Don't move anything...

So the other day Jen calls and says the wireless is down. She has verizon do a test and they tell us that our modem is crap. I get home and do a few things and sure enough it won't stay connected to the line. In Jen's conversation with Verizon they tell us that they can replace our modem/wireless router for $70. That seems a little steep, so I decide to to a little looking around. Come to find out the $70 deal is actually not too bad for a modem/router. But in my looking I am finding quite a few of the exact model on ebay. They aren't new, but they are a lot cheaper than $70. I haven't bid on ebay in years so I was surprized that I remembered my login and password for that and paypal. I find one that is supposedly almost new so I put in a maximum bid of $30. They have some others for $24 "buy it now" so I figure $30 would be good enough to get it. OF course I have to do my bidding at work (secretly) since we don't have dsl at home. The auction ends at night so I decide to try and take a look at it, just in case I do get outbid. I still have my netzero account that I can dial into at home for just such an emergency. I am trying and trying to sign on and it won't let me. This is where I find out that John Q has disabled my laptop modem because it was interfering with the dsl. Crap. I could have tried the tower upstairs, but wasn't that concerned. I get into work the next day and I was outbid. I bid for another one and keep to around $30 for the modem. Unfortunatly with the second one the shipping isn't free and it costs $9.99. I actually win the auction and I am sure that the actual shipping on this will be far less than $10. Freakin' rip off.

So I am sitting here waiting for my modem to arrive and I come home to pandelerium a couple of days ago. The phones are out, the TV doesn't have any volume, the kids are hungry and whining (found out later that William has fluid in his ears), and Jen is at work. The TV problem is nothing new. There is a problem with an internal sensor that doesn't allow you to turn the volume up and will turn off the TV. After some searching on-line I found an answer to the problem that allows me to go into a secret menus and reset the factory settings that solves the problem. I have printed out the instruction for the reset and also bookmarked the page with the instructions, but I don't have internet connection so I have to look for the print out. Jen has filed the printout and tried to tell me where it was, but I can never find anything in her "filing". So I ditch that problem and on the next, fix the phone and feed the kids. I figure the phone thing would be simple. Call the phone company, they send someone out to fix the phone. The is soooo far from what is actually required that it's laughable. First of all you have to call this number and go through menu after menu after menu and just hope that you get to a person. While you are going through the menus you can either dial in the numbers or speak a command which almost never works. They test the line and finds out that the problem isn't in their line. The phone died in the middle of a phone conversation so I am thinking that somehow it's still connected. During one of the numerous menus I can do a self test which requires opening a box on the outside of the house and plugging in a corded phone. I find that I get dial tone so the problem is definitly the phone. I go inside, unplug the cordless phone, wiat for a few minutes, plug it in, and it works. Sigh. So feed the kids and turn my attention back to the TV. The modem for the dsl has been off for a couple of days, and I am thinking that maybe I can get enough of a signal to let me access the website. I turn it on and here it is, 3 days later and it's still working pretty good. I don't know if it just needed a little break to reset itself or if we are just lucky it's working, But hey I have a backup on the way....

shhh.. don't tell anyone

DSL went down at home.. logging on at work real quick to tell my loyal listeners and to list the stuff I want to blog about.

1. william's swim lessons with video
2. DSL fubar - ebay auction
3. hellicopter accident and I am in the doghouse
4. basement remodel

I am sure there is more.. hopefully I will be back up again soon.

bye

Propane and propane accesories

I had a bright idea when I was putting away my stuff before winter. Since the cover for my grill was falling apart (after lasting one season) I decided to put it in the garage for the winter. Yeah I know I should store it inside every winter,but I didn't have enough room to fit the grill in the garage every year. Anyway I decided that if I am going to put it in the garage that I was going to put it somewhere that I could get access to it easily and possibly use over the winter. I enjoy a grilled steak rather than the George Forman way. Well the best laid plans of mice and men only saw me use the grill once this winter. It sounded like a good idea to use the grill in the winter, but it didn't heat up that well, and I still had to go out into a freezing garage to watch the meat. The second time I used it was last week since the weather was getting warmer and it wasn't as bad standing outside. I fired up the grill and went inside to get the meat while it heated up. After a few minutes I walkoutside to find the grill barely warm and notice that there is no flame. No propane. Little did I know how close I came last season to running out of propane. I know that I had to be getting close, but at least it happened now rather than in the middle of a party or when the meat was half done. So I will either head out pretty soon to refill the tank or maybe just wait until the season begins, since I wasn't using it that much anyway. Hopefully the season will get her soon.

Are you kidding me?

For St. Valentine's day I stopped by the Debrand's store to pick up a little something for Jen. It's her favorite chocolates, but I can't stand the stuff. I don't think it's worth the extra $$, but it's her favorite. So I walk in the store and they have a display of heart shaped boxes already made up and ready for purchase. They have 1/2 pound, 1 pound, and 8 pound heart shaped boxes. I see they have a price list on the counter and it says that the 1/2 pound box is $29.99. Even though I buy Jen a box of Debrands a couple of times a year I can never remember how much I usually spend on it. I am getting ready to as for it when I decide to look around a little bit since she also likes the Truffles. I ask what kind of candy is in the heart shaped box and she tells me that it's the same candy that is in the 1/2 pound rectangle box. So I continue to look a little and I happen to hear the lady next to me ask how much the rectangle shaped box is, and the lady behind the counter says that it is $19.99. Wha? The counter lady comes back to me and I ask, "so the chocolate is the same, but you are charging $10 more for a heart shaped box?". She says "Yes". I was close to leaving this rip-off place, but remembered that it's Jen's favorite, so I buy a rectangle box. As I am leaving I notice that I could have bought an empty heart shaped box for $1.95!! WTH??? I know things will become inflated around the so called holiday, but dang....I also found out that they charge like $2.50 for ONE truffle. I just don't get it..

Pre-St. Valentines Day

So Jen had to work on St. Valentines day (today) so we decided to go out for dinner last weekend. We were able to pawn the kids off on Grandma and Grandpa for a couple of hours. I was trying to angle for a sleep over night at the grandparents, but we couldn't quite work it out. So we drop the kids off and make a run for it. The next question is where. This is always the biggest question we run into since we hardly ever go out to dinner anymore. Do we go to one of the "usuals" or try something new. I was hinting at trying something new, but Jen saw a special dinner deal at Olive Garden (one of her favorite restaurants). I kind of like the restaurant, but haven't quite found a favorite dish that I like there. So we finally decided to head over and try it. We go in the front door to a packed lobby. Typical Saturday night in the Fort. We put in our names to an hour wait. We almost went somewhere else, but hey, we weren't really in a hurry to get back to the kids. Occasionally they would bring around a pizza to the people waiting which is a nice touch and makes waiting a little less of a hassle. There was always a chance that it wouldn't actually be an hour, but just our luck a little over an hour later we were finally shown to our table. We are greeted by our waitress "Destiny", I almost asked if she was working down the road later on that night, but she would have bent the pole :). After sampling a nice little wine we finally decided on our entrees. Jen went for the special she saw advertised on TV, but I was being a little different and decided to go for a Parmesan Talapia with pasta that sounded pretty good. "Destiny" didn't bother to write down the order. A little while later we were munching on our salad and bread sticks. I tried a pretty tasty Italian beer that I might get for special occasions. They bring our entrees and Jen's meal looks delicious, but they try and hand me the seafood Alfredo and I tell them that's not what I ordered. I feel sorry for the girl bringing out the entrees since she isn't our waitress so she has no clue that it's wrong. So they take the meal back to the kitchen to make the correct one. Pretty soon the manager comes over to the table and apologises profusely and tells me my dinner is free and that he is buying dessert for us. Then "Destiny" comes over to apologise and swears she hit the right button. Unfortunately my meal is one that takes a long time to make so Jen and I visit and I snack on her meal which is delicious. Finally my dinner arrives and it is very good as well. (I might have a favorite.) I also notice that when I was pulling my chair in that it was very loose. I figure that if I move the chair enough and it breaks that I will get more free stuff :). During all of this I kept wondering if the Cramers were in the area since most of this stuff usually happens to them. I found out at Joshua's birthday party that they were in the restaurant next door earlier in the day so we figure it was just residual ju-ju that effected us. We finally got back to the in-laws a little before 10:00pm which is waaaayyyy past bedtime. We get everyone home and into bed a little before 11:00pm. During the night both boys come to visit and then they are up promptly at 7:00am the next morning. sigh..

Thought this was just funny

Busted

I was just busted by the kids.

There are certain programs on TV and video that we don't want the kids to see. Some things Jen and I agree on and some I don't see the harm in. Like if Harry Potter is being aired on broadcast TV then it should be edited enough to be alright. Sometimes I think we might be a little over protective with some things, but then again they don't really need to watch some of this stuff until they get a little older.

Anyway, one of my little indulgences is the TV show "cops". I only get to see it on Saturday nights, or if I get a chance to watch it on-line. In Jen's mind this show is a dead-lock "NO", but to me it's a "ehh it's not that bad". So usually Jen is working Saturday nights and I will catch parts of an episode. The kids are usually running all over the place and not paying attention anyway, but they must have been paying attention a little bit. The other day the boys see a police car and both yell out "BAD BOYS!!" which is the theme song for the show. At first Jen thought it was cute, but then thought that the only way they know the theme song is that they are watching it. BUSTED... At first I was trying to play it off that they must have been runing by when I was watching it and caught bits and pieces, but then last night when Jen got home from work, William speaks up and says "Momma, we watched bad boys tonight". Busted again.

I miss the days of being able to say or do whatever around the kids. Now it's watch my language, and be carefull what I am watching. Pretty soon I am going to have to watch what I type. Crap.. I mean crud..

Whewwwww... do not go in there......

I think I caught the flu from Carrie's kids. Thank God it wasn't the puke-fest that she had at her house, but I didn't want to get far from the bathroom for OTHER reasons. It all started last weekend. I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, but this time of year it's nothing new for some sinus drainage to upset my tummy, but this one didn't feel quite. Anyway we took the family over to the in-laws on Sunday for lunch and I decided to run home to try and get a few things done around the house. After getting home I wasn't feeling that well but muscled through and got a few things done around the house. After that the body said "you are done". I was feeling extrememly weak and tired. I just sat down and just stared at the TV. The nice part about the day is I didn't have to go back and pick up the kids at the in-laws since Jen drove separate. They got home and I just kind of vegged in front of the TV for the rest of the night. I was feeling chilled so headed to bed. As soon as I got in bed I started shaking (almost violently) and couldn't stop. The bed was skaking so bad I was surprised that it didn't wake up Jen. Finally after what seemed like an eternity the shaking stopped and I fell asleap.

In the morning I got up and started getting ready for work. I was really feeling like crap, but I have powered through feeling like crap at work before, but this didn't feel like the usual. After getting out of the shower I just threw some sweats on and told Jen that was all for the day. I actually called in sick for the day which is something that I hardly ever do, expecially now that I get paid for any unused sick days. Unfortunatly Jen had to work all day, so as well as not feeling well, I also had to watch the kids. Jen's mom did volunteer to still come over and watch the kids, but I thought I could deal with it all pretty well. That was a mistake. I could have really used a nap in the morning and the afternoon. I didn't have any appetite either, but I tried to drink alot of fluids and maybe had a cracker or two. Saturday night is when I started the first of MANY trips to the bathroom and started pumping in the Immodium AD.

Tuesday morning I stayed to the routine, got up and showered, but again after the shower I headed back to bed and called in sick. Two sick days in a row is unheard of for me ever, but even though I felt a little better I really didn't want to spread this crap to the co-workers. Unfortunatly once again Jen had to work so I also watched kids for the day. I finally got smart and had my mom come over in the afternoon to help me with the kids and to allow me to grab a little two hour nap in the afternoon. Still no appetite for the day, but trying to keep the fluids in me was quite the chore since I didn't want to get dehydrated. This is going to sound a bit gross, but finally by the end of the day, the trips to the bathroom were getting to be more gas than liquid, and finally just gas. There is nothing like having the confidence to let one rip. Which also helped my stomach.

Wednesday I got up feeling alot better. I headed to work and tried to take easy for the day and avoid people, (Just in case). Which is fine, since most people were avoiding me. By the afternoon I could have really used a nap, but just stayed at my desk trying to get a few things done. Having not eaten for two days I was planning on easing back into food, but I got a dumbass attack and had a bologney sandwich in the afternoon which sat like a brick on my stomach. That hurt for a good day. So the next two days it was soups and noodles.

It's going around out there. So far it seems like the kids are alright. Jen is fighting something, but I don't think it's the same thing. Let's hope.

Christopher's Birthday

Last Saturday was Christopher's first birthday. Man I can't believe that he is a year old. I called him the baby the other day, but he is a year old now. The party was just a small gathering of friend and family. We kept the party as simple as possible with just hot dogs, chips, and snacks. It seems like with all of the kids birthday's that there is usually a weather issue. Without fail it snowed a couple of inches overnight. Our driveway basicly sucks during winter because it is so steep and gets real slick when the snow gets packed down. More than one parked car has slid down our driveway and out into the street. I knew that I was going to have a driveway full of cars and didn't want any of them ending up in the street so I made it a point to make sure the driveway was as clean as possible. Also, my mom was comming to the party, and she just had sugury so I wanted to make sure the drive was cear. So I snow blowed the drive Saturday night, then Sunday morning, and also bought a bag of ice melt that works fantastic so by the time the party started the drive was just wet and not a bit of snow.

I didn't have a huge supply of coney sauce frozen, and I didn't have the time to put together a huge pot of it, so I decided to try out a mix that I bought that was supposed to be just like downtown, in only half the time and with half the meat needed. The instructions for the mix were a little confusing, but I thought that I put together everything correctly. Obviously I didn't because the sauce tasted like crap. It was spicy water with boiled bland meat. There was no way to save it so I dumped it down the sink. I ended up putting the sauce on that I had frozen and added some more water to it to make it stretch a little longer.

We had a pretty good turn out for Christopher's birthday and got a chance to visit with some friends that we don't see enough of. I am hoping that this summer we can get together a little more often. So after some visiting, eating and present opening, we broke out the cake. It was a very tasty Pooh cake then Jen decorated. She also put together a little cake for Christopher as well. When we put the cake in front of him he just kind of gently touched it. Unlike the other two boys who tore into the cake, Chrstoher didn't. After some help he finally got the point of the cake and tore into it a little bit, but finally just ended up hitting it. I remember Andrew's first birthday we had to take hime right up to a bath to clean him up (man what a mess). After that and a little more visiting everyone left to take advantage of the rest of the day.

ahhh I feel reconnected

Well I finally got the laptop up and working again. In case you forgot, it pop and fried on New Year's eve when I tried to power it up. Well I took into a computer repair place and they confirmed that the power pack was fried, but wanted to check out the computer to make sure that the laptop wasn't the cause of the power fry. I was told that it would be $60 to replace the cord, so I wanted to make sure that it wouldn't fry again. I was told that the computer would be done the following week. OK I figure that would be alright since I still had my old CPU upstairs. Then I remembered why I hardly used the CPU upstairs. One it's not as convenient to get to as the laptop, two, it's alot slower, and three, I don't have any protection running on that one so it gets ALOT of pop up ads so I always feel rushed when I am typing. So I was told that the computer would be done on Tuesday... and waited and waited. During my waiting I decided to do a little poking around on the net. This repair place is the same place that my brother bought his new laptop from when his blew up. I really like his computer so I was wondering how much it was. I found his computer online for around $750, but when I was wandering around the computer repair store I saw that it was a little over $1000. Then I found the same computer at Best Buy for around $750 again. So I don't know if they are the exact same thing or not, but my brother got screwed by that place. I called them to find out what was holding up my computer and was informed that it would be at least another week before I got it back. So some more searching and I found my power pack for $20. hmmmmm. So I ordered it and picked up the laptop on the same day. The cord came a few more days later and after a very slow (and worrisome) power up it finally came to life. So now I am back to surfing in the kitchen and the front room. It just feels more comfortable for some reason. I am not sure if I would ever go back to that computer repair place for a repair, but I know that I will never buy anything from them. Hopefully I can get caught up on my blogging now.....

Happy New Year

New years eve was real similar to last year. After getting home we packed up the kids and headed over to Jeff and Paula's for their get together. We hung out there for a couple of hours, but decided to head home around 9:30 or so for that half hour ride home. Jen and I are still into the mode of trying to get the kids to bed at a decent time. They don't really care if they see midnight so why keep them up for it. I am sure that we will start letting them stay up for new years some day, but for now we just appreciate a good night's sleep for them. Anyway, they get their late nights when the Q's come to visit. So we put the boys to bed and Jen and I have a little snack and watch Dick Clark till just after midnight. I decide to power up the laptop and see if my dad and brother are possibly on-line. As soon as I hit the power button I hear "pop" and smell the familiar smell of electronics burning. Son of a Bit**!!! I had to make sure it wasn't a freakin' Friday. After that we just put in a DVD and fell asleep a little after 2:00. The boys being ever punctual actually slept in until 7:45am. The rest of the day was kind of laid back. I took down my outside Christmas stuff. Side note to that: I was leaving on my lights until after new years, but noticed that my lights were off earlier in the week. Yep, I fried the outdoor outlet as well. End sidenote: After the lights were taken care of the rest of the day was watching TV and playing with the boys, thinking all day that it was Sunday and not Thursday. Man that will mess you up.

I took the laptop into a computer repair place and they confirmed that I fried the cord (also the power supply), so $60 to replace that. They are also going to test the laptop to make sure that it doesn't fry anything else. I started looking around at new laptops. Not saying that we have to replace it or can afford to replace it, I just like to look. I really like the new laptop that my brother got and found it a whole lot cheaper on-line. Needless to say I won't be buying anything from this computer repair place (where he purchased the laptop) unless it's something used like a monitor or DVD burner. I fired up the old CPU in William's room and it works pretty good for now. It's a little slower than the laptop and not as portable, but it's good to have a backup.

Happy New Year everyone!!!

My effed up Friday II

Let's see if I can catch up on my blogging. So you might recall my effed up Friday three weeks ago (see two post below). Well the day after Christmas last week ended up being another effed up Friday, but to a bit of a lesser degree. The weather had definitely been a factor around here around Christmas, but by Christmas day it had gotten warm and melted most of the ice in the area. The day after Christmas there was rain and freezing rain predicted for overnight, but when I got up in the morning it was mostly just rain. It kind of sucks to go into work the day after Christmas, but hey I am just thankful to have a job. So I am heading to work on 69. The road conditions look a little icy, but I don't feel any kind of slipping in the Saturn so I figure that it's just on the ragged edge of being ice. So I am heading north around 60 miles an hour and keeping with the flow of traffic around me. All of a sudden one of the cars that I was following slows down a whole lot. Then I notice that the traffic going Southbound on 69 is going real slow and has hazard lights on. I figure it might be a good idea to start slowing myself down as well. Good news for me is that I am only a mile or so from my exit so I will soon be out of the mess. As I am getting near my exit I notice alot of break lights ahead of me. This is where I have to make a quick decision. I can make a quick exit on an earlier off ramp or keep going another half mile. I see break lights, but they look like they are moving so I decide to just go to my off ramp. Well as soon as a pass the early ramp the traffic goes from slow to stop probably a couple thousand feet before my exit right on top of a hill. Crap I made the wrong decision. I figure there is someone in the median or in a ditch so they will start routing the two lanes around it. Nope I just sit there. After the FIRST HOUR I am thinking that it might be worse than I thought and that I am glad that I didn't drink down the huge bottle of water in my car. People around me are getting out of their cars, but the road is a sheet of ice so they are slipping and sliding all over the place. I figure it best just to stay in my car since I doubt that getting out of my car will do any good. So I just sit there listening to the radio. I have a huge container of animal crackers in the back seat so I won't have to revert to cannibalism, which is good since I don't think I would taste that good. I also have that huge water bottle in the car, but I am thinking probably not a good idea to break into that since I have no idea how long I will be here and there is absolutely no place to go in this traffic jam. Even though I don't have to pee, thinking of it kind of makes me think I have to... So HOUR TWO. Still just sitting there, listening to the radio and trying not to think about peeing. I can't see to the other side of the hill to know whats going on and I can't get out of my car, but I finally see a state trouper go through the traffic jam to whatever the problem is. The southbound lane has some traffic flow, but they stop that as well to salt the living crap out of the road and this hill. I start thinking of a plan, in case I have to go to the bathroom. That full water bottle will do in an emergency, but I could never use it again. Finally HOUR THREE arrives and there is some activity around the jam. The guy behind me opens both of his driver side doors and just pees out the side of the car, more power to him. They clear the one lane of traffic on the hill and a salt truck backs up spreading salt everywhere. They then let us go into that lane and down the hill. All I can see is a truck in the ditch, but I can't imagine they wouldn't let traffic around that, it wasn't on fire or anything. So I get to work three hours late, but thankfully the rest of the (now short) day goes alright and everything else is melted by the time I headed home. I thought twice about taking out that container of animal crackers the other day and lucky for me I can safely use my water bottle again without it being tainted....

Chistmas '08

Christmas '08 started out with a bit of hard labor. I got home around 12:30 from work. Jen and I had a couple of things that we wanted to do before going to grandma's house. I had heard that we were expecting 1 to 3 inches of snow that night so I wanted to get the driveway cleared before it started. There was about 1/2 an inch of ice caked on the drive, but it was finally above freezing which gave me the opportunity to get underneath it. Grandma C's car actually slid down the driveway and into the street while she was watching the boys. (yes our driveway is steep and it sucks). The traditional snow shovel wouldn't work so I had to break out a regular shovel to break up the ice. For the most part the ice came up pretty good, but with only a 6 inch blade it took a lot longer than usual. After an hour I was almost halfway down the driveway and had shed my coat because I was just too flippin hot. At one point I stepped on the ice to get a better angle for the shovel and ended up taking a ride down the driveway. After busting my butt for an hour and a half, I got close to the bottom of the driveway and figured that was good enough. I found out later that the snow had been cancelled, but I still wanted to take the opportunity to get the ice taken care of.

Anyway, after the ice shoveling Jen and I did a few things around the house. Since the road conditions were still a little tricky I decided to skip church for the evening. Yeah I know I should have tried to make it, but the thought of dealing with 3 kids in a standing room only church for over an hour didn't sound like fun. We loaded the kids up and headed over to mom's house. Usually Jen has to close the store on Christmas eve, but somehow she ended up opening the store so we didn't have to wait for her to show up to mom's house. When Jen closed on Christmas she would show up and be half awake for the evening. I was able to talk mom into just doing appetizers instead of a meal for Christmas eve which worked out so much easier. Trying to get the kids to sit still for any food is a challenge. We had shrimp cocktail, cookies, crackers, chips, and some other snacks. We visited and snacked and started the presents early this year. It looked like we had taken it easy this year on the presents, but by the time everything was opened (along with presents being brought from other rooms) it was a madhouse of toys for the boys. The boys got a HUGE lincoln log set that Dan had set up in the front room that was alot of fun and destroyed minutes later. More snacking and drinking later we decided to head for home. I was amazed to see that we were loading up the car by 9:00pm. Last year we were delayed leaving mom's house due to me having to clean up Andrew's puke from mom's carpet. Yet another reason not to fill the boys up with food, especially Andrew. We got the boys to bed pretty quick and still had some present wrapping to do so we were up until after midnight doing that.

Christmas morning like almost every morning the first visitors come into our room before 7:00am (yawn). We trudge downstairs and the boys immediately start playing with the toys from last night and don't even notice the stockings or the presents under the tree. We grab a little something to eat before the present carnage II begins. I am not sure how many years ago,but I remember that a tradition started in the family that we have honey buns and orange juice for breakfast on Christmas morning. Now usually the honey buns were from the Morton company, but they went out of business or stopped producing honey buns years ago. So every year I search for a reasonable substitute. I have finally found a honey bun that is real similar and I can get it at Walmart/Sams club. The kids are finally getting the idea of gifts, almost too much, and started to get a little greedy toward the end of the day. One of the gifts that I found cool too was a miniature remote controlled helicopter. William actually understands how to control the helicopter and can hover it in place a couple of feet off the ground. Andrew (el distructo) only knows full throttle which drives the chopter straight into the ceiling and then bouncing off the fireplace. I am hoping that this toy will hang around a little while longer (yeah I like playing with it too). The funny part is that I sent one of these helicopters to my dad for Christmas too. I can never decide what to get my dad so I usually send him something fun to play with or something for the pool.

After carnage II we load up the boys to go to grandma and grandpa C's for carnage III. We had a very tasty turkey lunch and then opened more presents. Somewhere during the middle of present opening I look over at Andrew.... mouth opens... and hurl. Son of a B****. Jen grabs one of her brand new tupperware containers to catch the last bit of urp. So instead of my mom's house I get to clean up Jen's mom's house for Christmas. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful and pretty nice. I took Christopher into the in-laws bedroom to take a nap and ended up freezing my butt off while trying to get him to sleep. They like a cold bedroom for sleeping and so would I, if I would have had a blanket. Every time I tired to get up Christopher stirred and woke up crying so I was stuck. After a couple of hours (and a few cat naps) I took him back into the front room. We headed home around 8:00 or so.

Overall I think it was a very good Christmas..It was nice to start Christmas eve a little earlier and have Jen semi-conscious. For the most part the boys were very well behaved and Christopher stayed away from the tree. Their new thing is that every toy they have MUST be out of the box that it came in even if they don't plan on playing with it.

Ice Ice Baby

Thought I would put some pictures of the ice storm that hit the Fort last week. The above picture is the rose of sharon tree that is usually straight up in the air. I thought for sure that the limbs would break or the tree would split since it alreay has a bit of a crack in the trunk. After the ice melted the tree rebounded pretty well. I have quite a few small branches down in the back yard, but I am not stranger to that since it happens all year long.

I would love to post a video I took but blogger still won't let me load in video for some reason. If I get time I might look into that. Who am I kidding. I barely have time to blog.

My perfectly effed up Friday

** I appolgize in advance for any expletives that this entry might contain ***

My effed up Friday started Thursday night when I got home from work. I walk in the door and see William asleep on the couch. Now usually he doesn't sleep in the afternoon unless he is sick, and even then he hasn't slept in the afternoon in quite a long time. Usually a little side effect of his napping is that he is a bear to go to bed at night. The good news is that he doesn't have a cold, the bad news is that he was a bear to go to bed. Jen had to work Friday morning so the alarm has to go off at 5:30am. I would like to go to bed since it is going to be an early morning, but William keeps coming out of his room because he isn't tired. He went from just walking out on the landing to going into his brother's room and jumping on him (which Andrew doesn't budge, man, he's a heavy sleeper). Finally after midnight I just take him into our bedroom and set up a pillow and blanket on the floor for him to crash. I am not sure how much longer he was awake, but I only made it a few minutes before I was sawing logs. The 5:30 alarm came wayyyyy too early, so Jen got up and started getting ready with William sleeping on the floor. She informs me that school is cancelled for the day so that will make is easier on the babysitters not having to cart all the kids around to drop off and pick up William. Around 6:15 Andrew comes walking in the room and I try to get him to sleep next to me for just a little longer, but he is persistent that he wants and needs his "cereal and milk" ASAFP. He is real persistent about needing it as soon as he wakes up. The child has not patience (what kid does). As I am following him down the hall to get him "HIS PRECIOUS..." the power goes out in the house. Crap. So I take Andrew downstairs and get out the flashlights that I have stashed away for just such emergencies. I have come to find out that if a cricket farts it will knock out power to our grid so I have started putting together these kits so I know where they are. If the kids get ahold of them they become playthings so I can never find them and usually they have dead batteries. It really sucks being on the edge of the grid, I know that we are because I can look across the street and see their freakin' Christmas lights. I know it's not their fault they have power and we have a crappy grid, but it still pisses me off. The last time our grid went down for whatever reason it was gone for an hour or so, but in looking outside and seeing all of the trees bent over with ice I had a feeling that it would be alot longer. So I help Jen get out of the garage so she can leave for work and I run upstairs to get ready myself. We called Jen's mom (we knew she would be up at 6:30am) and arranged that I would drop the kids off to her house on the way to work. So I am trying to get myself and the 3 boys ready to go in the dark as well as bottles and food, and etc. It's so funny how I would still turn on light switches while going through the house, just a force of habit I think. Now usually if I leave at 7:30 I can make it to work on time, but trying to get everything packed up wasn't going to let that happen so I knew I was going to be a little late. Before I leave I go down to the basement to check out the sump pump since I can hear the back-up running. The back up pump is doing it's jog pretty well, but it seems to be running quite alot. This is where I notice that the check valve on the pump is not working correctly again and its allowing the water in the pipe to back up into the sump so its working twice as often as it should. I forget how long the battery is good for on this system, but I am thinking that it is 12 hours. So I load the kids up and head out on some real nasty roads. The mains aren't too bad, but the secondaries are dangerous. Of course the in-laws live 3 miles down on a hilly county road so that was real interesting. As I pull up to the in-laws house I hit the garage door opener and ... nothing. Finally I go up to the front door where my mother in law greets me and says that they just lost power. She tried to call me (oh by the way did I mention that my cell phone was dead) and let me know. So after debating what to do I decide to take the kids to my mom's house since the in-laws are on a well so they don't have any running water and my mom still has power. So I load the kids up for ride to my mom's house. She lives down the street from me so I had to backtrack almost all the way back to my house dodging trees hanging in the streets and broken limbs. Finally I head up to work and notice that the further North that I go the less ice there is on the trees. I get to work an hour and a half late,but ended up having a pretty good day there. How sad is it that the best part of my day was working. I kept calling the house hoping that the answering machine would pick up, thus letting me know that we had power again but no luck. After getting off work I headed home to check on things like the sump pump and the cat. Surprisingly it wasn't that cold in the house, I think around 60 degrees. I did notice the sump back up was still going off pretty often so I decided to try and drain the sump out to see if I could conserve a little of the battery life since it had been 12 hours of it running. Before getting the battery back up for the sump pump, the plan for getting power to the sump in an emergency was to plug into a DC converter that we bought for the car and run the pump. This was my ultimate back up plan before the battery. Of course I had never tested it and just assumed it would work. So I hook everything up and.. nothing. I couldn't even plug it an extension cord into the converter without it freaking out. Thank God I didn't have to use it before the battery or I would have been totally fubared. So I am trying to think of what to do next. I know there probably isn't a generator to buy or rent on this end of town and I am not sure I want to try getting another converter. I ended up heading over to mom's to have a little dinner and make a plan of attack with Jen. I have a little dinner and just sit there dazed, trying to think of what to do next. The boys and Jen are going to spend the night at grandma's and I decide to spend the night at our house to keep an eye on the sump and run the gas fireplace to get a little heat in the house so it doesn't get too cold for the cat or the pipes. After eating I am getting ready to head back to the house and the boys are in with grandma in her bedroom watching Christmas shows. All of a sudden I hear Andrew scream. Now I know Andrew's screams and this is the serious one. I take off to the bedroom and see mom running Andrew into the bathroom with blood running down his face. Supposedly mom's dog Willie was asleep on the bed and Andrew startled him, so Willie bit him on the face. We are working on cleaning him up and he calms down a little bit. The one gash on his lip looks pretty deep so I decide to take him to the ER just in case. So we load up Andrew and take off for the hospital. Of course we have to head home first since that's where our new medial insurance cards are. As Jenny is inside grabbing the cards I tell her to grab her frozen breast milk so we can store it in mom's freezer, just in case, but we were too late and all of her milk (or "white gold" as I call it) was already defrosted, but good news the sump was still running. So we take Andrew to the ER and got in pretty fast since no one in their right mind would be out in crappy weather like this. The doctor didn't see a need for stitches since it wasn't deep enough, so they just cleaned him up and put some medicine on the cuts. Thinking about it later, I think the doctor was a guy I went to grade school with, but I didn't make the connection since I had alot of other crap to worry about. This is the third time that Willie has bit one of the boys. So we get back to my mom's house and get the boys situated with their sleeping bags and pillows. I head back to our house and try to settle in and get some sleep. I took everything out of the fridge and put it outside to keep it cold. I should have done it earlier,but I just wasn't thinking straight. Everything in the freezers still looked pretty frozen. I start a fire in the fireplace, but it hasn't been on in years so the whole house gets filled with a burning smell for a while. The smoke detectors are beeping every couple of minutes to let me know the power is out and they are running on batteries since they are tied into the house electric. And the sump is running like crazy. So with the fire going, I crank up a radio (I actually had to crank it to get it to work) and listen to Christmas music. My old reliable Mag flashlight goes out with a burnt bulb (of course). I ended up going downstairs and manually emptying the sump pump with a bucket, thinking that it would be good for a while. I am settled in front of the fire with a beer thinking if I can just ignore the beeps of the smoke detectors that I can catch some sleep. Nope. The sump alarm goes off again, so back down to empty the sump. I am heading back down every 10 minutes and bringing up 3 buckets of water at at time. One of the times down there I notice one of the system lights is indicating that the battery is nearing a full discharge. The only way I can think of recharging this battery is to run it upstairs and jump it with the car. So I am past exhaustion, smoke detectors beeping, winding up the radio every few minutes, going downstairs every 10 minutes to empty the sump, I am preparing myself for a looooonnnggggggg freakin' night. It's a little after midnight when I am heading upstairs from the basement with another bucket of water when I hear some humming. But it wasn't the hum from the sump pumps, it sounded like the hum of the furnace, but there wasn't any lights on in the house. Then I remembered that I had turned them all off in the morning. I hit the switch in the kitchen and Thank God there is power. Rather than go back to mom's I decided to spend the night in the house in case the power went out again so I crashed on the couch. At 5:30am the garage door opens as Jen stopped by the house before going to work to brush her teeth (I forgot to pack that). I threw the food back into the fridge (saved most of it) and headed back to mom's. I ended up crashing on her couch until Andew woke up promptly at 6:50am and we were up for the day. As quickly as possible I packed up the kids to take them home. I figured that it would be easier to watch them at our house and I could possibly take a few cat naps while they played around me. I ended up having enough energy in the afternoon to make Christmas cookies. Jen got home and took a little nap in the afternoon as well. Later that night the in-laws came over to watch the boys while we went to MR's Christmas party. They still didn't have power so with babysitting the boys it was also an opportunity to take a shower, do some laundry and grab some water for flushing toilets. We had alot of fun at MR's party. It's so nice being around adults and not having to worry about what the boys are getting into. We ended up staying until after midnight which is alot later than I thought we would last.

All of the trees still have a ton of ice on them so there is a chance that we could loose power again, especially with it being a windy day outside. Currently it's 4 degrees outside and they don't call for temps to be anywhere near 30 degrees until the middle of the week, so we have all week to wonder if we will loose power again. My flashlights are ready .....

let it snow, let it snow

So the plans for the weekend were kind of busy Saturday, but Sunday was looking pretty good. Saturday morning we woke up to a snowy day. Just enough to coat the ground and the streets so driving was very nasty. Jen had to get up and go into work so the boys and I had kind of a lazy day. Well as lazy as it can get chasing 3 boys all over the place and trying to keep Andrew from distroying the house. Jen got home around 2 oclock so I trudged outside to shovel the driveway. There was only about an inch on the driveway, but I try and keep ahead of it if I can before we drive over it. The driveway clears much easier when you aren't hitting tire tracks. After getting the driveway done I had to do a little repair on the snow blower. The last time that we used the blower, Jen broke it. I think she did it on purpose so she wouldn't have to do it again. I mean she uses it once in 7 years and breaks it? (well maybe not once.... twice). When she was priming the blower and the primer bulb falls apart. I figured that I better get it fixed since you never know anymore when the "big one" might hit. I stopped by a local outdoor equipment place and plunked down $1.89 for a new one.I thought it might be a whole assembly, but it was a simple piece of rubber. Anywhooo after shoeveling I am out in the garage trying to get the new bulb put on. I am trying to follow the guys instructions on how to replace it, but it isn't going like it should (of course). It would go so much easier if I could pop out the primer assembly since it is only clipped in, but I am real hesitant on how much pressure I can assert on the clip seeing how the blower is at least 10 year old and knowing my luck I can hear "snap... sigh.. crap" in my future. Finally I decide to give it a little more ooomph since the new bulb is real tight and since I am outside in 30 degree weather it's loosing it's flexibility. So I close my eyes, say a little prayer, and give it a little more and "pop" it comes out and doesn't break.. whoo hoooo. After getting the assembly off ,the blub goes on very easy and then snaps right back to place. I put everything back together, throw in a little gas, and crank it up. With the help of electric start it starts very easy and runs pretty good. After getting that done I come inside to thaw out a little bit. Then Jen and I get ourselves ready to go out. Saturday night was my company Christmas party. The in-laws get over around 5:30pm with stories of very nasy roads. We head out and up to the Bridgewater Country Club in Auburn. It was a pretty nasty ride up to a very nice country club. Since this is my first Christmas party at this company I am not sure how things work, so Jen and I sit down at the table with a couple of tellers that I know. I was going to take Jen around and introduce her to some people, but we were already late because of the snow and I wasn't sure if they would do an introduction thing (which they didn't). So we just sat there and talked to the other people and had dinner. There were some very tasty appetisers as well as delicious entrees of almond crusted steak with garlic/butter potatos. After dinner they did a contest where you had to guess the employee from their baby pictures. I got 7 right just out of shear luck and guessing. After that the party was basicly over. I had the chance to introduce Jen to a few of my co-workers, but not as many as I could have. We headed for home and the roads were actually better beause they were more slush than ice.
Sunday Jen didn't work so I thought it would be another lazy day... I was wrong. I got up and went to 8:30 mass, home to have a quick breakfast, and then out the door again with Jen and the kids to 10:30 service at her church. We got a call Saturday from our friend Tracy telling us that her two boys were going to be baptised at 10:30. We showed up to a standing room only church due to the baptisms as well as a children's choir.Lately the boys have been doing pretty well in church as long as we have curious George fuit snacks, a bowl of cereal, and some water. Usually William has to go to the bathroom at least once during the service and of course Andrew has to go with us. Well today I took William to the bathroom without Andrew and he had a meltdown for Jen while I was gone. After the service we stuck around and talked to Tracy and the boys for a little bit. When we got home Jen worked on feeding the boys while I worked on dragging in the Christmas tree and decorations. Jen and I got the tree put together,but then had to work on trying to get a whole strand of lights to work. Then we had to work on getting the William and Andrew a bath for the family Chistmas card picture. So quick baths and then getting everyone dressed and out the door for a 3:50 appointment at Penny's which we actually made. The boys did very well exept we couldn't get Christopher to smile, and he actually had a nap! The photographer was having a problem with glare from my glasses so I had to tilt my head down to the point that I was looking at the floor, so I look funny in the pictures. Stay tuned to your mailboxes for a Christmas card coming soon (just ignore me). We got done there and headed home. I ran down to Pizza Hut to pick up one of those "Panormous" pizzas that was very tasty and a pretty good deal.
So here I sit with the boys (and Jen) asleap upstairs and I am looking at a Christmas tree with no lights or decoration (we just didn't have the time today). So far so good with the boys keeping away from the tree, but we will see how things go with decorations on it.

Turkey day 08

So we got an other early start on the day. Man I wish there was a way to have the boys sleep in on occasion. I would teach them to just go downstairs when they wake up, but I am not sure I want them just going downstairs when they want in the morning since they might think that 3:00am is 7:00am. So we get up and I give the kids bath time so they will smell good for all of the relatives. We get to the in-laws around noonish and help with the last minute stuff. The familiar smell of something burning wafted in the house. Once again my mother in law had burned the mashed potatoes a little bit. My brother in law commented that now it was truly thanksgiving since the potatoes are burnt. I told him that it would be Thanksgiving if her gravy didn't turn out, and sure enough it didn't. I don't know why my mother in law can't make gravy. Other people started showing up and the snacking commenced. My mom and Uncle Dave brought shrimp cocktail and champagne. Unlike most gatherings before I didn't have to spend my entire day chasing down the boys since they are older, but I did still have to keep an eye on Christopher to make sure he didn't get stepped on. The dinner was delicious and I was unfortunately stuffed after only one plate. For dessert I decided to make a Hoosier pie since most of the other desserts that they have I don't like. So Wednesday night I made everything from scratch including the crust and it turned out pretty good. After we ate I was looking for a corner to curl up and take a nap,but Christopher wouldn't go down for a nap and I couldn't rock him to sleep either. Jen was visiting with her relatives so I was trying to keep him happy the best that I could. Now that Christopher is on people food it's amazing what he will eat and what he doesn't like. He liked everything that day. We ended up feeding him some more, and he turned happy again. I still say there was a good fart in there somewhere for relief. So we loaded up the crew around 7:00pm or so and we headed home. After getting home we put all the boys to bed and I made cookies for Jen's carry in at work while she headed up to bed. Jen got up at 4:30am to get to work by 6:00am for her black Friday shift. I had to work on Friday so we ended up meeting up at the in laws for left overs Friday night.

I love a parade ??

One of the other things that my job entails is helping plan and put together staff to attend parades during the year. Now most of these parades are during the spring/summer, but after starting my job I noticed a couple of them on the schedule for last week. I didn't have any information about the parade in Auburn and limited info on the one in Garrett. I was trying to ask around the building to see if we had done this parade before or if we didn't, if it was worth doing it but no one could give me an answer. I was all ready to just skip this parade, but just as I was getting ready to cancel I received all of the information that I needed.. nuts.. So I decided to just make it as simple as possible. I figure I would grab mom's convert able, pop the top down, and have Penny (our pig mascot) ride in the back. I also decided to blow up some balloons to hand out along the parade and also to give us a little logo visibility since we were all in winter jackets. So the day of the parade it's snowing.. crap... I can't put the top down in a snow storm and I can't get the mascot costume wet. I am going to cancel, bu we had told them we would be there so I decided to go ahead and give it a try. I ran home to grab the car from my mom and headed back up to Auburn. Wouldn't you know it I get behind a guy going 45 miles per hour on Tonkel and get caught by a train coming into town. I have been getting caught by this train numerous times and also get stuck behind some yahoo going well below the speed limit, so I am starting to take 69 instead. Anywho, by the time I get back to town the snow has stopped and it's a clear night. I decide to have the mascot "suit up" and we headed over to the beginning of the parade with the top down. It was quite the show with our mascot in the back seat and me blowing up balloons from the truck. Of course the wind has picked up which made already close to freezing temperatures even colder. I was told when I got this job that I wouldn't have any problems getting volunteers for parades and events, but I would beg to differ. Besides myself and the mascot there was only 3 other people. I am thinking the other people are fair weather paraders. The plan was to have me drive the mascot and the other people pass out the balloons and some candy along the route. We take off and go down a couple of streets to almost no people. I am thinking that it was a mistake to do this parade, but then the number of people start to pick up. The parade is moving at a very fast pace. I thought that it would slow down a little, but it didn't so I ended up loosing the rest of the group as they stopped to pass out balloons and candy. I tried to slow down as much as I could but the group in front of me kept pulling away. We turned a corner to a huge crowd of people so it ended up being a very good PR move for us, but I will be better prepared next year. The last parade that I was in was high school so there is a definite learning curve.
The next one was in Garrett on Friday. Supposedly the branch manager had everything under control, but I thought I would head over and see if this parade was worth the $135 entry fee (it wasn't). I get over there and help the mascot "suit up" again and we walk over to a large horse trailer. They decorated the trailer with some decorations, but there needed to be alot more as well as more lights on it. I blew up more balloons to hang on the trailer, but that was about all I could do. We loaded up into the trailer and they hitched up some horses to pull the wagons. Again it was freakin cold. I should have learned from Auburn earlier in the week, but I was driving the car so it wasn't that bad. So we all load into the trailer with 7 people including the mascot and pull out along with 19 other trailers. You know the funny things about horses is that you can't control their speed that well, so we went fast we went slow, and we came to a dead stop numerous times for whatever reason. The trailers had to deal with cars cutting in and around the parade as people tried to get around it which was dangerous and a huge pain. People were scattered along the route. The trailer in front of us was throwing candy to the crowd so when the kids were searching for the candy in the dark they didn't see the mascot in our trailer at all. Of course it was dark in our trailer too and it was hard to see the mascot. Before we knew it we were on Main st. and past the "judging" stand. Then a right turn and the parade was over. Well it was almost over as we had to take the looooonnnnngggg cooooolllllldddd ride back to the starting point which seemed like it took forever. We got back and quickly dedecorated the float and loaded up. IF (and it's a huge if) we do this parade next year I will have to get involved in the decoration of the float or at least make sure there is enough lighting on it.
That should be it until spring for parades..I think they will be more fun then.

My impending divorce?

This is pretty funny. Thursday Jen comes home from work and goes to the cabinet below the sink and pulls out the windex. She starts spraying her hand with it and I finally have to ask what's going on. She tells me that her wedding ring has a damaged prong on it that needs to be repaired, and she heard that windex is better than butter or anything slippery to get rings off. She has never had the ring off and over the years of having kids and other weight gain she hasn't been able to, but she has started to lose a little bit the past couple of weeks. She windexed her finger and after a little bit of tugging and twisting it finally came off. She commented how weird it felt not having the ring on and was thinking of putting on another ring in it's place. I was kidding around and told her that I trusted her and that she didn't need to do that. The pain in the butt is that the ring had a lifetime warranty on it, but due to her lack of being able to get it off she couldn't keep up on the required "check-ups" so it is now void. I might run over to where we bought it and ask, you never know. I would take it over to my sister-in-law's jewelery store to ask for a free bee repair, but I figure it's probably not a good idea in the beginning of a divorce from my brother.
Anyhooo, Friday night my mom calls and Jen answers the phone. She tells Jen that she just got a few more details about Dave's divorce. Jen's ears perk up. "Huh? What? is there something that Dave hasn't told me?". My mom quickly corrects herself and says "no Dan's divorce". My mom has always (and will always) exchange Dan and my name on occasion. I find myself doing it with my kids too. Jen told me the story, and I said, "yeah I need to talk to you later.. :)... you aren't wearing my ring anymore soooooo"

Return of the tire nazi

So now that I am gainfully employed (things are going pretty good, thanks for asking) I can finally get a few things done that require money. The one thing that has been bugging me for at least a year now is the tires on the Saturn. The guys at the dealership have been bothering me at every oil change that it's time to get new tires, but couldn't quite afford it, and I didn't think the tread was that bad to warrant new tires. Finally at the last oil change I took a close look at the tires and yeah they were getting really bad. After getting my job I decided that there is no way that I wanted me or Jen to be driving in the winter on close to bald tires. But hey, they are only the original tires that came with the car 8 years ago. I figure that 92,000 miles is a pretty good lifespan for tires.I decided that it was time to go see the tire nazi again. In case you missed the first story about the tire nazi, you can read it here, or I can sum it up for you. Basically the tire nazi is a guy who owns a sh**hole of a tire place in Leo that sells tires dirt cheap. He is real gruff ala the soup nazi on Seinfeld. Leo isn't too far from Auburn so I decide to run over there during lunch on Tuesday. Along with the off brand stuff that he sells, he can also order brand name tires if you give him a day, so I decide to run over there and order the tires and then go back the next day for the installation. So I get there and enter the dump (I was kicking myself for forgetting my camera, crap) and just stand there at his desk waiting for his acknowledgment. Finally he looks up.
"What do you need?"
I need tires for that Saturn out there. I say
"Get the number" (in a ticked off tone)
Oh crap I forgot to bring the number in with me. So I run out and write down the tire number. I come back in and give him the tire number and ask for brand name tires. He tells me that it will be $280 for a set of four and the tires will be in in the morning. It would have been $220 for some off brand tires that he had out back. I thank him and take off back to work. The next day I run back over and again I go up to his desk waiting for him. "What do you need?" I tell him that I was there for the Firestone tires that he ordered yesterday. He asks me what the deal was. I say $280 for the tires. I am getting ready to hand over the keys like last time, but he then tells me to pull it around back. I pull it to the back and there are 4 high school /college kids start working on the car. I just stand there and watch them work on the car since I am not sure what else to do, and I don't feel like going back into the dump of a showroom. But hey it's a nice day outside. While I was standing there a guy pulls up that says he has a nail in his tire. I can tell it's his first time to the tire nazi since he is trying to be real friendly to this guy. The guy pulls back and parks it in the wrong place, which ticks off the tire nazi. "I didn't' want it there" he says. He looks at the guys tire and just reaches down and pulls a piece of metal out of the tread. It wasn't even a nail. So as the pep boys are putting my new tires on the tire nazi approaches me and says "$280". I motion to him that we have to go inside and start walking. He says "cash, check or charge" I tell him I need to charge it so we head in and pay the bill.
If it wasn't for the fantastic deals that I get on tires at this place I would never return to the place. It's not like I have to go there every year anyway. I figure the next time I would need to go would be for new tires for the mini-van in quite a few years.