I feel safe.....

Last week PBS was running a special on an aircraft carrier. A real interesting behind the scenes look of what goes on during deployment. I find these types of shows very interesting and used to watch these shows on "Discovery" all day long back when we had cable. It's things you never really think about like how they get rid of trash, how to feed a couple thousand people every day, and stuff like how they handle religious services while on board. Along with a very interesting behind the scenes look there were a couple of disturbing things too. The people they decided to interview for the documentary were scary. Almost every one of them were from broken families, their mom's were crack whores, the service was their only choice, they didn't want to be there.. Yeah I know it's only a few of a crew of thousands, but they chose these people to follow in almost every episode. It actually turned into a little soap opera with these people which I found annoying. In the interviews with the crew members (or at least the ones that they aired) almost all of them didn't want to be there and didn't agree with why we were there. I could have used a little less soap opera/anti war propaganda and a little more information, but still it was an interesting series.

Busy weekend

Saturday was a lazy day for me and the boys. Jen had to work so we just hung out around the house for the day. It was real windy and a little cold so I decided to stay inside and try and get a few small projects done around the house. The boys love it when I get out my tools since they know I am on my way to fix something and they can "help". Of course they "helped" me out of a tape measurer. I am sure it's in a toys box some place. The plan was to do a few things outside when Jen got home, but she ended up working later than planned so that didn't work out. A curious thing happened when Jen was at work. Jen received a text message from someone claiming to be an old friend and gave a few clues to who they were. Jen deleted the one message figuring it was spam which held part of the clue. Only a select few (and you know who you are) have my cell number. So I figure if it was someone we actually knew they would call or text again, and if it's spam then not answering it might end it there, but it's still curious. I saw that Jeff called later on in the afternoon and thought it might have been him since he is the only one who texts me, but his call was due to his brother-in-law's sewage filled basement.
Sunday started pretty early with the boys up by 7:00, and I got up and went to church. Then I came back and picked up the family and we headed downtown for another church service and a confirmation. We were able to sit with my father and mother in law toward the back of the church. There were 4 teenage girls sitting in front of my father in law and they were not dressed appropriately for church and they TEXTED and talked all during the service. They also had a little kid in front of them that they were playing with which the mother did nothing to take care of that. I think they were all related. I asked my father in law how he kept from saying something to them and he said it wasn't easy. Very few things get my father in law going, but that is one of them. I knew if I found it inappropriate that he must have been going nuts. TWO HOURS later we finally left the church and headed for a reception at the families house. The boys and I hung out outside while Jen and Christopher were inside being passed around. (Christopher not Jen). The boys really liked the sandbox in the backyard and played in that for hours. We might just have to get one of those. Their current playset has an area for a sandbox, but the view is blocked by the rockwall and I think I prefer to have something we can see and that we can cover in case of rain. The food was very good at the reception. They borrowed the hot dog steamer and got numerous comments on it. I was even surprised to see that they had chilled up some beer! That really surprised me, but when I tasted it there was a funky taste so I don't know how long it had been around. After a couple hours of eating and playing we decided to get going. I got a call from a friend putting on a benefit concert on the lake north of columbia city and decided to pop up there with the family to check it out and to return her computer that I fixed. It was a nice drive up there. We pulled up to the restaurant/tavern/bar/dive and was able to park among the motorcycles. The outside looked just like an old cottage that had been converted. We walked around to the back where the bands were playing, of course still in our church clothes and waaayyy over dressed for this crowd. There was a tent with the bands at the bottom of this large hill with about 20 people crowding the small deck off the back of the bar. The bands started playing and it was too loud for the boys to handle. They both covered their ears and were never far from me. I wanted to go into the bar and check out how the inside looked, but I don't think the boys would have let me. It's always good to know where a good restaurant is for a weekend drive, much like Clay's restaurant or the retreat on lake George. After a little bit the boys were getting used to the music and they had found a moon walk and were really enjoying that. Around 5:00 we thought we better head for home since Christopher was due to eat and there wasn't a good place to feed him around there. Of course half way home Christopher wakes up and wants to eat.. NOW. So we got home as quick as possible. After that the boys played some more and Jen and I just sat on the couch exhausted and wanting to fall asleep. The boys went down pretty well with Christopher being the problem child for the night. He either had too much gas or was over tired from the day so that took a while. There was nothing on TV so we put in a movie that I think I saw 10 minutes of before falling asleep. Nothing like waking up to go to bed and remembering that I have to make lunch for the next day. So I finally get to bed and William comes in the room around 4:00am crying for whatever reason. It took about an hour of numerous trips down to his room for various reasons until he finally fell asleep. Of course then the garbage truck comes at 6:00am and he comes in the room. We just let him sleep with us and he crashed until after I got out of the shower. It was a busy weekend, but I am trying to get the boys to experience new things. It seems like they, like us, get into a routine and we need to break them out of that as much as possible so they aren't afraid to try new things.

Too Cool

A last weekend I was helping out at the March of Dimes charity walk. I noticed that one of the guys that I knew was sporting a new iphone on his belt. I had to try it out. He let me play with it for a little bit and I have to say it's the coolest gadget I have ever seen or played with. I wasn't sure if it would live up to all the hype and do all the stuff that it does on the commercials, but it sure did about everything with the short time I had to play with it. If I had the means, I would definitely own one of these things, but I don't think that is going to happen in my lifetime. Maybe some day I will get an itouch since I don't really need the phone feature. Now where are those lottery tickets?

That Stinks

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

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

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

Ultimate Geek

Fabled Optimus Maximus Keyboard has Arrived

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

See the website Here

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

Flashback

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

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

no...seriously

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

Let's get rid of crap

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

Shake Shake Shake

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

Trip down memory lane

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

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

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

The busy weekends have begun

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

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

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

Bad news, good news.. turned into bad news

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

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

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

I blame Carrie

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

Really???

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

Here's an outtake:

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

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

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

ahhhhh warmth

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

William's Birthday

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

Christopher's Baptism

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

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

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

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

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

Easter 2008

Overall a very busy weekend for bunny day. Saturday was cleaning day. Jen had to work so she dropped off the boys to grandma and grandpas for the day so I could clean uninterrupted. She left at 9:30 and I immediately got busy. I pulled all of the furniture out of the front room to clean the carpet. Our new carpet cleaner does a fantastic job .... almost too good of a job. While it steam cleans and scrubs the carpet it ends up pulling out clumps of fuzz and cat hair. So after sweeping the room, I steam clean, let that dry and then re sweep the room to get all of the fuzz turds. But another good point with the steam cleaner working so well the carpet's don't stay wet very long. So while waiting for the front room to dry and resweep I moved to the front room I had just spent the week mudding, sanding, and painting. It needs another coat of paint, but I ran out of time and it is good enough for Sunday. So I cleaned that carpet, and moved on to the next thing. Trying to plan out the best way to kill time to let the carpet dry to resweep it. I pretty much did that for 6 hours. I was going to throw in a cd to listen to, but MEE had a 80's weekend going on so I found that good enough. Between cleaning carpets, cleaning bathrooms, hand washing the wood floors, and numerous little things like cleaning the vents, my body was aching around 4:00.
The in-laws brought the kids home around 5:00 and we grabbed a pizza to eat. Jen didn't get back home until almost 7:30, and then had to do a couple things after bath time like coloring the easter eggs and a few other projects for the next day.
Sunday Jen gets up and goes to 6:30 service at her church. She comes home and gets myself and the boys and head out to my church for the 8:30 service. It was busy but not too nuts. We get home and start throwing some last minute stuff together and do last minute cleaning. Around 11:30 my mom and brother show up. I notice that there is a spot on the sidewalk that is still icy from the snowfall the last time and start looking around for something to put on the ice so it won't cause anyone to fall. Jen suggests kitty litter. It was a great idea, but I later regretted it since when the ice did melt it mixed with the kitty litter and just made mud that was tracked into the house. Overall it was a very good time with just over 30 people showing up. We had to hunt for eggs inside since the outdoors was just a little too soggy. After dinner I noticed the older boys getting bored sitting in the front room so I plugged in the Wii and let them play. They all did very good and took turns. IT was hard to tear them away from it when the finally had to leave. Some things of note that happened on the day. Aunt Carol had a problem with the potatoes and accidentally got pieces of plastic in them which Jen's Uncle Dan bit into. Then she thought she left something in the stove at home and tried for quite a while to get a hold of her husband to make sure it was off.
The boys had alot of fun and too much candy. Good to know that Andrew is a jelly bean fiend. Man he wouldn't leave that bowl alone. Now the attempt to keep the house relatively clean so it's good to go for this weekend and Christopher's baptism since we are having people over after that as well. You are invited if you would like to come. I guess I never really got into religious affiliations of our friends or if they are practicing. Probably should find out sometime.

Here comes the bunny

I am not sure if Easter just got more crazy or easier. We have a busy but set routine for Easter. Jen usually goes to the 6:00am service. She comes home and we pack the kids up and go to the 8:00 mass at my church. Then over to my mom's house for a brunch and general bunny stuff. Then we head over to Aunt Carols house for lunch, easter egg hung, and more general bunny stuff. And then usually home by 5 or 6. This year, one of Aunt Carol's daughters is moving back home and she didn't thing she could handle a move-in and Easter on the same week, which I don't blame her. So they asked us to host Easter at our house this year. I am thinking, cool, now we don't have to run all over the place with the kids this year, and I like to entertain anyway. But then a bit of panic set in. There was alot to do and get ready, working out the logistics of trying to get the house cleaned with the kids around and doing it at the last possible moment so it will stay clean.

Then we decided to use the front room to give the kids a place to play, which means I have to try and finish the room. We had pulled the wallpaper and the plan was to fix the holes in the wall and then repaint the room. That plan just got moved up to a priority. So far I have mudded and sanded the walls fixing all the holes and dings. I was up to till midnight last night putting primer on the walls to get ready for paint. Now the next big question is paint. We had bought two gallons of a paint color that we THOUGHT we liked, but when we put it on a small section of wall it was pretty bad. Crap. So a trip to home depot and another leap of faith on another color. We called around to see if we can get a 'tester' sample of paint, but either they don't do it or they want $4 for a small sample. no thanks, we will just take another chance.

Plans ewr made last week to drop the kids off to the grandparents saturday to give me a day to steam clean carpet and more general cleaning. Hopefully it will last from Saturday night until Sunday morning. Lucky for me my father-in-law is getting a head count so we know how many tables we need and we can plan where to put people. I think at last count is was around 25 or so. I don't know how Jen's aunt does it every year in a house that is alot smaller than ours, but she does it very well so I have confidence that things will work out for us too. The crappy part is that we have a fantastic yard for easter egg hunting, but the weather is probably going to keep us inside.

St. Patrick's Day

Had the Dan and Rhonda over for Reubens and beer.

I can see clearly now....

The digital revolution is comming more and more every day. When I first heard reports of the analog signals going away being replaced with digital I was a little uneasy. Yeah we only have the over the air signal, but we really don't need cable or the dish. There is enough programing on the 4 stations we get to keep us properly entertained, and if not we have quite a good DVD collection. Even if we could afford cable or the dish, I am not sure we would bother with it. Anyway, I heard about these converter boxes a few years ago that would be necessary. I stopped by best buy back then to price one of these things out and it was around $100. I am glad I waited around for a while. The government's plan was to give a rebate of $40 per TV to those poor schlubs like me who only use over the air signals. I call it my government cheese box. I figured even with the rebate it would be costly, but I found one at Walmart for $49. Friday the little rebate credit cards appeared in the mail. I was able to sneak away for some errands on Saturday morning and stopped by to pick up two of these little boxes for our TVs. After looking around a while I finally had to ask where they were, and of course they were right in front of me. I get the boxes home and have to wait for a while until the kids were properly bored with TV to hook them up. I worked on the big screen in the front room with multiple configurations trying to get it to go through the VCR, but couldn't get it to work. Finally I just hooked it up directly and turned it on. It is sooo cool. No more fiddling with the antenna to try and get a good signal for the different stations. All stations come in crystal clear. And I get even more channels than before, including two weather radars and a button that allows me to see the upcoming programing. It's great that I have gotten the boxes early to make sure I got them, but I can see them coming up with something a bit cheaper or with a few more options, but for now I am pretty happy with it. But there are two drawbacks to the cheese boxes. One is that the Fox station doesn't appear, according to their website their digital stuff isn't to full power yet. My question, Why Not? The are promoting the crap out of the digital stuff but don't want to do full power yet. The other and bigger problem is that one of the PBS substations is PBS kids 24 hours a day... crap. We used to be able to tear them away from the TV because the programming stopped, but now we are going to have to keep an eye on how much they watch. The other cool part is that I think I can get away without using an external antenna on the house, but I am curious how many more station I could get with an external antenna.

Happy St. Patrick's Day !!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day !!

Wishing you always...
Walls for the wind
A roof for the rain
and tea besides the fire
Laughter to cheer you
Those you love near you
And all that your heart my desire

Not much planned for tonight. Just having Dan and Rhonda over for Reubens and a few beers. Maybe throw in the "Quiet Man" with John Wayne, or it might be the Wii.

Snow fun

I finally had the chance to take the boys outside for a little fun in the snow. Unfortunately there was a little crust of ice on top of the snow which made making a snowman very difficult, but the snowballs were able to be made very easily. We don't go outside enough, especially in the winter and now the snow will be gone soon so another winter wasted, but at least we had fun in the time we were outside the other day.

Car Shopping

Saturday Jen and I pawned off the kids to grandma and grandpa and went car shopping. Like I have said before the 3 kids fit in the back seat of the jeep but it is real tight. The jeep itself has some mechanical issues too, so we decided it is about time to unload it before it requires major repair. We weren't ready to buy yet,but we wanted to get an idea of where to go and what was out there. Now I look for the cars on the net to avoid the sales weasels, but we decided to go out and look in case there was something Jen wanted to drive. With age I am not as intimidated in talking to the sales guys and can easily walk away from one in mid conversation if needed so that makes car looking a little easier. Of course you HAVE to talk to the sales weasels since just about every car lot in town is too chickensh*t to put the price in the window. A couple of the websites that I look at won't put a price on their either. They just lost a potential customer. So we are out and about and start hitting lots in the automall. We did see a REAL cheap mini van (under $5000) that said "as is" so you know it has issues, but you weigh the price of repair with a cheap car payment, but we decided against it. The first 3 lots we didn't see anything we liked or could afford. We got out again at the fourth lot to look at some Hondas and Toyotas. We were basicly looking at Chrysler's, but Jen had heard good things about Honda's. So we get out and start looking, and immediately get a sales weasel to come out of his hole. I am talking to him and he asks how much we are looking at spending. I tell him and he starts laughing at me. At the time I just blew it off, but when I recalled it later I was outraged. How dare this little a$$hole laugh at me! So yet another loss of a potential customer to this lot. I should have known not to go to this lot since that is where I bought my black 454 SS pickup truck that was a p.o.s. and paid WAY too much for. For anyone else looking, take some advice, and don't go to Bob Rohrman's in the automall. Next were the two lots I had the most hope for. O'Daniels where the sales guys are nice and the selection is great, and Barts where the selection is pretty good and the prices are reasonable. Nothing available at O'Daniels, but Barts had one that was almost what we wanted.
By this time were were getting pretty tired and hungry so we decided to head to the North side of town. We cruised past a couple of lots, but weren't inclined enough to actually stop. We lunched at Penera's. This place is good for a selection of bagels, but I have never been real impressed with anything else there, but it sounded good to Jen. So $17 later we had two sandwiches that were alright, but not $17 alright. Back to the in-laws and we ended up spending the rest of the day there playing with the kids. But at least we know now what's out there and where we want to go.

Indiana-no place

We made the trek yesterday to Indy to have Andrew's eye checked out again (follow up). We dropped William off at the in laws and hit the road around 11:00 which is almost the time we tried to hit the road. The drive down was pretty uneventful. We drove through numerous snow storms, but just little flakes here and there every once in a while. I am glad I live in a relatively small town. I can't imagine driving in the traffic of a large city every day. A guy in a camper came inches from side swiping me, but luckily I was changing lanes right as he decided that he wanted to be in my lane. Then you have quite the mixture of people going the speed limit, people going slower than the speed limit, and then those who think its the autobahn and weave in and out of traffic like total idiots. We were about half an hour early for the appointment which gave us just enough time to run down the the built in McDonald's at Riley's. As soon as Andrew saw the golden arches he was excited. (he love Mcdonald's). We quickly ate lunch and headed upstairs for his appointment. We had a relatively short wait and headed back to see the doctor. Basicly everything looks good for his eyes. We just have to keep and eye on his eye and if it starts having a problem where they don't track the same we need to contact them. If nothing then back in another 6 months for another checkup. Nothing like 7 hours of driving and farting around for a 10 min appointment. I got a chance to see the CT scan from the last time were were there and ask why we put Andrew through that hell, and got a pretty satisfactory answer. So back on the road to Fort Wayne. We again hit snow storms on the way back, and one by Marion was bad enough to make me kick off the cruise with the roads looking slick. I also had a van behind me that was just going slighly faster than me, but when she got in my blind spot she went the same speed. So I had to keep speeding up to pass people since she wouldn't pass me, man that was annoying. So back in town by 5:00 and the in laws were nice enough to run down to KFC and get dinner for us.

A cool thing that I saw on the way back is that they are building a new outdoor mall at the noblesville exit (Deercreak) and it has an IMAX theater. They have another IMAX theater in Indy but this one would be alot quicker to get to for us. We just might have to go down for a few shows if they have some cool stuff. Yet another reason for the Q's to move to Indy :)

New Imax theater (Hamilton 16) info : HERE

They Came... They Saw.... They Left

Quick recap of the Q's drive-by visit. Just kidding kids :)... Thursday night I get home from work around 5:00 and they arrived at the house not too long after that. After some initial visiting, we were trying to decide what to feed the kids. Of course the kids were too busy playing and running around that I think they would have forgotten to eat entirely. We initially thought about getting pizza, but the Q's had that Wednesday night so on to plan "b". After some discussion we decide that pizza two days in a row isn't too bad so John and I head off to the hunt. First stop is to the grocery store for essentials, Milk, Cereal, and BEER!! Then over to papa Murphy's for pizza. Luckily the now vegetarian-ish Q's don't see pepperoni as meat so we get a pepperoni pizza and a small vege pizza. We finally get the kids fed and then corralled around 9:00 and off to bed. A short time later the rest of us are fighting sleep so everyone heads to bed around 11:00ish. Friday was a work day for me and the Q's ended up spending the day with the Kannings. I get home from work and help Jen put together some stuff for the party and get the house ready. People start coming to the house around 6:30 or so. We had a really great turnout with just about everyone showing up. It was fun to be able to visit with everyone and in some cases just find out what everyone was up to. The kids were having a blast running all over the place and playing. After a bit the kids started playing with the Wii since Mary and Charlie had some experience playing it. The party stared to thin out around 10:00 and we were able to get the kids to bed with a little effort. With the kids down it was time for the parents to play the Wii. The Q's had brought 5 games with them, but we didn't have a chance to play with all the other stuff going on. We played a couple of the games that were pretty fun including a couple mario games. The last one we played was Resident Evil 4. This is a shoot 'em up game where you go into villages and kill zombie-like people. That was very interesting and very hard too. Finally around 2:30am we finally turned off the Wii and headed to bed. Of course the kids don't care that we were up until 2:30am and got up promptly at 7:30 (yawn). But after more playing around and feeding children, the Q's headed toward the long and winding road around 11:00, after almost forgetting their pillows and sleeping bags. It wouldn't be a visit from the Q's without finding something they forgot, but so far we haven't found anything. It was a real good visit, but just too darn short, but I think Carrie got enough of a baby fix. Jen and I are talking about making the trek in the summer to visit the Q's or trying hard to make Geekfest happen this summer. Either way we are going to have a van by then since I can't imagine driving that many hours shoehorned into the jeep.

I tried waiting

I waited for Jeff to post this picture of Joshua, but he hasn't blogged in weeks. Too busy changing diapers I suppose. For those of you who didn't get this in your email.. enjoy. TOO CUTE!!

I have humidity

One of the projects for this winter was to get our Aprilaire humidifier working. The first winter we moved in was November two years ago, but we were too busy dealing with moving in and painting and boxes and babies so I didn't bother. Last year was a mild winter so we barely noticed it being dry in the house and used a vaporizer in the bedroom to up the humidity. This year I decided to finally get the thing working. Yeah I know it's already February, but I have been busy with other stuff, including baby stuff again. So a couple of months ago I replaced the water panel which is a yearly maintenance thing that I am sure hadn't been done in 10 years with the previous owners. I replaced the water panel and decided to give it a try. I turned on the thermostat and didn't get any water flow at all. I decided to trace the water line back to the source. Hooked to the hot water pipe of the water heater was the saddle valve that controlled the water. Of course they placed it almost to the top of the ceiling, above the water heater, among the other furnace pipes and crap. But with the help of a ladder I was barely able to get to it. Of course it was stuck. I oiled the crap out of it and still could get it barely to turn. So I resorted to the wrench. The last thing I wanted to do was over "wrench" the saddle valve and have it break. I opened the water all the way and still no water flow. The next culprit to look at was the solenoid connected to the thermostat. (The thermostat tells the solenoid to let water flow to the unit. ) I tore that apart and found tons of water pressure before the solenoid, but nothing after. So I have to replace the solenoid (I think). I call around to authorized dealers of Aprilaire to look for the part and to see if they can test the solenoid to see if it's working. Doc dancer will bench test the solenoid, but charge $95 for the part. Yikes. Korte (where I got the water panel) has the part for $79, but can't test it, but will send out a guy for $70. Crap. I find the part on-line for $45. Now comes the leap of faith. Spend the money without the test and hope the problem is the solenoid and hope it's the correct part? I finally decided to give it a shot. I order the part and get it a couple days later. This starts another comedy of errors. As I am connecting the wires with the wire nut, I twist it too tight and break off the end of both wires. As I am stripping the wires to try it again I slice my thumb open (need to get a wire stripper). As I am turning the water back on I cut my arm on the copper wire ground for the water heater. As I am turning the water back on (with a wrench) the end of the saddle valve snaps off (thank God it didn't start shooting water). And lastly, after turning the water back on, the saddle valve starts to leak (luckily I fixed that problem just tightening the saddle valve nut). Maybe the $70 would have been a good idea..... Anyway after getting everything hooked back up and on I am getting good water flow through the unit and my little indoor/outdoor thermometer in the house shows the humidity around 32% which is good for winter. Someday I will have to fix that saddle valve and I might move it down to be able to get to it a little easier. The ironic part is that we had to get a DE-humidifier for the basement because it was too humid.

Screwed Again

Little news to anyone that my favorite group is Rush. Hard working power trio that has been together for over 30 years. The message in there music is always fresh and their tunes are never rehashed or similar. They always push the boundry of new and interesting songs with a true rock feel. The one thing this band lacks is recongition. They have a serious die hard following but never made into the main stream (not sure they would want it that way). Their tour last year was in the top 25 of ALL concerts last year so you know they still draw a crowd. This group is in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and win numerous awards in Canada, but not love in the U.S. I was pumped to hear that they actually got a grammy nomination this year for an instrumental song on the new "snakes and arrows" disc.

Let's look at the following picture... We have all taken the SAT's or other comprehension test. Which one of these things is not like the other?

Bruce Sprinsteen????? And he WON? Are you freakin kidding me? You can't put that hack in the same category with Metalica, Satriani, and Vai. Of course Satriani and Vai get little to no love from the mainstream either even though they are very talented artists. I just listened to this Springsteen tripe (HERE) and IT'S NOT ROCK. The song is something a guy recorded 20+ years ago and Bruce just put some guitar tracks over the top of it. He didn't do any work on a the freakin song. That does not deserve a grammy. This is total Bull Sh**. I probably wouldn't be so p.o.ed if Rush lost to anybody else than Springsteen. Only 5 grammy nominations over 30 years and 0 wins. Just another reason not to watch awards shows. Like the academy awards giving out statues to movies you never heard of and will probably never watch in your lifetime. Yeah I know it's not really fair to give an award to the movie that makes the most money, but they can make it a little more realistic to movies the public has seen.

Deep breath.......

Wii Training

Jen and I have started our wii training for the Q's visit in a week. This is actually the first time that Jen had even tried it, and I think she likes it. We were able to play all of the games on the sports disc that came with the game and she did really well. She kicked my butt in Golf!! Including a shot from the fairway that hit the pin and went in the hole!! Bowling is fun too. It still amazes me how much actual physical activity is required to get the game to work to it's full potential. Jen had a bit of a sore arm like I did the last time due to the physical requirments needed to play. Overall the graphics on the wii are pretty cool. It will be fun to see what games the Q's bring with them. We might run over and rent a couple for the visit. We would have done this before, but we just don't have the time to play video games like we used to. Back in the day, we would stay up till 2:00am playing Zelda on Nintendo (original recipe) all week long. Now by 10:30, Jen is flaked out on the couch and I am fighting it in the comfy chair. There is Zelda for the Wii, maybe rent that one. Oh and I finally got the wi-fi feature to work on the Wii so I can do some internet stuff. I am still reading on what exactly I can do with this little white box. Maybe see how to hook up with the Q's and the Crammers on-line and have a game night. That might be interesting.

Visitors from Afar

Just got confirmation that the Q collective is coming to town so Carrie can get a "baby fix". It just happens that the kids have break in school where they can come and visit with little fuss and muss. They should be rolling into town on Feb 21st (of course subject to change at any second). As of right now there is nothing planned except for baby visiting with us and Jeff and Paula (need to come up with a neat nickname for those two... i mean three) We were thinking of attempting to plan a get together again on Friday or Saturday night at our house. Besides that nothing on the docket. Jen and I need to get our Wii skills sharpened for the visit. The Q's are so much more experienced than we are. Jen hasn't even played it yet, but Carrie is addicted to a mario brothers game and hopefully she will bring it with her. Also, Carrie, if you are reading this, don't forget to bring your extra controllers with you, we only have the one. Last week I got a special offer from the Kalahari for a super deal ($299 a night) on the village room. I was going to suggest to meet up with them for a night on the way over, but the special deal didn't fall on those nights, and that would cut into Carrie's "baby time". Still, reminder to everyone to save up for Geekfest later this year (maybe). On the way to vollyball last night I saw a sign at a little bar for "Guitar Hero-oke" I assume it's like kerioke but with guitar hero. That would be interesting to watch. Maybe if the Q's skills are good enough they could take it to the next level..... bar competition. Now we are just going to be working on our Wii skills, getting the house cleaned, and getting the sleeping arrangements made which will be different since moving William into the Lightning McQueen room. Actually the Q's might like the new arrangement better since there will be more room to spread out. So be on the lookout for emails and let me know if anything else is going on that weekend.
Hopefully by the weekend John will be out of Carrie's doghouse. He forgot to tell her that Joshua came early. ooops.

Fun time... too short

So I get a call out of the blue from Keith. He tells me that he is organizing a little bit of a guys night out. Cool. Besides MR halloween and christmas we almost never get together at all during the year, which is a shame since we all have so much fun when we are together. But usually life gets in the way and between kids and other stuff our availability it a little tighter than before. Before we got married, Jen used to be a fixture at Keith's house and would spend alot of time there. Now she might get a few minutes to talk to Lori on the phone every couple of weeks. Anyway, back to the gathering. Keith recommended trying the new granite city food and brew restaurant. It just opened up near the mall and looked interesting. I have been to their website and it looked like it had a good menu and atmosphere. We figured we could take the evening to celebrate Jeff's upcoming father-hood, but leave it to Paula to mess up the evening by having the baby on Monday night. Just kidding, all of God's blessings to little Joshua and his parents. Actually Jen was trying to arrange a dinner with Lori and Paula before the birth date, but again little Joshua came early. So after work I stopped off at the rehab hospital to visit mom for a little bit. She is doing really well and should be home tomorrow if she has any say in it. I get to the restaurant and head for the bar. There is a ton of waiters and staff standing at the front door to welcome you. This is pretty typical for a new restaurant. Wait for 6 months and you might see one or two people at the front door. Anyway. The restaurant itself is pretty nice. It's not very big, but well decorated and has a wide open layout which is comfortable. I walk through the bar and no Keith, I walk through the restaurant and no Keith, I was just about to call him and I see him and the guys in a booth hidden in the corner (obviously they know where to put the riff raff :)). The service from Scott our waiter was fantastic. He checked on us continually and always made sure we had everything we needed. He annoyed me a little when he kept referring to everyone at the table as "my man", but it wasn't a big deal. Looking at the menu, there was a nice selection of food where everything looked good. I was kinda looking for the prices, but there wasn't any on the menu... strange. But there was numbers after the descriptions. I was thinking that they might be the prices, but the appetizers were higher numbers than the sandwiches. I found out later that those numbers were the prices, they just have BIG appetizers. I now it's a kitchy thing to do, but would it kill you to just print a couple of zeros. The only beer to drink there was their 5 microbrews which were pretty tasty even with my stuffy head and off taster. The special for the night was a $5 "growler" on the website. I had to ask when the heck is a "growler". Basicly it's a big bottle (2 litres) that you can fill up and take home. You can't drink it there, but you can take this huge bottle and take it out the door. It reminded me of a story my grandma used to tell how her dad used to give her a nickle and a bucket and send her down to the corner store to fill it up with beer. The "growler" is actually a pretty good deal if you go by the restaurant often, especially with the beer being $4.25 a glass. They also had a "Mug" club that was a pretty good deal too (again if you were there frequently). Anyway back to the food. I changed my order at the last second from a wrap to a basic cheeseburger, which was a mistake. The cheeseburger was overcooked (burnt) and dry. Everyone elses food looked very good and they all seemed to like their meals. But my bad burger didn't put my off trying this restuarant again in the future. I am not sure if I can attribute my bad burger to the Cramer restaurant curse, but nothing else went wrong, so probably not. We were having a good time ribbing each other and telling stories. Most of the group (Marcus,Keith,Mike,Tim,and Todd) have known each other for 25 + years at least so I got a little lost in some of their stories and references, but it will still fun to hear them. After we ate and paid the bills, I was settling in for more stories and ribbing, and everyone got up and started to leave. That kinda surprised me, but I am sure there was other stuff to do on a tuesday night. Overall a good time at a good place. A little pricey, but not too bad overall. I look forward to Jen and I having a "date night" there sometime soon to give it another try.

The next tentative plan is to get together at ThunderBowl the old Hilcrest Bowl on the South side of town. At least half of the group worked there in high school and thought it would be nostalgic.

PSA for guys

SAINT Valentine's day is a little over a week away. Are you ready guys? Well like me your answer is probably, nope. I am here to help you out. I am providing you guys a new and innovative way to shop for you honey. If you are one of those brave souls that attempts to buy your sweetie garments of an "intimate" nature, then this might come in real handy. This site might help you to avoid fights by making sure that you pick the correct size and having a very good night.

Click here to proceed. The link is a little NSFW so open carefully.

For those of you who use this site to buy your girlfriend or wife (or both.. just kidding) a little something, you are welcome. For everyone else... keep you hands above the table.

Again, I am just here to help a fellow brother out.

Yes Carrie I will get back to work..

more baby stuff

finally got a chance to download some more video and pictures from Christophers birth. In this video William and Andrew check out their brother while bumpa holds him.

Next are a couple of pictures from when we got back to the room after Christophers birth.

So far the new camera is working well, but with a 2 gig memory card I don't have to empty the camera every 25 pictures like the old one so it's a little harder to get to posting picures.

I put some other pictures on the flickr account HERE

Lightning McQueen

Clearly the boys favorite Disney character is Lighning McQueen. They might not watch the DVD that much anymore, but give them anything with a "cars" character on it and it's their new favorite toy. Of course being boys they love cars in general. I have learned to shuffle my feet around the living room since it usually entails stepping on a car or two if I am not paying attention. We need to start enforcing the Q's plan of cleaning up toys before going to bed every night. Anyway with the new baby coming we decided to move all the kids to different bedrooms. I am not real sure why, but I am sure there was a good idea for it. I believe Jen's thinking is that the older the boy the bigger the bedroom. Of course I feel sorry for poor Christopher since he will get stuck with the smallest of the bedrooms, but he also gets the room in the back of the house so he doesn't have to worry about hearing cars drive by all night and the thumping stereos as much. Maybe I will find something to make that bedroom a little more special for when he gets older. So the big plan was to clear out the 4th bedroom and make it William's new bedroom (so much for storing anything in there anymore). Finally we got everything organized enough to allow me to get to the walls to start painting. Jen had found this neat little plan-o-gram for a lightning mcqueen room at home depot a few months back. It included a two color paint job with borders and all kinds of stuff. We had been talking about a lightning mcqueen room for a while now so Jen went out and bought bedding and other stuff for the themed room. I decided to get a little creative and decide on a two toned room with a border in the middle. Hopefully he will get a little more enjoyment out of this room than from the "finding Nemo" room that he was in. I don't think he ever got that his room was finding nemo themed at all since he really didn't get into that movie. We were trying to get him moved in before or soon after the baby is born, so I head over to home depot to buy the paint. The guy at home depot strongly recommends a tinted primer for the red part of the wall. "if not you will be putting multiple coats on the wall" he says to me, and all I can think of is the Q's and their 8+ layers of paint on Keith's room. Then the big question, "what kind of paint do you want?". Uh crap I hadn't thought of that. I heard the term semi-gloss and it sounded familiar so I told him two gallons of that. The blue color is offically called "Cinderalla's Gown" but I call it "radiator springs blue" to sound more manly. I get to work on the first coat of primer and it is really pink. Now I knew it was going to be pink, but it was strange to see that color on the wall. At this point I find out from Jen that my semi-gloss decision was a major faux paus and that I should have bought Satin. They won't take it back since it was a special mix so I have to buy another two gallons of paint. Lucky for me the primer didn't matter. The guy at home depot gives me advice on paiting the room, which is basicly the lazy man's way. Hey I am simpatico with "lazy". Basicly it's giving the paint at least 24 to 48 hours between coats to allow it to fully dry. At this point we aren't really sure how William will like being moved into another bedroom so I start building up the excitement telling him how cool the "Lightning McQueen" room will be. He gets real excited about it. For the next week, after eating dinner, he would tell me to get to work on the room. Yes sir, right away sir. I work on the room for about a week alternating colors so I can allow the paint to fully dry. The red goes on really well, but still requires 3 coats. I could have gotten away with 2, but I think the 3rd really made it look nice. The blue goes on well and only requires 2 coats, but I must have been real tired when I worked on it since I ended up accidentally hitting the ceiling 3 or 4 times which I usually don' t do. I figure I will touch that up when I fix the kids bathroom ceiling or get to work on our bathroom ceiling. Next was the border. I thought the stuff that I bought was peel and stick, but it wasn't it was prepasted. Crap. I have never hung wallpaper or border so I have no idea how to do it, and don' t really feel brave enough to attempt it until I am sure the paint in totally dry. Then a little thing called "having a baby" got in the way of this project. After getting Jen and the baby home I decided to finish the job. I start on a small wall first with a bucket of hot water. It goes on well, but not as good as I thought. I can adjust the border quite a bit while it is on the wall, but the perfectionist in me kept tweeking it and I could see me tweeking too much. I finally ended up putting the bigger pieces of border in the bathtub to get wet. Lucky (or unlucky) for me the majority of the room was long runs which entailed only one long big piece at time. Man what a pain in the butt. Finally I get all of the border on, but it's not laying flat to the wall. Crap. I am using the sponge like the instructions say, but it's not doing the job. So, I decide to ad lib and grab my 5 inch putty knife and start to use it like a squeegee. It does a fantastic job in getting the paper to lay down on the wall,but it also presses out all the excess glue out and down the wall. Son of a B****. At this point it's late, the kids are fussing since it's way past their bedtime, and I am trying to help Jen out with the baby. So I get the border put on, most of the excess glue wiped of the wall and put kids to bed. I go back into the room and start to fiddle with the border some more, (it wasn't totally level) but finally yelled at myself to just walk out of the room. I come back into the room the next day and it actually looked real good. Most of the places where the border didn't quite lay down actually laid down by itself. Finally got furniture rearranged and a bed put in there. We are going to buy a new bed for him but he is using a trundle bed right now. The other night when we are putting him to bed we ask, "do you want to sleep in lightning mcqueen room tonight?". You would have thought we were sending him to Disneyworld itself or just gave him Christmas again. He ran into the room and right into his bed. I still have to sit in the room with him until he falls asleep, and he still comes into our room in the middle of the night, but it's fun to see the joy in his eyes with his new room. Next plan is to move Andrew into his new (old) room and make that one a lightning mcqueen room also. No painting!! I figure the blue color in the nemo room is close enough to mcqueen room. I am just going to hang some stuff on the walls. Next I think I might do a little work on the basement to see what kind of trouble I can get into down there.