Mosquito (Labor) Day weekend

Overall a good mixture of Labor and relaxation for this 3 day weekend.

Saturday: After a stellar 3 hours of sleep (see previous story) I woke up Saturday wide awake, yeah right. Jen had to work so I pretty much just hung out with the boys and played and watched TV. After putting Andrew down for his nap I decided to make some Cookies and brownies for the Clymer family fish fry on Sunday. I attempted Carrie's cookie recipe for a second time with the proper ingredients and proportions and they turned out much better. Of the three dozen cookies I took up Sunday, none of them made it back. And once again everyone was surprised that I baked them. Yes I have some skills. The Brownies were from a recipe that I found on-line that looked very simple to assemble. The recipe was from a store called Jungle Jim's in Cleveland (yes Carrie I know you have been there) that looks very interesting and I might have to go visit if I ever get down that way or if I can talk them into selling Kalik. I was real careful with the brownie recipe and tried to follow it to the letter. It looked good going into the pan, and it said on the recipe in very bold letters DO NOT OVER BAKE. So with a cook time of 25-30 minutes, I of course throw it in for 30. I was used to putting the cookies in for longer than the suggested time. Well I pull it out after 30 minutes and there is a 6 inch bulge in the middle of the brownies. It looked like something you would see on the Beverly Hillbillies. After cooling down the bulge went down a little bit and I cut the brownies up and they tasted like crap. Yep I overcooked them, but hey at least I have the cookies for tomorrow. This was also the start of the mosquito onslaught of the weekend. William left the door to the garage open a minute and let in a ton of mosquito's. This was only the start of many run in's with mosquitoes all weekend.

Sunday we got the crew together and headed up for the Clymer family fish fry at the in-laws camper. We tried to leave early, but ended up waiting for Jen's friend Tracy and her boys to follow us up. We finally got up there around noon and spent the day visiting and eating. My father in law and his brother take their positions in the back of the camp area and start up there skillets and spend the next hour or so cooking all the fish they spent the past year catching. Usually there is a group to batter and season the fish so all Tom and Ken have to do is cook them. They try alot of different spices and flavorings on the fish which make for a delicious choices in the fish. Again there was a ton of food and it was all very good. I took William and Tracy's boys fishing off the dock for a little bit and every one of them ended up catching one very small fish apiece after drowning alot of worms. Nothing like hooks flying past your head as 3 kids try to cast their lines on the same dock at different times. After feeding the fish we all went down swimming. We ended up swimming for a couple of hours. I was staying close to William since he is usually afraid of the water, but for some reason wasn't Sunday. Andrew of course is the daredevil and went straight for the 10 foot slide in the water. We got back to the camper and started the feast. No, not us eating, but BEING eaten by mosquitoes. We grabbed a quick bite (so to speak) and loaded the boys up and took off for home.

Monday Jen had to work again and mom was having a party at her house in the afternoon to celebrate Dan being home for good. I dropped the boys off at Grandma's early in the afternoon to get some stuff done around the house. It's so much easier to get grass cut and the family room steam cleaned without help. I headed back to mom's around 4:00 and spent the rest of the day visiting with mom and chasing down kids. Around 5:00 Dan,Rhonda,Alta, and Lynn show up and the pandelerium starts :)... Mom is trying to put together the food, Alta is trying to help her, Dan is trying to put together Pina Coladas (home-made) all at the same time in the kitchen, it was kinda crazy. I just stayed out of the way sipping my beer (Sam Adams.. very tasty). Oh and also in the middle of the pandelium in the Kitchen the handle on the microwave mysteriously broke so Uncle Dave was trying to fix it at the same time :). The food was very good and we had a good time visiting with everyone. All of the activity had to stay inside due to the mosquitoes outside. Andrew went outside for a few minutes and was covered with bites. Around 8:00 they boys were getting real cranky so I headed for home to get them a bath and then in bed.

So overall it was a pretty good mixture of getting some stuff done but having some time to relax a little bit. Of course the fact that I am finally getting to write about this on Friday tells you the kind of week that I came back to at work, but hey at least it's a short week.

Night Golf III

Friday: Night Golf III - I showed up to Lakeside around 8:00. There wasn't much of a crowd there yet which kinda surprised me, but I thought maybe I was just a bit early. I was talking to my mom and the organizers of the golf and found out that the number of people was going to be down this year (5 foursomes) due to moving the outing from last Friday (due to rain) to this Friday (Labor day weekend). My cousin Marc was the only friend that was available to play this year, so we ended up getting paired with two other guys who weren't part of a team. The one guy was the organizer of the outing who was a dentist and named Phil, so we spent the night calling him Dr. Phil. I grabbed a plate and headed for the food (after grabbing a beer). This year was supposed to be catered food from Ceruti's so I figured it would be very tasty, but it ended up being pretty bland. There was Salisbury steak, chicken, green beans, and mashed potatoes with ham that had not flavor at all. But hey the night isn't about the food, it's just there to soak up the beer. They had some soft rolls that were delicious so I ate quite a few of those. I was surprised to see the sun going down in the middle of eating and it was totally dark by 9:00. I don't remember it being that dark last year. The weather was perfect with cool temperatures in the low 60's with a heavy kind of dewy night. So after taking a bath in bug spray we headed out to the course. The front 9 was still a little rough from all of the rain the past week so we ended up playing the back 9 which is new for me. The front 9 is totally different from the back since the fairways are wide open and there are par 5's and 3's. The back 9 is alot more narrow with tight fairways and a creek going along most of the holes. Almost all of them are par 4's. Stepping up to the first tee, it was again fun to see what kind of game you are going to play with the glowing little ball. All 4 of us put the ball straight on the fairway. Barry had one of those big drivers, and when he hit the ball you would hear this ear piercing "Clink" whenever he drove the ball. The nature of the glowing balls is that they don't fly as far or as accurate as regular balls which is probably good. You have to trust the yardage on the course. If the little steak says you are 100 yards out then you probably are. Depth perception of where you see the flag is never true. Overall I hit pretty well all night. I put a few in the trees, but lucky for me the glowing balls were easy to find. Another member of our team actually hit the glowstick out of the ball on one drive. We found the ball but had to replace the glowstick a few holes later. About halfway through the round we got to an area that was pretty open and we could see the moon rising up. It had been total pitch black dark then this huge full moon came up. The last half of the round was pretty lit on the course..the course not me. I borrowed my mom's pull cart so I wouldn't have to carry my bag, but it was a pain to keep track of my beer, so I will have to figure something out for next year where I can use the pull cart and mount the can coosie on the cart somewhere. We played a pretty quick round and didn't have to wait for the group in front of us or get pressure from behind which is a relaxing way to play. We got back to the clubhouse and the brought the food out again and I just had some more rolls. I found out halfway through the round that Dr. Phil wasn't actually writing down the score on the card, but just trying to remember how many over or under par we were. He thought we pared every hole but I thought we were one under par (thinking about it later I think he was right). We ended up tying for first place, but actually placed second with a backup scoring system. I got my little prize and headed for home around 12:30am which isn't too bad. But the story doesn't end there. As soon as I get home and in bed Andrew wakes up and does his 3 hour "I'm awake" thing so I didn't get to bed until around 4:00 or so. Of course William comes strolling into the bedroom at 7:30 wide awake. Sigh. But again it was a total blast on the course and I will be playing every year that I am able to do it. I usually put away some Christmas money specifically to play in this outing. I keep telling my friends and some year they will be enlightened like my friend Gina and cousin Marc.

Billy....do you like Gladiator Movies ???

Why is it that I am only posting stuff that happens on the weekend anymore? Could be because that's only when stuff goes on rather than the same ol same ol of go home, eat, play with kids, go to bed.
Friday night. The night of the big night time golf outing for the Kiwanis. The weather looked really good all afternoon then all of a sudden some storms popped up around 3:00pm. I kept an eye on them all afternoon and they got bigger and bigger. I was hoping that they would either blow through quickly or slip up north of us. I was already preparing myself for a soggy round. By the time I got home from work it was not looking good at all, but there was a slight window of it clearing up in time. My plan was to show up at 8:00pm and decided whether to just have something to eat or if I was going to attempt to play golf. My mom called around 5:30 and said that she wasn't even going to bother going out there, but I told her my plan. A few minutes later she called me and informed me that they were going to postpone the outing until next Friday. Probably a good idea. So I made the one phone call to Marc to let him know that it was postponed since he is the only one that was going to play with me. So now I have to get geared up for this Friday and hopefully talk a few more people into playing. Friday night I ended up mopping the furnace room up cleaning the concrete of some of the dirt and mud from the flood and the water heater replacement. All in an attempt to begin the furnace room remodel very soon.
Saturday I didn't really know what to do. Jen didn't have to work all weekend so it meant I could get some projects done around the house or we could take the boys to have some fun. I decided to try and get a few things done around the house. I pulled the Saturn out to wash and wax it, but the clouds kind of put that project on hold. While I was waiting for the clouds to make up their mind I edged the driveway and curb, then planted 3 plants that Jen had gotten from the mall, and a few other little things outside. By then the clouds cleared so I was able to wash and wax the car. Just before I finished we decided to hit church that night so we could do whatever on Sunday. After putting the kids to bed Saturday night I put in the movie "300". All I can say is that it is a very interesting movie. I can't say it was really good or really bad, just interesting. Very violent, but not really. The blood was flying everywhere, but you never saw it on the ground or on anything else. I don't know if it's just me, but knowing the the narrator of the movie was the goofy Monk from "VanHelsing" was a bit disconcerting. All I know is the the women of that time must have been REALLY COLD all of the time. Let's just say they could cut glass.
Sunday we decided to run up to the lake and go swimming. We got up there and found out that the water was real cold due to all the rain that they got up there, so we decided not to chance it. We hung out and visited, with the boys playing in the camper most of the day. We came back into town pretty early, and I was able to get the yard mowed, and the last of the gutter guards installed on the second story. Mental note to self: next time make sure I have on the tennis shoes with good tread when standing on the second story, and make sure I don't drop any more stuff off the roof. It sucks climbing down all the way to retrieve stuff.

The whirrrrring placenta

Yeah I know I am going to get yelled at for posting this, but it's just too damn funny.

Jen went to the doctor's today for a "baby" check. Jen tells me that the doctor couldn't pick up the heart beat with his stethoscope and all he could hear was the whirring (as she calls it) of the placenta. Huh? Bwaaaa haaaa haaaa. I didn't know that placenta's whirrrred. What exactly would that sound like? Would it be like a 4th of July firework, or something more like a gay guy dancing (woooooooooooo) Oh God that was funny, either that or I really need to get some sleep tonight. Of course she was talking about hearing the blood flow around the placenta.

Everything is fine, but for the second time the doctor couldn't hear the baby's heartbeat with his little stethoscope, so she had to use an ultrasound machine to pick it up. Unlike the last time, she had to wait 10 minutes for a ultrasound machine to become available which of course adds to the worry time the she has to deal with. The baby's heart rate is around 160, so a very strong heartbeat.

Doghouse... party of one.....comming.......

Meltdown

On the way home from church on Sunday, Jen said that she had to stop at the store to buy a few things for a "carry-in" at work that night. I decided to stop at the Kroger store on the way home since it is right on the way home. I should have known better since the last time we stopped at Kroger on the way home from church I ended up taking off the side view mirror of the car next to me and costing me a couple hundred bucks, but hey, I thought that was a fluke. There was two options, One stay in the car with the kids and let Jen run in and get her stuff or Two take the whole crew in. Since I was thinking about grabbing something for lunch we decided to take the whole crew in, that and the boys can get real cranky just sitting in the car. We head into the store and immediately William sees one of the race car shopping carts. Whoever came up with that idea I hope they burn in hell, or at least live an eternity of kids screaming at them because they want to ride in them. We decided to just grab a little tote since we were only getting a few things. William was a little disappointed, but seemed happy enough carrying the tote around. Andrew was in rare form and started to run all over the place, so I picked him up to wrangle him. A little while later the meltdown started..... William didn't want to carry the tote anymore, then he wanted me to carry him too. I tried to explain to him that we were almost done, but that wasn't good enough. So the crying begins. And then the always famous kid "flop" in the middle of the isle. Already having a short fuse since William woke us up at 5:00am I decided to take him out of the store. Yeah I will admit I was a bit furious at him, and of course embarrassed that my little "angle" would do this in a store. Already crying and trying to wriggle out of my arms we pass the race car cart and the meltdown turns into Chernobyl. The way he is screaming I would not have been surprised if someone thought I was beating the kid or abducting him against his will. I get him to the car and into his seat and the meltdown continues. He gets out of the seat and tries to get out of the truck. I start the threat of taking things away if he doesn't behave which is the latest tool of the arsenal, even to the point of no movies for the day (the big gun). Finally though the tears he tells me he has to pee. Crap. So I have to take him back into the store and to the bathroom, through the gauntlet of racecar carts and people staring, but luckily he has calmed down a little. So back in to go to the bathroom and back out to the car just as Jen is leaving too. We get home and I Think Jen is genuinely concerned that I might beat the boy since I am fuming. But after some time, and a nap for all of us, I felt a little better.

New Rule: No shopping at Kroger after church anymore.

Cookie Review

I decided to try Carrie's mom's world famous chocolate chip recipe out for a spin. We had a bag of chips in the pantry that we haven't dug into yet. We usually end up breaking into them and snacking on handful. I of course put a small bowl in the freezer for a little while. I love frozen chocolate. Anyway I am glad I didn't break into the chips early since I didn't realize that it took the entire bag of chocolate chips in the recipe. Overall I will have to say they are very tasty cookies. I had a opps moment and accidentally put in a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon of vanilla, but I don't think that effected the taste that much. I made the cookies with regular crisco, but if I had to do it over again (and I think I will) I will use the butter flavored crisco next time. There is just the slightest hint of an aftertaste of something after eating them, but that could be the vanilla opps coming into play. My cook time for the cookies was more like 16-18 minutes rather than 10-12 for golden brown cookies. Carrie's assembly instructions were a little vague so I was kinda guessing at some stuff, but I think I might grab the phone when she is talking to Jen to clarify some of the assembly.

In case you want to take them for a spin: http://caquincy.blogspot.com/2007/07/moms-chocolate-chip-cookies-short.html

Old cell phones never die... they just become playthings

I recharged my old cellphone the other day to get the phone numbers out of the phonebook since the sim card wouldn't transfer (even though they are both samsung phones). My plan for the old cell phone, along with a couple other ones, was to donated them to charity. They are mostly used at women's shelters since the 911 feature still works even on inactive cellphones. But due to my children's fascination with phones and electronics it has now become another toy. The one feature that they constantly want me to do is set the ring tone on the phone to a cat meowing. This is hilarious. The weird part is occasionally they change the ring tone and hit the old ring that I had for two years. Whenever I hear the old ring, my ear perk up and I think that I actually have a call. It's weird how a cell phone ring can provoke a response even though it's not my official ring tone anymore. The battery is now dead again, and now the decision on to recharge the battery to let them play with it or do the more noble thing and donate it to someone who might actually need it for an emergency. I think it will disappear tonight and into the bag of other cell phones to go to charity.

My mini-vacation

I decided to take a mini-vacation. Jen and I couldn't put the time or money together for a real vacation so I figured a 4 day weekend would be as close as I was going to get for a while. I was pretty beat too. I had been out on the floor for the past two weeks (including a Saturday) so I was pretty worn out. It was a pretty good break since the 4 days seemed like a week. So let's get started:

Wednesday night: met the in laws at Red Lobster for dinner to celebrate the numerous birthdays and anniversaries in the past month or two. The boys did very well at dinner and almost made it to the end before fussing. Andrew was fascinated by the many fish statues surrounding him and had to point and say "FISH!!!!!" at every one of them until food finally arrived. EVERYONE in Red Lobster knew where the fish statues were sitting around our table since Andrew pointed them all out numerous times. Williams fascination was with the lobster tank by the front door. He said he had to go to the bathroom, but it was a ruse to go see the lobsters. Good food once again.

Thursday: We get the crew up and going and head out the door to go visit Monkeyjack and family at his in-laws lake cottage for the day. We had a real good time swimming and taking a ride around the lake in the pontoon. I even got William to kinda jump off the dock to me in the water which is a huge step. Andrew (fearless) had fun in his inflatable ring and I think would have jumped off the dock too. Man I miss our lake cottage, but I don't envy the work and money that has to go into it year round for a few weeks of enjoyment. There was quite a house full of people and kids for the day including some teenage girls that Andrew hit on the entire time (he is such a charmer). Hamburgers and hotdogs for lunch and beef bbq for dinner supplied by Scott and the girlfriend du jour (kidding Scott). When the 3 teenage boys showed up at the cottage with one wearing a white wig and bandanna and the other "smoking" a fake cigarette I figured that was a good time to get out of there. Actually we were already heading out the door, but that was just funny to see. We stopped at Tom's doughnuts and bought enough doughnuts to last us the entire weekend.

Friday: My cousin Marc invited me to play 18 holes at riverbend as part of a coupon that he got in a fundraiser. Originally I was just planning on taking half a day to play golf, but figured that since I took Thursday off it would be silly to go to work for half a day Friday. I haven't played Riverbend in years, but the last thing I remember is that I lost ALOT of balls and that it was a crappy course and got bit up by mosquitoes, so I came fully prepared. The last time I played last month I totally stunk up the course so I was preparing myself for a long day. Surprisingly I hit the ball pretty well and the condition of the course was fantastic. It was 10 times better than the last course I played (gray goose in decatur). The fairways were like carpet, the greens were well maintained and there wasn't alot of spotty grass in the area. The cost even without a coupon is very reasonable and you can play in your tank top if you want so the course is pretty laid back. After all was said I finished with a score JUST under the century mark. It didn't feel like I played that bad, but it took awhile for my putter to get with the program. Overall I had alot of fun and enjoyed the day. I only lost 3 balls which must be a record. After that I went shopping and bought a new cell phone and then we headed over to grandmas for sloppy joes to welcome her home from Florida.

Saturday: Jen had to work so I decided to take the boys to the Muddy River Run car show at the fairgrounds. The boys love cars so I figured that they might enjoy some street rods and stuff. We took grandma with us too since Aunt Suzie was going to be there with one of her cars. One of the things that I feared was that the cars would be too loud for William to handle and wouldn't you know it just as we walk into the fairgrounds, two huge drag racers drive by rumbling with open exhaust pipes. Of course compounding the problem is that they have music blaring throughout the fairgrounds, so William spent most of the day with his hands over his ears. Andrew just rode in the stroller and seemed to enjoy it. We walked thought the fairgrounds and looked at all the cars. We got back to the tent where Aunt Suzie was, and the boys looked like they were getting a little sun so I decided to use some sunscreen on them. Wouldn't you know it, I got a little in Andrew's eye and it started to burn. And of course he uses his arm to wipe his eyes that is full of sunscreen too. So he starts to scream and cry and I try everything I can to flush his eyes, but to no avail. So we head home after only an hour and a half. I gave him a quick bath and some motrin and that seemed to help. The rest of the day watching the DVD du jour "lilo and stitch". A few more pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveandjj_ii

Sunday: Jen had to work again. So after church in the morning the boys and I just hung out around the house. Jen and I did head out to the movie after she got home. Mom brought over her new puppy for the boys to play with while Jen and I snuck out, grabbed dinner at Culvers and saw the new Harry Potter movie. Pretty good movie, but for the love of God never go with someone who just read the books since she compares the two (kidding dear and I know you're the same Carrie). We got home around 10:00pm and William was still up after giving grandma a hard time going to bed. Andrew goes to bed very easy but William doesn't make it easy, and especially for grandma. I blame myself for not giving grandma the proper "to bed" instructions to try and help the process.

And that's it. 4 days that seemed like at week.

I think my work has fleas

Sorry I haven't been posting lately, but we have had a few huge jobs come in that I have been helping on out on the floor. A 33,000 piece phone book with a 12,000 real estate book thrown in the middle. So yeah I have been busy. But as I was helping out on the floor, it felt like I got bit by something. Then an hour later I felt it again. I was commenting to a co-worker about this and he said that he was being bit as well. Another comment to another co-worker later in the day confirmed that she was bitten numerous times on her legs. So, my work has fleas. (or some form of small biting animal). I guess I will have to grab some of Cinder's collars to put around my legs

Dumbass

Ok am I alone in this?

One of the most hashed over trivia questions in the world is "what was the first video shown on MTV" and of course the answer is "Video killed the radio star" by the BUGGLES. The DJ on the radio just said it was "Video killed the radio star" by the BUGLES (like the cornchip)

I didn't even know they sang...... dumbass

three checks and two half checks

Another project weekend around the homestead. Saturday my father in law came over and we installed a light below the stairs so we could see better back in the corner and also to give us more light in working on the water heater. I didn't realize that the light was something that he was planning on since he first saw our house and has had the material for it for a couple of years now. (check). He left to go to a lake party. I crawled up on the roof of the second story to finish my gutter guard project. I knew I was going to be a few pieces short but wasn't really sure how many (half check). Again the ladder wouldn't reach from the back deck either so up on the roof hanging over the edge. While installing the guards I got into an argument with a wasp, and what do you know, the wasp won. Little bastard bit me on the finger. Nothing like warding off a wasp attack on a roof two stories up. But hey I did get a chance to clean the skylight for our bathroom while I was up there. (kinda check). A little later my brother in law came over and we finally got the cabinets installed in the laundry room (huge check). They actually look pretty good. Now its up to Jen to fill them with crap. After finishing the cabinets, we attempted to cut down the stump in the front yard. I decided there was no way of pulling it out like originally planning and now I am thinking stump cutter. Unfortunately about halfway through the stump we found out that we had dulled the blade on the chainsaw and the other two in the case were dull too. So we only got half way done (half check).
Sunday was water heater day. Jen packed the kids up and headed for grandma and grandpas to spend the day while we worked on the water heater. My father in law had changed his mind a couple of times on how he wanted to replace the water heater, but finally decided to use flex hoses and compression fitting (in case you were wondering). Of course that means taking back a bag and a half of other stuff we bought working on plan "a". I had to make one more trip to Menards to get a small part that was missing on one of the valves. When I got to Menards there was a huge line and I found out that their computers were down. Crap. I was close to leaving and driving to the Menards on the other side of town when I decided to cut to the front of the line and ask real quick if I could do an exchange for the exact same valve. The girl behind the counter told me a could if it was exactly the same thing. SCORE!! I felt kinda bad leaving the store passing all the other people still waiting in line, and I almost said something to them, but I didn't want to be a jerk. By the time I got back Tom had almost finished the majority of the install. I had to make numerous trips upstairs to relieve the pressure on the system and then back up to bleed the air out of the system. We had a problem of water leaking from the connections so more trips up and down the stairs, over and over and over. I must have went up and down at least 20 times. But finally finished and so far no leaks and the water is real hot (CHECK!!!!!!!!!). After we finished we headed back to the in laws for dinner. I think I am done with some of the bigger projects around the house. I think it's time to enjoy the summer before it's gone.

Harry Potter Widower Diary

Another "what happened" weekend

Friday - I got to play in a golf outing at Gray Goose in Decatur with my boss from work, all expenses paid whooo hoooo!! It was a beautiful day outside. How did I play? uhhh yeah....It was a beautiful day outside. Man I played like total crap. Even though it's a Florida scramble and I don't play that often I count on contributing to the score more often, or at least give the team a few options. Two years ago when I played in this outing I was the designated driver since I could get off the tee box pretty good. I had more flubbed shots then I have ever had in my life. I had a number of really nice shots, but the flubs won. I think I was trying too hard, but when I had a few beers at the turn I started to calm down a little bit and not really care. We ended up tying for 3rd place in our flight with a 63 and I brought home a few giveaways for the kids to play with. Overall it was better than working for the day. Friday night I was thinking of running out to the store to get the new Harry Potter book for Jen at midnight, but I chose sleep instead. That and she wouldn't be able to start reading until she got home from work Sat. afternoon.

Saturday - The usual 8:00am wake up with the boys. We all just hung out at the house. For our Anniversary I bought Jen a Jack Skellington Picture that was pretty cool and hung it over the bed. It actually looks pretty good there and we might leave it. Jen got home at 1:00 and went into immediate "Harry Potter" mode where she was on the couch reading her book and oblivious to everyone and everything. I took William for his haircut at 3:00. Overall he did pretty good, but started crying and fidgeting halfway through. When we got home we packed up the boys and all their stuff and went to Grandma's house. This is our first experiment of letting the boys spend the night with grandma. Jen and I left the kids at grandma's (I don't think they even cared that we left). Then the big question was "what do we do without kids?". It was our Anniversary, but we hadn't really planned anything. Options were Cinema grille to see harry potter, just go and see harry potter, or do a nice dinner. We finally ended up going to Triangle Park for a nice dinner. After a nice dinner it was 8:00pm and again it was "what next?" There was no reason to go home since we didn't have to put kids to bed and I didn't feel like going home yet. I knew that Jen wanted to get back to her book so that was also a consideration. I decided that we should drop in on the Cramers for a surprise visit and wouldn't you know it they weren't home. Neither was Tracy. Crap. So I finally lamented and we went home. Man we are getting to be old fuddy duddies. Jen went into "Harry Potter" mode and I worked on cleaning up the basement from the flood a couple of days ago.

Sunday - Without children crawling all over me, I had the chance to sleep in, but not the ability. I can only lay down for so long before my back starts to hurt. I woke up at 8:00 but was able to sleep on and off for another hour. Jen got ready for work and I got ready to pick up the kids. My father-in-law calls me about working on the water heater. A little bonus from the basement flood is that I noticed that everything else had dried up besides the area around the water heater. Then I noticed water leaking from the heater. Son of a B****. So after picking the kids up at grandma's (it went relatively well) I took the kids over to the other Grandma's for the day so Tom and I could work on water heater replacement. First stop was Lowes to pick up the water heater and some supplies. Second stop was to Menards (for more supplies) after getting the heater home and seeing that we will have to adjust the gas/water pipes to get it to work since this new heater isn't exactly like the 16 year old one in the basement (go figure). After all this running around it's already 5:00pm and we figure that we better not start now since we still would have hours of work to do, so we decide to put everything back to the way it was (thank God we didn't tear out the old one like I wanted to do early on).....The third stop was to Menards again for more supplies since we broke a valve that allows water into the water heater. Hopefully the heater will hold out until next weekend. So back to the in-laws to pick up the car and head back home to try and air the house out to get the smell of stinky carpet out of the house. We put the kids to bed and Jen went back to "Harry" mode. She finished the book a little after midnight.

The Red Barchetta

One of Rush's biggest hits was a song titled the "Red Barchetta"off the "Moving Pictures" album back in the 80's. Neil Peart wrote the song based on a story that he read in Road & Track that was called "A nice morning drive" written by Richard Foster back in 1972. I just read on Neil's website that he had attempted to contact Mr. Foster for years but was unable to do so. Neil gave Mr. Foster credit in the lyrics sheets of the album. It wasn't until 1996 that Mr. Foster googled himself and found the notation on the lyric sheet. The following stories are very interesting dealing with how they finally got together and went for a ride in the hills of West Virginia.

Neil's Story

http://neilpeart.net/news/index.html

Richard's Story of the Encounter

http://www.bmwbmw.org/bmwforums/viewtopic.php?t=8693

The Original Story from Road & Track

http://home.comcast.net/~r-and-n-foster/R-n-T_article.pdf

Small world huh....

Tonights Forcast: Partly darn with a chance of WTF!!

So last night Jen and I head for bed around 11:00. We notice the sky flashing with lightning and hear a few low rumbles of thunder. As we were watching "King of the Hill" and drifting off to sleep we notice the lightning get brighter and more often and the thunder getting louder. The boys have slept through thunderstorms before so I wasn't that concerned that it would bother them, but then a few lightning strikes came real close to the house and the thunder was pretty loud.....It first started with Andrew waking up crying, darn, but I looked in at William and he was sawing logs, cool. So we decided we might as well take Andrew into our bedroom since the chance of getting him back down to sleep would be pretty slim until the storm passed. Just our luck a few rumbles later William wakes up crying and screaming, sh**. So we are all sitting on our bed watching the local TV doing stories on the storm and keeping the boys entertained. We got hit pretty hard with rain and wind. The umbrella on the back deck blew out of the table so I ran downstairs and stuck my nose outside just far enough to collapse the umbrella so it wouldn't fly away and got soaked. After watching Letterman and the beginning of Ferguson at 1:00am I decide that the storm has pretty much passed and the thunder wasn't as loud. I put William to bed relatively easy and he falls asleep after 5 or 10 minutes. Andrew is another story. Jen has to deal with him and he is AWAKE and wired for some reason so he immediately goes into full bore crying and screaming (which William stays asleep for thank God). So Jen is in Andrews room trying to calm him down and I hear the sump pump in the basement running and running and running. I decide that I better go down and check it out since I don't really trust that sump pump. (the damn thing ran during the drought conditions of last week for some reason). As I hit the basement floor off the stairs I feel -squish- (Son of a B****) and then I get to the door of the furnace room and -squish- (F***). I open the door to see sump pit overflowing with about 1/4 inch of water in the furnace room. Thank God the sump was working, but there was too much water coming too fast for it to handle it. For what I can see most of the water is contained in this room with a few spots in the carpet getting wet and along the walls of the furnace room. I quickly start pulling things out of the room. Lucky for me there wasn't anything in the room in cardboard except the box for the battery backup that I have yet to install. (just became a priority). Good thing that I didn't get around to my project of putting a bunch of stuff under the stairs like I was planning. After getting all of the stuff to the dry area of the basement I start taking buckets of water from the sump pit upstairs and dumping it in the shower drain. I am not sure I was doing any good, but I didn't know what else to do. It seemed that after an hour the water level in the pit was getting lower. I notice more flashes of lightning and go upstairs to see if I can find a radar on the TV. Nope. I guess they check-out at midnight at the local stations. Lucky for me the second storm never hit. About 2:30 the sump was able to catch up to the water coming in and I felt safe enough to go upstairs to bed. I layed there until after 3:00 listening for it to go on and then turn off since I was still paranoid, but exhaustion got the better part of me and I fell asleep. Waking up at 7:00 was fun this morning, but I made it. Now just the sound of fans downstairs trying to dry up the carpet. Overall I would have been really FUBAR'd if the sump went totally out and nothing got damaged so I was petty fortunate.

Birthday weekend

Yeah Saturday was my birthday. 40 years old. Shit. Everyone around me is telling me its not a big deal, but the majority of them are under 40 so come and see me in a few years :)

Friday: It started last year where I would bring my hot dog steamer and a batch of my coney sauce and treat the staff here at work to coney dog Friday, so I did it again this year. It was a pretty good time and the coneys turned out real good too. Yum. Some of the other staff people brought some chips and pop so I didn't have to eat the entire cost of the lunch like last year. Friday night Jen and I were going to go out to the Cinema Grille and see Harry Potter since she had to work Saturday night (my birthday). About 1 in the afternoon I she called and informed me that she had to go into work since another manager couldn't make it in so that shot those plans in the butt. Welcome to the world of retail management. So I went home and the boys and I just hung out.

Saturday: After waking up and heading downstairs. Jen presented me with some birthday gifts. A new remote control for the TV, a bag of circus peanuts (I LOVE THEM), and a boccie ball set (will go well next to the cornhole game next time at Jeff's). She also got me a polo shirt that I think was supposed to be a father's day gift but left in the back of the car. After Jen left for work my mom called and she came over and we ended up ordering pizza and drinking a few beers and visiting.

Sunday: We woke up and headed for church. After we got home we weren't really sure what we were up to for the day. We had talked about doing the cinema grille thing that day or just grabbing a nice lunch. We decided to grab a nice lunch and do the Harry Potter thing next weekend. We called around for babysitters but weren't able to find one on such short notice. Yeah I know we should have planned the day out better and arranged stuff but I didn't feel like doing that. So we ended up taking the kids with us to Lunch at Outback Steakhouse. Last time we were there Andrew was in a bassinet so that makes it over a year ago. Overall the boys did pretty good. Andrew got bored and started fussing about halfway through lunch and William had to make 3 trips to the bathroom. After lunch we took the boys home and put Andrew down for a nap. I took off and bought a new golf glove and headed to the golf range to hit a bucket of balls. I get to play in a golf outing on Friday so I needed to hit a bucket to make sure I didn't embarrass myself like in my last round a month ago. I get to the driving range and throw my new glove into my bag. I have the whole range to myself. I first head to the grassy area on the left side of the range since I like to hit off the grass rather than the mats since it gives a better response to what I would do on the course. I see the grassy area on the left is pretty rough and real spotty so I head to the grassy area on the right side of the range. Now this is at least a 500 yard walk so it's a pretty good stretch of the legs. I find the grassy area on the right in the same sad shape so decide to hit from the mats and walk halfway back to the pro shop to a mat, whereupon I find that I have lost my new golf glove. Crap. Did I leave it in the car? So walk back to the car and no glove, back to the grassy area on the left and no glove and walk all the way back to the grassy area on the right and there it is. So I have already walked a couple miles in finding a place to hit and then in search of my glove. I know the girl working the pro shop was wondering what the hell I was doing. I hit the entire huge bucket and overall hit them pretty good and straight with a couple of total flubs. I can tell it had been a while since my left forearm was getting tight. I went home and hung out with the family for the rest of the night.

There is a mental state in the idea of being 40 years old, kinda like a halfway point. From now on birthdays with zeros at the end are getting bigger and bigger. It's like you try to throw on the brakes but to no avail. To me age on a calendar is just a way of counting days, I think of my age is just the way I feel, and so far I fell pretty good.

It must be in the Water

For those of you who don't know yet, Jenny is pregnant again
(for the last time, even if I have to cut it off)

Damn my fertile loins (and my inability to read a calendar) !!!!

She is due January 17th about a month earlier than Jeff and Paula. Congratuations to them too !!

I will never get another good night's sleep again........

4th of July

Nothing much planned for the 4th of July... then BANG!! My dad calls Tuesday night saying that he is coming up for a visit. Cool. Originally he was planning on a trip to Arizona for the week but a little medical condition came up that kept him from flying, but was cleared for a car ride so he came up with my step mom and their dog. Another bonus was that my brother was in town so he could visit with both of us. It was alot of fun. We had a good visit and had a chance to pig out on some good snacks. One of the things that dad can't get down in Alabama is Win Schulers cheese and he is addicted to it, so we put a hurtin' on it while he was here. He was going to load up a cooler on the way home too. The boys both got new remote contol cars which were alot of fun and hopefully will be for a while until they destroy them. I don't know why but Andrew just loves stepping on top of his car. For the 4th of July we just stayed home and visited with everyone. I did buy some of the so called "legal" fireworks that just sparkled and stuff, but even those seemed to scare the boys a little bit so we sure won't be going down to the huge display for a while. Thursday we had a cookout at the house with everyone. Dad went to Sam's to pick up some supplies for the grilling and bought some of Sam's hamburger patties. Geez they were huge!! at least 3/4 of an inch to an inch thick of meat. I cooked them real slow to make sure they cooked all the way through. They were very tasty, but man that was alot of meat. Friday we did a visit to the zoo and had a good time, but it was so warm we basically just hit the high points of the zoo and still took us two hours. Friday night we grubbed from food from Riverbend Pizza and visited some more. They hit the road early Saturday morning, so Saturday and Sunday were just vegetating in front of the TV and trying to get a few more projects done. I am happy to report that the cabinets are done and just have to be assembled and installed and that will give me back a huge portion of my garage.

Yippie Ky Ay Mother F(bang)

***This was last weekend not this weekend***

Another whirlwind of a weekend started with a phone call from Keith. He was getting together some guys to see Live Free or Die Hard, the latest movie in the Die Hard series of movies. It was a midnight showing at Carmike. I was willing to go but I wasn't sure if my body was or not. I just worked a pretty hard day and midnight is past my bedtime, but I decided to give it a shot. Sure as Sh** I fell asleap on the chair, but luckily woke up in just enough time to leave the house to make the theater on time. I was actually the first one there then Scott and Keith pulled in not too soon afterward. By the time we were walking up to the box office I think I was finally awake again since I was definatly in a huge fog when I woke up. I enjoyed the movie. It was the typical, crash cars, blow sh** up and see how much of a beating Bruce Willis can take. It had quite of few times where I questioned the logic and physics of what they were doing, but quickly corrected myself thinking, "this isn't an intellectual movie... it's one where they blow sh** up!!". Overall a fun guy movie, but I think Jen would have enjoyed it too. After the show we hung out in the parking lot discussing the movie a little bit and life in general. It would have been nice to grab a beer and hang out for a while but it was already close to 3:00am and not too much is open at that time. I got home at 3:00am and it was at least half an hour to 45 minutes to wind down from blowing sh** up. Of course kids wake up proptly at 8:00am.... whew it going to be a long day.

Saturday we decided to take William to see the new Pixar movie Ratatootieee, Ratagooeee, Ratatatataaa, oh hell the cartoon with the mouse. Overall it was a pretty entertaining movie. It didn't blow me away like "Cars" did but I was entertained by the movie. William seemed to enjoy it too and took only one restroom break in the middle. I guess we can rate his movies by potty breaks.

It's kinda a blur

I just had a three day weekend and it's kinda a blur.....

Thursday night we had grandma come over and watch the kids while I took Jen out to Red Lobster for her birthday. Dinner went well, but remind me not to order the meal that I had again. I have a usual at Red Lobster which is the crab Alfredo, but leave it to me to go off the beaten path and try something new. I will never learn. I got a dish that had 3 different things on it. Fried fish, fried shrimp, and fried clam strips along with fresh FRIES. That's alot of fried stuff to eat. It was very tasty, but foolishly I tried to eat as much as possible since you can't take that stuff home and reheat it (unlike the crab alfredo, dang). So a stuff, fried, stomach ache later we decided to head for home since neither one of us felt like getting ice cream and exploding on the spot. We got home and put the kids to bed and tried to get to bed ourselves. We had to get up early and take William to the hospital to get tubes put into his ears and have his adenoids taken out as well. So we have to be there at 7:00am (dang), it's on the other side of town (crap), which means we have to get up around 5:30am or so to get ready. I guess I could have thrown on a hat or something, but I didn't think it was that early. I finally got to be around 11:00pm thinking that 6 hours of sleep isn't too bad. Wouldn't you know it, Andrew does one of his 1:00am crying fits that lasts for 3 hours. So by the time I get back to bed it's just about time for the alarm to go off (Son of a ). Luckily I was up enough that I got ready and didn't sleep through the alarm. We scooped up William and headed out the door when grandma got to the house at 6:30am. The procedure at the hospital went pretty good. After checking in and doing all the prep stuff, the actual procedure only took about 30 or 40 minutes. I tried to sleep during this time, but that wasn't going to happen. We sat in the recovery room with a very cranky boy for about an hour and a half. When the doctor talked to us, he told us that the tubes are in place and that the adenoids that he took out were twice as big as the 15 year old that he did after William. Hopefully that will help him with a multitude of problems. The rest of Friday I sat there with William and we just watched TV.
Saturday morning I got a hair cut in the morning and decided to work on my projects in the afternoon. The project du jour was installing the gutter guards on the second story gutters. I waited until Andrew was down for his nap before starting the project. I can deal with William helping me with my projects, but I can't be on the roof and have Andrew free to roam. Jen had to work. I tried to do this project using a ladder from the ground but the ladder wasn't long enough so I ended up doing my flying Welenda's working on the rooftop. I got the front gutters done before William fell and scraped his knee which I had to get off the roof a couple of times for different reasons. I noticed that Andrew was waking up so I decided to call it a day. William was playing in the jeep and fell asleep. Poor kid. So I took Andrew outside with me and we played in the front yard while William took a nap in the jeep.
Sunday was a lazy day. Jen had to work again so I watched the boys and got a real good nap in the afternoon. Sunday night when Jen got home we grabbed a bucket from the Colonel and went over to the in-law since they just got home from a two week trip to Alaska. It sounds like they had alot of fun and took some pretty good pictures with Jim's camera.
Fun part of the weekend is trying to put ear drops in Williams ears 3 times a day for 3 days. You think we were beating the kid for the way he screams. The even more fun part is trying to do it by myself without Jen helping to hold him down. Other fun part of the weekend is Andrew did another wake up thing Monday morning for 3 hours. We have got to find out why he wakes up and why he won't go back to sleep and then try to find out why William has to visit our room almost every night too!!!!

How cool is that????

I was reading some of the news stories on the internet yesterday and one said how you would be able to see the international space station and the shuttle fly overhead at night with the naked eye. I followed the link to the NASA website that tells you when and where you can see stuff flying over your head. It said that we could see the ISS and the shuttle at 10:30 last night and kind of gave you an idea of the direction it would be flying. I went outside to see if I could see the event and wasn't really sure what to look for, and I was expecting to see something moving slowly across the sky. Suddenly I saw two bright objects going across the sky. They were going alot faster than I thought but still you could see them clearly. I was able to watch them for just about 20-40 second before going behind the trees. They look just like bright lights of a plane, but I think I will break out the bioculars tonight to see what I can see. The ISS can be seen for the rest of the week, but the durations of the sightings only are 1 - 4 minutes a night so keep a close look out.

Link to see space stuff fly over (follow links to your local state/city):

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/skywatch.cgi?country=United+States

Other cool space stuff and viewing of planets:

http://www.jackstargazer.com/

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch

One of the projects around the house that has been nagging me is getting mulch for under the kids playset as well as some of the landscaping in the front yard that I had edged. I was trying to come up with a plan for this project this weekend while trying to work out watching kids and Jenny having to work. Thursday afternoon my boss comes to my desk and tells me that he is giving everyone a free day off since we are a little slow and there are a few bigger projects coming in that will keep up very busy. SCORE. So I decided to take Friday off to work on mulch. Friday morning I wake up with the kids around 7:30 or so and take my time getting ready. So I am heading out the door around 10:00am and Jen suggest that I take William with me. That wasn't part of the plan, since I didn't think he was allowed to be in the front seat of a pick-up truck, and I wasn't sure if he would get in my way. But Lately William is usually really good about staying out of the way if I am working on projects so I decided to give it a try. So we head to Menards for some weed barrier fabric (to put under the mulch to keep weeds down) and out to bum-pa's (what William calls grandpa) house to grab his truck. I put William's booster seat in the front seat and we head out to the Mulch place (Felgers). William LOVES ridding in the front since he can actually see everything that is going on, which is vastly different from his back seat position that he has had his whole life. The thing that really fascinated him is that when he looked out the side window he could see the cars behind us in the side view mirror. He would look at the side view mirror, say "here he comes" and then turn around to look behind us. We saw all kind of trucks, cranes, and stuff on the way to the mulch place. Even when we got to Felgers they use a huge front-end loader to do the mulch. Now I haven't been out to Felger's since I went with my dad probably 25 years ago. I just remember you pull up, talk to the guy running the front-end loader, pay him and get loaded with mulch. Wouldn't you know it's still the same way after all these years. I talk to the guy and get some cheap wood chips for the playground. I was standing outside the truck as he was loading the truck and noticed how big Williams eyes got when he dumped in the mulch with one huge scoop. Probably should have warned him or been in with him, but he seemed to take it in stride. We get the truck home and I back it up as close as I can get to the backyard and lay out the weed fabric and start dumping the wood chips. The process went pretty fast and the wood chips weren't as heavy as I thought they might be so I could load up the wheelbarrow as high as I could. While I was dumping wood chips my mom came over and took the kids home with her for a little while and Jen leaves for work. William was given the choice of staying with me or going with grandma and he chose grandma. So I finish the playset and I debate going for another load for the landscaping, but I figure it's not that late and run over to Felgers for some mulch. Just as I get home and start spreading it my mom shows up to drop the kids off. Crap. Either I forgot that she had something going on or Jen though I knew. Anyway after a little while of trying to work on mulch and watch kids (especially Andrew) I decided that it was too much of a pain in the butt so I decided to finish the mulch Saturday morning.
Saturday morning I finish spreading out the mulch and take the truck back to bum-pa's house with Williams help again. By the time I got back Jen left for work and the boys and I just spent the rest of the day watching Madagascar and playing. When Jen got home she fell asleep while I was giving the boys their baths and slept until 8:00 the next morning. I think she was a little tired.
Sunday was pretty uneventful for a father's day. We went to church, Jen went to work, and the boys and I hung out and home again. Mostly inside since it was so hot outside. During the day the Sinus thing that has been going around the family finally landed on me with both feat. Yuck. When Jen got home we went out to the Kanning residence for a get-together. Unfortunately we got there toward the end of the party so we just had time to grab a little something to eat, visit a little bit and chase down the kids. We came home and put the kids down reeaaallllyyy late from their usual bedtime.

CORNHOLE CORNHOLE CORNHOLE

Looking forward to Sunday !!

Yawn

You know.... I decided a while ago that I wasn't going to write about every time that the kids woke me up in the middle of the night since I could see it get boring and uninteresting to everyone else who reads my blog and it would become a daily blog entry. But sometimes I just gotta vent. That and when the kids read my blog in the future they can see what we had to put up with.
All week long William has been getting up at 2:30am and coming into the bedroom. Usually all I have to do is put him back to bed and turn on the light in the hallway and he is good to go (maybe some more water). He hasn't done this in a while, so I am looking for a reason. Well he has been feeling a little warm and had the sniffles for a day or two, so I am thinking that he is fighting a little summer cold. Before bed last night I decided to give him a little medicine to give him (and us) a good night sleep and to help fight the cold. He falls asleep pretty fast which is unusual for him. For a while now he has been reverting to any stall tactic that he can think of to stay awake (and annoy me) as long as he can. Needing more water, going to the bathroom, wanting his stuffed animal, needing his new matchbox cars, then wanting me to put the cars in the toy box downstairs to name but a few. Of course all of these stalls require me to go up and down a flight of stairs. Anyhow, he goes down pretty quick last night and I finally get to bed around 11:00pm or so, and like clockwork he comes strolling in at 2:30am (crap!!). So I put him back to bed with some more water.... and asleep. 3:00am he comes strolling back in and again I pick him up and put him back to bed. He did this every half hour from 2:30am until 6:00am. During one of his ventures into the bedroom, Jen gave up and went to sleep in his bed since he wasn't obviously needing it, leaving him in the room with me. Whereupon he wants to watch TV. Then He starts bouncing on the bed. Then he stand in the doorway yelling down the hall. (sigh). We figured that the medicine that we gave him was non-drowsy (crap!!). whatever happened to the good old days of medicine with a little codeine to make the night go well. I am not as tired as I thought I would be today at work, but still I could use a nap.................

What a weekend

Finally I had one of those weekends that you actually enjoy. You know the kind where you do things that you enjoy and that the family enjoys too. Yeah some of the landscaping projects around the house were bugging me that I wasn't working on them, but screw it, the landscaping will always be there.


Friday night was sad. We had to go up to Angola after I got home from work for a funeral viewing. I am still trying to figure out how I am related to the guy who passed away, but it's basically the grandson of my mom's, aunt (or something like that)... so it's probably like a 3rd cousin a couple times removed. Unfortunately he committed suicide last week. I don't know the details on events surrounding his death, and it's really none of my concern as long as he rests in peace. But it did give us a chance to see some relatives from Florida that we don't see that often. Next time I will rethink taking a 4 year old and a 1.5 year old to something like this again since all they did was run around. It seemed a bit disrespectful at a viewing to me, but it was a chance to have the kids see some more of the family.


Saturday was fun fun fun at Germanfest. Just about the only event that I will make an effort to go downtown for. We met up with mom, Dan, Rhonda, and Rhoda's mom Alta. We all had a real good time. We ate bratwurst and german potato salad with Kutchen (yummmyyy). And the beer was very tasty too. After containing the boys long enough to feed them, they were off and roaming all over the place (especially Andrew). So would let him do his thing and stay a couple steps behind him to make sure that he didn't get into anything that he shouldn't, and occasionally steer him back toward our table to top off my beer. We were able to see the Weinerdog races from the tent and that was move visible and better than last year. It still could be tweaked, but so much better than last year. After hanging out there for a couple of hours we headed for home.


Sunday we packed up the kids and headed for the Zoo. Every year we say we are going to buy a season ticket and every year we don't. But this year we had a little "rock" money laying around and bought the pass so we are good to go for the season. What a perfect day it was outside, it was a little warm, but no unbearable. We took a wagon with us to the zoo so we could transport both kids at the same time and also give us a way to carry a little cooler of water and supplies. That worked out very well even though some of the hills at the zoo are a little steep going up and was quite the workout especially with both kids in it. The boys got to pet a snake at one of the little nature stops which freaked out Jen. I didn't realize how much she hated snakes. Snakes.. why did it have to be snakes... (thanks indy). We got our first look at the new ride in the African veldt part of the zoo. Basically it's just a ski lift right now going over a construction site which my brother found out Saturday. After that we headed to the rainforrest part of the zoo which takes us by the horses. Every time we go past them William wants to look at them, but you couldn't talk him into riding them. I talked him into it and he took his first horse ride (with me right next to him) and seemed to really enjoy it.

Later as we were leaving the Australian part of the zoo we run into Jeff,Paula, and Brock. Small world. Then as we are talking, seconds later, Kevin, Lisa, and Gavin come walking up to our group as well. I thought the Shelenbachs were with Jeff and his crew and Jeff thought they were with us, but nope, just a huge coincidence that we all were there at the same time. After visiting for a while we took the kids home. Even though we didn't go through everything at the zoo we now have the passes and plan on visiting more this summer.

More pictures of our zoo adventure can be seen here :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveandjj_ii/

Monday Morning Hookey

Monday morning I had a dentist appointment at 8:00am and decided rather than just taking an hour off work, I decided to make it half a day. Dentist appointment went pretty good with no cavities or stuff, but I did get yelled at for not flossing. No matter how old you are there is still something about disappointing the dentist. I actually should say the dental technician since she is the one that does all the work where the dentist blows in looks at my teeth and blows out. I think he was in the room long enough to ask me how I was doing and everything looked good.. that's it.
After the dentist I decided that I had enough time to play 9 holes of golf. I headed to Arlington Park Golf course. I call this course my "home" course since this is the course that I started playing golf. My brother and I were the first people to play the course when it opened up years ago. We lived just off the 4th tee-off until the mid 90's. I hadn't played the course in years, but the last time I played it was around $6 for 9 holes which isn't too bad for a course that is a little rough (has a tendency to flood during hard rain storms) and has no electric carts or frills. The guy working the counter told me it would be $10.50 for 9. That's a little salty for this course, but actually not too bad considering what the other courses in town want for 9 or 18 holes. I was half expecting to play the course by myself since it was 9:00 am on a Monday, but there were a few other people on the course (mostly gray hairs). That is the other thing that I like about this course is that it's not too busy. Overall I would have to say that the course is still in pretty good condition... I played like crap... but the course is in good condition. First hole of the season I shank my tee shot to the left into a tree, over hit the green by 30 yards, and 3 putt the green. sigh. Its fun to see how trees have grown on the course making some of the "shortcuts" that we took as kids are no longer available. I think I only shot par on one hole with the rest bogey, double bogey, or worse, but still it was good to be out on the course.
After playing I headed over to Menards to save big money and then home to eat lunch and visit with the kids. The afternoon at work went very fast. I might have to look into more of those half-day getaways on occasion.

Memorial Day Weekend

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

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

ARRRRRGGGGG

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

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

Andrew

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

Just the parent in me talking.

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

Gag!!

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

I WANNA ROCK!!

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

Got a new Toy !!

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