Football, Ballet, and Beer!

Stick It Where the Petit Fours Don't Shine

2010-08-24T22:49:00.000-05:00

A few months ago was my loving wife's boss's 65th birthday. Pretty exciting for him and pretty exciting for those working with him, since his whole department (i.e. my loving wife told them to) threw a party for him. Well, the last time they had a party, it was a baby shower, and my loving wife put everything together and then there was one lady who thought rather than going to the local supermarket and picking up a pre-made bakery sheet and having "Happy Occupied Uterus" plastered across it, they should instead all pool their funds and buy individual petit fours. Pool their funds really meant that 3 of the ladies, my loving wife included, would spend about $40 a pop on these little finger pies, probably not even get to eat one, and then wouldn't have the satisfaction of bringing out the "Happy Uterus" cake out at just the right moment.
So, here we were, making a big honkin' poster that reads "Happy Birthday Boss!" My loving wife's idea was to do this and have everyone sign it, so it is more of a personal birthday card. I think that was a sweet idea, but then enters Miss Tiny Cakes. Oh, I think we should make a poster that has a baby picture on it, hang it in the lobby, write "Can you believe this cute little face, who works here, who will probably retire here, who we all know and love, and who we are celebrating all day long today and is contributing to your reduced productivity?" on it and then make arrows that point the way to his door.
Once again, the original plan just didn't measure up. Now, here I was using acid-free scrapbooking adhesives and strategically placing the individually Cricut letters onto the posterboard and cutting out multi-colored arrows. All in the name of love for my bride. As she moves to the picture poster, I made a suggestion. . . Why don't we just say "Guess Who?" and put the picture at the bottom. I think the rest of what happens will be self-explanatory.
It looked damn good, too, if I might say so myself. And the fact that I accidentally spelled birthday, U-T-E-R-U-S was CLASSIC!

Back in the Saddle

2010-08-23T22:09:00.000-05:00

The past couple of months have been a bit non-inspiring. I decided it was time to throw out my depression and get back into the world of writing. Why not pick the first day of school for my grand re-opening?

6:15 came quickly this morning and as I woke up the kids, groggy was the word of the day. Everyone's new clothes were laid out and ready to wear. My eldest managed to talk his Mom out of wearing a collared shirt on his first day, but she did insist that he upgrade from the standard issue basketball shorts. Since he has a split schedule where day A is 4 classes and day B is 4 other classes, my loving wife insists that he upgrade again tomorrow, since it will be like the second first day of school for him. My daughter sparkled from head to toe. There's never a dull moment in her closet. The squirt is off to pre-K this year, so uniforms are required. He was very proud of his "like big brother" Pumas that he picked out, though.

We dropped off the little guy first. Since we had been gone all summer, the new Pre-K teacher did not recognize us and assumed our guy was a newby, until every kid in the class dogpiled him as he walked in. When we asked for a picture with his new teacher, 3 other classmates rushed the lens instead.

Off to send our eldest to 8th grade, where he's been planning his year of school-ruling for 2 years, he made us swear we wouldn't embarrass him as we dropped him off. Not the smartest plan he's ever had. Among yelps of 'SCHMOOPY' in front of his friends, Mom even made him pause for a picture. Yeah - he was happy.

The last stop was our daughter's school. As we were walking down the hall to her room, the bell rang and we realized that she was officially late to her first day of school. Yep, we suck royally. I guess the morning got away from us, being busy letting our youngest mug down with the girls in his room and embarrassing the eldest. We threw her bag in her locker, flashed a quick pic and rushed out of the school. Another first morning of school behind us.
Dinner coversation, of couse, was focused around each kid's day. We begged for each one to give us something, like 1) did our littlest write his name? work on his numbers?; 2) did our daughter tell about her summer vacation? read a poem? learn her weekly spelling words?; or 3) did our eldest like his teachers and get all of his supplies organized? did Athletics go as he planned?
Instead, we learned this: 1) Gavin kicked Drew and the teacher made them sit in time out. 2) Some girl was wearing the same skirt as my daughter. And 3) My eldest really should have packed an extra pair of underwear, because putting sweaty undershorts on after taking a shower is kind of gross.
Nothing like knowing all those educational dollars aren't going to waste.

What Are You Doing in July?

2010-06-21T22:54:00.001-05:00

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When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade. . .or, Proof There is Beef and Beer in Heaven

2010-06-18T01:11:00.001-05:00

After a one-week downward battle from complications of a stroke, my father-in-law's well-lived life ended on June 15th. One day prior to his 66th birthday.
Two Monday nights ago, a frantic call was placed from my mother-in-law that she thought he was having a stroke and after ripping the phone from my loving wife's hands and screaming at her not to yell at her mother, I made sure that 9-1-1 had been called before continuing the conversation. The EMS crew shortly arrived and not long after that, he was airlifted from a small Texas hospital to a larger one. After several days of promised improvement from the health care professionals, much of our hope was lost after my loving wife's repeated attempts to get her Daddy to respond fell on deaf ears and into a blank stare.

While we were promised expectations of recovery, the world that is our continual party must go on and we decided we'd have a repeat of our botched birthday celebration in March. After all, my father-in-law shares a birthday with my daughter and why waste a trip to a resort town? So, we headed off to Sea World and got some up close and personal time with Shamu while my loving wife and mother-in-law stayed behind for visiting hours. We had a little bit of guilt for having so much fun, but that didn't stop us from riding the Texas Splash Down over and over and over again:

When we arrived back at the hotel, my daughter began worrying about how Papa would open his birthday presents. We explained that we would take them up there and show him and help him out. Since she was too young to go back to the ICU, we went ahead and opened the one from us so she could see. It was a new barbecue set complete with spatula, tongs, grill brush, and fork. She was less than impressed and we packaged it all back up for a later date.

Meanwhile, my favorite father-in-law had been outfitted with breathing and feeding tubes and the liquid mush pouring into him was clearly less than appetizing. He pulled out the feeding tube several times and ultimately was outfitted with some mittens to keep him from removing the tube again. On my last visit he pointed to the tube and I held his hand telling him that he had to leave it in, explaining that it isn't worth the pain for the nurses to put it back in. Unfortunately, this was one of the last responses we'd receive and it was clear that the liquid mush was replaced with dreams of the great barbecue in the sky. His good friend had passed just a few months back and I'm sure he was waving a cold beer and wafting the coals where a T-bone was being seared just right.

One day before his birthday and his granddaughter's birthday, he had had enough. As I rushed to the hospital to say one last goodbye, I was about 30 minutes short on time. When I arrived, his doting bride and their 3 children were at his side and I paused to get my bearings. This was unreal and unexpected and the only thing I knew to do at this point was to start thinking about a party. We had to make our daughter's birthday special. We dispatched the family from all across Texas and Oklahoma and when we arrived at Mema's house where she had been staying while attending Sea Camp, she wondered why we were all here. "For your birthday, honey. How special is that?" She was thrilled and a party we had.

In honor of my father-in-law, I used his new BBQ tools to cook and we all did well until we sat down to eat together. None of us wanted to sit in his spot at the dinner table and rather than make a scene, I had to excuse myself for a few minutes when I realized he wasn't there to say grace. We had another small melt-down when my mother-in-law walked out to the mailbox and only made it back to his favorite bench in the front yard where she realized she hadn't gotten the mail in over 40 years and now would have to add that to her list of things to do. Meanwhile, the party continued inside and we put back on our game faces and headed back inside.

Tomorrow, after Sea Camp is over and before the visitation starts, we'll be letting the young kids know what is going on. We haven't kept anything from the two youngest and they seem to be oblivious, but the other 3 will have a hard time. They will have a much shorter time to process what has happened, but we also know that kids are resilient. Being an adult bites.

Tonight, all the boys and men have picked out a tie from Papa's closet, the family albums have been flipped and stories have been shared for the slide show, the girls have gone for pedicures and picked out new dresses, and the schedule of events have been planned for the rest of the weekend. We are as ready as we can be.

We are going to miss you!June 16, 1944 - June 15, 2010

Here's a Tip

2010-05-31T20:04:00.001-05:00

It was the summer of 1996. My loving wife was great with child (our eldest), when I received a frantic phone call that my brother's wife had died in a horrific train accident. We quickly grabbed our things and headed out into the night for the 8 hour drive back to my family's homestead. When we awoke in our hotel room still about 3 hours away from our destination, the first question my loving wife asked was, where are our bags? Oh, I was just too tired to get them out of the car, I'll go get them. Except, that I couldn't. As it turned out, our bags weren't in the car at all and instead were sitting quietly on our bed back home 5 hours aways. I turned around and walked back in trying to decide if it would be better to come clean or to stage a break-in of our car? Instead, I come clean (mainly because I didn't want to spend another 11 plus hours driving around with no air conditioning). Fully expecting a deluge of harassment, my loving wife explains, it's OK, we have clothes to wear to the funeral, since I hung those up in car, so all we have to do is find something to wear during the day. Let's just get back on the road and we'll find something, but let's definitely eat, I'm starving.
Her starvation lasted until we walked into the local Cracker Barrel and something caught her nasal passages and a flood of nausea came over her. Honestly, I don't know how all of our children didn't starve in utero, as she had 9 straight months of morning, afternoon, and evening sickness with all three. Anyway, she ordered a water and we shared a breakfast. Haggard from our frenetic road trip, the waitress gave us a look that hoped we'd quickly eat and get out of her section. After our food came, the bill came quickly and our waitress disappeared. My loving wife got up to go to the bathroom and I went to find the pay phone. Yep, you heard me, in those days, people didn't carry around portable communication devices and most establishments had a pay phone. After I finished my call to let my family know where we were and when to expect us, I come out of the bathroom area where my wife was as well to find our waitress looking all around for us and telling the clerks at the front that she had just had someone walk a check and she knew we weren't to be trusted, looking so scruffy and all. When she turned around and I held up the check and said, I'm sorry, are you referring to us? Oh, so you are still here? Yes, I replied, don't be expecting a tip. That was the first and last time I have left a restaurant without leaving a tip. Now, I've left a few paltry ones over the years, but never had I repeated a total shut out.
It was Memorial Day 2010 when I woke up in a small North Texas lake community. After an afternoon at a wildlife petting reserve, dinner and an evening at the drive-in, we had slept in and made it out of our hotel room just before the 11:00 A.M. check-out. We made our way into town looking for a place to eat breakfast or lunch, depending on our mood. About 10 miles down the road, we found a Cracker Barrel. The wait was 15 minutes max and considering it was a holiday weekend, we thought this pretty good. The kids and I played checkers in the old country store while we waited and when we heard our name called proceeded to the hostess stand. We were rushed to our table where the busboys were still cleaning the table and floor around it and stood and waited while they finished. My loving wife and I commented that we would have been happy to wait a couple of extra minutes for them to really be ready for us, but maybe this would be indicative of the service today and we would get food quickly. We were all very hungry after all.
Twenty-five minutes went by, with a short visit from another waitress somewhere in between asking us if anybody had helped us, to which her response was, "I wonder why?" as she waddled off, when Donovan shows up. "What can I get you to drink?" he asks and we tell him we are ready to order as we'd been there awhile. We do and he leaves. Ten minutes later we grab a host that is seating another table and ask for a manager. As the manager is walking to our table, the same waitress that had "wondered why" we hadn't been waited on stopped the manager and said, "They've been sitting there a really long time." When the manager arrives, I explain that it would be in his best interest to bring me a cup of coffee and my loving wife a Diet Coke before he speaks to us and he whisks off. When he returns I explain that we have now been sitting at our table for 35 minutes after waiting 15 for a table and we don't even have a glass of water in front of us. I also explain that our waiter showed up after 25 minutes with no explanation as to his whereabouts and has been MIA for the past 10. He apologizes and explains that he will take care of everything. 5 minutes later all of our food shows up and the manager continues to be our server throughout our meal, until Donovan shows up with our check and begins clearing our plates before we are finished with them as he mumbles something about it taking him a really long time today because he couldn't find anything. You can imagine that his lack of sincerity forced me to respond in kind and accept the check from him, leave to head to the restroom before we embark on our journey home and then stop at the cashier to pay. When the cashier asks me if I want to add a tip to my credit card charge I smile and say, "No Thank You." About this time, my phone rings and I walk outside to take the call.
My eldest sits down on the bench on the porch next to me while I am on the phone and his Mom, sister and brother are in the restroom when we spot Donovan come flying out of the front door. While I am on the phone he says something to my eldest and then stands and waits on me to finish my call. When I get off the phone he says, "Did I wait on you?" Fully expecting an apology for his lackluster performance, I respond, "Well, you were my assigned waiter." "That's what I thought," he said, "When someone waits on you, it is customary to leave them a tip." Forcing my jaw from coming completely dislodged and dropping to the ground, I muster a "You know Donovan, it is also customary to be waited on before paying someone a tip. I would suggest you go ahead and get back inside." "Sir, you have a great afternoon and be sure not to come back," he mumbles as he enters back inside the restaurant as my loving wife, son and daughter are leaving. My loving wife realizes that he had offered that advice to me and she turned around and found the same manager that had actually waited on us and explained to him that Donovan had followed me outside and asked me for a tip. Mortified, the manager offered to give us some gift checks for a few free meals, but my wife denied them explaining that it is unlikely she and her husband would ever set foot in a Cracker Barrel again anyway.
And she would be spot on with that presumption.

MoneyMaker

2010-05-27T23:20:00.000-05:00

I have taken on a great task. One for which I am not worthy. One with which great responsibility comes for which I am not prepared. Basically, I am in over my head and loving every minute of it. My church has just unveiled a new multi-purpose and education wing with a remaining mortgage totaling just over $3 million. During previous capital campaigns, we have asked our parishioners to shell out for updates to our previously existing space, equipment, HVaC upgrades, and a big chunk of the newly built space. This time, we are asking to fund the remaining mortgage of the space and unfortunately, we got a bit of a late start. With all of the hustle and bustle of moving into the new space, our congregation got a little too excited and forgot about the fact that we needed to get pledges back on the table to pay for this new wonderful space.
Here's where I accepted the challenge before realizing I needed to find helpers and pull off in 4 weeks what has traditionally been done in 4 months. Up to the challenge, one of my first orders of business tonight was to contact members who have traditionally been large contributors and ask that they make an advance pledge to help us get to our goal as quickly as possible. So, I start calling my list and while in the midst of one of my calls, as I am explaining to one of our benefactors how important their contributions are to our church and how much we appreciate their leadership within the church and how wonderful and great we think they are, my youngest is spending the same amount of time yelling at me louder and louder and next to the phone: "Daddy, I REALLY have to go POOP!" You see, here I am multi-tasking and making these calls during baseball practice, so now I've got to run him to the restroom. I finally get a very distraught look from my youngest and I politely explain to the receiver that I am sorry for the interruption and that I can't believe I managed to get through my entire shtick without laughing when I received the following response: "Oh, we are laughing our asses off here, and we will be more than happy to help, just because you pulled that off so eloquently."
Yep, my friends, loose bowels can translate into loose change. I think I'll keep the party going.

Flippin' Great

2010-04-07T21:41:00.000-05:00

"What's this?" asks my innocent little daughter. As my loving wife turns around and finds her offering the middle finger salute, she knew it was time for a discussion. "Honey, who showed you that?", half expecting to hear, "My Dad" in response. Luckily for me, the answer was, "Ryan, he did it to our teacher today." My loving wife then proceeded to ask if Ryan were banished to the fourth level of Hell where he was tortured by minions of wet willies. Pretty soon, I'm sure some how this will be all my fault anyway.
I was pulled aside by my youngest's teacher last Thursday with a "Do you have a minute?" My initial reaction was, heck no, I'm on my way to work. You know, the place I go so I can pay your exorbitant fees? But, being the good Dad I am (sorry, I just fell on the floor laughing) I said, "Sure!" Well, I just wanted to let you know that your cute little guy has lost all of his cuteness. He was yelling out "Son of a B!tch" at the breakfast table the other day. I probably wouldn't say anything to you, because we talked to him about it and he knows it isn't appropriate, but another parent heard it and I didn't want it to get back to you through them without you hearing it from us first." Mortified, I said OK, I'll handle it. Then she leans into me and says, you know it was funny because when I asked him what he said, he gave me the biggest Oh Sh!t look I've ever seen. She winks and I walk away. Tonight, my eldest asked me if he could watch "The Playbook" episode of "How I Met Your Mother." I said sure and about 3 minutes into it, I hear the "Son of a B!tch" phrase come out of Lilly's mouth and realize where it had come from. Our little guy must have heard that and heard the resulting laughter at each time she said it during that episode. THANKFULLY, I wasn't the culprit. I'm sure I was blamed by my son's teacher anyway. Moms never have potty mouth. It sucks to be me.
Oh, and in case you care about Jillian? We made it through day 3 a bit sluggish, but still upright for now. Except for my left arm falling off that is. Otherwise, we're good.

Level 1, Day 2

2010-04-06T20:47:00.000-05:00

Dear Jillian ~ SUCK IT!......................

D to3's loving daughter here. Daddy is lying on the floor writhing in pain. Should I call 9-1-1 or just keep laughing at him?

Searching for my Manhood

2010-04-05T22:57:00.001-05:00

Today's view of the scale revealed a scary site. I had reached my self-proclaimed ceiling that I would never again go over for fear of becoming the fat bastard of days gone by. You see, back in 2006, after the birth of our youngest, my loving wife and I discussed the fact that we were neither getting younger or skinnier and it was time to do something about it. She signed on with the local 24hour Fitness, but I wasn't as quick to get something started. Then one morning as I was in the shower, the push I needed was there. Or perhaps I should say, wasn't there. You see, as I looked down at my feet, my spare tire hung over so far that the beans and frank had disappeared. There isn't any event more motivating to a guy than not being able to locate the family jewels. I had my motivation and barely any time passed before I was signed up as well.
Thankfully, today's view of the scale wasn't as scary as that moment in the shower, but it did reveal just 8/10ths of a pound shy of the point of no return. As it turns out, my loving wife picked up Jillian Michaels' 30-day 20 lb. shred DVD a few weeks ago. Neither of us were really excited about starting it, but now I was motivated to join her. Jillian's workout is in 3 stages with level 1 being the beginner stage. Thinking that we would blast right through level 1, we moved the furniture and got ready for the show. The plan involves a 2 minute warm up and 3 sets of 6 minute intervals. 3 minutes of strength training, followed by 2 minutes of cardio, and then 1 minute of abs. Times 3. During the second set, Jillian proclaims that we should do reverse high leg lifts, literally "kicking ourselves in the ass." After having completed 40 pushups and a plethora of combination squats, I found it comforting to flip Jillian the bird as I completed every ass-kick. When we moved into boxing, I called out "up yours" with every fist pump. It definitely made me feel better.
Tomorrow, I am expecting it to be difficult to get out of bed. I expect also to be cussing at Jillian Michaels tomorrow night. And for the next 28 nights after that.

A Little Too Helpful

2010-03-22T22:15:00.000-05:00

Today, I was able to leave work at a reasonable time and meet my loving wife at the gym. First, we spent some time walking around the track, and then we realized we had been talking too long and had made several laps around the track. As we moved into the real workout portion, we luckily realized that our time to pick up the kids was growing short and decided we'd take one more lap around and separate our parental duties as appropriate. Tonight, as my loving wife picked up the kids from daycare, I was off to fill her tank up with gas, buy turtle food, some soap, and pick up a few groceries. Trying to determine where I could manage to get groceries, soap and dinner for amphibious reptiles... Of course, the answer was Target!
My loving wife mentioned that the she had something to take back to Target, so my first stop was the customer service desk. A lady in front of me tried 3 different credit cards to no avail to recall the receipt for her purchases and eventually gave up and left. By the time I reached the counter, the clerk was a bit dismayed and when I handed her our purchase and my Amex, she says, "So, you don't have a receipt?" I say no, but unlike the person before me, I only use one credit card, so this won't take long. It didn't, and I was off to find croutons.
As I walked down the main aisle the Target employee asks, "Sir, can I help you find something?" Yes, croutons. "Oh, they are on the bread aisle. Having salad tonight?" Uh-huh. And then I make my way to the cheese, hoping to find shredded parmesan. All I can locate is cheddar and mozzarella. The Target guy stops by again, "Sir, can I help you find something?" Yes, parmesan cheese. "Oh, that's in a can on aisle 4." No, I want shredded. "Oh, yeah, you are having salad tonight. It is over here." I then head over to pick up dressing.
While scanning my items, the clerk said, "Oh, you are having Caesar Salad tonight?" Uh-huh. "I'm having tuna tonight. Probably alone. I love Caesar Salad. What are you having with it?" Um, I don't know, my wife told me to pick this stuff up. "Well, I just love Caesar Salad. I had it one night at a steakhouse and they put the anchovies in it and I didn't think I would like that, but I loved it." Well, you like tuna, so that makes sense. OK, have a great night. She was still blabbering something about Charlie and Chicken of the Sea and I was heading out the door, wondering how different all of my encounters tonight would have been if my shopping cart would have included condoms, Preparation H, and a box of tampons.

We Tried and We're Tired

2010-03-20T23:31:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is my youngest 4th birthday. For several weeks, we have planned a trip to SeaWorld for his birthday. Even before Shamu decided to have one of his trainers for a snack, we were planning to spend today at SeaWorld. When we packed on Thursday for our trip, the high temperature was slated to be 85. PERFECT.
As we re-checked the forecast on Friday, it had changed to 58. Was that a typo? Surely. No way it could change that dramatically. But, we repacked. We were ready to brave it anyway. We drove down on Friday and watched the temperature rise as we did. All was going to be great.
When we reached Austin, traffic was at a standstill. I whip out my Sprint card and computer and reroute us around the debaucle that outstretched before us. An hour or so off schedule, we were back en route to our destination, only to find out once we got there that my loving wife's brother, his wife and family and a friend were the cause of the slow down. Their car broke down on the upper deck of the highway through downtown Austin. How funny it was to discover that the cursing we had done about the traffic hit a little closer to home than we'd realized.
Once in San Antonio, we meet up with my in-laws and gather up my daughter, who we haven't seen since her solo plane ride. She has an odd green colored plastic item hanging from her hair. The next 2 1/2 hours or so are spent by myself, my loving wife and mother-in-law trying to remove a comb from her tangled mane. How in the world did she manage this, we cannot imagine. Finally, it is out and we decide to head downtown to the Riverwalk for dinner. We spend the next hour and a half looking for a parking place and finally decide to drive elsewhere for dinner. We end up at a local Mexican joint "Mamacita's" and are happy to find out they have a large waiting area around their bar with chips and salsa and a mariachi band. Thankfully, even though a long wait, we enjoy our time there and make our way back to the hotel and settle in for the night.
At 6:00 a.m. this morning I wake up and am warm. The cold front must not be coming in I think and walk outside to find a nice warm Texas morning. Great, SeaWorld will be great, I think. At 6:30 a.m., the skys open up and nearly 6 inches of rain fall in a 15 minute period. Oh yeah, and the temperature drops, big time. Once we get up and make breakfast, we realize that SeaWorld is going to be a cold one. We make other arrangements and settle on the Witte museum and the head back downtown.
Once we make it to the museum, the line is wrapped around the block. Clearly, we aren't the only ones with this idea. My eldest had been pushing us to head to Dave and Buster's and while we had pointed out that this was a 4 year old's birthday, we decided this was now as good of an idea as any one we had. Off we went.
Inside, we indulge on the food and chips combo and give each of the kids a $20 card to spend while we eat and drink and try to keep everyone happy. A few dollars into their cards, the electricity goes out. We sit around and wait and hope that the power will come back on. It didn't. We beg our waitress to return so we can pay and finally decide that we'll just head back to the hotel. The girls hit the local mall and we make a stop at the liquor store and settle in for the night.
We have never worked so hard in our lives to have fun. I guess the good news is that we still have SeaWorld tickets, so we are already planning a summer trip back. Wish us the best of luck that our chain of events is more pleasant next time.

Kids in Transit

2010-03-15T19:14:00.003-05:00

This weekend was a lot of hard work. Hard work to get rid of my kids!
First, my daughter flew to her Mema's house. Before she could leave, she had to pack, so my loving wife was put in charge of that. After 3 kids, there is one thing I have learned. NEVER, and I mean, NEVER, be in charge of what your kids are wearing. If it isn't perfect and doesn't positively reflect on the mother of the child, your life will be a living Hell. Never take on the task unless you have a degree in fashion merchandising (and let's face it, if you are male and have a degree in fashion merchandising, chances are kids aren't in your future anyway) and never think that you could pull it off, even for a minute, because you WILL fail and your always impeccably dressed offspring will show up in an outfit with two shades of a color that were never meant to be worn in proximity to one another and the wrath of your Baby Momma will be upon you. Where was I?

Oh yeah, so my daughter got packed. Then she packed her carry-on, which was an oversized purse large enough to double as her suitcase. Then she headed off to Art Class. Once Art Class was over, I picked her up and headed to the airport. Because she is classified as an unaccompanied minor (even though she had better traveling etiquette and skills than most I ran into this weekend), we were required to stand in the check-in line to obtain the hall passes needed for me to accompany her to her gate. She wraps her purse handles around her rolling bag, whips out her passport and boarding pass and moves through the check-in line with the precision of a frequent business traveler. Once to the agent's desk, she hands over the required documents, tells them her name and when asked if she had any bags to check, replied, "No thank you, I have everything I need right here," pointing to her well organized pink-and-purple polka dotted suitcase and flashy monogramed carry-on. "You'll need to check one of those, Miss, since you are only allowed one carry-on." "Oh, don't worry, it will fit inside my bag - would you like me to show you?" "No, that's OK, if they ask you at boarding you can do it." As we stroll through security, once again my daughter flashes her ID and removes her shoes and places her personal items in the grey bucket. Then she passes through the metal detector and when I follow her and it goes off, she comments to the TSA agent, "Daddy always forgets something in his pockets," to which the agent smiles and tells me to hurry along. After all, the 6 year old has this down pat, and you old man don't realize you are carrying a deadly weapon in your pocket. We grab a quick bite at the Chili's To Go and then once to the gate, my lovely little girl heads off like she's a world-traveller. I can picture her en-route. . . "Maam, could I please have another one of those wonderful roasted peanut packets. Oh, yes, I would love a refill of my Ginger Ale, thank you so much. . ."

While my daughter was at Art Class awaiting her travels, my youngest began Blast Ball practice. Luckily for my loving wife, it was at the park around the corner from our house, so there wasn't much lead time needed to get him there. After racing after the first 15 or so balls that were hit, the other kids started to cry and my loving wife had to divert his attention to her drink on the side lines. Of course, that then made him think he could drink every few seconds, and we all know what happens when little bladders drink too much. Needless to say, that was one LONG hour of her life. Meanwhile, I was driving around our fair city preparing to off load kid #1, thinking about offloading kid #2.

My eldest made plans with a friend to head to his grandparents' ranch in Kansas for Spring Break. He has told us several times that his friend goes there every year and works on the ranch. Work? Spring Break? What's the catch. First, my eldest mentioned that his friend was paid to work. Oh, that makes sense. My son also wants to get paid. OK, I can understand that. Then a couple of days before the trip, as my loving wife was gathering all of the details of the trip, the REAL truth comes out. Apparently, my son's friend has a 13 year old cousin who exemplifies the "Farmer's Daughter" and would be "working" on the ranch also. Our squirt's 4th birthday is next weekend and we are all traveling to meet together to celebrate that as a family, and our eldest has been trying to figure out how he can stay home and "double date" that weekend, rather than going with us. No matter how many times we explain to him that he is going to have a family moment, whether he likes it or not, he keeps asking. Our answer is, was and will be NO. So, now I've decided that it would be prudent to have the let's be sure that we are appropriate while visiting your friend's grandparents' house talk. "Remember, you are a guest in their house. Remember, your friend's hot cousin is off limits!" Stupid hormones!

Eventually, the friends' brothers' baseball tournaments come to an end and as they pack everything up to head out for their trip to Kansas, we are realizing that the space our son is taking up, is the space the dogs typically take for this trip. Now we are caring for 2 dogs, while they are gone. So, I spent the bulk of the weekend getting rid of 2 of my kids, just to replace them with 2 canines. I think it was a pretty fair trade.

Young Love, Dumb Love

2010-03-10T18:31:00.002-06:00

What is it about the first time that is always so magical? I know the exact weight, length, and time of birth of my eldest's foray into this cruel world. The next two? Only the date. Heck, I often call them by the dog's name when I can't quite remember which one is which. I remember exactly what I wore the first day I went to work (ok, so that's a freebie, since every accountant in those days wore a blue suit, white shirt, and red tie). I've been searching for my favorite blazer for over a month, not being able to remember when I last wore it, or where. (Man, I hope my girlfriend doesn't turn up with it at my house some night - wish me luck!)
Our first annual winter trip to the Great Wolf Lodge was fantastic! We loved our room, we loved the waterpark, we even enjoyed the overpriced food. For our third annual this past February? We were content to sleep in and watch cartoons together in bed the next morning. I could have done that at home FOR FREE!
This morning, as I was dropping my youngest off at school, a new couple were standing together in the hallway mooning over the classroom billboards featuring hand-made embellishments (that's a fancy word for, I didn't stop to look, so I have no clue) from the kids in their child's class. They were arm and arm and staring longingly at the board and at each other marvelling at the beauty that was the thing their kid threw together with glue and paper scraps. I hurry past them thinking "chumps" and shuffle my son into class, hang up his backpack and kiss him goodbye. As I am leaving, I notice that the couple have moved out to the front of the school and are embracing and telling each other bye. They get in separate cars! WHAT? They both had time to drive separately to school, ogle at the artistic expressions of their youth, and now are confirming their love for one another before work? BLECHT! I comment to the director as I walk out..."They are so young and cute - give 'em a few years and a few more kids and they'll be jaded, just like me."
So tomorrow night is my daughter's first Open House at school. It is going to be my 8th! She is beside herself with excitement over showing me her classroom, her locker, doing the chicken dance, etc. I am dreading the hour and a half of my life that will forever be lost. Well, that was, until this morning when I ran into Mr. and Mrs. Young and in Love. They have inspired me to go to tomorrow night's Open House like it is my first one. I'm going to leave my inner cynic in the car and see things through my daughter's eyes. For her, this is a gigantic affair and I'm going to support her in every way. In support of my new found optimism, I might not even throw away all of my youngest's artwork in his classroom trashcan on Friday. I'll go ahead and carry it to the front door trash instead. Hey, tiny steps, here. You can't expect complete change overnight.

Classless

2010-03-03T21:44:00.000-06:00

There are times in life when you realize that we are all truly created equally. Visiting a laundromat is an humbling experience where there is no class system. Nobody is better than anybody else. At the end of the day, we all have to plug in our quarters and stoop to move our laundry from the washer to the dryer and then stoop again to fold it and move it out to our cars. It's kind of like putting on your pants. No matter who you are, you can only do it one leg at a time.
In spite of my recent trips to the local laundromat, where I actually was made fun of for wearing a sport coat while I loaded the washers, I am feeling great to be put out a bit. Aside from the fact that I have no idea how anyone can afford to go to these places (washers were $4.75 and dryers were 75 cents for 18 minutes) I still was very happy with my life this past month (as evidenced by my lack of blogging). My previous blog entry landed me a call from the SEARS elevated customer service group that moved up our service call by 5 days. Even before they could get here, though, our good neighbors bought a fancy new front loader set and were waiting to post their retiring set on Craig's List. They offered their dryer to us to keep us from spending our kids' college funds on laundry. Really? You just happen to have an extra dryer lying around and are willing to let us use it? Have I mentioned that my neighborhood rocks?
We had record snowfall here in February. Nearly 12 inches in a 24 hour period (you Yankees probably think that's nothing, but Texans find that to be insanity!). In the process, we lost a few trees in our front yard. The first several sets of limbs, I managed to break apart and get out to the curb, but one larger branch needed some TLC. Several ice storms ago, my chain saw met an early death and I think to buy a new one at each new snow storm. Unfortunately, so does every other suburban Dad who only needs it when he has a tree sticking through his dining room window, so they are always sold out (except for the $1,200 HILTI that nobody other than professional tree trimmers ever buy). So, I leave the branch out in the front yard and place a call to my yard guy.
My yard guy's English isn't great and when he calls me back, I get a, "So you buy z mulch? OK bye bye." A couple of days later, I come home and find a nice pile of branches lying near my sidewalk, just the right size for bulk pick up. I'm pretty happy and place a call back to Jorge. I don't hear from him for a couple of days and eventually he calls back and asks, "So you buy z mulch?" "No, I haven't, but I wanted to get you paid for cutting up my tree limb." "I no cut. I put mulch if you buy." "OK, Jorge, thanks buddy, but I spent the weekend putting out mulch and moving flower beds, laying sod and planting bulbs, so I don't need you for that." "So you buy z mulch, I put in now." Good luck, Jorge. So, now I am at a bit of a quandary. How did my tree limb get cut if Jorge no cut?
Have I mentioned that my neighborhood rocks? Who does that kind of stuff? I'm wondering if it is my dryer offering neighbors? If so, I tip my hat to you. If not, take credit for it anyway, because that was super nice. The bulk trash guys stopped by yesterday and hauled it off and those storm remnants are but a memory.
Here in the burbs, we all know that it takes a village and keeping up with my crew certainly requires a lot of supervision. I'm just glad I have plenty of capable and willing help.

Ode to Mulletville

2010-02-17T20:28:00.001-06:00

Thanks to a nudge from my good friend FIMF [Happy Blog Anniversary, by the way], I'm back. Well, really, I was never gone, just uninspired and frankly doggone tired. It's that time of year when all I do is work, and since I don't ever find any time for my family, except when I am demanding dinner from my loving wife (by the way, that didn't go too well), I really didn't find it appropriate to find time for my adoring fans out here on the world wide web. But tonight, I decided, oh screw it, my family will be here no matter what, but you guys will get tired of linking to the same ole jibberish and eventually leave me. How would I survive?
This morning, as my loving wife was walking out the door, I hear her call: "Hey, loser who only wants me to feed him, the dryer doesn't work! Looks like you're going to be needing more than dinner, you are probably going to want to buy some underwear, too." [She isn't holding a grudge over that dinner thing or anything.]
I jump to attention and the first phone call I make once I get in the car is to SEARS. Actually, the first call I make is to the Indian chick that answers the phone for SEARS. She explains how she understands my frustration, but in spite of my good English, she won't be able to have a repairman out until March 3rd. That's next month. That's a very long time to go without clean underwear.
The good news, the repair is covered by our warranty. The bad news, I'll be visiting a laundro-mat this weekend, and next weekend. So, my next move after lying to my wife about how many days we'd need to wear today's underwear, was to Google landro-mats in my town. Number of hits? ZERO.
How stuck up is this town? There are nearly 70,000 residents and you are telling me that everyone of them has their own washer and dryer. OK, don't answer that, because I already know the answer to that. I live with a bunch of yuppie too-goods. OK, and I confess that I love that. So, I'll have to drive to the next town over (this completely inappropriate insert edited by my loving wife) and with my roll of quarters in hand, slum it for a couple of weekends. It'll be just like college, except without the beer and sex.

I've Been Lying to the Elliptical

2010-01-22T18:59:00.001-06:00

Since my "Great Weight Loss of '06" I've been working to keep it off. Yeah, the skin still dangles in places and the Big & Tall stores don't send me catalogues anymore, but, otherwise, I'm pretty happy to have my girly figure mostly in tact.
I have a standard cardio routine that I do on odd days (by the way, I hate cardio). Cardio sucks. It is boring, tedious, and down right anti-American. The first thing asked of me as I climb on the elliptical is my weight and age and I've been putting the same numbers in for a couple of years (well, I do update the age when appropriate).
Tonight, as I climbed on the scale, though, I realized, after my annual Thanksgiving to Christmas hiatus, that this year began early because we went on a cruise the week of Thanksgiving and was extended because I just sent my parents home this past weekend and we ate like gorillas while they were here, that I have been lying like a dog to that elliptical machine. No, not about my age, that is pretty easy, but I was about 12 pounds lighter on the weight scale. No wonder everything has seemed harder these days, I'm lugging around 12 extra pounds of Chicken Express.
Well, as my regular eating and exercising routine is back in full swing, I hope not to do this to myself again next holiday season, but if I do, I also hope that the elliptical does as good of a job keeping my dirty little secret.

My Son is a Giraffe

2010-01-21T21:53:00.000-06:00

One of my guilty pleasures is crawling into bed with my loving wife on Sunday nights, firing up the plasma, and watching "Desperate Housewives." [Here's my man card] I don't know if it is because it is the end of our weekend and there are no kids crawling on us, because they too are in bed, or if it is because Terri Hatcher's blouses keep getting smaller and smaller, but something makes this time special each and every week.
For those of you out there who won't admit you watch it, I'll give you a quick synopsis of last week's episode. After spending some time homeschooling, Gabi finally gets her daughter Juanita into the prestigious private school where they were itching for some diversity. Susan's son MJ has already been enrolled there, but Susan had to take a job as an art assistant to pay the tuition. All of the kids are put into an animal group, Leopards, Chipmunks, and Giraffes. None of the parents knows which group are the "gifted" students because the administration doesn't want to deal with the competitive spirit of the parents. Gabi breaks the code and informs Susan that her Mexican kid (a Leopard) is smarter than her privileged cracker (a Giraffe) and all hell breaks loose.
Today, as I dropped my youngest off at school, I discovered that drying on one of the tables was yesterday's art project: Capital and lower-case Nn's made with penne pasta. In amazement I glanced at the pasta placed end-to-end forming perfect capital N's and the slight curvature used by most to form the lower-case ones. WOW! Pretty impressive for a bunch of toddlers. I start looking for names just knowing that one of the beautiful ones belongs to my offspring. This is what I found:

Well, crap. I guess there goes that Harvard scholarship. I guess I should be happy he didn't eat the glue!

The List

2010-01-20T22:50:00.000-06:00

For several years, the wait list for Shafer Vineyards' Hillside Select has been closed to new members. I've been a member of the Napa Valley list, but that is but a speck in the big dog world of expensive Napa wine. In fact, the website currently says the following about the list:

PLEASE NOTE – THE NAPA VALLEY LIST DOES NOT OFFER HILLSIDE SELECT®. The Hillside Select list is closed indefinitely. Those interested in signing up to be on the Waiting List to eventually join the Hillside Select list should check back after April 1, 2010.

So, for those of you who think you might possibly someday be worthy, go check their website after April Fool's Day this year only to be rejected. The good news to all of you is that you know me. As with most things in life, anytime I am told that I can't have something, my loving wife is going to make sure that I can!
Today I received my welcome letter. Yep, I am an official member of the Hillside Select Allocation Club. Not on the wait list for the wait list, but the real deal. I am absolutely thrilled. I can't believe that I get to spend my hard earned money helping to make the Shafer Family even richer than the currently are. Ain't life grand?
I have only had one glass of Hillside Select in all my wine trials and tribulations. A 1995. It was November 2006 and I was sitting in the tasting room at the Shafer Vineyard with a select 8 other guests plus my loving wife. After going through a round of their most popular pours, we all turn to see John Shafer waltz into the room and ask if he can join us. "Umm, Yeah, you freakin' own the joint, you can do anything you want." He begins to tell us a story of his younger wine-making days and then notices that we are all out of wine. He calls on the winemaker (not the receptionist or tour guide, but the winemaker himself) to bring up a few bottles of the '95 from the cellar. John told us that this was one of his favorite vintages of the past decade and hoped we'd enjoy it.
We did, and I have been waiting on my invitation to be in this club of expensive cellar stockers ever since. By the way, I am in the club. I am freakin' awesome. Oh, and I'm setting up a paypal account for donations to help me buy my first bottle!

Nothing is Good Enough for Sophie, Including Her Mother

2010-01-19T22:12:00.000-06:00

Are you flickin' kidding me? I cannot flickin' believe what my loving wife and I are watching right now. Michael J. Fox, eat your heart out, your wolf has nothing on these chicks. . .TEEN MOM!
MTV has done it again. A stunning rendition of life in the 'hood. Teenagers with rubber bands and braces who have clearly not been using rubbers or their brains. Flickin' teenagers flickin'! Why in the name of Cupid would MTV be sensationalizing teenage motherhood?
After asking her baby Daddy to keep their daughter, the teenager looking for a career as a receptionist at a hair salon got the following response from her former flick: "I can't do anything tonight, I've got class tonight." To which the baby Mama replies, "Thanks Gary, now I've got to bring the spawn with me to the interview." And she did. Meanwhile, another baby Mama was looking for an apartment, so that she could escape the overprotectiveness of her parent's home. (Sounds like this teen Mom should look up the definition of that word, since her ability to be flickin' around got her into this mess to start with.) She couldn't believe that the places she could afford were "smaller than her closet at home." Yep, ungrateful whore, perhaps you should appreciate that your parents haven't kicked you and Sophie out on your respective arses!
I just cannot believe the irresponsibility that MTV is excercising with this one. Please someone tell me that everybody stopped watching MTV when they stopped showing videos!

Lady's Man

2010-01-13T22:33:00.000-06:00

The past couple of times I have picked up my youngest from school, he's been shirtless. The most recent time, the question of "where's your shirt?" was met with "I don't know." Lovely. More importantly, his two girlfriends seem to want to give him good bye kisses all the more.
You see, my youngest is the favorite of his teachers. You think I am just saying that because he's mine, but the truth is that he bites his friends and his teachers make excuses. He loses his shirt and his teachers make excuses. He brings toys in the morning (a huge no-no) and the teachers accept them. Basically, whatever this kid wants, he gets. And all because he sucks up to the teachers each and every day.
What I am concerned about is exactly what type of impression the teachers are making on him. He plays the game and wins. He charms his way through the day. He charms his way into our hearts. I'm just hoping he stays cute as he grows up. It is going to suck if he tries to get away with some of this crap and turns out to be ugly.

Surely There's An App For That!

2010-01-12T23:11:00.000-06:00

Twas a quiet night at the Dto3 house. All of the children were snug in their beds, while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads. I in my really sexy boxers and t-shirt had just settled down with my electric lap blanket. When there arose such a clatter, what to my wandering eyes should appear but yet another Craig's List find on my loving wife's computer screen...
I sent an email asking about where the chair was located and the dude immediately emailed me back from his iPhone. After asking several times the general vicinity of his location and finally having to just get his physical address to log into Google maps, I realized that this guy knew nothing about the geography of where he lives.
On our trip to the sticks to pick up this guy's no-longer-good-enough-for-his-house-but-fine-for-mine leather recliner, we get lost. A couple of times. The directions we have do not seem to know where they are taking us and our GPS seems not to know what road we were on. After all, we drove across 2 lakes to get there and Google pretty much thought we were maritime vehicles at some point.
So, thinking the guy that wants to off load his junk and make a little cash to boot would welcome speeding up our trip to get there, we called him. The first time we called, we were in front of a football stadium. A really big football stadium, with lots of lights. There is absolutely no way anybody within a 15 mile radius of this place wouldn't know where it is, or for that matter, where we were. Well, iPhone boy didn't.
Our next stop was a local gas station. I asked where the street we were looking for was and got 3 different answers, although everyone of them agreed that where I was going was next door to the Lowe's. We call iPhone man and let him know that we think we had found the way and ask him if he agrees. He tells us that we are definitely possibly heading in the right general direction. Just be sure to turn at the intersection of BF and E, where there are a ton of businesses, so you won't miss it.
We start looking for all of the businesses to help light the way. Oh, and by the way, this entire town is DARK!!! Finally, we make it to the corner of BF and E. Either, we are truly jaded city folk, or iPhone boy has no friggin' clue what a business is. There was a Kash 'n Karry liquor store and a Kash 'n Karry beer shop in connected buildings. That was it.

Assuming that we had to be going the wrong way, we start looking for the Lowe's. We never found that either. We did finally track down the guy's house and he had the chair in the front entrance. We asked him if he had lived in the area long. Well, yeah, sort of, about 3 years, he said. I asked him if he thought it was awfully dark out here and he said he hadn't noticed. Duh, iPhones come with a lantern app. I tried out the chair and reclined it and said, "It's a keeper." He asked if we would like some help carrying it out. He said the chair was really heavy.

I said Yes and thanks for the offer and we pick it up. Either I'm super strong (most definitely) or this guy needs to put down the iPhone and start picking up some barbells, because the chair was not REALLY HEAVY. iPhone boy also didn't understand the concept of "pivot" and wanted to carry the chair straight out the door. Finally, it was out the door and in the back of the van and we re-routed the navigation to get us back out of the foreign country we'd driven to.

Once back home, I cleaned up the chair and conditioned it and placed it in the pool house for use. Looks like it is ready for a weekend of beer drinking and farting. I'm pretty sure there's an app for that.

Piss Poor Management

2010-01-11T22:17:00.000-06:00

For some reason, our building's management has decided to stop caring. We are constantly having problems with the card readers and people get stuck in the garage. There's a cricket problem in the cafeteria. The windows leak and I am pretty sure the heater doesn't even work. About six months ago, the building had a water main break and the bottom floor was flooded. The restoration company came in and drilled holes in the walls and ripped out the baseboards. Everything still is ripped up. It is kind of embarrassing.
This past week, we haven't had water in the urinals on our floor. I have dealt with it and assumed it would eventually be handled. On Friday, I decided it wasn't and I asked my admin to send a notice to the landlord, because the lack of water is contributing to a build up of stench. I was excited to find today that the problem had been handled. The urinals now have trash bags over them with signs that say 'DO NOT USE'. That worked out well.

A Ross By Any Other Name

2010-01-11T06:45:00.006-06:00

I am sure that it comes as no surprise that we've had a bit of home improvement going on around here. Translation: I go to Lowe's and Home Depot A LOT! Lowe's is closer, thankfully, so I spend most of my time there. My latest and last ditch effort at self-home improvement is my daughter's bathroom. Because her room was the guest suite, and because her room that was brown is now purple, and because the brown bathroom in her purple room didn't quite meet her requirements, the new look called for "Prom Pink." We have beautiful custom cabinets throughout our house. In fact, when we were building our addition, we worked diligently to be sure that the new cabinets matched our existing ones so that the addition looked less like an addition and more like an always been. Other than the fact that the new cabinets smell new and have no blemishes of wear, I think we succeeded.
Even with these beautiful cabinets, we didn't think that Prom Pink walls would look good with stained oak cabinets, so we devised a plan to rip them out and replace them in her bathroom. As we measured and maneuvered, we realized that we were never going to be able to find something that would fit exactly, so we thought we'd refinish the cabinets and paint them white. We also needed to replace the vanity top, since the current one is cultured marble and its off-whiteness would be accentuated by white cabinetry. So we measured and bought a standard 61 inch white vanity top and brought it home.
Once home, we remeasured and realized that the existing vanity is 58 1/4 inches and while that 2 3/4 inch difference doesn't sound like much, it would cause the top to extend over the end of the cabinet and we decided look like a mis-match. So, I took it back to Lowe's. Having bought it just hours before, I had the receipt in hand. But, since this was one of many trips to Lowe's, I also always have other items to return. This time, it was one of the drill bits that I bought and didn't use (and therefore didn't break) when I was putting up my eldest's basketball goal. I didn't have the receipt and I had paid cash for it because it was only $6. ($6.72 with tax to be exact.)
As I entered Lowe's, my loving wife and I hauled in the vanity top and I presented my receipt to the clerk. He explained that he would be able to credit back my American Express for the vanity top, but without a receipt, he could only give me a merchandise credit for the drill bit. Since I was about to buy the Prom Pink paint anyway, I told him that would be just fine. As he rang up the bit, he paused, looked perplexed and asked if he could help the person behind me before continuing my transaction. My loving wife and daughter were having the paint mixed, so I was in no rush and said, sure, go ahead.
When he finished, he came back to me and told me that the Company policy for returning goods with no receipt is to present a gift card (which I agreed to), but Company policy was also to give back cash for items under $10. Again, I agreed to take his cash. However, he said, I will need your drivers license and I will need to obtain approval. Again, I said OK, but told him that I am perfectly happy accepting a gift card if that is easier for him. No, No, No, that would violate policy I was told.
Looking at my license, the clerk comments that I must really like The Office. He really wishes he had a cool name like mine, then people would compare him to celebrities. I told him that he was the first person ever to make that comment, but that Ross was also a famous sit-com name. "Huh?" he asked. "You know, David Schwimmer's character in Friends. That was huge!" "Never heard of it," he said, and I actually really looked him in the face and realized his pubescence at this point. "Oh, that was the 90s," I said. "Yeah, dude, that was a really long time ago." At this point his manager showed up and gave him a scowl for wasting his time over the approval for the $6.72. "Next time, just give him a gift card!" Next time, maybe he'll be old enough to shave, I thought.

We've Been Had

2010-01-10T08:43:00.000-06:00

Beginning last weekend, our youngest started telling us that his feet were hurting. We asked why and he told us his shoes were too small. We believed him and told him that we'd get him some new shoes. Unfortunately, it would have to be next weekend, since we had too many things to do. His shoes were relatively new, so we weren't overly worried about it. He told us a couple of times during the week that his toes hurt and we promised that we would get him some new ones on Saturday. Saturday rolls around and he comes to us about needing his new shoes now. We tell him, "Absolutely!" and head off to the local Stride Rite. As usual, the sales lady measures his feet. Surprisingly, his feet are exactly the same size as his current shoes. She tells us that he has plenty of room at the toes and asks him where his shoes were hurting. Here? Here? or Here? All were answered "No." Then he turns to us and tells us that his shoes are too small and he needs new ones (apparently unaware of the fact that we were in the same room during his discussion with the sales lady). Specifically, he had his sights set on the light up pair with the Fire Trucks on them. All of a sudden it hit us. Our little guy has a best friend at school that has bought the same pair of shoes as him for the last several pairs. "Batman, did Robin get a new pair of shoes?" "Uh-huh!" "By any chance, are those shoes the light up kind with fire trucks?" "Uh-huh." OK, wrap them up, we'll take them home. As soon as he got in the car, our little guy told us that his feet no longer hurt. Funny how light-up fire truck shoes can cure common fake sore-footedness.

Facebook Freaks

2010-01-09T18:30:00.005-06:00

Lately, I've received some pretty strange Facebook requests. I have tried ignoring some, but they keep coming back. I'm to the point that I just am letting them pile up in my request box. Here are my top three weird ones: For my 20th high school reunion, everyone at my high school got on Facebook to find one another. Some of these friends, I would prefer not to befriend. One such note. . .the star cheerleader in our high school was every boy's fantasy. At our 10th high school reunion, she stood out among the rest of the losers with whom I graduated and I made my way over to say Hi. So, Jane, how's life. Did you end up getting married. "Uh, yeah," she says, "to Tarzan over there." Tarzan was the star football player, was as dumb as rocks, and for the past 10 years had apparently been plowing donuts and scotch. "Oh, I'm sorry," the words flew out of my mouth. Jane found it necessary to befriend me because of the whole reunion connection thing, but now Tarzan is sending me requests. I knew he was stupid, but is he now also drunk? For the past several years, there's a hoodlum with whom I've attended church. He knows me as one of his youth sponsors and most people at church know him because he constantly does something annoying. He's only 14, so I was a little bit surprised when I received a friend request. Aren't you supposed to be 18 to have an FB account? Anyway, I ignored it, then I ignored the second one, then I ignored the third one, then I received an inbox message, "Why do you keep ignoring my request, you know who I am." My response, "because it is creepy for a middle-aged man to be an internet friend with a teenager. Don't send me a request again." The latest request truly has me baffled. Growing up, I had a precocious cousin (my father's sister's daughter) who is 1 year younger than I am. She was constantly in some kind of trouble, but the worst of it came when her father walked her down the aisle with a shotgun in one hand and a granddaughter in the other, at the ripe old age of 17. The husband stayed around for a couple of years and then was replaced by another and then came back and then was replaced again by the same other and then she and the other had kids of their own and he went off and became a Hulk Hogan wannabe and now weighs 3,000 lbs with muscles in places even Arnold Schwarzenegger would envy. So, I was surprised when his sister (which I didn't even know he had) requested me to be her friend. After ignoring her request, tonight popped up Mr. Muscles requesting to be my friend with a profile pic that included his two new kids and his Mrs. Universe wife. So, someone please explain to me why I would want to be an FB friend with the estranged father of my floozy cousin's illegitimate daughter and his sister? Weird world.

Chill

2010-01-08T21:26:00.005-06:00

It was 18 degrees this morning. No, that isn't Celsius. It was 18 Fahrenheit. In Texas, that means it could just as well been 40 below zero. Friggin' cold. It never reached above freezing all day today. Right now, it is 21 degrees and I am sitting underneath an electric throw blanket and my computer is sluggish from the chill in the air. Al Gore, I've only one thing to say to you about global warming: "Horseshit!"

Mean People Suck

2010-01-07T22:11:00.003-06:00

"Can I have your autograph?" I said to the man as he got out of his car at the supermarket after nearly running over the little old lady in the crosswalk that all of the other cars were waiting on, but through which he blasted to grab the front parking space. "Huh, what?" he said. "Well, you must be famous, and are definitely way more important than the rest of us to wait on the little old lady. Can I help you with your shopping, you must be crazy busy!" He then mumbled something under his breath that I think began with an F and ended with off. "Ma'am, she's waiting on you to order," I said to the chick on her phone in front of me at Starbucks. "Ma'am, there are others who would like some cream and sugar, too," I said to the same woman who was standing in middle of the creamer station with her purse on one side and her coffee on the other as she checked her email. Add to that the countless others out there and I'm pretty much thinking our world is going to hell in a handbasket. I have no idea what a handbasket is, but if I ever find one, I'm filling it with sparkles and rainbows.

Is It Just Me, or Is My Family Lazy?

2010-01-06T22:02:00.003-06:00

I know that I am anal retentive, a control freak, have anger issues, am wound too tight, am too hard on my children. . . BLAH BLAH BLAH. I've heard it all and the only person that's going to change me is me, and I'm not changing, so get over it discontents, critics, and naysayers. Anyway, we have fairies that live in this house. Toothpaste all over the sink removing fairies. Laundry fairies. Dish fairies. Paper towel dispenser replacement fairies. Trash fairies. Light switch off fairies. Shoe storage fairies. You get the picture? Well, guess what. There's one fairy this is quitting - NAY - has quit and will not return. That's the empty toilet paper roll replacement fairy!!! We have 5 toilets in this house. If we wanted to, every single one of us could poop at the exact same time without anyone having to be in the same room. Sounds great, right? WRONG! All it provides is a license to "move to one of the stocked" bathrooms when the first one you enter hasn't a square to spare. Even if the bathroom is stocked and you've taken the initiative to extract a fresh roll from the drawer, though, don't bother removing the used roll from the holder, just set the new roll down anywhere in the bathroom and leave the empties on the roll. No worries, the fairy will take care of it. NOPE! No longer! I don't care if my family is having to use their fingers, clothing, grass clippings, or heaven forbid, pages from my Maxim magazines. I will no longer provide toilet paper restocking services. I have also this week decided not to replace the paper towel roll, and we are now going on day 4 without paper towels in the kitchen. Hey, bums, remember that pallet of Brawny we picked up at Sam's? Yeah, well, you can pick up a fresh roll and replace it too. For me, I've been using the fancy napkins every morning to clean up my coffee spills. Guess what, when those run out, I'll just move on to my loving wife's tea towel collection. I don't care. It doesn't bother you to be without, so it is no longer going to bother me. I also don't care if we run out of toilet paper. My bathrooms at the office are fully stocked and I'll just hold it over the weekends. You know how stubborn I can be, so let this be my warning! The toilet paper fairy is on sabbatical until further notice!

My Daughter is a Genius and a Nyctophobic

2010-01-05T20:24:00.004-06:00

She takes after me. Well, the genius part that is. I'm more of a photophobic, myself. I hate any amount of light when I'm sleeping. Today, my daughter came home with a Level 2 reading book. She was the first kid in her class to move to Level 2 and she read it like she's been reading for years. She is so awesome! Tonight was her first piano lesson, too. After about 15 minutes, the teacher came out and asked my loving wife, "Are you sure this is her first time playing? She seems to know the notes and which keys relate." My loving wife responds, "well, her Dad has told her where middle C is and they have discussed the 8 individual keys, 11 octaves, the associated staves, Latin phraseology, dynamics, and the metronomy of music, but that's about it." The teacher's draw dropped and told my loving wife that she's definitely ready to get started with her training. Shortly before heading to lessons, my loving wife called me to let me know that our home was completely unsafe and they'd be waiting at the local IHOP until I made it home. You see, my eldest walked through the door to find the back door standing open. He didn't freak out. He just shut and locked it and then my loving wife yelled, "Get Out Of The House!!!" Then, she called me and told me that nobody would be entering our home until I got home to make sure that all was well. Basically, it is totally OK if I get killed by some axe murderer, but God forbid, the rest of my family shouldn't be subjected to such gruesomeness. The reality is that I forgot to lock the back door and left it slightly ajar after letting my dogs out this morning. So, I suck, but haven't I told you I live in Mayberry? Nothing bad happens here. Nonetheless, I had to go through the entire house, look inside every closet and under every bed before any of my family would enter. Tonight, my daughter won't sleep without a light on. She's afraid some crazed lunatic is waiting in the wings to get her. Tomorrow, I think I'll double-check the locks.

New Year, New Cheer

2010-01-04T19:31:00.004-06:00

I was anxious to be back at work today. Seriously, I really mean that. No, really, I do. After working so hard on my honey-do list over the holidays, frankly, I needed a holiday from my holiday. Today, I jumped out of bed (well, actually, my loving wife said 7 more minutes when the alarm went off, so I jumped out of bed 7 minutes later), ran upstairs and got my children up (well, actually, I couldn't find my daughter or my youngest, they had moved to my eldest's room. He didn't need to get up so early, so I left him snoozing, pushed my daughter down the hallway and told her to get dressed and carried my youngest back to my bedroom, where he went right back to sleep), and quickly got ready for work (well, actually, yesterday, in a moment of stupidity, which are often for him these days, my teenage son decided that his socks were staticky (is that a word?) and thought that ironing them would get rid of the static cling. Instead, all this managed to do was to melt the elastic, which stuck to the back of our iron, and when my loving wife went to iron her pants this morning, said gunk stuck to the leg of her trousers, and I, of course, had to come to the rescue to help her de-gunk the trunk!) So, after getting to work and feeling really good about the day that lay ahead of me, the first thing I realize is just how much had piled up on me over the past 2 weeks. My cheery disposition waned and I got back to the basics of head down, productivity up! After a few hours of that, I decided that I like the idea of putting so many things on my to-do list on my been-done list. But, I've done enough, so I'm going home to watch my Horned Frogs sledgehammer the Broncos!

Wal-Mart Workers Deserve Compassion, Too!

2010-01-03T18:27:00.004-06:00

After spending several days within the confines of my house, I decided that I needed a few minutes comingling with my fellow suburbanites. So, I headed over to the local Wal-Mart to pick up a few things we've accumulated as need-to-haves. As I was driving into the parking lot, the workers were picking up the baskets from the corrals. There was a long line of baskets making their way to the front of the store with two employees directing. I pulled my car over into the left lane of the row I was driving down and gave the basket runners the right-of-way. It took them awhile to cross the main row of traffic and a soccer Mom in a Jeep couldn't wait any longer, so she ripped into my lane and started honking her horn at me and telling me to get out of the way. I motioned that the baskets currently had the right of way and told her to wait. She started yelling, honking, and flashing her lights. As the baskets moved away, I pulled up next to the soccer Mom and rolled down my window to ask her if she really was in that big of a hurry. She flipped me off, called me a few choice words, and peeled out of the lot. After spending several days within the confines of my house, I decided that I needed to go back home, and face the world tomorrow.

No Married Man Gets More A** Than the Toilet Seat!

2010-01-02T21:08:00.007-06:00

There are 4 times each year that most married men can count on getting lucky. Those four are: 1. Your Anniversary, 2. Christmas, 3. New Year's Eve, and 4. Valentine's Day. For many, a bonus 5th night is your wife's birthday, but for many more, like myself, this is completely dependent on the quality and thoughtfulness of the gift accompanying the birthday. Case in point, the year my loving wife received a paperback book and a DVD (I was lucky not to have gotten the finger!). The exception to this rule is for our Jewish married folk out there. Number 2. doesn't have much lure for them, but since God believes that love-making among married folks is pleasing, many a Friday nights are dubbed "double-mitzvah" nights for them, whereby they make their weekly trek to Synagogue after sundown and then head back home to continue their "worship." We Christian men long to be Jews every Friday night, but alas, our belief in Christ and our inability to stay awake past the 9 o'clock news keep us squarely in the "unchosen" category. Nevertheless, these other 4 nights for the rest of us are shoe ins. Indisputable. Gimmes if you will. Unless, of course, you live in my house. . . Our Anniversary falls every year over Labor Day weekend. It is kind of a double celebration, since my birthday is 3 days afterward, so we really party down! This year, was a big Anniversary - 15 years! For our anniversary, we got to stay at home with 3 kids nursing them back to health from a bout with the swine flu. Yee Haw! My loving wife never looked so hot after having our youngest puke all over her pajamas. I can't wait to re-celebrate that one each and every day. Christmas Eve is a time of great wonderment among my kids. My eldest has long given up the dream of Santa's toy-giving power, but because his younger siblings are still all-in, we keep up the pretenses. This year, our eldest wanted a new basketball goal. Since it is our tradition that Santa builds all toys for our kids and deposits them in our living room (several years ago, we actually erected a previous basketball goal that has long since been mangled by a little tornado that ripped through our neighborhood, and then realized just how hard it was going to be to get it back outside - not one of our smarter moves), we once again worked on building the basketball goal. This year, we decided to attach it to the house, so we only had to build the backboard and rim. I swear there is a Chinese instruction editor laughing his ass off wondering how many clueless, half-drunk American men are trying to navigate his painfully arduous manual. I hate him, but by 2AM I gave up the fight and put out a partially completed backboard. My eldest laughed and was still laughing 3 days later when I was still trying to put the thing together (but I did!). Needless to say, mine and my loving wife's lack of sleep on Christmas Eve, coupled with the cooking, cleaning, gifting, and searching for baby Jesus under the ottoman on Christmas Day, left nothing but barely wrinkled sheets in our bedroom, after we collapsed that night. Remember that addition we spent all year building (yes FIMF, I know you remember). Well, in doing that, we changed our old guest room into our daughter's room. CHECK. We changed our daughter's room into our youngest's room. CHECK. We still had to move my study up to our youngest's old room, our piano room into my old study, and convert the piano room into a dining room. CHECK, CHECK, and CHECK in the past three days! Here, I present to you, the new Conservatory, Eatery, and Library (from which I am writing this). Well, the fact that this is what I've been doing the past 3 days, coupled with the fact that I went 30 straight hours without bathing, pretty much meant that #3 was a dud for me as well.

I can only hold out hope that Valentine's Day will serve me well. After all, it is a New Year and everything. Things should be looking up, right? Of course, the fact that I am a CPA and Valentine's Day couldn't happen at a worse time at work and the fact that for the past 15 Valentine's Days or so, I've grabbed some wilted flowers from the local grocery store as I sped home around 9 PM just to show my loving wife how much she means to me, I'm not going to start holding my breath now. Better just hold out for the next Anniversary. Let's hope the plague doesn't hit again.

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone. Hope your Christmas was as great as ours was. We've had a blast this year!

I've Been Reading

2009-12-20T22:36:00.005-06:00

Dan Brown's latest, "The Lost Symbol" kind of sucks, but instead of blogging, I've been reading it anyway. I think my time would have been better spent writing worthless information out here on the world-wide-web. Tonight, however, I definitely had something to discuss.

This weekend is the weekend of "Family Fun." According to my eldest, we haven't had much of it yet. Tonight, however, I think I changed his mind. At precisely 5:30, this showed up at our front door. The first thing I heard from him was, "Dad, there's a limo in front of Frank's house." Yep, my dear child, that's your limo, go hop in and let the fun begin. We were off to see some Christmas lights.

Here is a taste of a few of the light displays. OK, so the camera doesn't take very good pictures through the windows, but we enjoyed ourselves, nonetheless. There was a bit of drinking, a bit of eating and whole lot of Christmas caroling going on inside the limo tonight. Needless to say, the kids had a good time and I think maybe the loving wife did too. Well, maybe my eldest had the best time after all!

Why the Mortgage Crisis Occurred

2009-12-02T21:18:00.004-06:00

I am currently in the process of refinancing my mortgage to roll my construction line of credit from the addition into my long-term permanent financing. This seems like a simple enough task, after all, I've provided enough information to the broker to satisfy a congressional nomination (ok, so that's really not much, but you get my point). Honestly, I'm not sure why I am surprised at the difficulty I am experiencing. . . Flashback to 1994. My loving wife and I were degree-carrying graduates of a prestigious private university and we were driving around with Sophie Bosli (a non-degree carrying Indian realtor) who showed us 3 houses with the same floor plan, even after we told her the first one sucked raw eggs, and then after asking to be taken back to the realty office as we just weren't interested in what she had to show us, were laughed at by Miss Bosli who said we'd never be able to afford a house anyway, we were just too young and didn't understand finance. (Hmmm, we were both candidates to sit for the CPA Exam, but obviously hadn't taken Realtor 101). You see, Miss Bosli thought it imperative that we have one or both of our parents co-sign for our mortgage, since we didn't have enough salary history to show that we were credit worthy applicants. (My loving wife had been working for over 4 years and I had been employed steadily for 3 at this point - how much history did they need?) More importantly, I had been an incessant saver all my life. My parents gave me $3 per day for lunch, which was a fortune in those days, and I only spent 85 cents. I would pocket the $2.15 per day and every Friday, make a $10.75 deposit. Banks would offer $100 Certificates of Deposit for students, so every 10 weeks, I'd open up a CD. In 1986, interest rates had started to come down and I made my weekly visit to the local bank to renew a CD and was offered a paltry 8%. (We'd kill for that rate these days!) I told the banker he could stick it. I'd be taking my business elsewhere. He was saddened to see me withdraw my $100 and I told my parents I wanted to visit a stock-broker. My Dad laughed at me and told me to talk to Mom. My Mom told me to get a life and be a kid for crying out loud, so I went to my Grandpa (my Poppy, as I called him). He told me it was my money and he'd sign whatever I told him to. I was always his favorite grandchild, so he'd let me do anything I wanted. This began my regular purchasing of Wal-Mart stock, something I still do to this day. Someday, I expect that my children will be able to thank Wal-Mart for sending them to college. When we were looking to buy our first house, I had amassed a sizable cache of Wal-Mart stock. We ultimately decided to build a house, rather than buy one of Miss Bosli's horrid floor plans and we didn't have to have our parents co-sign for us. During our discussions with our mortgage officer (which back then was face-to-face), the question came up as to where we'd get our down payment for our house. I explained to our mortgage officer that I held Wal-Mart stock and that I planned to liquidate it prior to closing to pay for a large chunk of the house. The mortgage officer asked me (and I quote), "How can I value that stock?" After picking my jaw up off the floor, I ask, "Are you serious? It is a publicly traded stock, you pick up a copy of the Wall Street Journal and look at the price, or conversely, go to the bathroom of any Wal-Mart and the price per share will be listed on the wall." "Well, I just don't know how we are going to figure this out - do you think one of your parents will co-sign for your loan?" I seriously wanted to smack the lady across the room because she was so stupid. The value of my stock was more than my Dad made in a year and this imbecile wanted me to ask my parents for a guarantee? Clearly this lady was an idiot. Fast forward to today. The following email was received from my new mortgage broker. We will need a copy of your tax returns for the past 3 years We will need a letter from you stating that you haven't taken out any new credit in the past 90 days We will need a copy of two consecutive pay stubs (you only provided us with October 31st and November 15th) During the application process, I filled out a form allowing them to obtain transcripts of the past 3 years of tax returns directly from the IRS (I guess those weren't official enough). Attached to the email they sent was a copy of my credit report that had a section included in it that showed credit requests made on my account in the past 90 days (which showed only one - the mortgage company that requested the report). I think the stupidity of the 3rd requests speaks for itself. Needless to say, I have determined that a requirement to be a mortgage broker around here is to be an freakin' idiot. I'm just going to wait a couple of days and hope they realize how stupid their request is and hope they leave me alone. If they press the issue, I'm just choosing a new broker. I'm too old for this crap.

1970 Called, They'd Like Their Furniture Back

2009-12-01T20:01:00.003-06:00

We have become Craig's List junkies. To date, we've bought an entire dining room and our daughter's bedroom furniture. Our latest must-haves include a wine holder and a desk for our daughter. We also started looking for a larger kitchen nook table with 6 chairs, since the one we have only has 4 chairs and our youngest has to sit in the mis-matched chair - something my loving wife, and 3rd child in her family, swore she'd never make any of her kids do. Never say never!

Anyway, Craig's List is a veritable fountain of entertainment for us. As we surf through and see the misspelled entries and the always intriguing descriptions of the surroundings that items are in (yet say nothing about the items themselves), we find ourselves drawn into the value placed by some on their junk. Case in point is this "dinning" room set in "very good condition":

For a mere $400, you, too can have these "four comfortable chairs on rollers" complete with a bong in the middle of the table. Am I the only one who wonders if they are smoking the extra chair?

Encouragement

2009-11-30T21:03:00.000-06:00

As I have mentioned far too many times, my children have absolutely no concept of personal space. Case in point, just yesterday, I was trying to have a little alone time in the library and in comes my youngest explaining to me how he had been wronged by his sister. Shortly, thereafter, in comes my daughter explaining to me how she had been wronged by her brother and how her nostrils were now being wronged by me. I explained to her that she was excused. This charade was encored by a showing from Katy Belle, at which point I decided that my alone time needed to come to a halt. Then there was this morning. My typical routine consists of getting up and finishing my shower before heading upstairs to wake up the crew. This is a chore in and of itself, since I have to turn on every light in my daughter's room and pick her up and shake her to be sure she doesn't crawl back into bed. This maneuver is followed by a similar one with my eldest except that I have to physically lead him into the hallway. Finally, I have to locate my youngest, since he is known to play musical beds in the night and there have been a few times I have found him in my own bed buried beneath the covers, unbeknownst to me or my loving wife. So, back to my routine. Here I am enjoying my overly warm shower on this cold Texas morning when bounding in, comes my youngest. "I take shower, too, Daddy," he says climbing in and hogging the water. "OK, little bit, Daddy is almost finished and then you can stay in while I shave and brush my teeth and then I'll get you out and you can watch TV." "OK, but Daddy, how come you have such a big tee-teer? Will I be like you and have a big tee-teer someday?" I smiled and strutted out of the shower and found myself very proud as I finished shaving and brushing my pearly whites. My loving wife, noting my self-promotion, leaned in and said, "he's only three. You do realize that size is relative?" Why does she always have to rain on my parade?

I'm Oooged Out

2009-11-17T21:25:00.000-06:00

This past Saturday was the final "blastball" game of the season. WTF is "blastball" you ask? Well, here's the deal. Basically, it is pre-T-ball. Kind of like pre-anything, it is basically, wanna be T-ball, except that is doesn't even follow any of the T-ball rules (which are pretty lax themselves). My youngest has been playing for 2 seasons. Essentially, he stands on a colored disc while the opposing team swings at the ball off a T and then if the ball is hit across the "yellow" line, the boys dog pile on the hit ball while the batter runs to the base. Once arriving at the base (where you can't be thrown out), you jump up and down on it to make it "HONK." This is the second most exciting part of the game to the boys. The most exciting part? Snacks after the game. Anyway, we kindly offered to host the end of the blastball season party at our house. After all, we had been hoping this addition would be finished for months, so now that it is, we need to start using it. We passed out directions at the field and all of the parents told us they would be there and a couple even followed my loving wife from the field to our house from the game. Once, everyone arrived, we looked around and realized a couple were not present. One was the cop, who obviously had checked my address and realized I had an abuse record and chose not to attend, and the other was a Mom that acts superior to the rest of us. As I walk out onto the patio to start cooking the hot dogs for the crew, I hear the husband of mother superior saying, "Oh, honey, come on over, it is OK, this is a NICE place. Plus, they have food, so you can get everyone lunch while here." I nod to let him know that I've eavesdropped just enough to hear the most important part of his condescending conversation and he proceeds to let himself into the addition and takes a self-guided tour. He emerges later to ask me if I find myself in the "doghouse" more often now, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. I smile and say thanks and continue flipping my dogs. Not long after, Miss Haughty arrives with 4 kids in tow. "Oh, hi, I didn't realize you had 4 kids?", I greet. She responds, "no, we only have 3, this is my daughter's friend." (And you thought it appropriate to bring a random friend of your son's sister to his party, where somebody else was paying for the food, I thought.) Well, come on in and mooch then, we don't mind. As the party continues on, I realize that it has been awhile since the I had seen the Dad. A little later he emerges and says, "I just really love your dog house, I've just been making myself at home." After everyone leaves, I go around picking up and putting things back in their place and notice that there is a distinct body-shaped wrinkle in the bed and the TV remote is sitting next to one of the pillows. That creep had been lying in the bed during our party! I'll be burning the sheets now.

Ranked!

2009-11-15T13:40:00.007-06:00

My beloved Horned Frogs are ranked 4th among college football teams. Edged out by the likes of powerhouses Florida and Alabama and the keep-Austin-weird shorthorns. Last night Amon Carter Stadium drew a crowd of over 50,000 purple-clad fans and a few red ones that sadly traveled from Utah to cheer them on. Also, this weekend, our local high school team played at the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington and triumphed over their rivals to progress to the next round of play-offs next weekend. This afternoon, when my Cowboys squared off against the Packers, the trifecta I had hoped for didn't happen, but there was fun nevertheless. My eldest has spent the entire weekend partying. He started on Friday night by going to a neighbor's birthday party, then spent the day at Cowboys stadium watching the playoffs, followed by today's group of 10 boys spending the afternoon outside watching the Cowboys lose and playing some backyard football of their own. Which brings me to my complaint of the evening. Anytime a group of boys gets together, there is bound to be some mischief. Tonight, there was some bomb-making. Apparently, you can mix mentos and "soda pop" (clearly, the kid that had this idea is not a Southerner, since everything around here is called Coke, no matter the brand), and tape up the top and shake it and wait for the explosion. This sounded innocent enough, until I walked outside to find that this bomb-making was taking place with my loving wife's Diet Coke! The nerve! I mean, he might as well have been making bombs out of my beer. Well, they may have gotten the kids kicked across the front lawn. Although, my loving wife put a swift end to the wasting of Diet Coke once she caught word (because I came inside in tattled). Next time my son is invited to a party at the offender's house, I'm stealing a case of Diet Coke in retaliation.

Germaphobia

2009-11-04T22:37:00.003-06:00

Every night the routine is the same. My kids all argue about why they need to watch just 30 more seconds of SpongeBob rather than go to bed. After about 10 minutes of "go to bed now," followed by "just one more minute," followed by threats of bodily harm, we usually acquiesce to their plea to read a book to them and all head upstairs. Every night, as the two youngest head upstairs, we argue about how they need to brush their teeth again, even though they brushed them last night. They play around in the bathroom and toothpaste is strewn and we hope that there is at least a little bit of brushing actually happening, and ultimately, I end up cleaning blobs of Dora the Explorer toothpaste out of my daughter's sink. Every night, until last night, that is. I was tired of cleaning up the blobs of Dora the Explorer toothpaste and told my youngest that he needed to clean it up himself, since he is by far the biggest offender. After finishing pseudo-brushing his teeth, he took his toothbrush and used it to wipe away the toothpaste from the sink and surrounding counter top. Upon seeing this, my germaphobic self was disgusted. I quickly explained to him how nasty it was for him to use his toothbrush to clean. After all, he would have to put that back in his mouth tomorrow. I asked him to promise me, his germaphobic father, that he would not do that again. "Yes sir," he said. Every night, the same routine is repeated and tonight, the fight about TV, climbing the stairs, brushing our teeth, and reading a book commenced. The whole routine except for one thing, that is. My youngest did not use his toothbrush to clean up the sink. Instead, he waited patiently for his sister to finish brushing and used hers.

Seinfeld's Car

2009-11-03T22:10:00.002-06:00

Do you remember the episode where Jerry takes his car in for service and gets it back with a funky smell? Even after the he takes it to the car wash, has it detailed, and ultimately fumigated, the smell lingers? Even the dealership won't take his car off his hands because of the odor? Well, if you do, this will be funny, and if you don't, this will be funny anyway. A couple of weeks ago I called Sears to have our washing machine repaired. We were getting a PF11 error on the control panel and according to the trouble-shooting guide in the manual (yes, I keep these things), if after hitting cancel twice and restarting the machine, the error persists, then unplug the machine for 5 minutes and reconnect and restart. If after doing that, the error persists, contact your repairman. So, I did all of those things and then I contacted the repairman. Well, actually, I contacted India and Rashid went through all of the steps that were outlined in the troubleshooting section of the manual. When I tried to fast forward the process to let Rashid know that I had gotten to the part of the manual where it said to "call for service," he just kept repeating himself until I gave him an answer that was outlined in his script. Ultimately, Rashid got to the part of the manual where it said to "call for service" too and he transferred me to LaShawndrea (sp?) who had me press a few buttons on the machine and finally got a new error code, the DLF. "Oh," LaShawndrea said, "dat's a drain line issue. You got one of them floor drains? If so, just take your drain line out and place it on the floor. That's what I have to do. I don't have one of them there floor drains, so I have to clean up the mess it makes, but I don't get no mo of them DLFs. That's what you do and yo problem'll be fixed." "LaShawndrea," I said, "could I just schedule a service call?" "Honey, you sho nuff can, but you is probably gonna get chawged fo' it, since what chu got is a drain line problem and if they gots to move that around for you, that ain't covered by yo warranty." "OK, I'll roll the dice." Unfortunately, they didn't have a Friday appointment when my loving wife is home, so I had to reschedule when I had availability. That availability was today. Luckily for me, the repairman showed up shortly after 8:00 A.M. I had a full day of meetings and work ahead of me, so I was glad he didn't stretch out his time. I told him about the PF11 error and then told him how the customer service technician had me press a few buttons and I ended up with a Drain Line problem. "A drain line problem?," he asked. "Yes, I got a DLF and they told me it was my drain line and to fix the problem I needed to take my drain line out and lay it on the floor." The repairman nearly spit out his chew all over me. He then explained that a DLF meant that the buttons she had me press locked the door to the washer and it shows up as a code because it is logged as a "forced" locked rather than a system lock. He then further stated that PF11 was an electrical problem and that he'd just replace the control board and be on his way. Well, he did and he was, but I had a lingering suspicion he bolted out of our house a little too quickly. So, I walked into the laundry room after seeing him out the door and was met with a cloud of methane that would make a cow's eyes water! He must have been storing that one up for days, just waiting until an unsuspecting homeowner left him alone long enough to let it escape! Tonight, when I got home, the first thing I noticed was the smell. I'm sure it is psychological, since nobody else seemed to notice, but now I'm going to have to remodel the laundry room again!

No Doorbell Left Unrung

2009-11-02T20:33:00.007-06:00

Halloween night was an especially festive one for us, but let me start at the beginning...

In anticipation of daylight saving time ending, we stayed up a little later than usual on Friday night. We received the green light from the town inspector and our addition was ready to be inhabited. Saturday morning was expected to be the day that our concrete was cleaned and prepped for staining, so we had to make the most of Friday before we couldn't walk on it. Even with our late night, my youngest and my daughter woke up bright and early (much like Christmas morning) to tell us ~ "Today is Halloween!" Yes, guys, but much later today, when it is dark, so go back to bed. But, they didn't.

All day long our two smallest talked about candy and how they'd go door to door and people would give them candy and how there were a couple of spooky houses on the next street and they'd hold each others' hands so that they weren't scared and how this was going to be the best Halloween ever! Honestly, it ranks right up there with us, too, since we got to move into our new pool house. Oh here's a pic for those that might be interested.

Anyway, my youngest hit every house hard. He used his Spider-Man techniques and ran at full speed to every door and rang every bell and called out Boo to everyone instead of saying Thank You. It was quite literally like watching someone on Speed, or at least someone on a whole lot of sugar. Soon afterward, he crashed just as fast, hand in pumpkin.

Given that we make a big deal out holidays around here, I think our youngest is taking his training to heart. Hope you enjoyed it big guy!

Bad Day

2009-10-27T20:32:00.004-05:00

Today was not a particularly great day. Not horrible, but not wonderful either. As I drove home, I contemplated all of the deeds of the day that had led me to be irritated at one thing or another. I actually worked myself up in the car on the way home and then I drove into the driveway. My three kids were all decked out in purple ~ GO FROGS ~ in celebration of TCU's weekend win over BYU, and playing soccer together in the front yard. They were having a good ole time, and put an instant smile on my face. All of the day's troubles instantly melted away. Then, I opened the car door and realized that what appeared to be a fun frolic together was really a tortuous scream fest and I hurriedly made my way into the house to escape the frenetics. Tonight, I'm sitting on the couch next to my loving wife, watching "Biggest Loser" and eating a piece of cake. That's making me feel better.

The Witch Doctor

2009-10-26T21:17:00.003-05:00

What is it about loose teeth? They are innocent enough. Enter my loving wife. About a week ago, my daughter mentioned that she thought she had a loose tooth. For a week, my loving wife has pushed and prodded and begged and pleaded for the loose tooth to come out. For a week, it has been all my loving wife can stand, but to grab a pair of pliers from my tool box and rip it out. I am not a believer in damaging my children's otherwise beautiful smiles. My loving wife , on the other hand, waits until my back is turned to swoop in. Like a hawk circling its prey, my loving wife calculates the perfect moment to make her move. Tonight, it was as my daughter emerged from the shower. My loving wife kindly approached her with a dry, warm towel and offered to help her dry her hair, and then it happens. The warm, dry towel suddenly becomes a straight jacket and with the precision well-rehearsed choreography, my eldest slides into position to work to loosen the tooth while my loving wife holds my daughter still. Then, I hear the SHRIEK! "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Save me!," I hear my beautiful little girl screaming as she streaks through the living room, her poor left incisor flapping in the breeze. I calmly direct her to get some clothes on and then Daddy will severely punish all who did this to her and then help her to finish the job civilly. As she dresses, a glass of salt water is made for her to swish once the tooth is extracted. I pick her up and sit her down on the island in the kitchen and she wiggles the tooth enough for me to get a hold of it. Then I gently pull the tooth and the bleeding commences. Damn savages that attacked her earlier would probably have left her to coagulate on her own while celebrating the success of their quarry! Daddy would do no such thing! Tonight, we had to make the call to Mema to let her know that the tooth was gone and we have placed the tooth in the appropriate tooth fairy location. After the trauma she's been through, this may be a big enamel haul. My loving wife should stick to her day job and stop this boorish, renegade surgery she's so obsessed with. Sadly, my eldest is right with her, since he wants to share with his siblings some of the pain and agony he went through. Beasts!

Pick a Tag Line: Why I Don't Own a Gun, Licensed 3rd Grader, or The Pile of Dog Poo That Broke the Camel's Back

2009-10-24T22:24:00.003-05:00

It is no surprise to my 3 readers out there that we have been undergoing a construction project. It should also come as no surprise to those that live around me that we have had the wettest 3 months in the history of Texas. As a result, my patience have worn through and my ability to empathize with anyone, especially my contractor, has ceased. Today was yet another example of my inability to keep a cool head. Yesterday afternoon, my loving wife spoke to our contractor who asked that we have our cars moved out of the driveway (since we can't use our garage, because it is full of the stuff we are planning to install in the new addition) and open the small side of our garage so that the plumbers could access our sprinkler system and start working to get it repaired and sodded. He wanted us to have this done by 7:45. At 7:30, my daughter woke me up wanting to crawl in bed with us, and I looked at the clock and said, why don't we go drive the cars instead. So, we did and had a fun father/daughter moment letting her turn on the cars, switch them into gear and poorly park them in front of our house. Then it was 7:45, and I'm expecting to see someone. By the time 9:15 rolls around, I'm pissed. For crying out loud, I had gotten up early on a Saturday morning because I thought something would actually be happening around my house. It wasn't. I pick up the phone before I've given my coffee time to filter through my system and shockingly, my contractor doesn't answer. My message was simple and brief. "I got up at 7:30 this morning and opened the garage and moved the cars, at your request. That was nearly 2 hours ago - what the hell is going on?" He calls back, surprisingly quickly, but not before I've placed another call to his business office and yelled that I want a refund from them for work that I've paid for that hasn't been performed and that I'm about to hire someone else to finish this project (probably not my smartest move). When I answer, instead of "hello," I say, "I am pissed. Where the F*@& are you?" Once again, not my smartest move. We yell at one another for a few minutes and at some point, my contractor says that if all I want to do is yell at him like a 3rd grader, then he'll just call me back later. I respond with, "3rd graders can't write checks, so I guess I won't be bothering to do that any more either." Later today, an irrigation crew showed up, along with a fence repairman. Speaking of the fence, we have 2 dogs that have lost all consideration from us and have decided that they will just poop and pee wherever they are. After all, for the past 3 months, they've spent every moment of the day during the week in their crates and only get a few minutes a day outside, because pretty much, it rains all of the time and even when we want to take them outside, we can't. Since we have no fence, they have to be leashed all of the time they are outdoors and they are tired of having no distance from us to have a moment of privacy. As a result, they usually wait until they come inside and then sneak off to a far corner and drop a load, for us to find, either by accident or due to the noxious smell that emanates. We are sick of finding dog shit in our house. Dog shit sucks! Last night, our elder dog piled it on thick in our bedroom and my loving wife was ready to send the dogs to Operation Kindness and just be done. Anybody that knows how animal-friendly she is, knows that her consideration of such a deed means that she too is fed up. Oh, and speaking of fed up. . .we live less than a block away from the local high school. Our street is a cul-de-sac, so there is no reason to be on our street unless you live here, so we don't have much traffic; however, our neighborhood, often gets traffic from the teenage drivers that are trying to short-cut their trip to the school. Today, as I was leaving our neighborhood to pick up my loving wife at the store, where she was shopping for our tailgating party at tomorrow's Dallas Cowboys game (WOOT!), an 18-year old girl was texting and sipping a Frap and nearly ran over me taking a short turn around a corner. Then, she took off at an entirely too high rate of speed through our neighborhood. I whipped the mini-van around and chased after her. Sensing a theme here? When I finally caught up to her at the local Chili's To Go lane, I parked my mini-van behind her, got out and knocked on her window. She reluctantly cracked it open, where I proceeded to read her the riot act and explained that not only had she nearly run over me without notice, because she was too busy texting, but that I had written down her license plate number and if she ever drives that way through my neighborhood again, I would contact the police. Because she was an inexperienced driver, she apologized excessively to me. (Give her a few more years and she'll just flip me off.) I felt vindicated and more importantly had managed to release a lot of anger against her and my contractor and did not take any of this out on my family or my dogs. Tonight, I am writing to you from my patio, in front of the TV, with my dogs roaming freely in the backyard, while finishing up some college football. I've had a few beers and am a lot more mellow. I can't wait for my loving wife to get home from her girls' night out so I can hit on her and be turned down. But hey, you can't blame a guy for trying.

In the 'Hood!

2009-10-19T22:23:00.002-05:00

This may come as a surprise to many of my readers out there, but this Arkansas-rooted redneck is stuck up. Case in point...Tonight was another great middle school football game, where my eldest spent a lot of time bulldozing the opponent. I was a proud parent in the stands and got to yell and scream with jubilation, while listening to other parents talk about his style and moves. Yep, I was proud, and also stuck up. You see, our local high school is undergoing a large renovation, which includes new a ninth-grade campus and an athletic complex. All of the middle school games are typically played at the local high school stadium, but since we don't have one right now, we are traveling around to various schools for our games. The bulk of our previous games have been against other middle schools that feed into our high school, so many of the parents know one another and there is little distinction between the groups cheering. The fans all sit on one side of the bleachers and cheer on their friends' kids. Tonight, however, was a game played against a team from the "other side of the tracks." For starters, the middle schools all typically have 3 teams of players, called A, B, and C. Because grades were so poor during the first 6 weeks, their C team had completely disbanded, so our C team played at a different location against a completely different school. The A team had only 13 out of 34 players remaining, and the B team was still largely intact. Luckily, the parents were reasonably civil, but there was a distinct dress code and accent differentiation between "our" parents and the parents of the opponent. I spotted lots of ball caps and heard lots of double negatives. It was easy to ascertain who was rooting for the "other team" and I even heard some boos against our boys for kicking their redneck butts. The piece de resistance, however, came when a Mom came strolling in bragging to everyone about her shirt. You see, she was the Mom of twins on the opposing team and had a shirt with both of their numbers on it. I'm proud of #8 & #11, the shirt read front and back, except that on both the front and back, the '&' sign was backwards. And she hadn't noticed this? Maybe there's a reason those grades weren't high enough to allow those kids to continue playing football, and it had a lot more to do with genetics than studying. Meanwhile, at a final score of 36 to 18, our boys showed that they can play ball and still read.

This is For All of You George Lopez Fans Out There - You Know Who You Are!

2009-10-16T21:25:00.007-05:00

For months I have dreamed of a day when I could sit outside and watch TV. I know this is an indulgence, but I figure, I work hard, I want it, I should have it. Besides, isn't indulgence America's middle name? As I built our addition, I insisted that not only an outdoor TV plug be placed, but also placed high up as to provide an aesthetically pleasing place to hang my TV. I also did this on the interior of the addition. But I digress. . .

Several weeks ago, I realized that we were getting close to being able to move into our addition, and I asked my contractor who would be responsible for having the phone and cable hook up completed. He explained that they weren't able to do it, since that would be stealing services by making a new connection to an existing line. OK, so it was my turn to call Time Warner cable.

My phone call was greeted by Uniqua, and I began to explain that I currently have TWC service and have pre-wired my outlets, but need the cable service connected. I also need those little silver coaxial cable connectors placed on the ends of the cables so that I can connect my TV. Uniqua explains that those little silver thingies are called F-connectors. OK, I need some F-connectors then.

That was two weeks ago, which is exactly how long my lead time was to get a technician out to my location. During my conversation with Uniqua, she asked me if I was interested in channels like "History of Hitler," "MTV 77," "Passions of Penguins," and "Blah Blah"(I stopped listening at this point). My response was, "No," and Uniqua explained that I was receiving these channels, but she could remove them and give me all HD channels for the same price. Oh, OK. "And, that also comes with a free DVR." Oh, OK. "And, if you agree to a 24-month commitment (which seems like nothing, since I've been with TWC for over 7 years), we can provide you phone service with all the bells and whistles and unlimited long distance, along with business class Internet for just $19.99 per month." Oh, OK. This all sounded like a no-brainer. Sign me up. After all, I'll save my current phone bill and upgrade my service an net $20 a month. Why not!

That was two weeks ago. I have been anxiously awaiting the connection of my service and today was the day. I sprung out of bed this morning (well, actually that's because another concrete truck showed up at 7:00 A.M.) I got all giddy seeing the TWC truck pull up. I even told the workers in the backyard to make way for the cable man. Don't dare impede his progress.

That was this morning, and for three excruciating hours, I waited. I waited while he connected the phone. I waited while he re-routed the internet and cable TV connection in my son's room. I waited while he traveled to the other side of the neighborhood to access the easement box to add the connection. I waited while he called a conduit contractor to attach the cable to the addition. I waited while he replaced our modem. I waited while he tested our phone. I waited while he explained how to use the DVR. I waited, patiently.

Then, he was finished and he handed my loving wife the workorder to sign saying she was satisfied with the work. She did and the cable man left. I then proceeded to open the windows to the kitchen and drink in the sun that I haven't seen in weeks. As I did, I noticed that the F-connectors (those little silver thingies that allow the TV to be connected to the cable) are not sticking out of the wall on the new patio. I race out the front door and jump in my car, determined to find the cable guy. I call my loving wife and ask her the number from the workorder she has just signed hoping I can get a customer service agent on the phone with an ounce of compassion. Shaniqua answers.

I explain that the cable man has just left my house and while he spent 3 hours there, he didn't do what he was supposed to do, which was connect F-connectors so that I can have TV. Shaniqua asks, "Did you sign the workorder?" Yes ma'am, I explain. "OK, it will be another 2 weeks before I can have someone on-site to fix the problem, I'll set you up a workorder." About this moment I spot the TWC van. I have him in my sights - if only I could get around this old man driving 18. I cut off into a parking lot hoping he'd get caught at a light. He didn't. Luckily about 3 miles down the road there was road construction that forced all traffic into the left lane. I stayed in the right and rushed the TWC van, rolled down my window and made sure he let me in front of him. Then I slowed down and waved to him to pull over. Luckily, he recognized me and did, and told him that he didn't connect the F-connectors and Shaniqua has just told me it would be 2 weeks before you were back, which completely negates my plans to watch TV on my patio tonight. He agreed to follow me back to my house and I hang up on Shaniqua.

When we arrive back at my house, I ask the cable guy if this was a first, you know, being practically mowed down by a crazed homeowner that wants his TV? He answered yes, but nonetheless, agreed to make the connection.

Tonight, George Lopez and I had a date on the patio.

Does Anybody Know a Good Conterfeiter?

2009-10-08T22:38:00.006-05:00

As I continue down this path of spending money on an addition that will never be completed, today was the ultimate in "we have lost all sense of rationality!"

Our pool contractor came to move the drains. After all, they had been capped for a couple of months and every conceivable drop of rain that we have seen has backed itself up into our pool, so let's go ahead and move those drains. Now was a good time.

While considering the placement of the new drains, the contractor noted that instead of having French drains in a single line, she thought it best to place them in different areas around the deck. Instead of having the drains run to the side of the yard, perhaps it would be best for them to drain to the rear of the yard. Instead of having a deck that lends itself to an outline of your existing pool, why don't you consider making it more aesthetically pleasing with some flagstone walkways and more space around the spa, perhaps maybe for a fire pit.

Yep, all of these things sound like a great idea, so what do we say? "RIP IT ALL OUT. ALL OF IT. GET RID OF IT ALL." And so she did. What in the hell were we thinking?

There are only two reasons I can think that anybody would do this, just before a flash flood. The first is that they are independently wealthy, money is no object, and they are living in a hotel and could care less what was going on at the construction site. The second is that they are nuts.

We are clearly the latter and we hope that someone commits us before we do more permanent damage to the neighborhood's collective property value. Unless you know a good conterfeiter, and then we'd be willing to work a deal.

It's a Circle, It's a Drink, No, It's a Kia!

2009-10-02T22:34:00.004-05:00

Does anyone remember this drink? Having grown up near a Coca-Cola Bottling plant, we were hip to all things Coke, well, except for New Coke - nobody was hip to that. Then Classic came back and we all quickly forgave the powers that be for that faux-pas. Nevertheless, Rondo was a short-lived Sprite alternative that was Coca-Cola's less powerful alternative to Mountain Dew. Back in the days before Red Bull and Rock Star, it wasn't quite as hip to be high on carbonated beverages, so Rondo's debut was short-lived. I think that it may still exist in Australia, but here in America, the beverage is considered an icon of our history. Luckily for all of us fans out there, Kia Motors - that fabulous Korean based manufacturer of less than luxury gasoline-powered people movers has reinvented the Rondo. Currently, we are proudly sardining our entire family into Kia's latest addition to the family of SUVs. I snicker at the idea this car is classified as an SUV. I would call it a sub-compact with storage, personally. Ours is the fancy stripped down rental car version and looks absolutely nothing like this one from Kia Motors' official website. I'm pretty sure that this version either doesn't exist or has spent some time at Glamour Shots preparing for the photo shoot. Tonight, my loving wife and I spent some time with the two youngest buying things for the new pool house. We proudly drove around the Rondo (after all, doesn't everyone prefer to put miles on the rental than their own car?) and filled the thing to the brim - literally! I've decided that I feel like I am in a fishbowl inside this car though, as none of the windows are tinted and everyone is squished against the glass. Luckily, while on our shopping tour, our eldest was over at a friend's house, so when it was time to pick him up to bring him home, his sister had to sit underneath a rug and with her feet propped up on some of the towels we bought just to squeeze everyone in. It is truly a fancy ride!

So Thankful!

2009-10-01T20:41:00.004-05:00

In keeping with my happiness trend. I want to give a shout out to Gladys Kravitz tonight to thank her for letting us know that my youngest left the light on in the Kia, lest my loving wife go out in the morning to her rental car and can't get to work due to a dead battery. Only the finest from our insurance company!

Pics

2009-09-30T22:19:00.005-05:00

I know that certain bloggers just think I complain about how horrible my life is. Well, to them, I say, COME DOWN OFF YOUR HAPPY HIGH, and then I say, I've got some pretty cool stuff happening around here. After spending weeks of walking around with trash and dirt and a total mess around my house, things are finally starting to look good. We still have a ways to go~the pool remodel is underway, there's a lot of concrete pouring and stamping and staining to be done, and there are still some final touches to be added to the pool house (like electricity being hooked up), but all in all, it is looking very good. Here's a pic of the current status for you interested parties out there.

The pool coping and tile are in, but they really don't look that great yet. Everything still looks grey right now, but it will all come together and be beautiful in the end. More importantly, I'll have my own little vacation destination in my backyard soon (which is good, since I won't be able to afford to go anywhere anyway - well, except for our Bahamian trip at Thanksgiving, that is.)

So for now, I'll stop complaining for at least a few days, and just sit back and enjoy my life of blessings. Happy now?

A Wreck

2009-09-29T22:52:00.002-05:00

My yard is a wreck. My house is a wreck. My pool is a wreck. And now, my wife's car is a wreck. Even with a reverse-sensing system and back up cameras, some how she managed to back into some guy who was also backing up. Her entire liftgate is caved in and the lights on the interior are dangling in the breeze. She opened the hatch and then I had to remove a portion of the liner of the car to get the back end to close. So, what I can't quite figure out is why she's been so depressed about it all night. She hates her stupid mini-van and even hoped that the last hail storm we had pass through wouldn't pass over us (and yet it did), but now that she's smashed the thing up, she's sad. I guess it is like having an ugly dog. It's ugly, but it's your ugly dog and you still love it.

I'm Pretty Sure We Won't Get Our Mail Tomorrow

2009-09-25T20:32:00.000-05:00

As I opened our mailbox today, I was greeted with the following love note from my postman: It was complete with little drawings on how exactly not to block our mailbox, courtesy of your tax dollars and the United States Post Master.

In case you can't read his writing, here's a recap:

COULD YOU PLEASE ASK THE WORKERS TO NOT BLOCK YOUR MAIL BOX. if I AM NOT ON ROUTE SOME DAY AND A SUB DELIVERYS THE MAIL YOU MAY NOT GET YOUR MAIL THANK YOU VERY MUCH DAVE

Here's my letter of response that will be placed in my box for tomorrow's delivery:

Dave, I completely understand your frustration with not being able to access my mailbox, but we can’t even access our own driveway. Most of the workers do not speak English and there are new ones everyday, so even if I ask them not to park in front of the mailbox, I cannot guarantee it. Today, there were roofers next door, pool people, brick layers, painters, window installers and mowers here all at the same time, so you probably came when several of the houses were covered. This construction will be over in the next two weeks and believe me, we will be just as grateful to have full access to our home as you will be happy to have unrestricted access to our mailbox. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience. If the substitute mail carrier chooses not to deliver our mail, we will just have to accept that, as with everything that is happening at our house currently, his inability to take a few steps from his truck to our mailbox is the least of our concerns. Thank you very much,

The Dto3 Family

Umm, Dave, GET OVER IT!

I'm Having an Affair

2009-09-22T23:15:00.006-05:00

My blog entries have been lacking. My home life has been aloof. My work has been interrupted. I just can't stay focused on anything, except for my love affair. It is all consuming. I am completely absorbed and completely in tune with the addition being built in my back yard. I mean, from the moment we had form boards, to the moment that I left the pool running too long and had to dredge these canals, to where we stand today, there isn't a minute, an hour, a day, that goes by that I'm not consumed by what is happening at my house. I come home almost every day before 5:00 (which is completely out of character for me), just so that I can be sure that the contractor has done what he was supposed to each and every day. Each and every day I leave love notes inside the addition instructing the next day's crew about what needs to happen. Every day, I take pictures. Lots of pictures. Every day, I create an online photo album of things as boring as texture drying in the toilet closet. I am NOT kidding about this part. I literally do this. I am pretty sure that my loving wife is about to stop loving me altogether and finding an affair of her own. I am just hoping it isn't this: The good news about this whole thing is that at least, if I do eventually get kicked out of the house due to lack of attention to my much deserving bride, I'll have one helluva dog house to be hanging out in while she works toward forgiveness. In the meantime, I'll do the best I can to give my family the same attention I've been giving the inanimate object in my backyard. Notice, I said, I'll do my best - I'm not quite willing to commit to it, yet.

I'm Tired

2009-09-21T23:25:00.001-05:00

3 rooms down. 4 more to go. I'm beat. I hate paint. I just want to be finished. Home Improvement sucks.

Pigs Flew

2009-09-18T01:17:00.000-05:00

This week, something happened that I never thought could or would. After the week we've had with constant rain, slowing down our construction, and canceled games, and canceled practices, and sicknesses running through the schools, and work flowing at a furious pace, I really shouldn't be that surprised, but yet, I was shocked. Almost, floored. This week, I AGREED WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA! Not partially, not with a "but," not even with any amount of "except for." Whole heartedly and completely, I agreed with our President. While I agreed last November that I would embrace change, that hasn't prevented me from contacting my congressmen over the ever-increasing taxes and sweeping health-care-deform (no, that wasn't a typo)! But, this week, I just couldn't bring myself to disagree. As the MTV music awards were being aired, Kanye West made a fool of his drunken self and stole the microphone from Taylor Swift proclaiming that she give up her award to the much more deserving Beyonce. In pre-interview discussions with President Obama, he was asked how his daughters felt about the Kanye West / Taylor Swift incident, to which the President replied, "He's a jackass!" Afterward, enough flack was produced over his "off-the-cuff" statements that the President was asked to issue an apology (much like his Democratic brethren were requesting of Joe Wilson, but that's another story). Our President refused. Not only do I agree with his statement that Kanye's a jackass, but I agree that he shouldn't apologize for exercising his right to free speech. The day our President can't call a spade a spade (or is that racist?), ahem have the kettle call the pot (there I go again), say what's on his mind, is a sad day for our nation and our constitution!

What Happened to the Filter?

2009-09-13T00:59:00.004-05:00

Parents can say the darnedest things. We always hear about the kids that repeat what their parents say and often consider that if they only understood when to keep their mouths shut and when not to, we wouldn't have to worry so much about what and who we talk about around our kids. Well, today was my Mom's birthday (or I guess yesterday now, since I'm up way too late!). I remembered as we drove to make yet another donation to the local charity as we try to get rid of useful things around this house that we aren't using to make room for new useful things that we won't use. So, I called the local florist, who was able to get a bouquet out within minutes - don't you just love small towns? Moments later, I get the call. "Oh, I just got the most lovely of flowers. You know, I'm only 36 today! (Which, by the way, is kind of weird, since that makes my Mom younger than I am - not sure how that works.) Oh, and I have this picture of you when you were about 5. You know, you always had the loveliest eyelashes. Everybody always thought you were a little girl." OK, Mom, Happy Birthday, I'm going to go slit my wrists now, I'm so glad I got to brighten your day. "I love you, and am so proud of you and can't wait to see you again!" CLICK. Seriously? Does this woman really think that a grown, married man with 3 children wants to hear that people used to think he's a girl? Oh, and by the way, now I understand why you didn't call me on my birthday 6 days ago! You weren't even freakin' born when I was born - that certainly explains it, since I couldn't believe that you had forgotten my birthday, since I was somewhat certain that you were there the day I was born. For crying out loud, my mother-in-law has only known me 17 years and she woke up on my birthday and called me first thing. Why do I even bother? And my parents wonder why I never come home anymore.

Running Late

2009-09-11T23:18:00.002-05:00

I am not quite caught up tonight. After all of the rain we've gotten (which we certainly needed, I would just have preferred it held off until after our glorious construction was over), I've spent a little time tonight tying up some loose ends and finishing a few of my honey-dos. Unfortunately, the list will never end. But tonight I really just wanted to give a shout out to our troops, especially one who is soon to be returning home to his wife and two daughters and I think has already made it into the United States via Hawaii. Patriot Day is not about expressing how we feel about the war on terror or whatever politically correct term we've given it these days, it's about appreciating the sacrifices that those ordinary heroes make for us so that we can sit comfortably in our beds at night and read silly blogs about silly problems by people with relatively silly situations. Thanks to all you men and women in uniform and to all those that support you today and everyday.

Drive By

2009-09-10T21:49:00.004-05:00

We have been reduced to the folks that no longer can stand to be in our own home. It is a big pile of dirt, junk we've uncovered, furniture, supplies, nails, boards, screws, and of course, a freakin' port-a-potty! Tonight, after a much needed rain, I went out to bring in Katy Belle only to step in a 2 foot mud pie. CRAP! Well, thankfully, it wasn't actually crap, but I wouldn't have been surprised. My loving wife and I currently have one wish. We want a drive way. More importantly, we want access to our garage. Driving home, in the rain, and then walking through mud is not exactly what we bargained for when we moved to our high-end suburban neighborhood. Even worse, upon arriving at the front door, a note from the maids inform us that yet again they were unable to get into our house. So, not only does our house make a pig-sty look like a resort, but I am going to have to clean toilets for the second week in a row. I am STUCK UP! I know it. I don't care who says it about me. Even my lawn guy and pool guy keep calling me wanting to anything they can to make our lawn (which is about 75% dug up at this point) and pool (which is full of dirt, rusty nails and the filter is about to blow from the pressure of the crap inside of it) better than they currently are. That is just sad. My friggin' lawn guy is embarrassed of my house and doesn't want me passing out his card anymore. My pool guy is about to fire me. My maids leave me notes on caution tape. I WANT my happy, people doing things for me, life back! And I want it NOW! Alas, I will be waiting at least another month. I hope I can stand it and don't have to move to a hotel in the meantime.

Hey Nitty, Hollah If Ya Wid Me?

2009-09-05T18:51:00.004-05:00

Lately, I've noticed that the music on the radio is a bit raunchier than I remember growing up. Maybe I didn't understand the innuendo or even the flat-out objectionable material when I was younger. Maybe, it didn't exist. I'm sure there are a few people that will remind me of some 80s songs that were wrought with promiscuity (Like a Virgin, perhaps?), but I just don't remember the blatant sensuality of the current music scene. Right now we have Lady Gaga riding a Disco-stick, 3Oh!3 warning all of us not to trust a 'Ho (did we really need to be reminded of this?), and Nitty getting nasty. Now, I know most people would say that I'm a bit of a prude and a bit traditional, but the breakdown of morality in this country is somewhat surprising. And what's worse? The darn songs are rather catchy tunes. There is one in particular that I just can't get out of my head. [No pun intended.] For those of you who are fans, Bowling for Soup is a local band that has gone international. Their lead singer Jaret, however, hasn't abandoned his local roots. He lives near us and, in fact, he and I are quite good buds. (Well, I think he knows my name, that is.) His daughter attends dance class with my daughter and he and I participated in the Father-Daughter dance rehearsals together. In fact, he even came to watch my performance, since he and I were in different groups and applauded my wonderment on stage (or maybe he was there early because his daughter didn't want to be late to her performance and he clapped out of pity). During rehearsals, he and I bonded and after each one, I'd say that he was by-far the best Dad dancer of the group and he would agree and tell me that I pretty much sucked. He's really supportive that way. Jaret and his daughter (and his son and wife, too) have even attended our church, because they live in the same neighborhood as some of our fellow members. All and all, we are quite the best of friends, and so, when his latest song, My Wena, comes on the radio, I crank it up (unless my kids are in the backseat and then I change the channel to the Neil Lehrer hour). "My Wena is lonely tonight, she cries when I turn out the light, she's only happy when I'm holding her tight," and that just about ends the lyrics I can write out without being marked as "objectionable" by some fly-by-night blog-site visitor. As I consider what I know about Jaret, I wonder if his daughter even knows what he does for a living? I've seen him interact with his children, and other than the fact he has multi-colored hair and tattoo sleeves, he's just like every other suburban Dad I know (well, except also he can dance). I've always envisioned families with music superstars singing along together in the car to their tunes (like Miley and Billy Ray calling out "It's a Party in the USA," or Madonna and Lourdes singing (oh wait, never mind, not a good example). When it comes to Jaret and his family, I'm guessing they sing "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" and "Father Abraham," because honestly, I can't think of one of BFS's songs being appropriate for family music hour at his house. Now, if only I could get some of this smut out of my head. (There I go again with those raunchy unintended puns~the vulgarity is soaking into my brain cells.)

I Pity the Fool. . .

2009-09-01T23:12:00.004-05:00

Today, my eldest officially found out that he made the A-Team in football. He will be nose-guard. For those of you who are football-position-challenged (ahem, I'm talking to you FIMF), nose-guard is the position directly across from center (the guy that hikes the ball to the quarterback) on the defensive line.

My eldest has played center for several years and only a couple of seasons has he played both positions (center on offense and nose-guard on defense). The fun part about being nose-guard, is that you get to hit a lot of people. In fact, your whole goal is to knock the center and anybody else in your way, out of the way, so you can sack the QB. Sounds like fun, eh?

We are very proud of him and are especially proud of the fact that all of those years of going to football practice and sitting out in the hot sun for Saturday morning games is paying off. According to the coaches, the 7th grade team this year is bigger and more experienced than the 8th. Am I seeing a match up in our near future?

Tastes Like Chicken

2009-08-30T23:11:00.003-05:00

My hoodlum, I mean, youngest has been especially heinous today. Every time I turn around I find something missing or askew or broken. Especially broken - that's his favorite. It really doesn't help that we have our entire house torn to shreds because we are under construction and moving every room around. I think we are even planning to remodel a few of our neighbors' houses at this point, because honestly, I don't know where all of the stuff we've bought is going to fit? If you need anything from Home Depot or Lowes, just wait a few days, because we've bought out their inventory. Our piano/dining room is a veritable department store, except that we are one of those 'going out of business' versions, since everything is piled on top of one another and there is nothing fancy about the displays. We have chairs upside down, tables covered in merchandise, flooring samples, tiles, lighting, plumbing, you name it. Oh, so back to my hoodlum, I mean, youngest. Since we have all of this stuff around the house, he has decided that all things "stick like" are indeed a weapon. All things fluffy are a trampoline. All things round are balls. And all things shiny are, well, shiny, and really cool to touch and look at and carry around, and, oh yeah, break. But then, we get around to dinner tonight. We are talking about the fact that my hoodlum, I mean, youngest is out of control and my daughter says to my mother-in-law, who, bless her heart drove up here just for the weekend and has been sick since she arrived, "does he scare you?" To which my mother-in-law replied, "Nope, not much does." This got us all on a kick of discussing things that scare us, like snakes, and the dark, and Congress. Then my hoodlum, I mean, youngest says, "Dinosaurs!" They go "ROAR!" When my loving wife asks him if he had seen any dinosaurs, he responded, "Yep!" Inquiring minds wanted to know, "Where?" His reply, "In the fridgerdator!" Hmmm, we knew there were some old things in there, but that's a new one.

My Indian Name Is 'White Man With White Booger'

2009-08-27T22:22:00.008-05:00

We've had a bit of home improvement going on around here. After my loving wife's Craig's List finds, it was my job to convert them into lily white works of art. I've finished the bed and the night stand and tonight started tackling the dresser. My initial layer is Kilz aerosol. First, it is fantastic for the environment (ahem), second it is super easy to use, and third, I get high with a little help from my Kilz.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, so I'm using the Kilz to put my primer layer down on the dresser. I'm doing this in the garage. The garage is full of little white droplets of Kilz, and now so are my nostrils. This past weekend while I worked on the other pieces of furniture, I was so covered in white stuff, I didn't realize how much had penetrated. After all, I had white patches in my hair, on my arms and legs. What was a bit more up my nose? Now I know, quite a bit.

Dia Dos

2009-08-25T22:03:00.002-05:00

I sometimes wonder if my children are extremely stuck-up and narcissistic or just well-adjusted. [Dang, I look good!] I wonder where they get such attitudes? Hmm, can't quite place it. At dinner tonight, we discussed day two of school. My eldest ran the 40-yard dash and tried out the line in football. We asked him who else tried out and he said, there were several that went to the line, but most of the kids wanted to be quarterback. "Obviously, they don't really know anything about football," he says. "I told them I wanted to be on the line, because that's where I am supposed to play." When asked how he did, his response, was, "Great, of course." I then turned my attentions to my daughter and asked her how her day went. She said she did some reading and math, went to recess, didn't have enough time to eat her dessert at lunch, and was "the best looking girl in the class." There you have it, my kids have seriously low self-esteem.

OY

2009-08-24T19:52:00.004-05:00

The first day of school is always an interesting one. Most of the time, it is about kissing and crying after leaving your spawn, but then there is our family. We are all about having the right look for the first day of school and all of the new school supplies. It is even about taking a couple of hours off of work this morning to relish the new found quiet in our house.

Anyhoo, last Thursday night, we had meet the teacher night. In the packet of information were "special instructions" about your child. Most of the parents wrote things like, "peanut allergy," "tactile issues," "prefers the nickname 'Schnookums'" and something similar. My loving wife and I wrote: "She is an awesome girl. You will love her. We sure do!"

Today, my daughter showed up wearing this:

In the words of her teacher today, "She certainly was the most sparkly of my kids today." Darn tootin'! Happy first day of 1st grade Squirrel!

The Good Samaritan

2009-08-19T23:05:00.004-05:00

I'm a sucker. This, we all pretty much know by now. Tonight, after spending yet another evening driving the U-Haul truck around and picking up Craig's List items my wife has found (she's officially cut-off from the Internet now), it was time to turn in the truck. Much like any rental, you have to return it with at least as much gas as it was given to you. So, I stopped at a Shell station down the street from the U-Haul rental center. "Sir, I've run out of gas. . . [blah blah blah]," says the rather desperate-looking stranger. It is the same song and dance I've been getting since that one night in college that a guy approached me twice in one evening when I returned to the station to fill up my loving wife's (then girlfriend's) car with gas. At his second attempt, I politely explained to him that he had already barked up this tree and he needed to move on to another station. Anyhoo, tonight, I truly wasn't lying when I told the guy that unfortunately, I couldn't help him. I was only returning this monstrosity and am using a credit card to fill up the tank and I haven't a dime to my name. He stood around a little while longer and gave me longing looks, and I reached into my pockets and said, "Really Dude, I can't help you tonight." As I went around the corner and dropped off the U-Haul and picked up my car, I remembered my $2 emergency coffee stash that I keep in the console. You see, I have forgotten my wallet on many occasions and while there are a lot of things I can do without in life (like gas for my car and food for my stomach), I cannot go without my morning cup of Joe. If I ever leave and forget my wallet lying on the bar, I'll still have my $2 to stop at Starbucks and keep my life happy. I decide that I'll go back to the gas station and if the guy is still there, give him my $2. After all, if he's keeping up his scamming this long, maybe he isn't lying, or maybe he just hasn't found the right sucker yet. As I drive around the station I think he is gone, but then notice that he is standing on the corner still looking forlorn. I roll down my window and hand him the $2 and say that I always keep a couple of extra bucks in my car for emergencies. It's all I have, so spend it wisely, since I'm now deeming my emergency funds usable for your emergency. He thanked me and began walking off in the direction that he had previously pointed when he told me that he ran out of gas. Maybe he was for real, or maybe he just needed a couple extra bucks to have enough for a pint.

I Was a Craig's List Virgin. . .

2009-08-17T21:19:00.002-05:00

And then this weekend happened. My loving wife and I have been trying to figure out what furniture we were going to get our daughter for her new room-you know, the room that used to be our guest room that will now be her room, when her room becomes my youngest's room after his room becomes the study as the study turns into the music room that's being replaced by the dining room? Yeah, so in addition to all of the work to transform these rooms, I am constantly reminded of the increasing cost to do all of this. As a result, my loving wife and I decided that the look we wanted for our daughter's room would be best achieved by purchasing some old furniture and refinishing it. Enter Craig's List. We literally spent all day yesterday driving around and refreshing Craig's List (did you know new stuff pops up just about every 3 minutes on a Sunday?) and driving to people's homes in search of the perfect bed, dresser, and night stand. The bed was easy. The dresser and night stand, not so much. We had finally given up and come back home and I had continued painting my daughter's now empty room (a gorgeous shade of lavender). I had been painting just long enough to have a purple calf and elbow when my wife screams with joy that she has found the perfect dresser. She gets on the phone with the seller and he states that he is about to go to work, but his wife would be home to handle the transaction. We drive over an hour and arrive at their home at 10:00 P.M. Does this sound safe? The chest is perfect, although the seller's wife was mortified to hear that we are going to strip and repaint it and they had a night stand that matched to boot. We loaded them both up, headed for home and called it a successful (albeit gas guzzling) day!

Diarrhea Tree

2009-08-12T22:14:00.003-05:00

I don't know if any of you would admit to being as dorky as I am and listen to FOX News on Sirius or not, but, yes, I admit it. I pay extra money to have Sirius Satellite Radio in my car and I listen to talk. Not just talk, but to news. I'm officially old and I admit it. Lately, there is a series of ads that are being run that are sponsored by the AdCouncil for everything from "inventnow.org" to "feedthepig." One, however, has been eluding me for the past couple of weeks. It is an ad about Lupus. I'm not 100% sure what Lupus is, and I am guessing that many others don't either since they feel the need to have a commercial about it, but I have listened over and over again as the ad begins with the words...Diarrhea Tree. After this, there are several other symptoms and issues listed, and I understood most of them, but I was perplexed by what in the world a diarrhea tree was. Tonight, I finally decided to go online and look up the AdCouncil's YouTube renditions of the commericals and figure out what all of this meant. The AdCouncil's campaign begins each segment with a "Diary Entry!" Oh, I feel stupid, but that I understand. Can't they get some folks that articulate already?

How She Chose Right Then and There to be a Marine Biologist. . or the Story of How I Could Have Better Spent $36.23 Flushing it Down the Toilet.

2009-08-11T21:13:00.003-05:00

While on vacation, the rage was to buy the "combo" hermit crab cage and get the hermit crab for free. My daughter had to have one. She picked out one with a googly-eyed frog painted on the shell, so the name Kermit was a natural choice.

Down the street was the turtle hut. Since my daughter got a hermit crab, the boys had to one-up her and get turtles. Not one, but two. They are named Hoppin' and George - seriously, boys, don't you have a creative bone in your bodies?

Tonight we decided to head to the local PetsMart and buy the turtles a bigger habitat. Frankly, I'm amazed that they are still alive, but since they are, I figure that I should at least give them a habitat befitting a typical wasteful American. So, we found a 10-gallon tank for the little critters. Here's Hoppin' or George (I'm not sure, they look alike to me) in his new home:

Anyway, the street vendor we bought Hoppin' and George from told us you could feed turtles anything. When pressed for specifics by my loving wife, as she is known to do, the street vendor said "ANYTHING!" Not satisfied with this answer, my wife asked the pubescent PetsMart associate if they have any turtle food. The pubescent PetsMart associate replied with "Yes, and you will also need a lamp." My loving wife, who was unsatisfied with the street vendor's explanation of "anything" for food was equally convinced that when the street vendor told her that the only thing the turtle needed to survive was some water, a $10 Hermi-Hut, and "ANYTHING" to eat twice a day that she began arguing with the pubescent PetsMart associate. Suddenly I find myself hearing the pubescent PetsMart associate explaining ". . .in order for the Cheloni Mydas to reach digestive nirvana, its environment should be symbiotic of its natural habitat, which preferably imitates an equatorial ambiance and without a heat source, such as a lamp. . ." I lean over to my loving wife and say, "she's telling us all of this like we really care about these stupid turtles."

At this point the pubescent PetsMart associate turns away from us, stomps off, starts crying and begins a rally outside in the parking lot with signs calling us "Amphibian Assassins!" Well, she turned away and stomped off. I then lean over to my loving wife and say, "I think I hurt her feelings." She responded with, "You think?"

Impact

2009-08-10T22:07:00.004-05:00

When you blog about something, even stupid things, you just never know what impact it is going to have on those out there on the world-wide web. Case in point. . .when Mrs. Mullet over at FIMF was having a "not so fresh" day, she was re-inspired by my post about projectile poop. Quite a different reaction was received from Anne, when I posted about an evening I spent wearing panties (or something close to that, anyway). Apparently, Anne thought I was truly complaining about having to do things for my loving wife while she went out and had a good time. Anne obviously needs to lighten up, or read more of my blog entries to realize that I am the most whooped guy in America. Tonight when I read a posted plea from Mrs. Mullet to change my template because it was difficult to read, I listened. I just appreciate that someone still reads this thing besides my family members! From now on, when I say things at work, at home, and to perfect strangers in public places, I will realize the pearls of wisdom that I am dropping around town. Yep, that's just the kind of guy I am ~ leaving my mark on the world, one racing stripe at a time!

Change!

2009-08-09T22:28:00.005-05:00

All right, it has taken me 3 days to figure out how to post on my own blog after changing the template. Obviously, this isn't a good template. I have also lost my links to blogs, and since I couldn't figure out how to post, I'm sure it will be a few days before I figure out how to do that too. Oh well, change is good for us, right?

We are in the midst of a lot of change at our house. Our backyard is quite the debacle, but we are trying to hang in there through the transition. Here's the current status:

After forgetting on Friday night that the drainage from the pool had been severed, I decided to top off the water in the pool so that we wouldn't have any problems with the equipment, even though we aren't using the pool these days, we don't want things to stop working. Then, I forgot to turn the water off for about 12 hours. When we woke up the next morning, the trenches that had been dug for the foundation were completely filled. 30 inches deep - completely full of water. I could not believe I had left the water on overnight, when there are no longer any drain pipes to move it away from the house! They are planning to pour the foundation on Tuesday and I have more than the national debt in gallons of freestanding water covering these trenches.

Off to Lowe's to find a pump. For 36 hours the pump ran and made some progress and managed to water my entire lawn and then some in the meantime, which is a nice bonus, since my sprinklers have also been off for the past week to keep the trenches dry (ha ha!). In the 100-degree heat, that's not great for the foliage. But, this morning, my eldest and I went out to bail the water anyway, since the pump hadn't gotten enough to close in on the need for a dry bed for the concrete pour:

Even our dogs have had to endure some change this weekend. Because they continually frolic in the piles of dirt in our backyard, they have now both been shaven completely to get rid of all of the dirty mats they've gathered. Tonight, they are both lying around a bit embarrassed of their nakedness:

We Were Bourbon Faced on Sh!t Street

2009-08-05T21:23:00.013-05:00

We had a fabulous time on Florida's Emerald Coast. But, because we are fabulous parents, we thought it important to take our kids to the most kid friendly street in America - Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

We purposefully went down Bourbon at 4:00 in the afternoon, thinking that things would be at least a little tamer, and then we hit the row of Hustler bars. While covering my daughter's beautiful untainted ears from the expletives being shouted at one of the patrons by a barkeep and shielding my eldest's eyes from the sights in the windows, my youngest was running amok in the streets drinking it all in.

We made our way down to the French Quarter Flea Market and wandered about the Satchmo Summerfest that was going on. Beignets were eaten, high quality beer was drunk, and most excitedly, palms were read. We chose the most educated gypsy we could find!

Oh, and the very best part. . .when we got home, our pool bathroom remodel was complete and already being used:

Scenery

2009-07-27T23:57:00.005-05:00

We forgot to bring our camera cable on vacation, but today, we made a trek to the Destin Wal-Mart and found a universal adapter.

Each day, our condo comes with a beach chair and umbrella set up, so I go down and pick out my spot, drink my coffee seaside, and then return in time for breakfast, change into my swimsuit and resume the position. This was my view for most of the day:

Eventually, I did have to move around a bit, so I saw some of this:

And a little bit of these:

The Sunshine State

2009-07-25T15:58:00.002-05:00

Our shortest distance was the tip corner of Alabama. We've spent more time in that state than any other so far. BUT, we are finally to Florida and are very excited to smell the ocean. My eldest has hit 6 states in 3 days and he is TIRED of being in the car. We're tired of being in the car too, but have little complain about compared to him. Our adventure is just beginning. . .

Why Is Mississippi So Lonely?

2009-07-25T01:17:00.003-05:00

Misterissippi left her. . .This was my eldest's joke to me as we were settling in to the Residence Inn in Hattiesburg. It wasn't funny, and yet we both laughed, quite hysterically. I guess weary road warriors just have nothing else to say for themselves. My eldest has hit 3 states in the past 24 hours. He started in New Mexico, returned to Texas and immediately hopped in the car and has blasted through Louisiana and a big chunk of Mississippi now, too. We're bedding down and hope the little guys don't wake us up too early. We'll pass through one more state before reaching our destination. I'm afraid we didn't bring our camera cord to upload pics, so I'm either going to need to figure out how to use the bluetooth or see if a local Wal-Mart has the right connection. Otherwise, you are just going to have to suffer with lousy phone pics or worse still verbiage alone this whole week.

On Our Way

2009-07-24T21:40:00.006-05:00

We are driving to Florida, and so far the first 7 hours have been pleasant. Kids are reserving their Red Box movies as we burn up the interstate and looking forward to the next town. We've had a couple of middle of nowhere potty stops, but otherwise, it's been a pleasant drive. While we are gone, you may be interested in breaking into our house. If you choose to do so, please note that we have nothing valuable, except our dogs, there. Pet them and be sure they have plenty of food and don't leave your shoes anywhere near them, or you'll be making your get-a-way in bare feet. We'll keep you in touch on when we are coming back and you should comment what fun things you've found worth stealing. We'd love to know, because we've had garage sales and nobody ever wants any of our stuff. We've even been rejected at the Goodwill donation center. Go figure?

Does Anybody Notice What's Written Above Hillary's Head?

2009-07-23T23:24:00.002-05:00

I don't think that's anyway for Madame Secretary to speak. Somebody get a bar of soap already!

Oldies for a Nursing Home

2009-07-20T23:22:00.002-05:00

Since my mother-in-law has been here with the kids, she's been walking and carrying my loving wife's iPod shuffle with her. She's enjoyed listening to the music and says it helps her to keep moving. Tonight as a thank you for spending the past several weeks with our kids, we bought her a shuffle. Upon asking her what type of music she would like loaded up on it, we were greeted with the response "the 50s" and stuff like that. Being her favorite son-in-law, I pull up iTunes and search for "1950s hits." What I came up with (and I'm not joking) was "Oldies for a Nursing Home." I thought, "how tacky is that?" And then I realized that my mother-in-law was making herself older than she really is. She was just 10 in the 50s - Come On! So I threw in the best of the 60s also. Hopefully that will keep her moving so that she isn't in that nursing home anytime soon!

One of Those Proud Moments

2009-07-18T22:13:00.004-05:00

With our Clampett backyard and now to-add-insult-to-injury busted pool pump, we joined the local Activity Center. Ours has a water park, a lazy river, indoor natatorium, the whole bit. They also have a high dive. Well, I guess, you could call it a medium dive, but for me and especially for my kids, it's a high-enough dive. My youngest goes barreling off the high dive and as I wait for him in the water, he swims his heart out and makes it to me in one breath. Determined not to come up for air, he is nearly blue by the time he reaches me. I remind him that he can raise up his head and breathe. "Let's go again, Daddy!" Obviously, he isn't listening to me. On his second attempt, he didn't jump off with quite the right angle and did more of a belly buster and immediately came up for air. I saw the light bulb go off and at this point, he was completely comfortable with swimming and breathing as he'd been taught the past year or so. At this point, he became the focus of the Center. "How old is he? He's amazing! He has no fear. He really enjoys swimming." Over and over, I heard these accolades and over and over I felt my chest swell with pride. Well, until this one old lady put a damper in it. "You know," she begins, "my 4 1/2 year old grandson did that the other day, except he can't swim and the life guards had to dive in after him and pump water out of his chest! You are so fortunate that he's knows how to swim." She said this in such a derogatory way that she almost was mad at me that my kid knew how to swim and her grandson didn't. I responded to her, "Fortune has nothing to do with it, unless you consider the amount of money I've spent on swimming lessons. Perhaps, you should look into some for your kid!" Nothing irritates me more than people who let their kids jump into a pool (and I don't care how deep it is, because pretty much any depth is over a 3-year old's head) without knowing how to swim, and yet people do it all the time. They seem to think that kids are like dogs and they just naturally know how to swim and then are shocked when they don't. And I really get irritated by the people that seem to think that we have nothing to do with the fact that our kids know how to swim. Seriously, do you think that we just have such stellar genes that our offspring fly out of the womb and into the pool? It takes work and perseverance and time and effort and planning, and a willingness to commit to your kids things that are important for them to learn. I am always amazed at the parents that seem to think that their kids should just figure things out. No, they are sponges and all, but you have to lead them to the water they are to drink and you have to give them the right types of experiences and you have to be deliberate and committed. Worse still, sometimes, you have to do things that you don't enjoy or that don't fit into your schedule like you'd like, but that's what being an adult is all about and being a parent is yet another layer of responsibility in your life. Yep, I'm back down from my soap box and still awfully proud of my little squirt and even more so of the time and energy my loving wife and I have put into creating the fish we now have. He may be a wee one, but he sure is wylie!

It's A Big Day!

2009-07-17T09:50:00.003-05:00

Today is my loving wife's birthday. For all the great things you do for me and our 3 beautiful mongrels, here's wishing you a great one! Here's to many more!

One Giant Donut

2009-07-12T21:36:00.005-05:00

Have you ever noticed how many donut shops are missing the "s" from their signs? Our favorite donut haunt "J. Kin Donut" has a big red sign that advertises it's one giant donut. There is no other noticeable signage from the road, but the 5 red letters spelling D-O-N-U-T.

I can't decide if the lack of the 's' is because that isn't a sound that the Asian owners really use in their native tongue, or if it is a cost-saving measure, not to have one more neon letter manufactured. After all, the crazy Americans will understand what's inside their store.

What I also hope is that the sign makers don't just let them order donut signs without the 's' just to poke fun at the poor saps who are trying to make an honest living and haven't yet mastered the language.

Next time you are out, notice how many 'Donut', 'Nail', and 'Cleaner' signs you find. It just might surprise you.

Coming Home

2009-07-08T22:29:00.002-05:00

The kids return tomorrow from their world of have-it-all. Fortunately for them, Mema is coming with them. Unfortunately for us, we'll have nothing but noise around here. Not only are they coming back, but they are bringing reinforcements!

2009-07-07T20:26:00.001-05:00

I haven't forgotten to post, but I currently am sans kids, so LW and I are partying like it's 1999. Oh yeah, and doing laundry.

I Might As Well Be Wearing Panties

2009-06-30T22:38:00.003-05:00

Tonight my loving wife is out painting the town red, while I play Mr. Mom to our youngest. While I'm ok in small doses, he is very much a Mommy lover (as are most little boys) and when it became bed time, he was completely done with me. You see, I've been ironing, making dinner, giving baths, and OH YEAH, building my loving wife a shoe rack, while she's been out. Seriously, how did I draw that short straw? She just got home to tell me how they had just SOOOO much fun and how they drank and flirted with men half their age and how there were dollar bills involved, and I just said STOP. I've been home holding down the fort and being a good little husband and building stuff for you. The least you can do is tell me how boring all of your friends are. "Um, OK, honey tonight sucked," she said. "Thanks, baby," I responded.

A Veritable Cold Front

2009-06-29T22:39:00.003-05:00

The temperature here dropped nearly 30 degrees overnight. Today's high was a mere 91. People were out in their yards, playing basketball, walking the dogs. We even walked all the way to sonic, while our youngest rode his bicycle, picked up a Route 44 and headed back. I don't know how long this arctic storm is supposed to last, but I'm digging it!

Howdy! We're Your Neighbors - The Clampetts!

2009-06-28T22:17:00.005-05:00

If it weren't Sunday, I'd follow Holy with a completely different word, but all I have to say about us is Holy You've-Got-To-Be-Kidding-Me! How did I go from snob to Hillbilly in 60 seconds flat?

I'm embarrassed by the state of my backyard, and unfortunately, the unsightliness is soon going to be the ummsmelliness!

Last fall when the markets started turning south and home building became the evil industry and my wife had to fire herself because everyone else ran scared, we decided we'd grab the economic downturn by the horns and finally realize our dream of having a pool house and a beautiful backyard. So, we hired a contractor, and we didn't like him, so we fired him. And then, we hired a contractor, and we didn't like him, so we fired him. And again, we hired a contractor, and we liked him, and we've kept him. Except, that he kind of screwed up this past week and didn't quite get the building codes exactly right on our addition, so in the midst of starting to dig up our backyard to move the pool pipes, so that none of the new addition would rest on top of the pipes, we had to stop them.

Now our cement pond is starting to breed amphibians (after all, it's been an average of 102 degrees all week - the murky water has some shaping up to do). The trenches that are dug in our backyard (which are about 3 feet deep, by the way), are collecting water from the sprinklers that we are having to keep on to keep everything else from dying, and are breeding grounds for mosquitoes, yellow jackets and lizards. After giving some home-made haircuts to our dogs, what you see floating in our partially drained pool is none other than dog hair. Yep, we're classy!

Luckily, all has been rectified, and we are hoping that all will be back to normal before July 4th. Hopefully, I'm not jinxing us by saying this. Hopefully!

I'm a Snob

2009-06-26T21:55:00.006-05:00

Tonight I opened the mail to an invitation to participate in a new-release purchase of 'En Route Pinot Noir, Les Pommiers.' This is a new wine that is being produced by the owners of Nickel & Nickel winery, where I have a membership in their quarterly shipment program. A 3-bottle shipment of this pre-release wine is a mere $160. As I am reading the 30 page brochure of the Russian River sourced Pinot Noir, I realize that the marketing ploy is to make these wines seem unattainable to the common guy. After all, if I can afford something that others cannot, then clearly, I am superior to them and more importantly, I can provide a conversation piece at the next dinner party that my lowly neighbors and poor friends cannot. WOW - what geniuses these wine producers are.

As I reflected on the fact that I just simply would not be sucked into their marketing ploy, I realized that I was doing so with wine glass in hand filled with a glass of the cheapest bottle of wine I had in the house. If you care to follow my link you can figure out how much the 2006 Nickel & Nickel Suscol Ranch Merlot is, and I have to tell you that I am a little bit embarrassed at just how much I've bought into the price = quality mantra of the Napa Valley producers.

Yet another of my many faults exposed!

The Hangover

2009-06-25T23:59:00.004-05:00

Tonight, my loving wife and I got a last minute sitter to stay with our youngest and headed to the 9:35 p.m. showing of "The Hangover." While in line, we ran into the director of the school where our eldest attended kindergarten. When we told her how tall he was, she was shocked and when we told her we had two more kids, she was really shocked. It is truly a small world we figured. But, it was time for the movie and we needed popcorn anyway, so into the theater we headed. Thursday nights in our suburban neighborhood are rowdy. We couldn't believe the number of people in the theater and all of them were loud and talking to one another. Four guys came into the theater together and we asked them how they got away from their wives, with the following responses: Mine's out of town, I get to do whatever I want, my wife is out with her friends, my wife has a boyfriend. We decided to leave it alone. As the movie began the theater settled down, but not for long. If you've seen "The Hangover," I'm sure you'll agree it is THE adult comedy of the summer. If you haven't, I highly suggest you go, but DEFINITELY, don't take the kids. A quick synopsis is this. . .4 guys head to Vegas for a bachelor party and absolutely everything that could possibly happen, does. Sound cliche? Well, don't be such a stiff and go see it and you'll laugh your rear off.

Not a Single Dime

2009-06-24T22:01:00.003-05:00

I am trying to pay for an addition to my house and yet today, nobody in my firm produced one single penny of revenue. The entire tax department was at a golf outing and the audit department was in an all day meeting developing goals for the coming year. I'm going to have to work double duty tomorrow to make up for lost ground. Trying to boost morale is costly!

The Daisy Effect

2009-06-23T22:12:00.002-05:00

I have a new summer obsession. Daisy of Love has me hooked. If you haven't seen it, don't start watching it. It may just burn your retinas. If you have seen it, you can't turn away. It is like a train wreck. Literally! This is what happens when the summer rolls around and there is absolutely nothing good on TV. Here's a synopsis:

Daisy De La Hoya is a synthetically endowed botoxed bleach blonde who speaks words like, "Oh, Thank You - What is Quiche?" and "This just might be the best I've aten [no, I didn't just misspell that] since I've been here!"
The overly-tattooed Daisy is looking for her love among the now finalists, 'Big Rig,' 'Flex,' 'Sinister,' '12 Pack,' and 'Chi-Chi', who collectively have more tattoos than a Henna factory!
Anyway you look at it, whoever she chooses will be a bad choice, but then again, whoever is picked by her will be equally disappointed.

The good news about watching this: You will most definitely feel superior to every person on the television. If you're feeling blue, just turn it on an watch your self-esteem soar.

The bad news about watching this: You'd kill fewer brain cells drinking a liter of tequila.

If you are looking for a summer vice - take up smoking!

What a Follow-up to Yesterday. . .

2009-06-22T22:58:00.003-05:00

As luck would have it, today was Monday. I was running late for a breakfast meeting this morning, but didn't get gas over the weekend because I was busy working on the boys' bathroom, so now I was even later. My loving wife had been kind enough to pack a sippy cup of milk for my youngest earlier in the week when we went to the ballpark, and this morning I found the insulated bag she packed it in, having heated up over the past couple of days, stinking up my car. YUMMY! After breakfast, I headed back to the office, but later left again for a meeting. After my meeting, I drove past a 24 Hour Fitness, and thought I should stop in, after all, my loving wife and I are determined to have our July 2008 beach bodies back for our July 2009 beach vacation. I get inside, get changed, sweat profusely from my out-of-shape-ness, and return to the showers so I can go back to work, except that I haven't packed a towel. Anybody familiar with 24 Hour Fitness knows they have a "bring your towel" policy and in fact don't even stock paper ones in the locker rooms, just air dryers. So, here I decide, I'll just use my hand towel to dry off the best I can, but hating when the guys run around the locker room nude because they are so proud to show off their bodies to someone, I at least have the decency to take my clean underwear to the shower with me so that I can change into those after I'm semi-successful at drying off. Except, that I drop my shorts on the ground in the shower and soak them. So, now, not only do I not have a towel and I'm running around naked like those guys I hate, I'm having to stand at the air dryer with my underwear to get them at least wearable (definitely not dry!). After returning to the office, I'm reminded that today is the office building's blood drive and by the way, our firm is sponsoring it this year, so get out there and give blood. I don't mind giving blood, I have good veins, and I rarely have any issues from it. However, I don't typically give blood with an audience of my employees. Today would prove to be especially trying. Once making it through the top secret security clearance allowing me to donate my own bodily fluids, I have a seat in a chair that is a "right-handed" taker. I ask if I can do it in my left and the phlebotomist says, "Well, it depends on your veins, you may not have a choice." I explain to her that I have excellent veins, pump the ball in my left hand and she agrees. I move to the lefty. A couple of my colleagues are donating with me, one has been giving blood for a little while and the other had elevated blood pressure and they wouldn't allow her to give, so she stayed and talked to me while I donated. She commented that my bag was filling up quickly and then joked, "Just how many bags are you taking from him?" I didn't find it too funny and then said something along the lines of, "Do you take a pint?" And my friend (loose use of the term, by the way) says, I think they are taking a gallon. The next thing I know, a different phlebotomist is slapping my cheeks telling me I'm going to be all right and I realize I am completely soaked. Apparently I had passed out and they had practically dunked me in cold water to get me to come back to. I went in to have my blood drawn at 4:00 and I left the BloodMobile at 6:00. I'm not exactly sure how long I was out, but my co-workers were freaking out and nicely enough stayed with me until I recovered and we headed back to the office. I knew there was a reason why I didn't give blood at the office!

Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-21T23:38:00.002-05:00

I had a great one. After such a tiring day with the bathroom redo (I'll post pictures when I get it completely ready) I awoke this morning to breakfast in bed. Well, actually it was two cinnamon rolls and a cup of coffee followed by, "Hurry Up! We have to teach Sunday School, so get up!" And so I did. I did have time to open my presents, though, Season 3 of "How I Met Your Mother," a Dan Brown book for our vacation and new shirts and shorts. As soon as class was over, my loving wife and youngest whisked me off to brunch at a place called Mac's, where we engorged ourselves with champagne and lump crab Eggs Benedict. We then topped it off with an apple dessert. Then we were off to Lowe's again so I could pick up the things I needed to finish the bathroom. And so I did (well mostly anyway). Tonight we loaded up a cooler and headed to "Babe's Chicken Dinner House" where we feasted on fried chicken and lots of beer (well, I did anyway). All and all, I'd have to call it a pretty darn good Father's Day, even though I only had one of my kids. (Oh, and my eldest and daughter called and wished me Happy Father's Day in unison - that was definitely the icing!). Happy Father's Day to all of you Dad's and Dad's to be out there!

That Was Then - This is Now!

2009-06-19T23:01:00.005-05:00

In 2002, my eldest had no siblings and his mother and I told him we wanted to decorate his bathroom. We gave him a canvas and told him to paint something on it. Whatever he painted would be the muse. This is what we got: The rest of the room was then decorated with all the Pottery Barn Kids yellow ducky crap - you know you've seen it and you know you've said, "Ahhh!" Well, I'm sick of it. My eldest is sick of it. Even my loving wife who loved it is sick of it. It's got to go. For Father's Day, since I have only my youngest here with me, I figure he doesn't have any big plans to take me out anywhere, so I've made my own plans. I call them "Death to the Duckies!" I called my eldest today and asked him, "If I redo your bathroom, what color would you want it to be?" He said, "Blue." I said, "But son, your room is blue and so is your brother's. Could it be anything else?" "Green would be ok, Dad, I've got to go, I'm busy sitting on the couch eating a snack and watching TV," he said. So, for Father's Day, I'm getting rid of the ducks and I'm ready to roll up my sleeves in the morning. Here's the new inspiration: Tonight, as we were checking out, our friendly Target customer service agent (who wasn't much older than our eldest) said, "Sweet clock! I'd like that in my room." We told him that we were putting it in our son's bathroom, to which he responded, "What's he gonna do, time himself breaking off a loaf?" Perfect - this will be Perfect!

More to Love?

2009-06-17T21:39:00.002-05:00

Are you kidding me? Have you heard - the latest reality TV show? More to Love? Basically, it's the bachelor for fat people. As if the Bachelor/Bachelorette crap wasn't bad enough. Please, dear God, don't let there be hot tub scenes in this one!

The Fun Has Begun Part 2

2009-06-16T23:48:00.003-05:00

Today was my daughter's 6th birthday. Incidentally, it is my father-in-law's 65th and my grandfather's 94th. June 16th is definitely a day of delivery in our family! Although, she wasn't with me today, she got to spend it with her Papa, so she's doing fine.

Today was also a big day for my bank account. We signed a contract to construct an addition to our house. We've been wanting to do this for years, but have never really gotten much interest in it from contractors. They've always thought our project was just too small. Finally, something good about the toilet bowl economy - Contractors are looking for work!

We'll be adding on around 600 square feet which will include a large multi-purpose room that will have a mini-kitchen in it, a bathroom that will be accessible from outdoors to keep the pool-goers out of the main house, a mud room, plus an outdoor living area and giving our pool a complete facelift. We are truly excited about the project and I really hope the markets come back from the past two days of floundering, because I need a rally to fund my out of pockets.

Maybe I should have spent more time at the tables in Vegas?

The Fun Has Begun!

2009-06-15T20:42:00.003-05:00

We are down 2 kids. Until July 4th, we are a family of three. Oh, how easy life is as a family of just three. What ever made us think we should have more kids than adults in our house? Tonight, we peacefully ate a meal at a restaurant without being stared at. Right now, we are sitting on our respective couches watching TV without interruption. Our house is maddeningly quiet. I'm going to go crank up the stereo!

I Am So Hot!

2009-06-14T21:40:00.002-05:00

Literally. It was 100 degrees outside today and I spent the bulk of the day rebuilding the fence that fell down during the tornado earlier in the week. My backyard neighbor came out to help me dig post holes and set the panels and thank goodness for that or else I would still be out there. Our dogs are pissed, since they thought their yard had expanded, but otherwise, we are sort of back to normal around here. Well, tell that to my red neck!

On the Corner of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King

2009-06-14T00:16:00.004-05:00

Tonight was another of our Summer Musicals - "The Wizard of Oz" was on tap for the evening, but just down the street an even larger venue hosted Rascal Flatts. As a result, we took an off road and let Charlotte, the in-car navigator find our way to the Music Hall. When we passed a car wash that was the local hang out and realized that there was much more fraternizing happening than actual car cleaning, we hoped that Charlotte would suddenly warp us to our destination. The light ahead was a flashing red one and we were slowly creeping through it, while clearly sticking out in the crowd. The intersection was MX and MLK and we knew that our suburban white asses were definitely out of their comfort zone. Luckily, we made it to the next intersection and entered the Music Hall's parking lot. The show was great and we took the road most traveled to make our way back home.

It Sucks to be my Daughter!

2009-06-12T22:11:00.005-05:00

Last Friday was the last day of school. My loving wife and I took the day off to greet our eldest when school let out. We then half-hosted his friends who moved between ours and the neighbors' house eating, playing, and swimming. We spent the rest of our time prepping our house for the big Hannah Montana party. Saturday was all about my daughter, with friends and presents and, of course, cake. Sunday was teaching my daughter's class at church and more catering to her whims, like hanging out in the toy aisle at Target so she could spend her gift card she'd received for her birthday. Monday was back to day care, but only for the week. She'd get to spend the week hanging out with her friends and on Thursday, a field trip to Kids' Kastle (which is one of those ginormous playscape parks) and then Friday (today) would be splash day. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday went according to plan, with everyday a countdown to the fun she'd get to have with her friends on Thursday and Friday. We laid out clothes for the next day, which included her School Camp shirt and picked out her bathing suit two days early for Friday's fun in the water. We headed out to dinner at the local TGIFriday's because we wanted someplace that had "mac and cheese" for our daughter and a "hot dog" for our youngest. TGIF doesn't serve hot dogs, by the way, but my daughter was set with her cheesy macaroni and the side Caesar salad that I ordered. Our food arrived and shortly thereafter our waitress appeared and notified us that we would need to move as there was a tornado headed straight toward us. Then she disappeared and we never saw her again, perhaps she ended up in Kansas, we're not sure. After assessing the damage and finding that we really only had banged up trees, destroyed fence sections, a knocked down basketball goal and a missing trampoline, we figured we were pretty lucky. After all, our kids' day care was pummeled and power lines were down, the road near it was closed, and school was not in session. This meant that there would be NO KIDS' KASTLE! On Wednesday, my loving wife and I were working relatively close together, but since I had sent my eldest off to camp that morning, we couldn't ride together to work. We did decide to leave my wife's car at her office and ride back home together that afternoon. Concerned that her car may not be there the next morning after the storm and not wanting to leave her without a vehicle while I went to work on Thursday morning, I drove my loving wife and our two remaining kids to her office and dropped them off. My daughter was pissed and was not happy about having to do "grown up things," when she really should be having fun. The road was still closed last night and even though the school website said they'd be open today, with the power lines still down and trees filling the parking lot, I was skeptical. This morning at 5:45 A.M. the hotline was updated and school indeed was still closed, but we were encouraged to check back around noon as to status. The kids were building forts, dancing around in the leftover Hannah Montana dresses, watching Nickelodeon and having a good ole time, and then the email came - SCHOOL IS OPEN. WE HAVE TEACHERS AND SNACKS, BRING ON THE KIDS! "Get dressed boys and girls, we're going to school!!!," I call to the littles. They are so excited, they nearly pee their pants. My daughter grabs her bathing and suit and is PUMPED about getting to make it to splash day after all. When we arrive at school, we are informed that splash day had been postponed until next week, due to all of the commotion of the past day and a half. My daughter was crushed. She couldn't believe they would take away such an important part of her social life. For crying out loud, this was her last day of school until August and she expected a big day with her friends, I mean, seriously, her Kids' Kastle trip with her sacked lunch had already been stripped right out from under her, and now this! My loving wife thought quickly and promised that we would go to the local Community Activity Center tonight and we would have a picnic on site there and that appeased her. So, this afternoon, we put on our swimsuits and packed a picnic and headed to the CAC. When we arrived, they began bringing everyone inside and stated that the outdoor area was closed as a storm was brewing and only the natatorium would be open for the evening. This was OK on the fun factor, but meant there would be no picnic. After some serious bitchy looks from my wife to the overly cautious lifeguards, we ultimately ended up at a local park, where our picnic included strawberries (my daughter's favorite fruit), sushi (my daughter's favorite roll), PB&J, roasted chicken, 5-layer dip, blue-cheese stuffed olives, and a GIANT pickle (just for my daughter). When we asked if we had made up for all of the mishaps of the week, her response was, "Well, I didn't get to say goodbye to all of my friends, but I guess it was OK." Seriously, how does she live with us? We suck as parents.

Resurfacing!

2009-06-11T22:28:00.014-05:00

I've been a bit of a slacker blogger lately. Believe me, I've had plenty of good excuses. Well, maybe only a few good excuses:

First, I left for Vegas. It was only 3 days of debauchery, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. While being debaucherous, there really isn't much time for blogging, so here's what I did. I spent my first night roaming the casinos and buying beer at all of the $1 bars. Yep, they do that so you'll get drunk and start throwing money down on the tables. It worked - my $40 turned into $36 and I was DONE! I spent my second night networking and eating expensive food and drinking overpriced wine. Right up my alley! My third day was spent only at the conference and then the airport terminal. Another annual Vegas trip down!

Second, I had to work. After 3 days of Vegas, work had to be done, but that's not exciting! Third, the kids got out of school! WOO HOO SUMMER! I'll be saying the same thing when it is over. Fourth, I had to get ready for my daughter's 6th birthday party. The theme this year was a Hannah Montana VIP party complete with security: My eldest and his friend never broke character and in fact actually scared one of the grandmothers that came for the end of the party performance. Mom dropped off the girl, but was off to a concert with her husband, so when grandma came back for show-time and was late, my eldest said, "Ma'am, take your seat quickly, the show has begun," and she scurried to her very posh ring-side lounge~here is one of the seats:

We also built a stage, decorated the dressing room, the powder room, the cake station, and even painted the sidewalk pink for the "red carpet" entrance!

The birthday girl certainly enjoyed her time and we hope her friends enjoyed all the hard work Mom and Dad put into it. We know that her bodyguard did a FINE job!

Oh, and then last night a tornado hit our neighborhood...

2009-06-02T15:53:00.001-05:00

Been in Vegas 2 days. No hookers and I still have cash in my pocket, I'd call that success!