, and candy. ($10, dang). So I get back to my seat and of course the movie had started so I have to quickly walk in front of the family sitting next to us. Making this harder is that everyone is wearing 3-D glasses so they are staring intensely at the screen. We settle down and start watching the movie and I think the 3-D thing is kinda scaring William a little bit. He starts watching the movie over the top of his 3-D glasses and I am trying to keep him from doing that. About 10 minutes later he stands up and tells me, "pee pee in pottie". What? You just went!! But you can't argue with a kid especially since he is doing so good. So bother the family next to us walking in front of them. To the bathroom, do your thing, wash your hands and back to the movie bothering the family next to us. WE DID THIS 4 MORE TIMES DURING THE FREAKING MOVIE!! I am not sure if William wasn't into the movie, or was more entertained by the automatic faucets than the movie. I tried to move William and I to other seats with better access to an isle after the 3rd time, but he didn't want to do that since Jen was still in our original seats. Thank goodness that I really didn't care that much about this movie since I didn't get to see any of it, but I thought maybe it would be cute, or if nothing else I love the 3-D thing. So thankfully the movie ends and I apologize to the family next to us and they are very understanding since their 3 kids aren't too much older than William. i was thinking that if the movie wouldn't have been free I would have bought them passes to another show. So if you ask me how "Meet the Robinsons" was I will say "I don't know", if you ask William he might say it was good but it couldn't beat the automatic faucets.

Happy Birthday William !!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday we had William's 4th birthday party. I am getting better at understanding that for kid's birthday parties: people come over, eat, open presents and leave. Usually when we plan for people comming over we look at putting out a big spread of all different types of food and plan on people hanging out for a couple hours at least. When Jen asked me about the plans for William's birthday party I told her let's just keep it simple. Throw some hot dogs in the steamer, grab some chips and dip and call it a day and not go plan crazy. Jen agreed with me but then it got changed with carrots/dip and also a fruit tray with 4 different types of fruit. (funny I don't remember that in the original plan on keeping it simple). So Friday she gets rid of the kids to do some baking and cleaning of the house. She figured that she could get most of the stuff done at that time, but it didn't quite work out that way. Jen worked friday night and I worked on cleaning the house a little bit friday night so we could have a no-pressure kinda morning until the party started at noon. Saturday morning we all got up around 8:00ish so we are thinking 4 hours to knock out some of the little stuff and we are ready to go. Jen is working on getting the cake decorated, of course it's not just frost a cake, it's the "lightning McQueen" cake that requires all kids of different types of frosting tips and colors. At the begining of the frosting procedure (of course after the powdered sugar explosion in the kitchen) Jen quickly realized that she needed a color that she didn't have. She needed brown food coloring to make the red not so red (huh?) But the car is red. It must be a frosting thing. So I have everything else pretty much done for the party so I volunteer to buzz down to the store for the food coloring and a couple other little things that we forgot. I take Andrew with me since there is nothing like trying to decorate a cake and having an 18 month old crying to pick you up. So Andrew and I head down to the store that I figure will take about 15 minutes tops. Nope. I look for hot dog buns with the rest of the bread. Are they there? Nope, or not the ones that Jen told me were on sale, but I found them a few isles over. I look for crackers that Jen says were right by the front of the store, but of course they got moved. So I went to the cracker isle. Are they there? Nope. I just happened to stumble on them back by the pop and cheese. Yeah that makes sense. Next I look for the food coloring, so I find the display of cake decorating supplies. Is the food coloring there? Nope. I call jen and find out it's across the isle with the cake pans. (allrighty then) I am starting to get a little worried since this little jaunt is starting to take a little more time than I planned and I know Jen has alot of work to do on this cake. (There is a reason I don't do the grocery shopping) But hey, at least Andrew is behaving and having fun with me. So I quickly try to find a checkout isle that doesn't have an amish person buying half the store and decide to use the U-check out thing. I didn't want to use them originally since the buns were buy one get two free and I wasn't sure if it was automatic at the U-checkout thing. So I am checking myself out with my 6 items and I reach in my pocket for my wallet, and no wallet. Son of a B***h. I forgot that when I grabbed my clothes for the party that I changed jeans. So I leave my bag of stuff with the checkout dude and take Andrew and haul ass home to grab my wallet. So I go back and pay for my stuff and get home. Total time for the little jaunt was about an hour. Jen takes the food coloring and starts frosting like a fiend. I am also trying to get some last minute stuff done, trying to keep the kids happy, trying to keep Andrew from touching the steamer, and putting all of the food out. At noon Jen is still frosting the cake. As people start to arrive Jen finishes the cake and we all take a deep breath. After that we had a pretty good day. William had fun with the 3 other kids that showed up to the party. Most everyone else was friends and relatives. He got a ton of presents and really enjoyed the day. More "Cars" matchbox cars to add to the collection and some clothes that he quickly discarded to name a few things. Andrew also had alot of fun and also got some presents from Grandma. People came, ate, and then left after an hour or two. We got an extended visit with the Cramers when their car wouldn't start so I ran Keith home while they waited for the tow truck and Jen and Lori complained about us. After everyone left we got a little while to clean up a little bit and take it easy until Jen had to go to work. Another birthday down, thank God we kept it simple.

What's the hub-bub.... bub?

So a couple of weeks ago before we got nuts busy here at work I was surfing around the 'net and noticed another thing with a Myspace logo and address to I decided to investigate. Now I am clearly not in the intended demo of this website, but I decided to check it out. Hey it's free. So I signed on and created an account. I did a little work on designs and stuff. It was really confusing how to do things and set things up. I am trying to decide if it is because of my age or if it's just the fact that it's hard to figure out. I fiddled with the site for a couple of days and ended up really hosing it up so I decided to mess with it later. Last week my brother started his myspace account too and invited me to join his group of friends. So I blew the dust of my account and fixed the problems that I had created. I have been tinkering for a few days now and I am trying to understand how this stuff works, and I think I have my account correct. So I was waiting for myspace to amaze me and show me new and exciting things annnnnddd it hasn't. I can have an IM through them. Ok I already had one with AOL and Yahoo. I could start my own blog. Ok I kinda already have one of those too (even though it's nice to know I have options if it pisses me off again). I searched and found 9 people from high school with accounts and only 1 that I actually recognize. Of course I have received a bunch of invitations from other people to be their friends and I have no idea who these people are, but they are filling my inbox. Lucky for me it's my inbox on my bullshit throw away e-mail account. So far I am not too impressed or do not see what the big deal is, but hey I can say that I am on myspace!! Maybe that's the point. Oh well if you want to see it : http://www.myspace.com/davesbeachbar

I AM TIRED OF BEING PUKED ON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday I am up with the boys and we are working on breakfast. You know the one where Andrew eats his bowl of cereal and drinks his juice and then "helps" me with my cereal. In the middle of "helping" me with my cereal Jen decides to give Andrew a vitamin supplement since he hasn't been eating his vegetables, so she give him this dropper full of vitamins. At first no reaction, then a look of utter disgust, then the cough starts and I think, "oh Sh*t, nooooooooooo" and then THAR SHE BLOWS!!!!!! Son of a B**ch. I don't want to move him since I think I would rather have one spot to clean up than a string of puke all the way to the bathroom. The funny part is that both Jen and I put out hands in front of his mouth thinking that we could catch everything that would exit (silly parents). So I am sitting there with a handful of puke, a baby crying because he just puked, and a huge (you know) in the middle of the floor. Jen runs to get some towels to clean up and I notice that she runs upstairs to grab towels. Huh? Just grab anything close. She didn't know that I was unable to move because of my handful and other stuff. So we finally get that cleaned up and Andrew calmed down. I think we are really have to look into a carpet cleaner if mom ever takes her carpet cleaner back. I don't blame Jen for giving him the vitamin since neither one of us would have known he would have that kind of reaction.

Fast forward to lunch. We go over to the in-laws for a lasagna for lunch. Andrew eats pretty well but not that well. Probably not a good idea for spicy food after puking, but we figured the last time was just a reaction to the vitamin. Of course for some reason my mother in law makes the lasagna with sausage rather than hamburger to add to the spicy. After eating the boys are running around the in-laws house and Andrew head for the kitchen and I hear the familiar sound of "that" cough. As soon as I grab him to run him to the bathroom "THAR SHE BLOWS (again)" Son of a B**ch (again). This time I didn't do anything stupid like try to catch it in my hand. I just held him while he hosed off the linoleum floor in the kitchen, once again keeping him in one place. It takes everyone else a minute to realize what is going on and by the time someone gets me something for Andrew to puke in he is done. Poor kid. The rest of the day was real bland food and we kept an eye on him, but he seemed to be alright. Now the F****ng cat is starting to ack almost every night. sigh.

Mom Story

Here is another addition of a mom story. You know the cute and funny things my mom does that someday I hope to be able to tell the kids about their fun grandma.

A while ago my mom invited us over for dinner for a visit since she hadn't seen the kids in a while. If she doesn't see the grand kids at least once a week she gets withdrawl. We sat down for a lasagna dinner with salad and bread and a tasty glass of wine. As she is serving the lasagna I can see that it's the good lasagna that is able to be cut and stand up in a block. I don't really like a lasagna that is real loose and hard to scoop out on a plate. Don't get me wrong I will still eat a soupy lasagna, I just like the kind that stands up on it's own. As Garfield said "I have never met a lasagna I didn't like". My first couple of bites into the lasagna I noticed that it was very tasty but a little dry. I looked at the cross-section of the piece that I had done with my fork and started to count the layers of noodles. Now a good lasagna will have 3 or 4 layers of noodles, but I kept counting 5...6...7...8. Eight layers of noodles? I commented to mom that that was alot of noodles, but then she told me that she just used the same package that she always used, but then all of a sudden a look came over her face. Or maybe she was supposed to use half the package. Or maybe it was the smaller package that she usually bought instead? She was a little embarrassed, but the lasagna was delicious and we just all got a big smile out of it. That's what being together is all about, being together and smiling. Love You Mom

Flood of '82

Some of the local news programs have been doing a look back at the flood of 1982 and I thought I would do the same. It's hard to believe that it was 25 years ago, but heck that's just more proof how old I am getting. Now it was not unnatural for the rivers to flood around here in the spring, but there was alot of snow melting and rain that year. My school was closed and high school students and other kids were encouraged to try and help since the flood was so catastrophic. I was a high school freshman and my brother was a junior. Our mother dropped us off at the coliseum where the sandbagging station was set up in the basement area. I remember seeing piles and piles of sand with people all over them filling up the sandbags and tying them with this cool little tool that wrapped the metal wire around the top of the bags. I remember seeing a kid asleap in a corner clearly exhausted and covered head to to in sand. Looking back on that I can't believe that my brother and I were just dropped off to do this, but hey they were different times. I can't remember how, but pretty soon Dan and I were on a bus heading for the river like being shipped out to army camp or summer school (same thing). I vaguely remember my mom telling us to stay at the coliseum, but leave it to Dan to want a little adventure. I remember forming a human chain of kids my age throwing a sandbag back and forth and up the line until it got to the top of the dike. It was a real gloomy day and the work was dirty and thankless but we did this for a little while (I can't remember how long) The great part about this is that is was mostly kids my age and it didn't matter what school they were from or if it was a girl or guy they all help the same. At one point I seem to remember Dan meeting up with someone else he knew and he ditched me. Nothing like being a 15 year old kid on his own like that. I think they ended up going to the mall or something like that. I got back on a bus and made it back to the coliseum where I met up with Dan again. I remember that while we were waiting for our mom to pick us up that a red pick-up truck pulled up with a "Coke" logo on the side. The guy inside asks if we had been sandbagging and we told him that we had just finished. He told us to help ourselves and pointed to the back of the pick-up. There was an entire pickup bed filled with ice and coke. That was a great thing for Coke to do for all of the volunteers. We grabbed a couple a piece and got hopped up on caffine waiting for mom.

Thinking back on this a couple of things come to mind. I doubt that the city would ever allow kids to sandbag like that since in these lawsuit crazy days I am sure they would rather the city be under 6 feet of water than open themselves up to possible liability lawsuits.

Would current day kids show up like that? I would like to think so.

Would the parents let their kids do that again? I doubt it since everyone seems overprotective of their children these days.

The funny ending to this story is that the city had to go on all of the TV and radio stations telling people not to steal the sandbags from the dikes to keep as souveniers because it could weaken the dikes and the flooding wasn't quite done yet. Who in their right mind would want a dirty sandbag as a souvenier? I am sure most of these ended up in the corner of a garage or outside next to the shed, but hey, if that sandbag could talk....

NEW RUSH SINGLE IS OUT !!!

THE NEW RUSH SINGLE IS OUT CALLED "FAR CRY" FROM THE ALBUM SNAKES AND ARROWS. YOU CAN HEAR THE SINGLE ON RUSH.COM. NEW ALBUM IS DUE IN STORES ON MAY 1ST.

WHOOOO HOOOOOOOO

Duh

So we get a delivery here at work. There is a whole pallet full of magazines that has shifted off its pallet in the back of the delivery truck. These are thick glossy covered magazines that were stacked pretty half-assed the first time and not bundled for crap. So of course they call on three of us to go out to the truck and hand load all of these magazines into a box on another pallet. Lucky for us it was around 60ishdegrees and not 10ish degrees so it wasn't too bad into the back of a truck. So the truck driver is helping us with this project and I notice that he is wearing gloves. And these are those real thick orange gloves with grips on them. I am not really sure why he is wearing them but i figure that he has a reason. All of a sudden he asks me, "Would this be easier without my gloves on?". Huh? Is he asking for my premission, like I am a glove expert? I just looked at him and said, "huh... probably", and he took them off. After we unloaded the truck I just looked at my co-worked and shook my head.

Work Weekend

Man I am busy at work so sorry I haven't checked-in in a while.

Saturday Jen had to work to I was watching the boys. Now usually I can't really work on too many projects when I watch the boys since they both try and "help" me, and I am not able to leave them downstairs while I go upstairs so I usually don't try, but Saturday I decided to try. After putting Andrew for his nap (thank God he still takes naps) I decided to try and get a few things done with William "helping" me. The first project that I wanted to tackle was tearing apart a toilet in the kids bathroom so we could remove wallpaper and paint behind it. We found out that they wallpapered before putting things in the bathroom so there was even wallpaper behind the mirror. Now I have never torn a toilet half apart so I was a little nervous but felt pretty confident. William was actually pretty helpful holding some of my tools and trying to stay out of the way. He was actually kinda quiet not to wake his brother, even though I had to remind him numerous times.. shhhhh. I think he really enjoyed helping me so he was just too excited. So Project #1 done, hopefully it will go back together as easy. Project #2 was to paint a little area in our bathroom of a sample of color that we were trying. My mom had just painted her bathroom that color and I liked it, but putting it on our walls.... ahhhhh.. not so much. I think it is the fact that her bathroom only has a fluorescent light and we have tons of natural light in our bathroom. So the search continues for colors for the bathroom, and the job of annoying Jenny since I have an opinion about the color. This drives her mom nuts since my father-in-law usually just goes along with whatever she wants, so she is not used to a man with on opinion. he he he..

MISSION COMPLETION !!!! (for you little Einstein fans out there)

Sunday was at the in-laws for lunch and lounging. I decided that I needed to start going to vollyball again on Sunday nights. Not only to get my butt some exercise, but to give me a break from a rut I have kinda been in lately. I didn't realize that it had probably been about a year and a half since I have played, where I used to go every week pretty regularly. The funny part is that almost all of the people who played were the same that have been playing for years now. It felt good to run around and chase the white ball. (I look forward to chasing the little white ball soon). I felt pretty good after playing for a couple of hours but my forarms were red and stinging after playing for a while. I got home and headed for bed not really sure how I would feel in the morning. Overall I didn't feel too bad. There were a few muscles that reminded me that they were still there and they were not too happy with me. My knees were pretty sore but worked their way out by afternoon. The hardest injury of the night was a jammed middle finger, that flippin hurt and it was hard to type the next day for sure. I was thinking at least I didn't hurt a priest this time. (Slight accident with the priest and a broken ankle last time, oopps)

Hopefully I can keep that up and keep a good exercise regimin until I can get outside and start working on stones again (sigh).

It was pan-dee-leer-ium....Part Deuce,Ducks,Deux, Douch,

(WARNING: PEOPLE WITH WEAK SOMACHES MAY WANT TO STOP READING HERE)

So of course after William gets rid of the hershey squirts, Andrew gets the stomach flu. We notice that he is filling up the diaper at pretty regular intervals. The unfortunate part of his poop is that it doesn't really stink (thank God) so he could be sitting in it for a while unless we check him all the time. Being a one year old he really doesn't care if he has a pants full as long as he gets to play with the car-du-jour. After a couple days of dealing with this we noticed that his butt was so irritated with the poop that it actually caused little blisters on his butt. After dinner, it was bath night, so I proceeded to take the boys upstairs. Now I knew that with an irritated butt that he probably wouldn't like being in warm water, but I figured if I could get him in and out pretty quick and wash his butt that he might feel a little better. Nope. He was pissed the second he hit the water (I might have made it a tad too warm). He screamed and cried the whole time he was in the tub, and I washed him and got him out of the water as quick as possible. I got him out and dried off and put cream on his butt and got him dressed. He walked out of the bathroom still crying a little bit and coughing. I went to grab him to dry his hair, and as soon as I put my hands under his arms, the contents of his stomach emptied onto the bedroom floor. I was thinking thank God I hadn't picked him up where he would have 'chucked' all over me. As soon as there was a slight pause in the 'chucking' I took him back into the bathroom so he could puke in the toilet and of course he was done by that point. I would have taken him in sooner, but I figured one good place in the bedroom is better than a long trail all over the place. We finally got him calmed down and Jen proceeded to work on the clean-up. (funny I don't remember him eating pears). We got things cleaned up and I brought up my mom's steam cleaner that we still have and cleaned and deodorized the carpet since the smell was starting to get to me. Of course this whole time of dealing with Andrew we are trying to keep William out of the line of fire and lucky for us he pretty much just stayed to the side.
That was last week, but now Andrew is doing much better. Along with his stomach virus we found out that he also had an ear infection and bronchitus (poor kid). But he is feeling much better now.

it was pan-dee-leer-ium....

Saturday morning both of the boys wake up pretty early (of course). William comes into the bedroom around 7:30ish and I can hear Andrew in the baby monitor talking and on the verge of crying, wanting to get up. I decided to take the boys downstairs and give Jen a chance to sleep in a little bit. I like to try and help her out as much as I can after work and during the weekends since she gets to deal with them all day, all week, long. Upon going downstairs I give both boys cereal and their juice, and they are happy. Now the usual string of events is that the boys eat their cereal and drink their juice until Jen or I get out breakfast whereupon they MUST have some of our food since they obviously can't see that it's the same thing that they have and it MUST be better. So I eat my cereal (with help from the boys) and a fix my toast. Now when I fix toast lately I make another piece since they "will help" me with that too. So I am sitting down with my toast and glass of Orange Juice and I notice that William's diaper is full and about to explode. I tell him to lay down so I can get him changed. Now Andrew the one year old is getting real sneaky and is able to reach alot farther on tables that he used to, so with this in mind I put the toast up on a shelf where he can't reach it. Upon taking Williams diaper I find that he has pretty much filled up the whole thing with liquid poop. Ugh. Yuck. Ack. So I am trying to change him quickly but to no avail where I get liquid poop on the clean diaper I am trying to change into as well as on the carpet (there is alot of it). As I am trying to deal with this huge mess I look up to see Andrew take my very full glass of orange juice and try to get a drink and dumps it on himself (I forgot the OJ, shit). So one kid screaming because he is covered head to toe in O.J., another kid with his body weight in liquid poop getting all over the place. I yell up to Jen for assistance.... aaaannnnnndddd.... nothing. Sleeping Beauty claims to have been folding laundry as being the reason for her not hearing me, but the jury is still out on that for me :). So I quickly undress Andrew and wipe him of and go back to dealing with the mess from William. Sleeping Beauty comes down a little while later so see both kids running around in their diapers and I tell her my tales of mass poop destruction where she starts to laugh at me. I for one DID NOT see the humor that she did. After things calmed down the boys went back to playing as normal and I just sat there stunned and watched TV. A short time later I hear Andrew in the kitchen and look up to see that he has grabbed the box of cereal (yeah I forgot to put that away) and is walking across the kitchen with the box..... upside-down. Cereal everywhere. He pretty much dumped an entire full box on the floor. sigh. Is it to early to start drinking????

Blogger Sucks

I have to vent about this. When I sign into blogger it used to ask me if I wanted to upgrade the the new blogger. You know what? No I don't want to. I don't see any benefit of the new blogger and I liked the old one and it worked. But one day signing into blogger I was FORCED to sign up for the new blogger, I was not given the option. It would not let me sign in at all. Now when I sign in I have to use my email account and password, and I don't see what was wrong with the other way. Then I noticed that if I want to comment on anyone elses blog that I cannot use my email account and password to "sign-in" to comment. I have to first go into blogger and sign in, then go to the other blog and then I am able to comment to their blog. Either I am doing something wrong or it is just FU**ED.

WAY TO MAKE IT BETTER DICKS!!!

Man what a drive

Geez what a drive into work today!!!! As I was getting ready for work I notice that it was a little foggy and I was thinking no big deal. Then Jen tells me that school is cancelled for the day and I am thinking there has to be something else. As I am backing out of the garage I hear that it is a freezing fog. I don't remember ever hearing about a freezing fog before, but they warned of black ice and slippery roads especially with overpasses. I get out of the addition without too much trouble and then hit the highway, and Geez it is foggy. I can't see 20 feet in front of my car. I get behind a truck going about 45mph. Now it's pretty bad, but I didn't think it was that bad so I passed him. With that type of fog you go into a different mindset while driving. You have to kinda guess where you are on the road since you can't see any of the usual roadside icons like the Meijer store or highway signs. You also start to look very hard at the fog in front of you scanning for cars, and then all of a sudden you think you see the image of a car, but you don't. That was kinda freaky. You also think that it takes just one idiot to get into a wreck or hit something to block the highway and I could be part of a pile-up since there was no way to stop at that speed with that visibility. Yeah I know I could have went slower, but that can be just as dangerous sometimes.
I noticed that my antenna was waving back and forth. Now usually antennas only do this when they have an antenna topper on them, but I noticed that there was ice actually building up on the antenna. By the time I reached work it was probably at least 3/8 inch thick.
I was getting near the overpasses near New Haven and noticed the road got white all of a sudden and I noticed tire tracks on the side of the road so I immediately threw my car into neutral and got out of the gas since I didn't know what to expect. What I did notice was a truck without much of a front end sitting on the side of the road with no sign of another car. Hopefully it wasn't in a ditch somewhere.
It's now noon and the warmer temperature and sun were supposed to burn this fog away, but as I look outside my window I can't even see across the street, should be a fun ride home.

Fix it up...

Every week I try to catch the "this old house" hour on PBS. I like watching "this old house" to see them renovate old buildings and see the newest stuff out on the market for houses. I try and see if I can get ideas for our house with some of the bigger ideas. I have actually started to plan how to build a permanent display case in the basement so Jen can show off her Disney stuff. It might wait until the basement remodel or I could do it earlier if I wanted to. It's fun to lay it out in my mind and think of all the little stuff like lights, electric, accessibility.

The other half of the house is "ask this old house". This is a half hour where Joe Schmo e-mails the guys and ask typical questions of common household projects. Even though our house is only 10 years old it was lived in hard and has some issues. I have actually solved two problems with the house by watching the show. The first was a squeaky second story floor. I should have thrown down a bunch of screws when I had the carpet up, but it wasn't squeaking then (of course). They showed a gadget that allows you to run a screw into the floor (through the carpet) and into the rafters. And when you are done, the screws are designed to break off just below the floor board so nothing sticks up. I am thinking great invention, but it probably costs alot or is only available on-line, but after some research I found out they sold it at Menards and Home Depot for $20. I went to Menards and got it cheaper than that. The screws are a little pricey, but worth it rather than pulling up carpet and all the other hassle. So I threw a bunch of these screws into the floor and pretty much solved the problem. I might have to put in some more screws later on since it seems like the squeak is caused by the weather outside and humidity in the house. The second problem that we had is the door on our bedroom wouldn't stay opened. You can tell by the finish on the door that it wasn't the original door and the hobbled together door frame that doesn't quite match. I believe that the door was kicked in at some point. (Like I said the house was lived in pretty hard.) So the door won't stay opened and we were using a door stop to prop it open, and then all of a sudden I saw an episode of "ask this old house" where he had a similar problem. Turns out the door wasn't squared up when it was installed (like all the other half-assed stuff in this house). I am thinking great, now I have to tear the door apart to square it up, but then the host gave a quick fix for the problem. All I had to do is take the pins out of the door and bang them with a hammer to bend them and lo and behold it worked. A year of dealing with this messed up door and it took 5 minutes to fix. Cool. The other part of the show that makes me laugh is when they send the landscaping guy out to help a viewer with their landscaping project and he puts the shovel blade in the ground and it goes all the way down to the top of the blade. Every time I say to myself, "let see how easy you would have it with some good old Indiana clay".

Snow ....Snow ....S**t

And now my story from the great Valentines Blizzard of '07. First of all I really wouldn't call this a blizzard, it was more of a bad snow storm. Now 1978, that was a blizzard, but I know that people around us got it a lot worse and I would not want to live where Carrie lives for any amount of money. We got to leave work early on Tuesday since the roads were getting worse, and it was a little slow going home. Good news and bad news sorta thing. I go highway pretty much the whole drive where the good news was that there wasn't alot of traffic, but the bad news is that the highway is out in the country so there isn't much keeping the wind from drifting the road pretty bad. When I got home I was able to get some of the snow shoveled. I knew there was more on the way, but with the levels of snow that they predicted I figured I better get ahead of it. I try to get to the driveway as soon as possible for two very good reasons. One is because I try and get the driveway shoveled before we drive on it since there is no worse feeling then shoveling snow and then getting the handle shoved into your stomach with the abrupt stop of a rut. The second reason is that our driveway is uphill and pretty steep so if it isn't cleared it usually takes one or two runs at the driveway to get into the garage (like it did when I got home). Now if it's just a little snow I will just shovel it pretty quick, but with this much snow I decided to fire up the snowblower. It took me a few minutes to get it to fire. All I can say is thank God for electric start since pull starting that thing would have killed me like in the good old days. I took the first pass down the middle of the driveway and got into the thicker stuff the plow had put at the end of the driveway and stalled it (damn). Now when you stall this blower it takes quite a bit to get it restarted since it floods the engine. So back up the garage to plug it back in again and I kept hitting the button to start it. I figured that I would let it sit for a few minutes in case it was flooded. Of course I didn't do what I should of last spring and ran the gas out of it so I was dealing with old gas also. So I begin to shovel, and shovel, and shovel. I get half the driveway done and try and fire up the blower and nothing happens. I am shoveling my driveway and I am thinking a couple of different things as I look at the blower sitting in the garage. "Is the blower mocking me? It sure looks like it is." Like it is a little payback for not draining the gas in the spring or getting fresh gas before this winter. The other thing I am thinking is that people are driving by the house and see me shoveling snow with a blower sitting at the top of the driveway. I was waiting for someone to stop by and say, "you know that thing at the top of the driveway blows the snow for ya." I felt kinda like an idiot, but I was hoping it would eventually start and I could make quick work of the rest of the driveway. I finally got it started and was able to finish up the rest of the drive in a few minutes compared to the half hour it took me to shovel.

The next day I was one of the few who made it into work and when I got home Jen and I went out for Valentines day. We originally were going out, then we weren't, then we were, then we weren't, freaking weather. I was attempting to be real slick with Valentines day when we were planning on going out. I put a change of clothes in the car (nice clothes, tie, etc) earlier in the week and thought that I would change at work and we would meet at the restaurant and I would surprise her in my nice clothes. Nope. Wednesday when I went to work I took the Jeep since it is a 4x4 and left my clothes in the car. damn. We ended up having a nice dinner at Triangle Park and then headed home (Grandma watched the kids, but we had to be home before Idol came on so grandma could watch, she is hooked).

Thursday by the time I got home from work we had driven on the driveway for two days so the tire ruts were really built up. damn. I tried staring up the blower and couldn't get it to fire. So I break out the shovel and do the driveway again with the blower mocking me again (much like Wilson in Castaway). Abrupt stops of hitting the tire ruts pissing me off. I tried occasionally to start it, but it wouldn't fire so I ended up shoveling the whole thing by hand. I ended up getting out an actual shovel to knock down the ruts to make the driveway all pretty. One thing for sure, I am definitely going to drain the gas this spring and get fresh gas next winter. Either that or a can of Ether. (Good note for MR)

I don't know why

Having two kids I am sometimes forced to watch cartoons almost every day. PBS actually has a pretty good line-up of cartoons that the boys really enjoy watching. But there is one called "Arthur" that I have an issue with. Arthur is a cartoon where the characters are all animals of some kind. It wasn't until only recently that Jen told me that Arthur was an aardvark.

There is one character on Arthur that really pisses me off. It is Arthur's little sister D.W. She is a whiney little brat who constantly is screaming and whining and telling on her brother even when it is her fault. And her voice is at the perfect octive to hit the "parent" nerve that gives you a facial tick. Why does this character annoy me so much? I don't know. I haven't seen one episode where she isn't a whiney little bitch where she constantly complains. Finally I saw an episode where the ticks off Arthur so much that he actually hits her. YES!! HIT HER AGAIN!! I actually kind of enjoyed that. I might get the episode on tape so I can play it over and over again. Of course he is the one that gets into trouble and gets the full wrath of his stupid parents who don't have a clue to what is going on. I know I will have to deal with these issues with my kids in the near future, but hopefully I will have a clue and keep the whining to a minimum

Personal Crusade

I am on a personal crusade. Everyone who tells me Happy Valentines day, I quickly reply Happy SAINT Valentines day. The day, like St. Patrick's day, celebrates the life of St. Valentine. You don't go around saying Happy Patrick's Day. But the card industry has gotten ahold of this holiday and turned into a Halmark Holiday.

So today wish someone a HAPPY SAINT VALENTINES DAY !!!!

Superbowl

Yeah I know it's been over a week ago, but it's been nuts busy at work so I haven't had the chance to blog.

Jen and I went to the store to stock up for the Superbowl party. We were picking up a few things to make snacks. Now I am not the one that usually goes to the market, at least not since I have been married, so I am not really in my element at the market. Add to that the fact that it is real busy and hard to maneuver a cart through the store. I used to go shopping at midnight to avoid the crowds when I was single. So, we are in the cracker isle and I notice that every type of cracker is now flavored with all kinds of different flavors and combinations. Marcus brought some interesting flavored snacks from Snyders at the last guys night. My simple wheat thins now have 7 different flavors including Parmesan and basil (?). I am noticing all the different crackers and flavors and I notice a box that makes me stop. Applesauce crackers? who in the hell would want applesauce crackers? I make this comment to Jen who looks at me like "you idiot". Upon closer review, and her sarcasm she points out that they are applause crackers. Maybe I am a bit dyslexic.

Anyhow, we start assembling snacks on Sunday and are surprisingly ready to go by 3:30ish. I told everyone we start the party at 4:00pm thinking that no one will show up until at least 4:30 or so. Then it becomes 5:00pm. Then 5:30pm. Superbowl starts in an hour. I am having a flashback of the Quinmore incident and thinking Sh*t I am never having another party. Then all of a sudden everyone shows up at the same time. Whew. We ended up having a good time with a good game and pretty good commercials. I noticed that I was the only one drinking. Oh well more beer for me. It would be nice if they started the game earlier in the day so you don't have to be out late on a Sunday night. I noticed the footage of previous superbowls and they were played in the daytime, that would be nice. Also, I wish there was a way that true fans would get tickets to the game rather than the uber-rich or priveledged who don't give a crap about the game. Indy is about to get a fantastic new stadium, but they will never get a superbowl since there isn't enough places to pamper these yahoos or a beach nearby, so sad.

I'll have another one tarbender..

I just came across this story on Yahoo. Its an unfortunate story about an airline being in trouble because some people can't take personal responsibility and contol themselves. The airline served alcohol to a person who in turn killed some people due to drunk driving. Then I noticed the name of the person who was drunk.... Story hoax or unfortunate coincidence? The spelling isn't exact, but close enough to make me wonder..

N.M. closes bar on US Airways flights

The bar is closed on US Airways' New Mexico flights. The state ordered the airline to stop serving alcohol on flights to or from New Mexico after learning that it didn't have a state liquor license. The discovery came during an investigation of a fatal drunken driving crash involving a man who was accused of being intoxicated on a US Airways flight to Albuquerque, said Ed Lopez, superintendent of the state Regulation and Licensing Department. "We're interpreting it to apply to all US Airways flights scheduled to arrive in or depart from New Mexico," Lopez said of the order. "They should not be selling alcohol while in New Mexico airspace." The lack of a license means the airline is "effectively bootlegging," he said. The state delivered a cease-and-desist order to US Airways officials Monday at the Albuquerque airport, Lopez said.
"We're aware of the order and we're going to comply," Valerie Wunder, a spokeswoman for the airline, said Tuesday from Tempe, Ariz. The airline has about two weeks to notify state regulators that it has stopped serving alcohol, and then it may apply for a liquor license, Lopez said.
All other major airlines operating in New Mexico are licensed, Lopez said. The Nov. 11 traffic wreck that led to the order killed five members of one family and the man who hit their van head-on. Dana Papst, 44, was driving the wrong way on Interstate 25 near Santa Fe when his truck hit the family's van. Blood tests showed Papst's blood-alcohol content was four times the state's legal limit for driving. Authorities also accused a convenience store in Bernalillo of selling beer to Papst between the time he got off a US Airways flight and the crash even though he was already drunk.

Welcome to the Big Top

Saturday we took William to the circus for the first time. I wanted to wait until he would be able to appreciate the circus before taking him. I thought about going last year, but missed the dates they were in town. We left Andrew with the grandparents for the night. The one thing I wanted to go to was the circus fair before the actual circus. William loves animals but never has really seen lions, elephants and mini-horses in person. We went into the fair and I showed him the lions just lounging in their cages and taking naps. I don't think that he got the concept that they were actually alive and not just stuffed animals in the cage. Finally we walked toward the elephant area and you could see his eyes get wide as he saw an elephant in person for the first time. Then we run into Keith and Lori and their crew (small world). Jen was visiting with them, but William wanted to see more so him and I went to the other areas of the fair. I saw that one of the mini-horses was close enough to the fence to pet so I took him over there to pet the horse and get a picture. Another thing that William was thrilled by were the Peg Perego/power wheel vehicles at one display. I was going to see if he could drive one of those things, but unfortunately the line was a little long and we were running out of time. We might have to look into getting one of those for him this year. My mom doesn't like those things and thinks all of those kinds of toys should be pedal powered. We will see. William also got to stand close to where they give the elephant rides so he got to see the elephant about 3 feet away. He really enjoyed that. They gave the 10 minute warning to the circus so we were going to head up to the circus with Keith and Lori, but just about everyone in their group needed a potty break before, so we decided to head up since that could take a while.

The circus was delayed for 10 minutes since the weather outside was crappy so they wanted to allow people to get inside. Our seats weren't too bad, I was told that they were on the isle, but that wasn't the case, they were 4 seats from the isle. They started the show with all the lights and things going on. William was so intent on trying to see everything he wasn't paying attention to the acts in the rings. Man the music was soooo freaking loud to the point of being annoying, but either they turned it down or my ears adjusted since it didn't seem that bad toward the middle of the show. Of course by then a black family had taken seats behind us and of course had to talk and comment about the show, yeah, I know you don't really need to listen to a circus but it got real annoying. That and I got hit with popcorn a couple times during the show. At one point Jen took William to get changed so I had to stand up to let them out and they started commenting how I should sit down and they couldn't see, just loud enough that I could hear them, I almost said something. Anywhooooo.. overall I think William had a pretty good time. He started getting tired toward the end of the show either cause by the time (9:30pm) or the beginnings of his current cold. We stopped by steak-n-shake to grab some malts for us and the grandparents and waited 15 minutes since they were slammed due to a woodland basketball game with all of the teeny boppers taking over the place. Jenny asked me if we acted like that when we were their age, and I just said, "yeah".

I am a book widow

I am a book widow... When Jen gets a book that she really wants to read, I can usually count on her being in her own little world for the next couple of days. It's like she is in a little soundproof room where no one can see her. She gets so involved in whatever she is reading that it would take a small explosion to get her attention. One of the kids could be on fire next to her and she would just appreciate the extra light. I could be standing in front of her naked and she would never notice. Wait, she doesn't need a book to do that. (just kidding dear).

I dread the release dates of Harry Potter books since I know I won't talk to her for days . Thank God this is the last Harry Potter book. Of course she will find something else just as interesting I am sure.

Anyone else a book widow??

Cars

Saturday I had to get the oil changed in the Saturn. I noticed the last time that the dealership was a wi-fi hotspot so I decided to take the laptop with me. Of course after getting past the service guy trying to talk me into $500 worth of maintenance on the car that "must be done" I was able to get to the showroom. I grabbed a pop and sat down at a table. I connected pretty easily and was surfing in seconds. There was only one other kid on the computer at the dealership so it kinda surprized me that it was so slow, but then I figured that the other computers in the dealership (probably the whole automall) were sharing this connection. I couldn't blog or do some other stuff so I wasn't sure if there was a setting on my computer or on there server that didn't allow access to some websites and things. Just as my laptop ran out of juice they told me that my car was done. Cool, that worked out. Overall it's good to know that I can take the laptop with me if I ever have any extended service done to the car. You know, the stuff that "must be done".

Speaking of car stuff. I have heard commercials and have seen signs for car dealers who will do you taxes if you buy a car from them. HUH? Let a car dealer do my taxes??? I would never allow a car dealer to do my taxes, especially a used car dealer. What a way of saying that they want to make sure they get all of your return rather than just some of it for that used pinto. I would rather my taxes were prepared by myself or H&R Block rather than Bob's used wrecks. But I am sure there are plenty of people who do this every year, but I just don't understand.....

What?

I have seen this story for the past couple of days about this little 77 sqare foot apartment in London for sale for $330,000 +.

In the story it says:

Tiny London apartment on sale for $335K
LONDON - Location, location, location. Almost anywhere else, the tiny dilapidated studio wouldn't attract much more than mice. But this is London and the 77-square-foot former storage room — slightly bigger than a prison cell and without electricity — is going for $335,000.

No Electricity? then What do you call this thing in the ceiling?




















Later on it says:

A coffin-sized shower is en suite, and storage is provided by a shallow closet and 10-inch-deep shelves cut into the wall. Two hot plates and a small sink make up the kitchen. Two dirty windows allow light to filter into the basement room, and the fire escape could conceivably double as a shared patio.
With no electricity or heating, Scott said it would cost an additional $59,000 to make the room habitable.

Again no electricity according to the story but two hot plates in the kitchen. How exactly are they powered?

I know it's the novelty of the story of how big it is and how much it's going for, but someone should get their facts straight. Either that or there is a language barrier between our countries. Or maybe it's just that the electricity isn't on, but I can't imagine they need $59,000 to flip a switch, but again it is England.

i'm melting... i'm melting

I got hit with a very nasty stomach virus over the weekend, and man it was no fun at all. Lucky for me it hit Thursday night so I had the weekend to rest and try and get over it, but I did end up taking Monday off and going to the doctors. Of course during the day on Monday I started to feel better, but I did end up going to the doctors anyway. Sunday night my stomach was rolling and gurgling so much that I wouldn't have been surprized to see an alien come out of my stomach. I swore I was going to wake the kids up. I know for a fact that it scared the cat. Or maybe that was just the byproduct of it sounding like the campfire scene in "Blazing Saddles" around my chair. Don't you hate when you are dealing with an issue like that and you get ready to "let loose" a big one and you just pray it's all gas? (ewww grossss.. yeah I know). We have all been there/done that, I am just saying it....

Why am I writing about this? I don't know.

Low Battery.

So, Sunday night I tried to head to bed early since I was so tired. But I threw in a movie and watched the whole thing, then had to make my lunch, and other assorted crap that I do before bed. By the time I actually hit the sheets its 12:30 or so. Andrew is having an issue so he is waking up and crying. Lucky for me he goes back to sleep very fast, but unlucky for me the baby monitor is still in the room so I wake up every time he does this, which is frequently. Among the other stuff to keep me awake is the pouring rain that is keeping my sump pump activating every 2 or 3 minutes which ends with a "THUMP THUMP THUMP" after every cycle. For some reason I don't trust my sump pump and I am always afraid it's going to stop working and I will be totally hosed, especially since it runs so much. Also, Jenny is still at work so I usually try and keep an ear out to see if I can hear her come home. I think I finally get to sleep and hear "THUMP" at 2:30am. It's not the sump pump "thump" but the "thump" sound of either Jenny coming home from work or William falling out of bed. I don't hear William crying, but I decide to investigate. I find William on the floor of his bedroom asleap. Man, that's pretty tired if you can fall out of bed and not wake up. After all of that I get back to sleep to have the alarm go off in what seems like an hour later and I get up. Work was real fun Monday.

Monday night I decide to try and get to bed early, but again with my farting around and TV watching it's well after 11:30 before I finally hit the sheets. Now I go to sleep hard. Around 2:00am again I hear a noise in a subconscious state of mind. I am trying to wake myself up enough to see if I can comprehend what is going on (you know, that kind of sleep). I wake up enough to hear a "beep" and then an electronic voice like Star Trek saying something. I figure that it is one of the kid's toys with the battery going dead and it's freaking out. At this point I am seriously going to find this toy and chuck it out the back door. Usually I kid around that I am going to do that, but this time I meant it. I asked Jenny if she knew what was making the noise so I can get my pitching arm ready. She informs me that the smoke detector downstairs is beeping and saying "battery low". Damn. Both of our smoke detectors are hardwired into the electrical of the house and they are in conjunction with each other so if one goes off they both go off. Unfortunately this beep and voice is something that I can't sleep through, and we are afraid it will wake the boys up. I am still trying to wake up to make my brain work on how to solve the problem. It would be just easy to replace the battery, but I know that if I disconnect the detector downstairs, both of the detectors will go off since they have a backup system in place. Adding to the fun is that we aren't sure if we have a 9 volt battery in the house so we are trying to think of which of the kid's toys to canaballize. Luckily Jen finds a battery and I do the old tongue test on the connectors to make sure that the battery is still good, and it is. I go down and look at the detector and tell Jen to get ready for screaming kids since disconnecting this thing will surely make them go off. Sure as shit as soon as I unplug the detector they both go off. I am trying to change the battery as fast as possible, but it takes a minute to get everything unplugged and plugged. William wakes up screaming so Jen goes to comfort him (maybe we should have woke him up before). Andrew stirs, but never actually wakes up. That's a heavy sleep. Finally after the battery is changed and everything is plugged back in, the detectors have to do a start up procedure which involves more alarms going off and voices. Finally the house falls silent. I do the tounge test on the supposed bad battery and it has a full charge!! WTF? I need to get the instructions out on these detectors and see if they require a monthly test or if they know when it has been a year since their last battery. We have to calm William down and he finally goes to sleep. I have to calm down so I finally go to sleep around 3:30 or so. Of course I sleep through my alarm so I wake up late and get ready at warp speed. I don't know how, but I actually made it to work on time. Needless to say work was fun yesterday. I am not as tired as I should be, maybe I am getting used to interrupted sleep (noooooooooooo).

And Now the news...

Well the year has started out relatively calm so far. The weekends are coming back into things of calm and relaxation rather than pandelerium. I got my Reuben sandwiches which were yummy. The good part is that with the stuff we bought to make our own we actually had quite a few meals from them. If anyone is interested in the recipe it's just basically corn beef, Swiss cheese, thousand island salad dressing and saur kraut on rye bread, toasted like a cheese toasty (Med heat until cheese melts).

I am getting a little antsy for a party so Jen and I are thinking about a superbowl/card party in a few weeks. We haven't seen our friends in quite a while and it would be nice for a visit. Not sure if we are going to do it or not, so stay tuned.

Speaking of Superbowl... it is the dumbest thing that no one on radio or TV can call the game "Superbowl" because the name is trademarked. They have to use other names like the "Big Game" or something else like that, so stupid. How great of a marketing idea is that? You spend millions of dollars on an event, and you don't allow anyone to call it what it is? (Like everyone doesn't know). I can't think of any other event that is nationally recognized that you can't say what it is. And Prince at halftime? uh.. yeah....right.

Football in General - before watching the Colts game Saturday I was watching the pregame show with JB, Shannon,Dan Marino, and some other yahoo. All of these guys gave the game to Baltimore before the game began. If it were up to them they wouldn't have even bothered playing the game. Even the commentators doing the game were extremely pro-Baltimore. At halftime the yahoo's were still trying to will Baltimore to a win. The commentators late into the 4th quarter they were saying what Baltimore had to do to win and beat the Colts. I am sorry, the Colts played very well and deserve some freaking respect. To everyone at CBS sports I would like to say:

Next time we turn on WOWO to listen to the call of the game.

Unfortunate burn out - I was driving home the other day and noticed that the neon sign on the Golden Corral restaurant. Unfortunately the "C" was burnt out on the sign. I don't know about you, but the "Golden Orral" just sounds dirty. And what makes it "Golden"? I AM NOT GOOGLEING THAT.

Carrie e-mailed us trying to nail down some dates for a possible "Geekfest 2007" (maybe I should trademark that so no one can say what it is). Being low woman on the totem pole at her work, the available dates for vacations in summer are slim pickings since everyone else has first pick. Her first choice is June 21-24 (which is looking more and more like the date). But again like last year she will have to pull Mary out of school or show up late at the destination. The next available date for her is sometime in August. All of this puts the planning committee into full gear trying to figure out where to go, what to do, and try and find out who wants to go. Any ideas would be appreciated. I think it was fun at the Kalahari, but it wouldn't be bad to do something else. If the same number of people want to go again this year I like the Village room that the Kalahari has to offer. I couldn't find anywhere else that offered a room like that, but again, depends on how many want to go. First things first WHO WANTS TO GO???????

That's enough rambling for now..

Tiggergate

I heard about this video a couple of days ago, but didn't have a chance to see it until today. The story that I heard is that a guy in a tigger costume hit a 14 year old kid at Disney. My first thought was "wow, the guy freaked out". I was a bit appauled to think that could happen, but then I saw the video. The guy in the costume is clearly trying to grab this kids hand and just happens to brush his face with his paw. This 14 year old brat claims that he didn't do anything, but I am willing to bet he was trying to unzip his costume or something like that. Tigger reaction was the same that anyone would have. I am sure this will end up with a lawsuit, but I wish someone in the media would get a clue and stop reporting that tigger "hit" this little bastard.

Now I know for a fact that there are some un-Disney things that happen at the parks behind the scenes but this definatly is not one of them.

New Year's Resolution

I have finally decided on my New Year's Resolution

I have resolved to give up self-denial

I hope I make it

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year to everyone!! This year we had another laid back kinda weekend, which is becoming what we old people with kids tend to do anymore. I was never really into going out on new years eve that much, but I would look for a party or create one, but now hanging out at home and not having to worry about the other yahoos on the road is getting to become what we do. I still love a good party though.

Saturday I had the time (and decent weather) to get all of the outside lights and decorations taken down. Now usually I will wait until after new years weekend to do this, but I just knew that if I waited until next weekend it would be 10 degrees with a foot of snow. Saturday night we took the whole crew to Meijer to get some snacks and stuff for Sunday night and Monday (and of course beer). I don't know why but a good Reuben sandwich just sounded good for new year's day. I figured we could just do a snack night thing Sunday since we were going to the in-laws for lunch that day and I knew I wouldn't be hungry for a whole meal Sunday night, just snacks.

Just like predicted we got home from the in-laws Sunday night around 8:00 or so and put the kids to bed. I thought about seeing if William wanted to stay up a bit longer, but I could tell he was already tired. By the time the kids were in bed, Jen was downstairs baking up some brownies. These are the best brownies that she found a recipe for. They are kind of a double layered brownie with mini M&M's in it. DE-LIC-IOUS (made from scratch, not a mix). I put together some cream cheese and relish dip and put together some roll-ups that Jen had a taste for. By the time we stopped cooking and putting together the snacks it was almost 9:45 already, so we put the snacks on the table and sat down to watch TV. I had my Corona (with lime) and she had her pop. We both made it past midnight until 1:00 or so then both fell asleep on the couch. I got up around 3:00am and headed to bed where Jen followed sometime later. 7:30am William comes walking into the bedroom. nnnnooooooo. that is way to freaking early. So I got up with him and we went downstairs. The rest of the morning was spent in the lazy boy with an occasional cat nap here and there while the kids played with their stuff. Later in the day we went to my mom's house for a visit and to drop the kids off for a couple of hours while we got some stuff done around the house. One of the tasks was to get rid of the real Christmas tree that we had. It's always so sad to see it come down, but the needles were becoming a real problem. This year Jen did go out looking for a new artificial tree after Christmas but couldn't find anything she liked. By the time we were done with our projects we ended up just grabbing some pizza at mom's house with the kids. The reubens will have to wait until tonight. YEAH!!!!