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

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

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

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

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

Mom Story

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

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

Flood of '82

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

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

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

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

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

NEW RUSH SINGLE IS OUT !!!

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

WHOOOO HOOOOOOOO

Duh

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

Work Weekend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blogger Sucks

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

WAY TO MAKE IT BETTER DICKS!!!

Man what a drive

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

Fix it up...

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don't know why

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

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

Personal Crusade

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

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

Superbowl

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

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

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

I'll have another one tarbender..

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

N.M. closes bar on US Airways flights

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

Welcome to the Big Top

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

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

I am a book widow

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

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

Anyone else a book widow??

Cars

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

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