Chalk white apartment walls surfaces my every flaw...

What to say.... ?

I've been a bit grumpy, annoyed, etc lately. My wife can vouch for that. I'm sorry I've been such a pain in the ass lately.

=-=-=-=

I've been listening to cassettes in the car since, well, the car only has a cassette player. Some of the more interesting side 1 / side 2 combinations have occurred this week:

Side 1: Kiss - Kiss
Side 2: Starship - No Protection

Side 1: Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time
Side 2: Kool and the Gang - Forever

Side 1: Kiss - Dynasty
Side 2: Stand By Me OST

I can't make that kind of shit up.

=-=-=-=-=

I went through Burger King for lunch today... a Whopper Jr w/ everything and a medium onion thing. They quickly hand me my order and I pull off slowly... checking the bag... and them fuckers forgot the zesty sauce. That's the whole point of getting the O-things... that zesty sauce is so damn tasty. So I had to park my car and walk in to get my damn sauce. The whole point of the drive through is that I can DRIVE AWAY. Not park and walk. Grrrrrr

=-=-=-=-=

It's all okay now, though. I ate my damn sandwich and my onion things with zesty sauce and it was tasty. My demeanor was also help by the fact that the next album on the ol' MP3 CD was red house painters - ocean beach. Nice and slow and mopey music. Helped bring me down of my frantic, pissed off mood. Plus helped smooth out the aggitated parts so that I just got kinda mopey... which is way better than the complete bastard I've been for the past 2 months or so. Cabezon is a great instrumental and Shadows I swear I've heard somewhere else before...either on a soundtrack or covered by Suddenly Tammy (which I checked, and it's not on either of the albums they released... so who knows.) I dunno. It's what I needed though. Something that has the same mood as my inner demeanor. Just mopey. Not Kool and the Gang, not Kiss, not Iron Maiden, not Testament, not certainly f'ing Starship.

=-=-=-=-=

Heading off this weekend to two different events. The wife is having her ... 20 year reunion ( I had to think about it for a second there). It should be fun. It'll be nice to spend time with the wife without the kids. We desperately need some time like that. I'm sure that's part of my problem... not getting to spend much time with the wife that doesn't involve the kids playing / crying / whining / screaming / laughing in the background. On occasion, we get to catch an episode of thritysomething (which FINALLY came out on DVD to my wife's delight)... but sometimes even that is interrupted by one of the kids waking up, causing us to pause the show and sometimes even having to halt the episode altogether.

Anyway...

Number two on the agenda is my dad has a ceremony that we have to attend to. No bother mentioning what it is cause I barely understand what it is either. It involves being at the Dayton convention center and instructions like 'you'll just have to find us cause we're not sure where we'll be or how we'll be dressed or what time things will start'. Gee. Thanks. I just love going into things where nothing is set in concrete. Especially when I don't know where I'm going or what I'm looking for. NOT! If I'm lucky, my wife won't kill me by the end of the day. And after we pick up the kids, I'm sure I'll pass out in the van on the way back home... possibly with a migraine (though I have every intention of bringing along at least enough for two headaches).

Soon, we'll have the grandparents come up and we can spend an afternoon together and just do whatever or, maybe even better yet, nothing. Everything seems to cost money. Everything seems to come back to the kids. And sometimes that's fine. I love my kids to death and it's amazing to watch them grow and get personalities and all that. But I guess lately I sometimes just want to be able to spend time with my friend alone, without any of the other cares in our lives being in fore- or even background.

=-=-=-=

Here's a Red House Painter song that that's called "Song for a Blue Guitar". It's not "Shadows" but similar in tone, in my opinion.


Here is Shadows:

home.

well... we're finally settled into the house (read: the sofa does not have plastic on it, the computer network is set up, one room is painted, the swing set is up, the cats are alive... but there are still 150 boxes that need unpacking)

i don't remember much from the past 4 days. here's what I remember.

Thursday - The wife took the kids down the Cinci to stay the night. This left me to pack the rest of the house which I thought would be easy peasy. Dad came into town to finish cleaning up the back lot. Finished packing the garage around 5:30pm. Dad and I ordered 'The Meats' pizza from Papa John's and watched a couple of episode of MASH. It's still a good show. I started packing the rest of the house. Again, I thought it would be easy peasy. I called no friends in for support for this reason. About 10:30pm I realized my mistake. I had to call it an evening at 2:30am. I still was not done packing.

Friday - Woke up around 7am or so. Continued packing crap. Tom showed up at noon as requested by me the night before (in a panic of course) Originally he was going to show up at 2:15ish to pick up the cats and take them back to his house until we were done with closing. Anyways, Tom showed up at noon to start tearing down the computers and get them packed into my car. Maryann showed up around 12:30pm-ish after leaving the kids with a set of grandparents. We packed up her van as fast as we could. The movers were showing up at 1pm. However, by 1:30, we STILL didn't have my car packed _and_ the movers weren't at the house yet. Closing for the soon-to-be-old house was at 3pm; new owners to take possession IMMEDIATELY after closing. Oh, and btw, I still didn't have my final 'numbers' for the closing of the new house (in other words, I still didn't know how much to make the check for, so obv I still needed to go to the bank). Maryann called the movers. They'd be there in 10 minutes which was accurate. At 2pm I FINALLY got my final number. By the time Tom and I finished loading the car, it was 2:15 and I was sweaty and prolly smelled like a homeless person. However, there was going to be no time to take a shower as I still had to make my way to the bank and then to the office up on 23 by 2:45.

(I'm gonna start chopping this story down from here on out as this post was left unedited for the past 3 days)
So I hopped in the car, drove to the bank. They handed me the check. It had my name misspelled. They give me another check. It's correct. Thanks. I then hope into the car, still gross and sweaty, and drive to the realty office. My agent is already there in the parking lot. I say 'Hi' and then whip off my t-shirt in front of her. She's like 70. I say 'Sorry, but I'm really sweaty and gross, and I'm pretty sure you've seen all this before.' I put on some deoderant and wait for my wife to arrive, which she did about 5 minutes later. We hope into the agent's car and drive to the title agency to get down with some paperwork. We meet the early-20-something girlfriend of the guy who is buying the house. Up to this point, we thought that the people who were buying the house were in their thirties and had two kids and the wife worked at OSU. We're still not sure where that information came from. Anyhoo... we get through both closings in about an hour and a half.

Back in the parking lot, I call Tom to tell him that we're done and ask if he needs any help getting the cats back in the carrier. There is a pause and he tells me to 'come on home' cause the movers are still packing. We get back to the house and sure enough they are still packing. Luckily, the new owners were planning on catching some dinner and then painting later that night. Anyways, the truck is pretty much full when we get there. I'm glad we didn't get the U Haul. Those guys packed that 26 ft truck (which is about 2 feet taller than a U Haul 26 footer), top to bottom, front to back. There is no way me and my peeps would have made it fit. No way, no how. It was funny to watch them pack the last 5 or 6 things. They would pick up the item, look at the truck, look at the item, look at the truck... repeat until someone points to a crevice of space in the truck. The only thing that I had to leave behind was the snow blower, and that fucker hasn't worked right for the past three years, so fuck it. I left it on the curb. Good luck to whoever picked it up.

So, at 5:15 the posse of 3 cars and 1 truck started rolling. I knew we were in trouble the minute we got to the 270 exit. You could see that it was backed up. Long story made short, it took about 45 minutes to get from the Sawmill exit to the 33/161 exit. All the while, I was praying that movers would cut me some slack seeing as how they are getting paid hourly. After finally getting to the exit ramp for 33 (which leads to Marysville), we see the problem and the cause for the back up. A school bus had broken down and all the kiddie-football-jocks were sitting in the grass. Everyone was rubbernecking to see what was going on. Once you got past the school bus, it was 55 miles and hour. I hate gawkers. Stupid people.

So, we finally get to Marysville around 6:30. The truck shows up about 15 - 30 minutes later. I think they may have had to stop for gas and maybe a bite to eat. Anyways, the clouds started looming overhead. And at 8pm, it started raining. But the movers kept moving, just like should. Just like the load in, the load out had them moving the big furniture wherever it needed to go and the boxes were placed in the garage. While they were doing that, Tom, Maryann and I were moving boxes out of the garage to wherever we thought they should go. Tom's wife, Amy, was also at the house and was watching her kiddos play in the kitchen (as everywhere else was sea of movement). The movers finished up around 9:30. I paid them and they (and Tom) went on their way. The plan was to start painting lil N's room, but we were both tired, so we opted for sleep. It was a bit odd sleeping in the new house and not having the kids around.

Saturday - My wife's family, my wife's family friends, and cousins of my wife's family friends showed up to help us get moved in. And they all did a great job. There was the debacle of painting N's room. They started putting the primer on but it kept pulling off the walls. We ended up having to switch the primer. So a job that probably should have taken only 6 - 8 hours, ended up taking 2 days.

I don't remember much of Saturday. It was all a big blur. I can recall doing the following: installing the washer and dryer, helping the cable guy get the cable hooked up, putting together the swingset, putting together the swingset, getting my computer and the wireless network hooked up, and putting together the trampoline. About 4 or so, I got a migraine and took a 'nap' for 3 hours which didn't get rid of all the headache, but after a second dose of Imitrex, it finally went away. We had White Castles for dinner in honor of her family friend's dad who loved White Castles (it was the anniversary of his passing).

Sunday - Well, it was a blur as well. I had poop issues all day. It sucked. Too much stress from the past week, I'm guessing. The friends finished up painting N's room. I think it was mostly a day of unpacking and whatnot.

And that's pretty much where we are at. Still unpacking boxes. I've gotten a couple of gates installed. I need to redo the one upstairs. It's fine closing, but when opening it back up, it's sticking. I just need to move the wall mounts up just a smidge and it'll all be okay. Maybe back a little too. Who knows. It'll be the one that gets used the most so I want to make sure it's done right.

Anyhoooooooooo.... we're moved in and we're happy. Yay!

bleh.....

So, I had a coupon that came with a McDouble or a large fry or something from McDonald's "Get a free med drink and med fries when you try the new third ponder angus burgers". Something was amiss already since they've had the angus burgers in Columbus for what seems at least a couple of years. So what's so new about it. I dunno. Maybe the whole bacon n cheese and de-lux and mushroom and swiss are new. *shrug*

Anyways, I thought I'd give them a shot for f'ing giggles sake. I got the bacon and cheese burger. Total? 3.99. Well, there's ONE reason I won't be buying it again. Four f'ing dollars for a hamburger at McDonald's? Whatever. Anyways, I got that and my free med fries and my med coke and headed back to work (which is only 3 minutes away) to eat it.

I'm not impressed. It was dry. And even with the bacon and chese, the hamburger was virtually tasteless. The only thing that provided some flavor was the purple onion strip (not a ring, but a single 'strip'). I get a better tasting (and more satisfying) meal by getting a dollar McDouble and a dollar fry.

Nice try to get get into the gourmet burger market, McDs, but you're going to have to try harder.

Now, if you'll excuse me... i need to chug down this medium coke to try to put some moisture back into my mouth after the angus burger dried it out. Well shoooooot. It's all gone. Good thing we have free pop here at work.

let the sun shine... let the sun shine in...

very quick note to give the latest in the house dept:

1) the electrician put the new panel in. it works. yay!

2) the radon peeps put in the thing. it doesn't look like much and now the house has a slight hum like someone left the fan on in a bathroom somewhere. there is a little gauge which shows that the radon fan is pulling out air. it was showing much movement, so i was growing concerned that the numbers were gonna be bad. got the results today... 0.8. yay! that's below 4.0... and MUCH below our previous number. so, all is good there.

3) talked briefly with the title peeps who are doing both closings. they still need something from the new lender (who probably just got the definitive profit numbers from the title company for selling my soon-to-be old house. i just wish they would get me my final number already. kinda hard to show up with a check if you don't know how much to make it for. it makes me more edgy since i know i am cutting the numbers a little closer than i would normally like, so if i have to do some last minute scramblin' (which I shouldn't have to do if all my numbers that _I_ worked out are close)... but you never know when people start adding in fees here and adjustments there and whatever. i'm sure it'll all be fine.

4) it's gonna be weird moving into a new house. i've been in this one for 10 years. at least 4 different bands have played in the basement (sucking in large amounts of radon, of course ;) ) it was my first house that i got as a bachelor and figured, at least for a little while, that i was just gonna grow old and alone in that house. of course, a few short years later i met my wonderful wife (who has proved that she's both a saint and wonder woman in the past 2 months) and then had two kids. i've watched spare room become, offices and offices become nursery and bedrooms and watch the old band stomping grounds go from a desolate room with drums to an office crammed with so much stuff that it wasn't possible to walk through. 10 years in that house. i've gone from all rooms in the house being one color to painting most of the rooms different colors. i've replaced siding, roofs, gutters, bathroom fixtures, kitchen fixtures, light switches, carpet, electric panels and more things than i care to remember at the moment. i've had fans installed and uninstalled and ceiling lights put in. 10 years. i was talking to a friend and it certainly doesn't feel like 10 years. i guess time flies by when your having fun. the old house is just about fun'ed out... but a new house will begin another chapter of fun for everyone.

Keep on truckin'...

Well... the electrician stopped in for about 4 hours today and replaced the panel. Joy o' joys! The other installer comes in on Wednesday to mitigate the slight radon problem in the basement. MORE FUN!!! I think they are stopping by the soon-to-be-old house to do the appraisal. Not sure when they are doing the appraisal on the new property. Hopefully soon. Once all the appraisals are out of the way and all the numbers come back the way they should, then... and only then... will I actually be breathing easier ... at least until I remember that we still have to sign off on all the mitigations that they have to do to the soon-to-be new place... which takes place I believe four days before the closing. Come to think of it, the new peeps have to do the same. And UHaul isn't calling until like 24 hours before to tell me WHERE to pick up my truck (since the one nearby doesn't handle the 26 footer that I want).

In other words, I'm gonna be a basket case until closing day.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

In other news, I hit two big milestone in the Music Counter project: 2000 hours and 30000 songs. Actually, I've been at 30000 songs for a while... but the 2000 hours I finished up today by listening to the soundtrack for the original Little Shop of Horrors. FEEEEED MEEEEEE!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Yeah... I got nothing else. I need to get Ian his pile of stuff. I think I had stuff for Todd, but it might have been packed away. I still might go to the rekkid show if Todd still wants to (since I think Ian already said he wuz gonna be bizzy that day packin' up the shit (some of which I hopefully already have given to him).


Tt-t-t-t-t-t-t-that's all folks!

It's Official...

ramble mode: on

Our house is sold. Sold in 7 days. And we are buying a house in Marysville.

We put our house on the market on Monday. Tuesday we saw three houses with only one being marginally acceptible. I was a bit distraught by the end of the day thinking that we had no chance of finding a house for the right price. By Wednesday we had 3 showings. Another 2 on Friday. A second showing on Saturday as well as two offers. At the same time on Saturday, we went and saw 5 houses. A few were front runners... but one we both went ga-ga for. Headed back to the realtors office, accepted one of the offer on our house (with a slight modification to allow us some wiggle room since they wanted to close by the end of the month)... and put in a bid on the other house. Turns out it was owned by a relocation company. since there aren't alot of jobs going around, there aren't alot of people needing to be relocated and therefore, dumping of houses begins. it had been on the market since may with a slightly inflated price (aren't they all) and it had just dropped in price again. with our offer we dropped it even more. since a company owned it, there was no weekend negotiations... so we had to wait an agnonizing two days (sunday and monday) before they countered and we accepted the slightly higher price (but still well below their original discounted price). So now we're just trying to get all the loan paperwork taken care of which... i think we're about 95% done before it gets sent off into mortgage la-la land where they look at it and thumb their noses at you while you wait (mostly impatiently) and then they finally 'accept' your loan two days before closing. i'm hoping it goes better than that. anyhoo... if all goes well, we'll close both houses on the 28th. of course, the family buying our house wants to move in immediately after signing, so we'll have to have EVERYTHING packed up before heading closing. oh the joy we will have. but in the end, it's gonna fucking rock. :)

ramble mode: off

Great Weekend

This past weekend the Mrs. and I left the kiddos with the grandparents and we trekked up to Cleveland for a weekend together. We left at 7pm on Friday, stopped to eat at Quaker Steak and Lube for some wingz, fried pickles and ribs and got into Cleveland around 10:30pm. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza which was nice enough. Better than some hotels we've stayed at. The hvac unit in the room only blew cold air which was kind of a drag since it was rather chilly in the room when it was going but got stuffy if it wasn't going.

We got up on Saturday and ate at a lil Ma and Pa restaurant called Addy's at the suggestion of the hotel staff. They kindly took us there in the shuttle even though it was only two blocks away. I had some french toast and the wife had waffles. Both were tasty.

We then walked the two block back from Addy's and then another two blocks to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. It was crazy windy pretty much the entire weekend, so it was like walking in Florida when there is an approaching hurricane. I'd been to the RnRHoF before, but the wife hadn't. They had changed some stuff around. I picked up on a few new things that were pretty cool. My favorite thing was seeing some pictures drawn by a young James Handrix (that would be Jimi Hendrix to you). He was a big college football fan, so he draw pictures of players from UCLA, UofC, Oregon State, etc. He also draw a rather amusing pencil drawing that said "Obey Railroad Crossing Signals" and was complete with a car with a crunched up hood. There was also an exhibit there for The Boss (that would be Bruce Springsteen to you). It was cool seeing some of the notebooks with his lyrics written in them and some of his first guitars. After about 4 or 5 hours, we left.

That evening we went to a Vietnamese restaurant called Saigon. It was right across the street from Lola which is one of Chef Michal Simon's restaurants (he's well known on the Food Network). We would have went there, but the wife got a look at the menu but nothing really sounded good. Good thing we didn't eat there. The food at Saigon was wonderful. I got shrimp in 'special Vietnamese sauce'. It was spicy and tasty and had lots of onions in it. I wisely avoided most of those since I didn't want to stink us out of our hotel room during our little mini-vaca.

After dinner we walked to the Tower City Center. One of my friends had told me that there was 'nothing down there, kinda like the Columbus City Center'. However, there wasn't a single 'for rent' sign in the place, Several upscale stores, a full food court and lots of people. We went to the theater to watch Star Trek. The theater was, okay. It hadn't been improved in some years. A step above a dollar theater. Some of the arm rests had been ripped off and replaced with duct tape, some chair were non-sittable and had black garbage bags over them. I think the Center is in the process of upgrading lots of things. The theater obviously has a ways to go. No matter. The movie was great. I'm not even close to a Trek fan. I don't know if I've seen a single movie all the way through. But I enjoyed this movie nonetheless.

The next morning we ate at the hotel, which was stupid of me. We should have just walked back down to Addy's. Would have been better and cheaper. After breakfast we went and toured the "A Christmas Story" house. It was pretty interesting to be standing in front of it. There was a little museum in a house across the street which held some artifacts from the movie, like Randy's snow suit, the hat and goggles from that weird kid in Higby's (btw... which we also saw on our way to the Tower City Center), and some other stuff. We toured that whlie waiting for the tour to begin.. which was just us. :P Of course, most of the movie wasn't filmed in the house. That was done in the studio, but many other parts of the movie were, really, now that I think about it. Basically the scenes inside the house were filmed at a studio. The rest was done in Cleveland. The Black Bart scene, the BB scene, when the leg lamp arrive, when he was trying to position the leg in the front window... those were all done at the Cleveland house. I enjoyed it for what it was. And I'm glad it was only $7.50 to get in.

And then we came home.

It was nice to get away. We were both pretty close to our wits end before this weekend. I've been working long hours at the office for about a month straight and wtching kids 24/7 tends to wear one out as well. So our little trip helped recharge the batteries.

I love my wife. She is a wonderful wife and mother.

Thoughts: I really do think I am rebelling against the diet thing. And that's half the problem... I keep calling it a diet... and that's not what I am trying to do here. It's about eating BETTER. That means watching what you eat (I watch it as it goes into my mouth and into my belly.... GET IN MY BELLY!!!). That means watching how MUCH you eat. Maybe I'm subconsciously living up to the adage of 'if there's something worth doing, then it's worth doing a lot'. Eating is good and therefore I eat a lot. Not always often (though I do that too), but just in sheer quantity. I have so many food issues it's not even funny.

Stress eating: Wind me up and watch me eat. It takes my mind off of whatever is bugging me.

'Principal' eating: I bought it therefore I must eat it, otherwise it's wasted money... and I hate wasting money.

The quantity over quality aspect: everything I do, I tend to do to excess in the quantity volume. That's how I ended up with like 6000 45 RPM records. That's how I ended up with nearly 1000 CDs. That's how I ended up with 20 rolls of tape. The list goes on and on. I'm

I like food: I watch Andrew Zimmern on Bizarre Foods. I watch Anthony Bourdain: No Boundaries. I watch Iron Chef. I watch the Food Challenges. I watch competitive eating and follow the IFOCE website. I make a point of actually watching the July 4th Nathan's hot dog eating contest. You can see how this ends up tying in with the quantity over quality.

I have serious food issues. I admit it. But I'm gonna try my best to get back to a reasonable weight. My dad has put on weight over the years and now he's borderline diabetic, probably has blood pressure issues and probably other medical issues I don't even know about. I don't want myself to get into that position. Granted, I'm kinda there already, but I need to try to get away from that is what I'm saying. I can't get there by eating a Cinnabon for breakfast, frozen meal and a raspberry filled long john for lunch, an entire bowl of Dan Dan Noodles from Pei Wei and then a bowl of chips and salsa at 9pm. That's what I ate yesterday. And I'm not working out at all. I can't to where I want to be living that type of lifestyle. It just doesn't work that way.

Maybe the answer for me is the eating smaller meals more often. Or not. I dunno. But I need to figure it out. I used to say I that I was 'fat and happy'. Well, guess what? Read everything above. 'Fat and happy' is a big fat lie.

happy daddy

With the help of Tom, I got the swing set put together this weekend.
Lil N loves it!



Action shot!



Me and Tom, happy about completing the project.



It's done!



Happy daughter = Happy daddy!

26000??!!??!

I just finished up yet another MP3 CD and that put me over the 26000 mark.

To date, I have listened to 26093 songs for 1643 hours, 32 minutes and 5 seconds.

Dang.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

In other news, I got to go through all the parts for the swing set and it all appears to be in order.

I also want to say that weather.com, Jym and all the other meteorologists are snake oil salesmen. ALL WEEK LONG Saturday was supposed to be raining and T-storms with a 70% chance of precipitation. Do you know what we got on Saturday? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I could have put the swingset together and it would have been peachy.

However, I'm glad that the forecast was as it was because this gave me time to ready the instructions carefully on the playset as well as take inventory. Everything is in good order, so hopefully next weekend will be sunny (or at least not rainy) and Tom and I can get that sucker together.

early

I wish my children would stop getting up so early. Lil N got up at 5:15am this morning. The wife has had it bad for the past month, so I got up. No getting that kid back to bed, so we turned on the TV and watched some Jack's Big Music Show. But of course, once that was over she started calling for mommy 'cause I guess I'm chopped liver. After 15 minutes of whining, the wife caved and had to come out to keep the peace. *sigh*

=-=-=-=-=-

In other news, the swingset is on it's way. Walmart gave me a tracking number, but I was having trouble using it to find out where my shipment was. But I found ANOTHER website owned by the parent company, so now I know that it's sitting in Fairfield, OH. I bet it will be here by Wednesday. I actually hope so. That would mean that I could put it together on Saturday as long as it is nice out.

=-=-=-=-=-

When the last wind storm hit about a month ago, it flipped over my grill and busted up the plastic table that I've had since I moved into the house 9 years ago. So, the other day we went out and bought a table and chairs from Old Time Pottery. While it was made in China, I was actually quite impressed with the quality of the paint job on it. I'll have to post some pics of it soon.

=-=-=-=-=-

On Sunday, I finally got outside to rake the rest of the leaves that had been sitting out there since last fall. It took a while, but now it's done. Thank goodness. It's been driving me nuts all winter.

Just A Gigolo... not really

Okay, I must be an idiot because I had no idea that the David Lee Roth song "Just a Gigolo" was a cover. I'm listening to a recording of 'Just a Gigolo' by Ben Bernie and His Orchestra from

1931!!!

How did I not know this. I'm usually pretty good about putting someone in their place when they say 'Song X by Artist Y is awesome. How do they write such a good song?' to which I would usually inform them that they are an imbecile and that it was originally done by so-and-so.

Man, I knew that DLR didn't WRITE this one... but I didn't know it was a song from the 1930s. This throws me for a serious loop at the moment.

Early March update

Well, things are starting to feel better after surgery. Some of my stitches came out a little bit early, so that's the most annoying thing at the moment.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I signed up for a couple of the digital to analog TV converter box coupons from the government. I got them a while back and went to WalMart and picked one up. I finally had a chance the other day to hook that sucker up. It was pretty cool, especially the part where you get channel and show info. The odd side is that with my current cable setup, I only get 2 PBS channels. When I was trying out the converter box, I found out that there are 3 PBS channels current. WTF Time Warner? Toggling the close captions on this converter box is a pain in the arse. There are like 7 channels that CC can be on. The other dorky thing about my magnavox convert box is that there are NO controls on the box itself. Hope I never lose the remote.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I got my taxes done the other day. I'm getting much more back than I thought, so that's good. We should be able to put away a good hunk of it and still get a few things done like...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Getting a swingset for the lil' one. Seems that Walmart has this cheap, yet cool swingset for $300.
check it out here

$300 is awesome. I was gong to build one myself originally. After I found this one, I looked up the prices on the various braces and swings and whatnot. The braces alone (that would be like 6 pieces of metal) could have cost me nearly $75 alone. Geeez. And the slides cost anywhere between $89 and $150. Ooof.

Most of the reviews are the playset are very positive. Some people claim that the wood is a bit soft and that sometimes the boards split and complained that they had to drill out some of the holes. I'm thinking the splitting is going to happen no matter what kinda wood you use. I really wanted to get a wooden swingset so I could add on in the future if I felt like it. Also... if something breaks on a wood swingset you can fix it. I'm actually getting kind of excited about putting it together.... well, except for the 8 to 10 hours that most people say it takes to put it together with two people.

Tom??? Where are you Tom????? ;-)

late Feb update

Just a few notes...

I'm a bit nervous about tomorrow's surgery. I'm not ure why. I know what all is entailed. I'm sure I'll be fine. If I'm not, I'll be callin' up my peeps for moral support or whatever.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The Kroger Marketplace near me had the Coby 1GB Clip player for 4.99 again, so I picked one up for the wifey. She loves it! Now, here's the kicker... I went the following week... and in the same freakin' bin... they upped the price back up to 14.99. Kroger's is so stupid. Actually, more stupid is something else. Right across from the in-store jewelry store, is this little 'island' that houses the 'expensive' perfume. In this cabinet, they have these 512 _MB_ Coby players for... $39.99. It's been that price for so long that the price tag is faded to nearly nothing. They always have fairly nice stuff over in their reduced bin. They should put these (and half of the other 'electronic gadgets' that they have in this display in there.

BTW, I'm digging my Coby. I don't get to use it much, but when I have, it's been cool. Though, I did find out that the coby does not like folders. WTF is up with that? *shrug* Oh well, the main reason I got something like that it because I usually like to shuffle anyways. So cram all those files in there and away we go!!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I'm hoping a get a nice tax return, esp with having a new kiddo. The savings account could use some padding. At the moment, the 'experts' are saying one should have 8 months worth of salary available. It used to be 6 months. I know how much I make and that is not a small amount of scratch. If I could get 2 months worth in there, that would make me feel at least a little bit better.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Work has been nutty as always. We had that layoff a month ago which halved my department, which also halved my team. So, we've been working on the current build of the product for the past TWO MONTHS. I'm getting a bit burnt out on it. At least the end is nearing, I can see the light... in June. :(

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I had some other witty comments, but I for the life of me can't remember what they are. Feel free to comment on... anything.

Early Feb updates

Just some random notes and thoughts

=-=-=-=-=-

Finally finished up the second DVD of Prog Rock MP3s. Luckily, the best was the last of that I had to listen to. Symphony X. I dig 'em. Nice orchestral / shredding prog metal. Michael Romeo is awesome. I've update the Music Counter. With the last DVD of MP3s I surpassed the 25,000 song barrier. I'm just shy of the 1600 hr mark as well.

=-=-=-=-=-

The wife and I (and the kids) went to church last Sunday. It was nice. We'll likely go again. We've been (sort of) looking for a church nearby that we could go to and feel comfortable. We tried the Westerville United Methodist but parking there was attrocious and we just never felt comfortable there. The Indian Run Methodist Church in Dublin is very nice. The traditional service (which I prefer) is pretty much like what I grew up with. I was concerned with feeling confortable there since, well... c'mon... it's Dublin. I was concerned about it being all hoity-toity and people overly dressed up to show off their latest duds (I've been to churches that were that way), but to my delight people dressed... normal. Some in suits and ties, but also a fair amount of people in just normal clothes, which I think is good.

=-=-=-=-

We had Sloppy Joes last night for the first time in several years. It was TAAASSSTTYY! Me loves me some Sloppy Joes. Easy to make and oohhhhhh so good.

=-=-=-=-

Lil N is talking alot more these days. She's so darn cute especially when she'll just walk up to me and say "Daddy, what doing?" Hee hee hee. Too damn cute.

=-=-=-=-

Our street is a giant sheet of ice. There was so much snow on the street that when it got all warm and SHOULD have melted it all, it instead got all mushy and then turned into what is now a shiny sheet of ice. It sucks. I look forward to the warmer weather next week. (It is next week, right?)

=-=-=-=-

I'm on Facebook. It's so weird. It confuses me 85% of the time. ... And that's all I have to say about that.

what's new... january 2009 edition

Hmm... what's new.

I got the Juliana Hatfield memoir "When I Grow Up" for Christmas. I read it. It was cool. Basically it was part of a diary about her last tour and part history and recollections. So ther would be one chapter talking about a specific day on the tour. And the next would be about something in the past or her general view on something. Then lather, rinse, repeat. I feel bad for her. She has basically for the longest time not been able to enjoy herself, or her musical abilities, or anything else for that matter with out being depressed or self-conscious to a debilitating level. The end of the book is nice enough. Hopefully she can find some clarity and will continue to be at least a little bit happier.

Work has been crazy beyond words. Some long hours. Been having pains in my right shoulder. I'm sure it's just stress. The wife said if I keel over that she's brining me back to life, then killing me, then bringing me back to life, then killing me. Times that by like 5 and you can imagine how the actual conversation went. I have no want to die either, so um... yeah. Work might be nutty, but I still wanna see the kids grow up for crying out loud.

I'm on Facebook now for no apparent reason. I friended Todd and my wife and that was it. There are like 3 people from my HS who are on there but I didn't befriend any of them. Oddly, there were like 4 or 5 others under my HS who I had no idea who they were, pictures or not. I don't even think they went to my HS in general. I pretty much knew everyone 4 years ahead and 4 years behind and I did not know these people. And trying to find classmates when you went to THE Ohio State University for a specific year is a joke. I graduated in the summer and had something like 4500 people in my graduating class. That doesn't even count for the other 3 quarters where people can graduate, though the size of those classes is usually much smaller.

The wife and I put together a 'to do' list last weekend. There are still alot of things I need to do. One thing is to get organized to sell all sorts of crap on ebay. Daddy wants a new faucet for the kitchen so I better get on it. My one Glenn Miller boxset could go for some crazy number based on the price people are asking on Amazon for their and for one completed auction on ebay that I saw a while back. It'd be nice to have a nice hunk of change on just one sale. (heh ... I just found out that amazon now has the boxset for digital download for like 40 bucks. Oh well, sometime people still want the physical cds even though it can be much more expensive.)

Um... I miss y'all out there in internet land. I haven't forgotten ya. Sometimes, there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day or days in the week (or month).

later!

BCGC = OK

Well, I did partake of a Bacon Cheddar Gordita Crunch. It was OK. It would have been better had I eaten it the second I pulled away from the drive thru. However, there was a 10 minute gap in there... and by that time the cheese sauce on the outside soaked into the crunchy taco shell... so it wasn't very crunchy. The bacon was smoky.

I think that the Bacon Cheeseburger Burrito was much better.

=-=-=-=

Amazingly enough this Christmas I did NOT get a Dilbert calendar. So I went to the mall at lunch. I never did find the usual calendar shop that sits in the middle of the mall walkway. I went to Waldenbooks, but they didn't have Dilbert. I covered the entire bottom of the mall and then moved upstairs. I was pretty much to the end of the mall and was thinking 'awww man... no Dilbert.' But then there was a Carlton Cards store and I decided to go in on a guess. I got lucky and Carlton Cards had the Dilbert page-a-day calendars, so I picked one up for 50% off. It's even in color this year, which is awesome! Historically they have always been black and white.

I also got some kick ass Christmas cards for 90% off. So I picked 20 nice foil ones for 2 bucks and 28 nice glittery ones for a buck sixty. That was awesome. If the wrapping paper was 90%, I would have got some of that as well... but it was only 75% off and we still have oodles of wrapping paper that we picked out last year.

=-=-=-=-=-=

Oh... speaking of wrapping paper, we finally ran out of the Batman Begins wrapping paper that picked up a few years back. I usually pick up one roll of just the most gawd awful wrapping paper and then use that to wrap Maryann's gifts cause, well, I find it to be funny. :) Last year I picked up a ginormous roll of Transformers Optimus Prime wrapping paper... so I started using that this year. It looks like this:


If the Mrs and I get out for the post-xmas sales this year, I'll have to check out the ugly paper again.

And very quickly, the whole ugly paper thank started probably the year I met M. I went to Target after the holidays and they had wrapping paper like 75 ot 90 percent off. There was this one roll of like 250 ft or something insane like that which had a partridge in a pear tree. It was horrible looking... and I love it. A big honkin bird sitting on a twig. It was great. It took forever to use it up. Then we went to Garden Ridge the following year and we decided to always pick up one roll of ugly paper. You know, the one with demented blury santa that is printed on really daark blue paper. :-P It's been tradition ever since. :) I guess technically we get two rolls of ugly paper. One which is traditional and ugly and then another which is capitalistic advertising ugly.

=-=-=-=

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!! May 2009 be a little less stressful and bring you loads of happiness. :)

BCGC

Man... that new Bacon Cheddar Gordita Crunch from Taco Bell looks TAAAASTY!!!



I think I'll get one for lunch today.

heh ... martians

I found the MST3K version of one of the best Christmas movies ever!

I give you... the full episode of 'Santa Claus Conquers The Martians' from MST3K. Enjoy!

better

Well, everyone in the house is... for the most part... better now. Thank goodness. No one wants to go into the holidays sick.

Not much else going on. We got a new stereo for the living room. My parents gave me some money on my birthday to buy a new stereo. The old one was starting to become more and more tempermental. Most CD-Rs wouldn't play. In fact most regular Cds wouldn't play. It would just kinda skip over them as if there wasn't a disc in there one day and then the next it would work. It was a big pain in the butt. So, I got a new one from Wal-Mart. It's a Sony. And it doesn't have a cassette player. I think this is the first stereo I've bought that doesn't have a cassette. I don't use it that often, I know. But, since my car doesn't have a CD player, I actually used the old stereo the other day to dub off an album or two to cassette. No loss though, I have 2 boom boxes downstairs that I think can perform that function as well. I haven't tried yet, but I'm guessing that they should be able to do that.

Other than that, nothing else is new.

I wish everyone out there safe travels and a happy holiday!

barf

That's what I was doing yesterday. The whole family has been sick a week. And it sucks. Luckily, for at least me and the Mrs it was a 24 hour bug. She was sick on Sunday, so I was going to take a 1/2 day to help out.... however then I woke up on Monday and hurled. That sucked. And by that time she felt better, so I guess that part didn't suck.

So, we're all slowly getting back to health. Just thought you might like to know.

I laughed.

I laughed when I looked at the latest Billboard Top 200 results for this week.

In case you were living under a rock, Guns R Roses finally released the long awaited (by some) Chinese Democracy album.

And the results are in:
#1 this week: Kanye West's new album '808s and Heartbreak'. Wait... what? That can't be right. Axl Rose spent some 15 years and 13 million (or more) on the masterpiece called Chinese Democracy. Oh well, I'm sure it came in second...

#2 this week: Taylor Swift - Fearless. What? This album has been on the charts for 3 weeks now. Something must be amiss here. There's no way that a few thousand country fans can out buy all the metalheads and hard rock boyz in the world.

#3 this week: Guns n Roses - Chinese Democracy. Ha!

So... yeah... I find it to be funny. All this hype and pfffffffffft it lets out a puff of stanky air. Granted, #3 isn't that bad. I'm sure I would have loved it if Devilcake's 'I Can't Believe It's Not Satan' album debuted at #3. Or in the course of 5 years sold as many albums as the new GnR sold in its first week, hell, even in its first day. Or if the album even showed up in the Billboard at all. :P

So, good for you Axl for finally getting out this long awaited (by some) album. Maybe next week will prove to be better and you'll outsell a loud-mouthed auto-tuned hip hop singer and an 18 year old hotttttttie country singer and everyone else who plans on putting out a new album next week. Maybe next week you will be number one. For the sake of your record label who is probably seething at the measly 260k albums that were sold, I hope you do better. But you can count on one fewer this week and probably for the rest of your life because I have no intention of buying this album. And I know you don't care, so you don't have to let me know that. Though, if you want to go on a tear of song writing like you did for Use Your Illusion I & II and create a triple album called 'Darrin Can Bite Me - Vols. 1, 2 and 3', then be my guest. I quite enjoyed the Use Your Illusion albums. Of course, if you take another 15 years to put it out, I and everyone else will probably lose interest.

So, sorry about your luck Axl on not getting the number 1 spot on Billboard. I myself was quite surprised. I'm hoping that your tour goes much better. Maybe a good 3 year long tour will do you some good. Just make sure that you show up for at least 98% of them and of those 98% make sure at least 95% of you play the entire concert and not walk off the stage 4 songs in because the sound is bad or it's too hot in the venue or your pinky finger on your left hand hurts. Do that, and you should see a pile of cash. Of course, the record label's going to want to recoup the 13 million they invested in Chinese Democracy, so don't plan on seeing a cent for at least the first year. Though, you might be been shrewd enough to fix your contract so that they can't touch your tour profits. If you were that smart, then kudos to you Axl. No, seriously, if you were that smart, good for you... because while I might think your a bit on the nutty side, I also know that over the past 80 years that record labels have been hosing artists by fronting them money, then charging them for studio time and god knows what else, then charging 15 bucks for an album that costs 5 cents to make... maybe a dollar per if you take into consideration advertising ... anyways... they walk away with liek 10 bucks per album and give artists something like 10 cents or something stupid like that.

Ok, I'm going off on a tangent here. Badly even since i have no fact to back up any of that shit above. Let's get back on track here.

At least, in the end of this whole Chinese Democracy hype, I'll get a free Dr. Pepper. It will be tasty.

The end.

Mystery Flavor

I just had a 'Mystery Flavor' Dum Dum lollipop which was a combination of Bubble Gum and Butterscotch. Most time you get combinations that are fairly similar (like grape and cherry, or watermelon and strawberry) but I knew this one was special because it was pink on top and kinda tan-ish on the bottom. Overall, it didn't taste that bad, really.

In case you were wondering, here's information on the wonderment of the Mystery Flavor

howdy

Well, the new kiddo is around a week old now. Wish everyone would get on the same schedule though. Oooof. I think my wife got like 2 hours of sleep yesterday. I got about 5... which normally would be fine... if it were 5 continuous hours. But I wouldn't trade all of this tiredness for anything in the world since da baby boy is so cute.

I think 'm heading to the record show this weekend for giggles. I haven't been to one since 2006. I took Maryann with me, however she was pregnant with lil N and, well, the smell of the old musty records (and a few of the record collectors as well) got to her, so she ended up waiting for me in the car. It was a bit crowded since they weren't in the Vet Memorial and instead in some shrine rec area or something like that. I remember almost buying a DVD of a bunch of garage band / psychedelic videos. There was also some TV series that I half contemplated buying as well. It was some TV show that doesn't have a formal release and I'm not even sure it was a series I had ever watched. I guess I liked the way the case art was done or something. 'Medical Center - The full series'? Sure! Why not! The pictures look good.

Speaking of Medical Center, I was dorking around on a few of the ol' LP blogs last night and ran into into a rip of a record by Chad Everett called 'Chad'.

Why is this important? Well, a long long time ago, at the local homecoming fair there were games and rides and whatnot. One of the games was the cork gun game where you have to knock over targets. I remember playing this game and actually knocked over enough to get a prize. And my prize was ... this record. I had no idea what it was at the time. If I remember correctly, he guy running the stand had all sorts of 'cool' records on display and this what that I got. It was probably around... oh... 1980 something when I won this record which was recorded in 1976. I remember being really ticked off because this was NOT a cool record in my opinion. So, I guess now I'll finally get to listen to this piece of work and judge for myself with a more 'seasoned' ear and see how good it is.

Meme off

I don't know how to pronounce 'meme'. I just say mee mee. I don't know why or if this is even correct. Toddeus filled this one out and it was bizarre enough after the first 5 questions that I figured I'd have a go at this one.

1. Do you like blue cheese?
You know it. But sometimes I prefer bleu cheese. Of note, if you are eating semi-edible hamburgers (say, at the OSU commons) adding a ton of blue cheese makes it taste awesome.

2. Have you ever smoked heroin?
Um... no.

3. Do you own a gun?
No sirree bob. Thought about it for a while, but decided against it in the end. I have fired several guns though and that kinda made my mind up. It was interesting but not my cup o tea.

4. What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic?
I usually just get a Dr. Pepper, straight. I haven't had one of their icy drinks... yet. Maybe some day when I'm playing hooky during the 2 - 4pm half price special they always have.

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
Nope. I usually register a fairly low heartrate which always amuses me.

6. What do you think of hot dogs?
I agree with Todd: hot dogs awesome, even those weird little mini corn dogs appetizers.

7. Favorite Christmas movie?
C'mon... Is there anything other than 'A Christmas Story'. I am so happy that TBS continues to have the 24 hour marathon.

Um.. 8 through 12 anyone? I looked and found one where the first 7 were the same and then had 8 through 12 but was missing 13 and question 13 was 15. So I don't know WTF is up with that. Did find one where 13 matched up so I'll go with that version.

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Water. I don't like boiled leaves or twigs.

9. Can you do push ups!?
Sure. Just don't ask me to do more than 10. :P

10. What's your favorite piece of jewelry?
My wedding ring. It's also the only piece of jewelry I really wear.

11. Favorite hobby?
Listening to music. Unless of course eating food can be considered a hobby. Food is good.

12. Do you have A.D.D.?
I have no been professionally diagnosed. I don't think I do, but what do I know.

13. What is one trait you hate about yourself?
My temper. It's a bit... explosive at times.

14. Middle name?
Michael.

15. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment.
- I hope the batter doesn't die on the laptop before the wife gets to check her mail
- I should have been watching Iron Chef more closely. It was battle cheddar chesse
- Work tomorrow is not gonig to be fun.

16. Name 3 things you bought yesterday.
Yesterday? I bought a laundry basket, some frankenberry cereal and some infant drink

I'm filling in the missing question 17 from a different meme since the one I pulled 8 through twelve from has 17 as 'current worry'. Actually... most other memes have question 18 as 'three things your regularily drink... so I'm filling in with that. I hate it when people mess up the questions to a meme in order to get dirt on one of their friends. I'm not accusing any of MY friends, I'm talking about whoever yanked out the questions from this one and added who knows what.

17. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink?
1. water, 2. diet dr. pepper 3. milk

18. Current worry...
That I won't be able to make ends meet when the lil one shows up and this economy officially goes into the shitter.

19. Current hate right now?
The fact that I obsess about money and that it ruins my ability to enjoy anything at all.

20. Favorite place to be?
At home.

21. Where would you like to go?
Vietnam. My friend justgot back from his honeymoon there and the pictures are beautiful.

22. Name three people who will complete this?
Todd (where I yanked it from), me... and Ian (who I think was the person who started all of this. Funny that Todd said I would finish it and I didn't even read that question before starting this. :-P

23. Name three people you would like to complete this?
I don't wanna. And it's not likely that three other people will complete this.

24. Shirt you are wearing?
Black Ben Folds t-shirt from the 2005 tour, with Ben Lee and Rufus Wainwright (sp?)

25. What year would you go back in time to?
2002. Things for the most part were really good then. Band was doing well. Met my wife. Etc.

26. Can you whistle?
You know it. I can even sound like a referee's whistle.

27. Favorite color?
Blue

28. Would you be a pirate?
Um... no. Wouldn't be clean. Too many people scheming to kill me and take my ship

29. Favorite girl's name?
Sarah Sylvia Cynthia Stout. :P

30. Favorite boy's name?
Shel Silverstien :P :P

31. Last thing you dreamed about?
I was at a garage sale (for some gamer dude) in the middle of a city. It started raining, so me and someone else grabbed the money and whatever other video game collectables we could. We ran into this college dorm looking for the dude. We finally found him and he was like 'oh, thanks'. We went back outside and the rain had stopped and the gamer dude was with us. The guy running the sale said 'don't worry Billy, we got all of it out of the rain for you. So I ran up to the sale dude, got up in his face and said that he was a liar as I help up several game cartriges which water started pouring out of them.

32. What's in your pocket right now?
Nothing.

33. Last person that made you laugh?
My wife.

34. Best Halloween costume?
King Diamond circa 2003 >:)

35. Worst injury you've ever had?
Shreaded tendons on my right ankle

36. Do you like where you live?
Yeah. I like C-bus. My house on the other hand it a bit small for a family of four.

37. How many TVs do you have in your house?
3. Two of which are hooked up.

38. Who is your loudest friend?
I think Todd wins this one. :)

39. How many dogs do you have?
zero.

40. Does someone have a crush on you?
I steal Todd's answer: Is it a crush if they're married to you?

41. What is your favorite book?
Umm... Probably 'Bootleg: the other recording industry. It's the only book I've ever read twice.

42. What is your favorite candy?
Hmm... that's a hard one. Um... Today, I'll say... the Zero bar. Mmm... white chocolate with chocolate nougat.

43. Favorite Sports Team ?
Go Buckeyes!!!

44. Favorite Sport?
To play? Beach volleyball To watch? Go Buckeyes!!!

45. What were you doing 12 AM last night?
That's none of your business. >:-)

46. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up?
That was a messed up dream (see question 31)

A little bit of this... a little bit of that.

Hmm... where to start... I had a whole bunch of stuff lined up in my head... and now... *poof*... they are gone.

Well, last weekend the family got to go to Leed's Farm. It was a lot of fun. The little one got to go down some slides, play in the hay, play in a 'corn' box (think sand box, but filled with corn instead). I even took the little one a lap or two around a race track in a pedalled go kart. We even met up with the White's there by coincidence and had lunch together which was nice since we haven't see them in forever. The bonus was getting to see their new little one.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Last Friday, I took the Vibe back to the dealership. It was a sad day. I really liked that little car. It got great gas mileage. I hauled all sorts of stuff in that thing. 20 bags of mulch? No problem. Haul the drums to a gig? Did that several times. 300 lbs of rocks? Sure, why not, though not recommended for long hauls.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

This Friday, on the other hand, I had to take the 01 Grand Prix to the same dealership. I nearly didn't get out of the parking lot at work because the battery was dead. Boo. So we took the GP in. I could have just dropped another battery in, but I wanted to make sure that the alternator wasn't toast. As we were leaving, we saw the Vibe in the used car lot. My wife wife felt bad seeing it sitting there, lonely. But it's okay. Good memories in that car. I gave it back to them with only 31k miles on it when it was a 48k lease. It'll make a great car for some high school or college student. I hope they enjoy it as much as I did. :)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Took the little one to urgent care yesterday, which is no fun. She's been battling boogers for quite a while and when some of the boogers started being bloody, enough was enough so we took her in. But, no worries, everything is okay. It's just what it sounds like. A cold. I have to say, though, I take no joy in having to hold my daughter's head and arms at the same time while the doctor is trying to look in her mouth, ears and nose. But she's a trooper and settles down very quickly.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

What else? I'm sure there is something else. I passed the 20k mark on the Music Counter. But that happened a while ago.

I can't think of them at the moment, so this information will have to suffice for now.

Hope your weekends have been good to you. Mine have been too short as of late. But that's the way it goes I guess.

WE GOT THE POWER!!!

No, I'm not singing that Lizzy Borden tune by the same name... actually, yes I am... because we have got the power. Or, well, we have power now. Yay!

Mr. Zurin says 'More power!'

... from the infamous blimp scene in "A View To A Kill", one of my favorite James Bond movies... mainly cause it is so bad and because Christopher Walken is in it (and mutters that line).

Actually, right now _any_ power would be nice. I'm sure Ian has it good cause he's over at his lady's house. Todd and Tom are probably a-ok 'cause I heard Westerville was spared. Kevin is one of the peachy keen few in Dublin who still have power. I, on the other hand, do not have power. Booo! MORE POWER!!! DO IT!!!

AS for the rest of the family, for how, we're doing okay. There are still places that have power, and those places have food. So that's fine. Our food in the fridge and freezer are probably already toast. And that's fine too. If I had half a cow in there like some families do, then maybe I'd make an effort to get it out of there and save it. But it amounts, for the most part to: 4 frozen (or unfrozen) pizzas, 5 lbs of ground beef, 1 bag of chicken breasts, 1 box of egg rolls (I'll miss those :( ) and various other left overs. That's pretty much it in the freezer. And the fridge had been mostly cleared out recently, so all that was really in there was some ketchup and whatnot. Half a gallon of milk. Nothing for me really to worry about. It's just gone (or soon to be gone) and that's how it goes. Places still have power. Places still have food. And tap water is just fine.

Thus far, the temperature in the house hasn't been an issue yet. It was quite nice last night, really. Once the hurricane like winds were over, there was a nice breeze that would go through the house and keep things cooled down to a respectable level.

So, for all of you viewers out there... we're doing okay. I know each and everyone of you would help with whatever if we asked, that just goes without saying cause all my friends are wonderful people. Who knows, we might call you tonight to see if you want to do dinner. Ya never know. ;-) But for now, we're just playing it by ear and doing what we can.

In other news, I was pretty much sick all last week to boot. From Tuesday evening through Saturday evening, I was dealing with my total body aching at every joint and having my fever spike and sending me into chills (even when standing in a warm shower) about... oh ... everything 2 or 3 hours. Not alot of congestion to speak of thank goodness, just an annoying 'dry' cough with not much behind it. It was alot of fun. But I'm mostly better now. Still coughing a little bit, but that's about it.

So, see? All's good. Now, let's have a few extra seconds of silence to pray that AEP gets this whole mess figured out quickly so 300, 500 or however many hundreds of thousands of people can get back to doing there thang.

Nectarines are swell... and other crap

Story #1: Nectarines are swell
Sunday afternoon my wife peeled and cut up a nectarine, but for some reason she didn't like the taste. Seemed fine to me, so I finished it off. Of course, about an hour later my throat was swelling. Not swelling shut, but it's like the soft palette gets inflamed or something. This is the problem I have with apples as well. I can eat apple sauce and apple pie, but give me a raw apple (usually with the skin still on) and my throat gets all kerfluged. It makes it uncomfortable to swallow food and it sucks. And depending on how much I eat, it can either take a hour for the swelling to go down or a day. Well, I ate an entire nectarine, so it took about 24 hours for it not to feel like I was swallowing fine sandpaper.

I think it's something that they spray on the fruit to fight off bugs and disease. I told my boss about it yesterday in passing and he said 'yeah, about 10 years ago the same thing started to happen to me. Unless the fruit is peeled, my throat gets all swollen. The interesting part about this conversation, is this is about the same time I started having problems. I remember eating an apple at work around 1998 or 1999. I didn't wash it (cause I was a stupid bachelor) and the next thing I knew my throat was nearly swollen shut. I could still breathe fine but swallowing food took effort. That lasted about 2 days that first time.

The interesting thing about this is that my wife had peeled the nectarine. However, the skin of an apple and nectarine are much different. Nectarine skin is much more porous, so I'm guessing whatever insecticide they use gets absorbed by the fruit itself. Just the though of having my daughter eat that crap scares me a bit. Guess we'll be getting organic apples and nectarines from now one since organic fruits don't usually get sprayed with stuff like that.

Story #2: Other crap...
So, Sunday morning we hopped into the van and were heading off to Waffle House because it sounded REALLY tasty. So we backed out of the van. That's when I noticed the toilet paper hanging off my car. I figured it was some teenage boneheads. I wanted to make sure that they hadn't done anything else to the car so I got out. Once I got around to the driver side that's when I saw it... smeared on the windows. Yes. It was poop. I don't know what kinda poop. Might have been doggie poop, but I've cleaned up after dogs before and, um... it didn't smell like this. So went to the faucet and put some water on the toilet paper and proceeded to clean off said crap. Some of it had dried pretty good, so it took some scrubbin' to get it all off.

I looked around and all the other cars that were out on the street (and in my neighborhood, that is about every freakin' house) and they all seemed to be fine. Just mine. And that makes this just weird. We pretty much keep to ourselves, so it bugs me that this happened. I have the feeling that my years is a 'through way' between my neighborhood and the 2 different neighborhoods which lie in my backyard. We don't have a fence like most of our neighbors, so it's probably just an easy place to cross.

But, anyway, it also bugs me because there have been several acts of weirdness that happen at my house. In the past 5 years, the following have weird things have occurred:
1) One day when taking out the trash I noticed a billfold in my big city trashcan that sits outside. It looked fairly new. I figured Maryann had it and didn't want it so she threw it away. Mine was getting crappy, so I figured waste not want not. So I opened it up and noticed it wasn't new. It had a persons license, college ID, and various other things. I asked a couple of neighbors if they knew who the person was. Turns out it was one of the kids down the street. Dumb ass had left it in his car, which was likely unlocked. He had just gotten his first paycheck and the silly fool had cashed it. Of course, the money was gone. But at least he got his library card back. But why did they pick MY trashcan. It's not like there aren't other trashcans sitting outside in my neighborhood.

2) Another time I noticed that there was a purse laying in the street. Turns out it was a small Coach purse. It was empty with the exception of a scrap of paper which had someone's work schedule on it. I asked several neighbors but it didn't belong to any of them. Again, why dump it outside of my house. My wife tried taking it to Plato's Closet thinking we'd get a few buck out of it cause it was a Coach purse. They wouldn't take it cause they said 'There are alot of counterfeits out there'. Whatever. This was the real deal with a serial number and everything. We ended up giving to her niece. Who knows if she still has it.

3) One day when I was leaving for work I noticed a red duffel back sitting by my garage. It had a bunch of baseball equipment in it: a baseball bat and catcher's gear. I thought maybe some kid dropped it when goofing off with his friends. So I left it in the front year, assuming that they'd pick it up that morning or when they came home from school. I got back from work and it was still there. Again, why did someone drop this random thing in MY yard. Anyways, I did find out that it belonged so some Catholic School. I found info on the school website and tried contacting the principal, athletic director and the baseball coach. The principal and AD never did contact me. But, about 2 hours after I sent the email I did hear from the baseball coach. He said he said, given the color of the shin guards he had a good idea of who's it was, but had some errands to run so he'd call me later and arrange a time to meet up and he could have the school's equipment back. Two months and several emails later, he finally got back in touch with me. He said he lost the original email or something. He had some errands to run that weekend and said he could probably meet up so I could give him the equipment. And of course, I didn't hear from him. After about 8 months of trying to get the equipment to him, I gave up. The wife was tired of tripping over it in the garage, so we gave it to her nephew. He's a big guy, and the stuff was seemingly for a small catcher, so I have no idea what he did with the stuff. At least the bat was nice. Maybe he used that. *shrug*

So, yeah... that's some weird stuff. That's all I can think of at the moment.

Random Crap

Here's a post for Ian since he wanted someone to do some blogging....

In the great MP3 listen-a-thon, I just finished up the Rolling Stones MP3 DVD. After 50 hours of the Stones (okay, 49 hours, 59 minutes and 39 seconds), I think I get the whole thing. They really have consistently put out decent stuff. The early shows are pretty darn good and their later ones are fairly decent as well. So, yeah, I get it. I still won't go out of my way to listen to them or see one of their concerts, but I guess the whole hoopla of it all.

As I mentioned to Ian already in email, I've discovered that the the beginning of 'Sacrificial Leg of Lamb' (one of my Devilcake contributions) is very close to the beginning of Dokken's 'Heaven Sent'. That's kinda funny and totally not done on purpose.

My boss gave me a spare MSDN folder so I can now store my sleeves in a nice cloth folder. It's pretty sweet.

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I know that they aren't real onion rings, but I really really really like those onio whatevers that they serve at Burger King. It's probably more because of the Zesty dipping sauce that comes with them.

I almost wrote another Devilcake songs called 'Those aren't onion rings, they're onion things' in ode them. But I didn't.

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Work's been busy as all get out. If it's not one thing, it's another. I can't seem to catch up or keep up or whatever. *shrug* I guess sitting here writing a blog entry doesn't help my case any, does it?

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By the way, Woodstock had it's 39th anniversary last Friday. I didn't even bother updating my web page. *shrug* It's not like I was going to update all the links anyways.

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I've been watching lots of Olympics. I like watching this stuff, seeing people at the top of their game. I did track n field and swimming. I even watched the entire marathon... though I was thinking that they were gonna cut in on the action to show some other sports... but nope... it was 2 1/2 hours of the marathon and that was it. And I watched all of it. I'm glad that the Romainian woman won. It was a gutsy move that has previously caused her to crash and burn, but this time it actually worked. So... good for her.

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The Mrs. and I watched Enchanted last night. I had a love / hate going on with that movie. Some parts it was nice, other parts just annoyed the hell out of me. Overall, it was a decent movie, but I'm glad I didn't have to pay for it (got it free from the library).

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I finished up the book "I Am Jackie Chan" the other night. I ripped through that book fairly fast. I got it for a dollar at Half Price Books. I dug the book a bunch and it made me want to see if the library has any copies of any of the Police Story movies. There was one Jackie Chan movie which involved a fight in a warehouse where these guys were throwing these little ball things that would explode on impact. That part was sweet... but I have no idea if it was from one of the Police Story movies or not. I'm hoping I can find that movie again. (I just went out and reserved 4 Jackie Chan movies.... yay!)

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And that's all for now, y'all. Rock on! Especially to Todd who's (no lie) heading off to Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp for the next five days and getting to play shows in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles (and one other California place that I can think of at the moment).

Fair going

Last night I came home and the wife said 'Get changed! We're going to the fair!' And who am I to argue with the potential of being able to eat tons of fried things.

When we got there and parked, we couldn't help but notice we were literally in the same spot where we were last year. At worst, we were maybe one row forward or back from last years spot. On the plus side, the police office helping us park didn't tell my wife to 'park more normally'. :) As we were loading the car, we noticed that it appears that the copy had us drive over a beer bottle. Didn't think much of it. Of course, I just got a call from the wife and the 'tire' light came on... so we probably have to get the tire patched. And there were only 300 miles on that tire. *sigh*... but no matter.. on with the story.

We walked the 5 miles to the front gate (okay, that's an exageration). Got to the gate and saw the sign that said that it was $10 per person. However, when I paid, it was only $10 for both of us to get in since there was a special. Yee haw!

So we got into the fair and started scoping out the food. I started looking for my favorite carnival food fo all time... the Giant Texas Pork Tenderloin sandwich. I quickly found that and had them load it up with pickles. We walked a bit farther and the wife got a hot dog from Schmidt's stand with kraut and some waffle fries. It was all very very very tasty. I loves me some giant tenderloin with tons o pickles.

Then we talked around some more. We got to see the butter cow and the giant butter Ohio Mr. Rushmore with the heads of all the U.S. presidents that came from Ohio.

After that we went to the little birthing booth thing they have there. They usually have an incubator with some eggs and then a couple pregnant cows. I got to pet a cow, but the little one wasn't so sure about this big honkin' animal with a running nose, so she was interest and said 'moooo!' but wouldn't touch it. So... um... yeah.

Then we went to the barn with chickens and turkeys and ducks and rabbits and geese. The little one enjoyed that a bunch! She was saying quack and gobble gobble and cockadoodledoo. It was all very cute.

By then it was about 7:30pm and the lil one was showing signs of fading, so we trekked back to the front of the fair. Of course, before we left we had to get a funnel cake... another wonderful staple and tradition of going to the fair. It was very tasty with all it's powdered sugary goodness.

And then we went home.

It was fun. I would have been sad had we missed going.

Nice weekend

Just wanted to say I had a nice weekend with my wife. My folks came into town and watched lil N while we went out on the town for a couple of days. Let's see, Saturday we first went to Easton and ate at Brio. I had some chicken risotto with broccoli thing. It was rich and tasty. But I have to say, I really really liked the little crispy bread things that they brought to the table with the regular bread. It was sprinkled with parmesean cheese and some herbs. Tasty Tasty! Then we walked around and shopped buying clothes n stuff for the new one. Then we went and saw Kung Fu Panda. It was pretty good. I wasn't disappointed like I was when I saw Madagascar (which of course, they are making a sequel of). Then we left there and did some more shopping around. We ate dinner at... um... Red Robin. It was tasty. I had the... um.. Bonzai burger. It had grilled pineapple and a teriakki sauce over it... it was TAAAASTY!!! Very good. Then we went to Linens n Things which is going out of business in Columbus. We'd been talking about redoing the decor in the master bedroom. We ended up finding a bed in a bag which contained like 17 pc (quilt, 2 bed sheet sets, the skirt, 2 sham covers and 2 euro (aka square) sham covers. It was the last one of that style and lucky us it was a Queen. Then we found some curtains to match at $15 each so we bought 3 panels. If you haven't had to buy curtains in a while, $15 a panel is cheeeeeep!

Then we headed off to the hotel. We stayed at the Sheraton behind the theater at Crosswoods. It was nice. Had both a bedroom and a little living room. Both areas had 35in flat panel TVs. Very nice.

The next morning, we got up and ate breakfast at Waffle House and it was uber good. I got the All AMerican which has 2 eggs, 2 sausage patties, hashbrowns, 2 slices of toast and a waffle. I got my eggs over easy... but they accidentally broke one of the yolks when they put it on my plate... so they made me two more eggs. So I got 4 eggs!!! It was awesome! Then shopped around some more.

Then for lunch we went to Pei Wei (as I pronouce it, Peeeee Weeeee... even though it's actually pronouced 'pay way'). Pei Wei is the fast food version of PF Chang's. Now, in the past, I ripped on Pei Wei because the price imo was too high (entre's are around 7 bucks. I figured I could get the same thing at PF's and a little bit warmer and bigger for like $12. Well, then PFs recently got rid of my favorite diskh and jacked up their prices as well. Lucky for me, the Dan Dan Noodles were a good replacement dish. And they have that as Pei Wei as well. And I have to say, that the serving size at Pei Wei was the same (if not bigger) than when I last went to PFs and it cost about 7 bucks less. So, Pei Wei is now on the 'good' list.

We finally reutrned home around 4pm on Sunday. It was nice to spend some time with my wife and not have to worry about the little one getting tired or screaming or crying or whining or getting into things and all the other things that normal kids do.

But, I missed lil N so I was glad to be back home too.

Whew!

Yesterday was a busy one for me.

Got up bright and early, but mainly because my daughter still thinks that 6am is a good time to get up. The first order of business was steam cleaning the carpets. I had t fiddle with it a bit this time because the brushes weren't turning around. They are air driven, so it something isn't quite right... no brushes. I checked what the told me in the manual but that didn't seem to do anything. Went online where I found out that they were air driven. Tried a couple more things. A few swift kicks (not based on a recommendation from online help) and then they started up again. I forget how long that took. I think a couple of hours. One shampoo and then 2 or 3 rinse cycles.

M and N took a nap around 11am I think. Me? I sat on the carpet with a pair of scissors for an hour. Why? Well, underneath the window it appeared as if someone had tried to clean the baseboards with a bleach based product, so the carpet was... um... bleached out. When I looked at it more closely the other day, I noticed that it was just the very top that was bleached. So, for about an hour I sat down with a pair of scissors and slowly chopped off the very top of the carpet in the affected area. Seems simple enough, but since it was right against the baseboard, you couldn't take out any big sections. It was all about using the very tip of the scissors, practically going at 2 or 3 strands of carpet at a time. When Maryann woke up I told her of my deed and she said she didn't even notice the bleached spot I was talking about. Oh well. I did and now I'm much happier about it.

Around 3pm the carpet finally was dry enough for me to start putting together the long 6 drawer chest. The last one I did was a tall 5 drawer dresser. I knew this one would be a little more complex simply because you got the center divider. At least this time most of the pieces were marked and those that weren't I quickly identified since I had put together the other one only a week ago so I was familiar with all the pieces. So, after four hours, at 7pm I was finally done. (There was a small break in there for me to eat pizza, but probably only 1/2 hour at the most.)

After it was done Maryann wanted to see what it would look like against a certain wall. Well, in order to see what the dresser was going to look like, you kinda need to crib. Sooooo... I went downstairs and grabbed all of the pieces and proceeded to put that together with the help of my wonder wife who had to decipher her dad's instructions. Wasn't too bad really. There actually wasn't that much to do, a few screws here and there and voila... crib!

So once that was done, then I decided well, if I have the dresser _and_ crib done, I might as well tackle the closet. The previous weekend (I think), I had pulled out the ancient 1970's carpet and the tack board. The wife helped me out by sweeping the space during the week sometime. We had bought some carpet square on the cheap at Big Lots last weekend, so I set about measuring and figuring out my game plan. So I measured and cut and did all that as well. That took probably another hour. So, I think by now it was either 9 or 10pm. It's all a big blur. While we got them on clearance, I have to say, the carpet tiles did really well. The glue was very sticky and that it is a good thing. It'll last a little while I think... as long as I don't tear it up trying to get the tall dresser back into the closet.

After all that, I finally got to sit down, eat some wonderful chocolate peanut butter chip cookies, drink some milk and watch the neighbor's shooting off some fireworks.

Whew! Thank goodness all of that is done. All that is really left is decorating the room with pictures and getting all the furniture into it's (hopefully) final placement.

Painting done... yay!

I managed to get one coat o purple done on Thursday and then another coat done Friday night. On Saturday morning the Mrs and lil N went to a play date, so I took up all the painters tape. Overall, I'm happy with how it came out. There were only a few spots that I wish I could have done better, but oh well, unless you're looking to nit pick, it looks great. :)

We removed the closet door since it is a pinching hazard. So, once the Mrs got back home, we determined where the curtain for the closet needed to be. After that, I went out and picked up a couple of outlet covers, a white vent cover and a white tension rod. Two, actually, but one wasn't going to work because 1) it looked almost like a light blue and two it wasn't a tension rod, but an adjustable rod but it was expecting the installer to screw it into the wall, which I wasn't doing to do. Actually, the wife had picked up a closet rod hanger, so in fact, the tension rod won't have any tension on it at all. I made a slight boo boo on the paint when I actually applied and then took away the tension rod since the paint hadn't completely set. The paint tried to stick to the little rubber ends. Oh well. The paint actually stayed in place because I noticed before I yanked it away from the wall.

Oh, I also replaced all the outlets and switches with white ones since the original ones were the cream color, but the trim and the furniture is white... hence why I needed to go get outlet covers. I also put back up the blinds and the curtain rods on Saturday.

Yesterday (Sunday), we went out ad found some self adhesive carpet squares to replace the carpet that was in the closet. I yanked out all the tack board. I'm pretty sure that the carpet in there was the original from 1979 when the house was built since there were no other holes in the sub floor from the tack board or from the 'padding' that they had stapled onto the floor.

I also put together the tall chest of drawers. That took me about and hour and a half. Not bad considering that over half of the pieces weren't marked. Luckily, Sauder is very good with their parts inventory, even showing all of the individual holes in each piece of wood, which is a saving grace when you don't have the little stickers on them.

So, now I need to steam clean the carpet and then I can put together the long chest of drawers and, well, that'll be it with the exception of putting up pictures and figuring out if we're gonna put lil N in a crib, a toddler bed or a twin mattress on the floor.

I almost made the July date that I set for myself. Shoulda been done alot sooner, but I had a big gap between getting all the furniture moved out and just plain getting started.

Whole lotta music goin' on!

I recently finished up both the 2nd Elvis MP3 DVD as well as a Journey MP3 DVD.
This puts me just shy of 1100 hrs of music. Up on deck is a Rolling Stones MP3 DVD with just shy of 50 hrs of music (it's 49h 59m and 39s to be exact) and the last Elvis MP3 DVD clocking in at just under 25 hours. There's actually more on that DVD, however, it's a repeat of the RCA Elvis Collection which I listened to already earlier in the year, so I can spare myself another 30 hours of music that I've already heard before.

O'Charley's

I forgot to mention that when my friends came up from lil' ol Anna Ohio, that we went to O'Charley's. I got the Firecracker Burger Wrap. It was basically a hamburger cut in half with some lettuce and a spicy sauce wrapped in a ... um ... wrap. It wasn't very good. And it marked the second evening in a row where I got short changed on french fries. On Saturday my parents were in town and they stopped in and we went to Red Lobster. I got the Admiral's Feast. Their prices have changed btw. I swear it is about 4 dollars more for everything there. I remember the Admiral's Feast costing about 12.95 and I think it was 16.95. Anyhoo... they short changed me on fries there as well. I bet I had, no lie, like 30 fries. A very small handful. Probably the equiv of a small fry at McDs. Did I need more than that considering EVERYTHING on my plate was deep fried, probably not... but when I get a platter and my side of fries is miniscule, I tend to get peeved since I can take the rest home in a to-go box. Jerks. Red Lobster is getting one strike after the other. First, they stop doing the all-you-can-eat crab legs and now charging me $4 more for everything. Granted I might be able to give them a pass on the crab legs since they lost a TON of money on that. Some doofus didn't think they would have many takers when charging $22 for all you can eat crab legs. Big dummy. The reason most people don't get crab legs is that 1) they are expensive and 2) because you don't get much from it when you do get them. But if you make it UNLIMITED, people will gladly cram 3 lbs of crab legs down their gullet for $22. High class eatin' there! THey even give yo a bib so you can lick off all the little pieces that fly off! I need to visit Maine or something where I'm sure that all-you-can-eat crab legs places are a dime a dozen. I love crab legs... but i refuse to pay for them. At least I have that one time I got the all you can eat crab legs at Red Lobster. It was tasty.

Painter for hire

Spent much of this weekend painting my daughter's soon-to-be new room. I just want the thing done now. Originally I was going to wait for my sister and her husband to come up and paint... but then I thought 'I painted her first room, the nursery, so I should also paint her new room'. So M went to Cinci Friday and Saturday, so I got a late start on Friday due to procrastination... went to bed at like 1am... then worked a few hours on Saturday. Sucks when you have to wait like 3 or 4 hours between coats. Grr. So all I got done was putting on the primer and then painting the base boards. Once I get the the walls done, then things will move really fast since at that point it's just about putting together the crib and her dressers. I don't mind the sauder furniture stuff. They used to really really be a pain to put together, but they've made great advances, so it's pretty easy to do.

Had some friends from back home come up on Sunday. I don't think I had seen them since N was like 3 months old... so it's been a while. Their daughter is about a month older than N so they managed to amuse each other, though N was a little bit shy. She's been doing that alot as of late. That whole stranger anxiety thing is kicking in. By then end of the day though, she of course cried when they had to go. They just don't understand things like 'we'll see them again soon'.

I forgot to mention that my Canon SureShot A75 finally croaked on the CCD harness. There was a problem that affected a bazillion or so cameras back in 2005 (which was 1 year after I had originally bought mine). There was a piece which connected the CCD to something which wasn't manufactured correctly, so after a while, it would just stop working... aka, no more taking pictures. Well, I was taking a blizzard of photos of N the other day and then the screen went blank. I knew exactly what it was. I was concerned that Canon wouldn't fix it for free as they did back in 2005. I was also concerned that they would replace it with a new camera, which I really didn't want since I like the one I have now since it's fairly light and takes decent pictures and I know most of its tricks. But, it turned out they would fix my current one. When I finally sent it in, I was concerned that it was going to take them more than a month to fix it which wouldn't be in time for N b-day... but about a week later, they had it fixed and shipped it back. Works like I a champ. Thank you Canon for fixing a problem correctly.

I started a blog the other day to track what I'm eating since I've gained about 10 lbs and my pants are starting to not fit as well. Did you know that an Admiral's Feast at Red Lobster is 1060 calories. Neither did I. Egads. And those stupid tasty cheddar buiscuts are something like 230 cal eat. Realizing what one is eating sucks. But, if I have any hope of losing any weight... it is a necessary evil to understand what I am eating.


Um... not much else.

what in the world...

.. have i been up to lately. i honestly can't say really... but i'll make a half attempt:

* been sorta kinda not really getting lil N's big girl room ready. i really need to get it primed and painted cause then it's just a hop skip and jump before it's ready. oh ... i need to steam clean the carpets as well. oh.. the electrician came in and did his thing... so now the light switch actually controls the ceiling light. yay!

* i hung out with todd and ian last friday. it was all good. there were hot pork rinds digested. we watched 'the legend of billie jean' and some funny ass green wing. ok, assy mcgee wasn't good, but that was the only blemish. man, i hated that show. i'm glad it was only a 15 minute episode.

* went back home for b-days and early father's day last weekend. lil N got to run around and play in the sprinkler with a couple of my cousin's kids. the burgers were good and we also had homemade ice cream which was tasty tasty. i haven't had homemade ice cream in, like, 15 years or so. it's been a long time. and it's every bit as good as i remember.

* went to the zoo two weekends ago. ate lunch there. it was cool to hang out with the Mrs and lil N. weather was nice. not the overly hot crap or rainy crap we've been dealing with as of late.

* i still need to decide where i want to have my father's day meal. it's still really weird to know that _i_ get to celebrate father's day. weird indeed.

* i'm not motivated to work today... this sucks. i'll find something work related to bide my time and keep busy so i don't drive myself nuts.