ptooey, he said...

How Do You Move in a World of Fog?

2008-03-20T09:14:00.001-06:00

You have to do it running but you do everything that they ask you to
'cause you don’t mind seeing yourself in a picture
as long as you look faraway, as long as you look removed
showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters
showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters

You get mistaken for strangers by your own friends
when you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery citibank lights
arm in arm in arm and eyes and eyes glazing under
oh you wouldn’t want an angel watching over
surprise, surprise they wouldn’t wannna watch
another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults

The National - Mistaken for Strangers

It seems to be a running theme in my life lately. I've been listening to the above CD a lot this week. Boxer is filled with pretty dead-on musings on the journey to adulthood. It took me a few spins to grasp the full impact of the album, but that's the way the best albums are.

I turned 36 last week. It strikes me that the struggle to realize my own adulthood should have been over years ago, yet here I am. I don't feel 36. I imagine that in many ways I don't act 36. hiccup told me that our oldest daughter was convinced that I would really like to have a skateboard for my birthday. It's sweet that she still thinks I would enjoy something like that, though I suppose my shredding days are long gone.

hiccup recently convinced me to grow back my goatee after four years of a smooth chin. I cannot believe how gray my beard is now, though given the salt and pepper on top of my head I know it shouldn't surprise me. When I look in the mirror, I'm forced to accept the fact that my appearance now contradicts my feelings and actions.

For some inexplicable reason, my mp3 player has been feeding this fire by spitting out one sweetly nostalgic song after another as I sit here, making me acutely aware of just how many years have passed between the young person I still see myself as and the note-quite-so-young person I actually am. It occurred to me yesterday that hiccup and I have been hanging out together for nearly half of our lives now. Almost eighteen years have passed, and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that.

No, it's not that old, but a discrepancy in my perception definitely exists. Given family history of the proclivity toward sharply decreased lifespan, I'm acutely aware that my time here may not be as long as some expect. Morbid? Not really. I'm trying to keep things in perspective, really.

So what do we do? How are we to define our adulthood? How are we going to approach middle age? Old age? Will we make it that far? I certainly hope so.

Discovering my Past

2008-03-07T13:03:00.002-07:00

The other night, hiccup asked me to scan a photograph for C. Something about a school project, I don't know. I decided that since I had the scanner out, I might as well scan a few other pictures we had laying about. hiccup and I have both been interested in photography for quite some time, so we have thousands of photos boxed up here and there. I felt it was time to digitize some of the better and more significant ones.

As I was digging through these photos, I happened on many from our Dark Ages (roughly 2001-2003). It occurred to me that we have purposely scuttled most of these, because neither of us particularly likes to be reminded of that period of our lives. I can accept that. But, I also dug through and found some stuff that I did want to have around, scanned a few jpgs, and a newspaper article written about my brother when he broke his high school's 1600 meter run record. I may even post that article here, as it's a pretty decent read (especially considering the usually well below par writing in my hometown's pitiful rag of a paper). That article, at least, was nice to see again.

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This afternoon, we're loading up the family for a few days' vacation, camping near Moab, Utah. I'm looking forward to it. I REALLY need a break. See you all on the flipside.

Wanting a Victory, No Matter How Small

2008-02-25T10:08:00.001-07:00

Lately, it seems that my every undertaking ends in failure. I'm tired of feeling that I can't do anything right.

Everything is Broken

2008-02-20T08:23:00.002-07:00

Our GOT damned fancy-schmancy high efficiency washing machine gave up the ghost last night. The stoopit thing is just a bit over 2 years old, and we've had problems with it from day one. So much so that we sprung for an extended warranty on it. That's the only time we've ever paid for one, and we're going to use it for all it's worth. Looks like the drive motor in the washer quit, so it's on their nickel for now.

The repair dude isn't due to our place until the 4th of March. Yay.

This month has just been loads of fun.

The Kindness of a Crush

2008-02-16T10:56:00.002-07:00

It was the fall of 1990, and I was just starting college. hiccup and I had met, but were not yet an item, so to speak. I was having a frustrating time, both academically and socially, and was striking out spectacularly in the dating department.

The acquaintance of a friend had caught my eye. She was an absolutely stunning girl with gray-green eyes, a quirky hippyish fashion and a beautiful mouth that turned down at the corners. She had a dazzling smile, a pleasantly husky voice and an adorable giggle. I was smitten.

We had a class together (I forget which), and sometimes ended up walking the same direction afterward. One day, in a moment of uncharacteristic boldness, I decided I would ask her on a date.

I braced myself for the inevitable embarrassment of rejection. This girl was so far out of my league I felt it an insult to her that I was walking on the same sidewalk. In the past weeks I had been shot down in some fairly humiliating ways, and expected the worst.

Instead, she touched my arm, smiled her incredible smile and told me she was flattered that I asked her, but that she was seeing someone at the time. Her actions were genuine, and she made every effort to take the awkwardness away from the situation, striking up another conversation without skipping a beat. It was the only time in my life that I ever got turned down and walked away feeling better about myself.

Sometimes it's the small kindnesses that make an impression. I still think back that moment occasionally and remember how she took care to make me feel good about myself. After months of pursuing girls who had definitely taken other approaches, it made me examine what sort of women I was interested in. I paid much closer attention to how prospective dates treated other people after that. It made a difference in who I approached, and I definitely came out better for it.

I wonder what happened to that girl. I also wonder if whoever she might have settled down with realizes how lucky they are.

Stupid Money

2008-02-08T10:57:00.000-07:00

For the last month or so, our household has been in the throes of the sort of monetary crisis that every lower middle-class family experiences from time to time. I guess it never goes so far that we don't have enough to put food on the table, but for a while we wonder how we're ever going to make all of the ends meet up. This time, they did. Finally.

It's by choice, of course. Our single income, as-debt-free-as-humanly-possible lifestyle doesn't lend itself to a great deal of financial wiggle room. We've had a few technical difficulties lately, in addition to the home improvement spree. Those unexpected troubles seem to periodically throw us into a tailspin.

I'm trying not to let it bother me as much as I once did. As I said, we always have roof overhead and food on plates. But there is part of me that wishes that we didn't have to have the occasional freakouts when an appliance decides to give up the ghost or one of the kiddoes needs to see the doctor. I'm enough of a realist to know that this will probably never happen, but a guy can dream, right?

Now that a bit of the strain has been taken off, I can stand back and wonder why I allow myself to get so worked up over it. I suppose that part of it was the death of the treadmill. For the last 4 years, that's been my stress relief. I either need to find a new way to burn off steam, or replace that thang.

Me Me Me Me Meme

2008-02-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

I was tagged for this one by Beanie over at All Frayed Edges and Shades of Red a while ago, and I just haven't had time to put anything together since then. I'll give it a whirl, though. Anyhoo, the game is "seven random things about me."

1. ~~I can eat 50 boiled eggs.~~

I can have a problem with people in positions of authority. I think a lot of it stems from a series of incidents when I was in elementary school and junior high where I was wronged by teachers and coaches. I try not to let it get the better of me, but sometimes I fail. Sometimes I fail miserably.

2. ~~I am a golden god.~~

Today is my sister's birthday. I should probably call her or send her a card or something, but I'm not going to. It has also been almost exactly 2 years since I last spoke to her. Even more scandalous than that? I don't think I really care.

3. ~~My hovercraft is full of eels.~~

I can sometimes take frugality to the point of insanity. I will literally spend more money trying to fix something myself than it would cost to replace it. I guess I just like to have the sense of accomplishment, and that can be worth the extra trouble and expense to me.

4. ~~I have a friend I've never seen. He hides his head inside a dream.~~

I have way too many shoes and way too many jackets. When I was little, I had a light jacket, a winter jacket, dress shoes and sneakers. I don't know if I felt that wasn't enough, but I am compelled to buy way more shoes and jackets than I actually need.

5. ~~I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer.~~

One of the only things that I sort of resent about parenthood is the lack of time I have for things that I used to enjoy. I used to have hobbies. Since C was born, my guitar sits gathering dust, I'm lucky to brew 2 or 3 batches of beer per year and I barely take photos of anything but the kids. I realize that the children have sort of become my hobby now, and I love them dearly, but sometimes I miss the things that I used to enjoy doing just for me.

6. ~~When I think about you, I touch myself.~~

I have officially worn out a treadmill. I hear lots of stories about people whose exercise equipment sits gathering dust. Last week, I literally ran through the deck of ours. If anyone asks how many miles you can get out of a Nordic Track C2000 treadmill, I'd guess it's in the neighborhood of 2360, give or take. Yup. The deck split right in half a mile and a half into my run last Wednesday.

7. ~~I'm a xenophobic tapiocaphobe and a claustrophobic agoraphobe.~~

Sometimes I envy people who have aspirations. To clarify, I have NEVER known what I want to be when I grow up. I never had a direction. I never really had goals. When people used to ask what I wanted to be, I replied "Happy." I've got that, but I wonder what it would be like to actually have a clear path in mind, something that I felt I must achieve.

There. That was relatively painless. The other part of this meme is to tag seven people, but I'm not sure I know seven people who haven't already done this, so we'll just pretend that wasn't part of the game. Thanks, Beanie. That was kinda fun!

Mini Rant

2008-01-24T09:39:00.000-07:00

Tongue.

The word is t-o-n-g-u-e. How simple is that? Idjits.

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Oh, and here are some pics of our nearly finished basement:

I have never felt so much like a white collar wuss as I do right now. After only two nights of working on that floor, I feel like I've been beaten up. My knees ache, my back is sore, and the palms of my hands are tender from thumping them on those planks to align them. But it's almost done. Just a shade less than a month ago, that room was bare studs and concrete floor. So I've got THAT going for me.

Random Randomness

2008-01-17T11:09:00.000-07:00

- I met one of our new neighbors in the house to the south of us over the weekend. It's a strange situation again, but certainly seems to be better than the previous one. The house was purchased by twin brothers. They are both firemen, and appear to be in their mid-twenties. The one I met seemed very pleasant, and they are VERY quiet. So that's good.

- hiccup met our new neighbor to the north. Apparently, Weightlifterguy has now rented the house to his niece. The niece volunteered that she "needed a place to live because she was kicked out of her apartment." Oh, joy.

- One of our employees is extremely obese and smokes heavily. She gets winded walking from her car to the door of the center. That just makes me sad.

- We have been working very hard for about the last month, finishing our basement living room. It's almost done now. We just need to put a coat of paint on the ceiling and one wall, then we're ready to install some flooring. I can't wait to finish!

- I have been without access to my treadmill and weight machine during the basement project. I really can't wait to have those back!

- My dad gave me new speakers for Christmas. I am in love with them.

- One of our newly hired employees has such a ridiculous surname that it's all I can do to keep from busting up every time I see her.

- It is bitterly cold and windy outside. I would like to have summer now.

- Yesterday evening, hiccup and I were in our bedroom, talking. C walked in, shouted "FIRE IN THE HOLE!", turned around, farted, then walked back out of the room, closing the door behind her. That child is very strange.

- Yeah, that's probably about it. I don't know that I can get any more random than that last one.

Happy Nearly Five Year Anniversary of Me Working Where I Work (to me)

2008-01-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

To put it mildly, late 2002 was not one of my favorite periods in time. I lost my job in October, and we were expecting a baby in February. My mom was undergoing chemotherapy. hiccup was forced to fall back on her substitute teaching experience to scrape together some money for us while I was on unemployment.

I was frantically looking for work - any work, but the employment situation here was dismal. I only had one callback, only one company asking for an interview - the company I currently work for. Unfortunately, the hiring process for this particular corporation is as much of a bureaucratic nightmare jumble as I have ever seen. I had the initial contact with the regional operations manager in September 2002. I had a phone interview with the next manager down the chain (who would be working side-by-side with me) a couple of weeks later. I had a face to face interview with him a couple of weeks later, then was contacted by the man who would be my boss a week after that. All told, I would be interviewed 6 times for the job. I would not meet my boss in person until I had been employed by the company for over six months. I did not get word that I was hired until January, 2003 - nearly 4 months after my initial contact with the company.

Throughout the process, I had been very clear that my wife and I were expecting a child in February, and that I would need time off for that. Fortunately, none of the people I spoke with felt it would be a problem. I was told that I could begin my training at one of their other locations in the state - a mere 4 hour drive from here. I would be staying there during the week, and travel home on the weekends until the baby arrived.

As luck would have it, the kiddo would not wait. I began what was to be my first day of work in four months by calling my boss and asking for a week off. We welcomed our second daughter to the world that evening.

My mother came to help hiccup the next week as I left to begin my new job. The plan was for me to begin orientation at the in-state location for a couple of weeks, then I was off to Missoula, Montana. I would fly there and stay for two weeks at a time, fly back home for a weekend. Then, repeat. I was told at the time that training would take three months, and my local center would open in June.

It tore me up to leave hiccup and the two kids, but we had little choice. I boarded the plane for Missoula on February 24th. The temperature at the time was -30°F. I remember this distinctly, because it was a record low for that date, and the flight was delayed for 2 hours because of the weather. The company had "suggested" the airline for me, a cut-rate local outfit flying 19 passenger Fairchild Metro planes. When the boarding announcement went over the PA, I handed my ticket to the flight attendant who told me to keep my coat on. When I got on the plane, they had not turned the heat on. We de-iced and it took another 40 minutes to get in the air. It was miserable and cold, noisy and uncomfortable.

When I finally arrived in Missoula, I checked in with the gentleman who was to be training me. In one of the only bright spots that day, he turned out to be a great guy, and a real kindred spirit. We got along very well, and I felt a bit better. Since I arrived so late, and my trainer was an early riser, I only stayed at work for a few hours, then set off to the hotel that had been recommended.

Missoula is located in a valley, and gets horrendous smog and temperature inversions in the winter. This was the case on the day I arrived. It was bitterly cold, hazy and just plain uncomfortable out, and I was looking forward to just settling in at the hotel.

The hotel was close to the center, which was a plus. It was also not very nice. They claimed that they had upgraded me to a "jacuzzi suite." NEAT! When I got to the room, they had the heat turned off - I could see my breath. The "jacuzzi" turned out to be a standard whirpool tub - beware the details. I turned the heat up and headed out to find food. Even an hour later, the room was still chilly, but tolerable. I was not in a fine mood.

Over the next couple of weeks, I familiarized myself with the town, which I LOVED. I found a number of nice places to eat. I found out that it was cheaper for me to fly home every weekend than it was for the company to put me up in the hotel, so I convinced my boss to let me do so. I switched hotels to a much nicer place.

A few weeks later, I got word that there had been "construction delays" in our center, and the projected opening date was postponed until July. I wasn't happy about it, but took it in stride. The job itself proved to be challenging and interesting. The guy I was working with was a genuine hoot, and we enjoyed working together.

But, it was a trying time. I only got to see my wife and kids for a few hours each week, and then I was back on the plane again. They announced another construction delay, putting the opening of the center back to nearly September. I became fully certified in June, and at about that time, my trainer announced his resignation. I remained in that center for most of the next month, but told my boss that I needed to get home. Soon. He finally relented, and I returned home in late July - roughly 3 months later than I had originally been promised. I was exhausted, I was frustrated, and I felt like I had been lied to at every turn. Thankfully, life has improved greatly in the last 5 years.

The point of of this very long story? The next time I hear from some corporate doofus about the sacrifices that we're expected to make for the company, I am tempted to remind them that I have already paid my dues. I left my daughters for nearly six months. I essentially abandoned my wife a week after she had our youngest girl. I spent countless hours on planes and in airports, and many sleepless nights in hotel rooms. So they should probably cram it.

Da Hood

2008-01-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

The strange, rapid turnover of our neighbors continues.

There's a little house across the alley from us that has been occupied by the same older couple for the entire 9 years we've lived here. We noticed a distinct lack of activity there a couple of months ago, and asked their daughter-in-law what was up. Turns out, it's a rental. The people who lived there were forced to move out when the gentleman fell ill with cancer. Apparently, he's doing okay now.

The house was vacant until the night before last. We noticed some lights on, and kids playing in the backyard. I noticed a lady on the back porch last evening - beer in hand, smoking a cigarette. She looks pregnant. Here we go again.

Meanwhile, the house just to the south of us was put up for sale a month ago. It sold in less than a week. They were asking what I thought was a wildly extravagant price, given the size and age of the house. I can hardly wait to see what moves in there.

How Ponce de León Had it Wrong

2007-12-18T11:36:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was forwarded a link to a fairly fascinating video on Youtube. It was a moving Japanese video, with subtitles, about a dog. The video itself was good enough, but one of the phrases in the subtitles has stuck with me well beyond the context of the video itself -

"Why am I always a child?"

For the last 6+ years, I have had a similar thought running through my head with respect to my late brother. I've never been able to put it so eloquently, but the subtitle in that piece nailed it. That's how I feel most robbed by my brother's death.

When that drunk plowed into the car he was riding in, he not only took the life that my brother had at the time, but any life he would have in the future. If that sounds confusing to you, believe me, it's much worse for me. You see, in our minds now, he will always be 20 years old. We have no frame of reference as to what he might have become, and that makes me feel cheated. His image will never change. In a sense, he will always be a child. We will never have known him otherwise, and can't even begin to guess what he would have been like at 25 or 40.

When standing in front of the court at his sentencing, the man responsible for my brother's (and the 7 other young men's) deaths, he asked all of the families for forgiveness. The sheer enormity of the consequences of his actions is what makes it absolutely impossible for me to forgive him. Eight would-be men will always be children. Forever.

A Goodbye

2007-12-09T17:32:00.000-07:00

Grandpa Ernie passed away early yesterday afternoon. He was over 93 years old.

He had moved to a full-service nursing home from an assisted living center in October. At the time, they made it clear that he would no longer be able to smoke his pipe. Alcohol was not allowed in the nursing home.

I remain convinced that it was the lack of tobacco and bourbon that did him in.

Rest in peace, sir.

Storms on Different Fronts

2007-12-07T09:35:00.000-07:00

It's ramping up to be somewhat of a strange day here in ptooeyland. We're under a winter storm warning, with up to 14" of snow predicted. As you might expect, work is a bit slower than usual, due to the weather.

The in-laws are in town for a conference, which always adds to the normal confusion. It's been a whale of a week so far, and I'd like nothing more than to just kick back in front of a fire this evening with a glass of bourbon and a movie, but instead it looks like we'll be entertaining them. Okay.

Unfortunately, the general mood is tempered by the fact that we're sort of on deathwatch. hiccup's grandpa is not doing well. It's not unexpected, he's very old and has been failing for a few months now. But, these situations, however much you're prepared for them, are never fun. hiccup's parents are very strange about keeping her out of the loop with respect to her grandpa's health (or lack thereof.) She always has to pump them for info, and these conversations often leave her feeling less informed than before. I don't know why they feel the need to shelter her from the info, she's 35 years old for FSM's sake. I think some of the secrecy has to do with THE INHERITANCE. hiccup's grandpa changed his will a few years ago. Originally, hiccup was to get 1/3 of his estate, her aunt was to get 1/3, and her parents were to get 1/3. As it now reads, hiccup's mom gets 100%.

hiccup's aunt is, for lack of a better term, a complete loon. She has never held a job. For the last 16 years, she's gotten by on money she received after the death of her first husband. She has almost zero social skills, and doesn't know thing one about how to interact with people in general. Her only contacts with us during the last 10 years or so have been strange, rambling letters which inevitably end up on the subject of THE INHERITANCE. They are usually plays for sympathy or pleas for solidarity, as hiccup was also struck from the will.

Neither hiccup nor I could give a flying flip about THE INHERITANCE. Our hope was that he would live long enough to spend every penny of it. As it turns out, that doesn't look likely. He is fairly wealthy, and up until just a few months ago was living exclusively on the interest from his investments. hiccup's parents are not good with money, and it will be gone after they get their mitts on it. That's all fine and good, but I just don't want to deal with the inevitable animosity from hiccup's crazy aunt. I hope that the aunt will just buck up and deal with it, but I strongly doubt that will be the case.

What has been lost in all of the hubbub over money is that hiccup's grandpa will not be with us much longer. He is a very likable old gent, and we will miss him. He has been catatonic for about a week now, and is receiving supportive care only at this point. He is in no pain, and is peaceful. That's what's important.

So, I guess I'll save that glass of bourbon. I'll raise it to Grandpa Ernie sometime.

duh duh duh duhduhduhduh

2007-12-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

One of C's classmates is named Bryce. C was telling us the other night that her teacher will often say "Bryce, Bryce, Baby" when calling on her, etc. Obviously, the 8 year olds don't really get the joke. C asked us to explain.

hiccup did her best, saying that there was this really good song, and that someone else came along years later and used parts of it to make a really bad song. And the title and chorus of that second song was "Ice, Ice Baby."

C accepted this explanation. A asked to hear the first song. We played her Under Pressure (which she like a lot). After the song was done, she looked thoughtful, then asked "Will we ever hear the song from that other guy? The guy who stole the song?"

I don't know that this will continue to be A's quote blog, but I can't compete with material like that.

I Am at Once Afraid of and Intrigued by the Future

2007-12-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

The youngest daughter has been on a roll lately. A few examples of her latest exhcanges are as follows:

A: Mom, why did the chicken cross the road?
hiccup: I don't know. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: I don't know.
hiccup: What?
A: I honestly don't know. I'm just trying to find out.

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me: A, pick your head up off of the dinner table.
A: But I'm absolutely exhausted.
me: Go get ready for bed, then.
A: Picks her head up just long enough to shake her fork at me, then lays her head back down.

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Her equally precocious friend G was visiting yesterday. I was sitting on the couch watching a football game as the two little girls crossed through the living room on the way to A's room. They were having some sort of discussion (I never asked what the subject was). Bear in mind, they're both a few months short of 5 years old.

G: Well, technically speaking, it's not actually mine.
A: Technically speaking, no. But can you use it?
G: Of course!

Idiots on Ice

2007-11-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

The weather this fall, as in the last few years, has been very mild. We've had little in the way of snow, and temperatures have been well above freezing, for the most part. It used to be unusual for this to happen. In years past, our area has been very cold.

This week has been somewhat of a return to normal, as temps have dropped quite a bit, the wind has picked up, and there's a threat of snow. All this thought of winter weather has made me remember one of my more notable near-death experiences.

It would have been Christmas break of my junior year of high school, either shortly after Xmas 1988 or right after New Year 1989. Christmas break is a dangerous time for the high school student. At the time, it was nearly impossible to get a temporary job during the break, so it left you with a bit of idle time. My best friend and I were bored, and looking for trouble. One of the universal constants is that when two teenage boys are looking for trouble, they will always find it. ALWAYS.

As I said, winters used to be different. We could almost always count on a serious cold snap right around Christmas, with temperatures dropping as low as -30 or -40 degrees Fahrenheit. This year was like that. We suffered through the blistering cold, but on the day in question, the weather turned nice. It was clear and relatively calm. We decided to go ice fishing.

There is a reservoir not too far from my parents' house that is a popular place for fishermen and outdoorsy types. We packed the auger and the tip-ups in my friend's truck (an avocado green Ford Courier he called "Kermit") and headed for the lake.

It was possible, at the time, to drive out on the lake. Not advisable, mind you, but possible. There were very few other people on the lake at the time, but some of them had driven much larger trucks onto the ice. We went for it. After drilling holes and watching poles for quite some time, it became apparent that the fish weren't biting. We grew bored. This was not a good thing. Eventually, we decided to hop into the truck and spin some cookies on the ice. This was also not a good thing.

The ice was in great shape, thick and blue, very smooth. We spun around for a while and got braver. Not good. At some point it was decided that we would attempt to throw the truck into a spin from 60 miles per hour. I don't know why we decided this, and I don't know why we decided on 60 mph, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. As you might guess, it takes quite a stretch of road to bring a Ford Courier up to 60 mph, but he got Kermit up to speed and cranked the wheel.

There's a phenomenon that happens on frozen lakes called a pressure ridge. It happens because as the ice heats and cools, it expands and contracts, sometimes cracking. Sometimes these cracks fill in with water, which also freezes, leaving a ridge higher than the surrounding ice. Some of these ridges can be pretty tall.

So there we were, rushing along sideways, completely out of control, and we're coming up on one of those pressure ridges awfully fast. There was no time to react, nothing we could do. We hit it broadside with both wheels at the same time. The truck went airborne, leading with the driver's door. I don't know how long we were in the air, but it seemed like forever. Unbelievably, the truck came to land on all four wheels as smoothly as any airplane landing I've ever experienced. After quite some time, we finally came to a stop. We didn't say a word, just drove back to the ridge to check it out. The ridge itself was probably 18" tall, three feet wide, and came to a peak at the top. The perfect ramp.

We decided not to tempt fate again, and headed back to our fishing holes. We packed up the gear and left before any of the few fishermen on the ice decided to try to track down the Sheriff.

I don't know how we managed to pull off that maneuver without

A.) falling through the ice.
B.) rolling the truck.
C.) harming ourselves.
D.) getting arrested.

And before you ask, yes, it was very cool. And no, I never want to do it again.

We Have Arrived

2007-11-21T08:07:00.000-07:00

You have achieved a certain level of parenthood when someone throws up at the dinner table, and you just clean it up and resume eating as if nothing happened.

Hey, I'm Still Here!

2007-11-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

I noticed that some folks have added me to their blogrolls, even though I have been extremely neglectful with the posts. I'm afraid I've been very busy (both with work and at home), and not feeling particularly motivated to type.

I am humbled by, and grateful to those who linked ptooeyhesaid from their little pieces of the intarwebs, and I have done some cleanup on my own links over their to the right and down a bit. No, just over there....Just look to the right...yeah, now down a bit. That's the stuff! You'll find a couple of additions (cool folks and far more talented writers than yours truly). If you haven't already, please go check 'em out.

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I had a strange experience yesterday, and I'm not quite sure what to think of it. I've been with my current company for nearly 5 years, and it's been by far the best job I've ever had. I love the fact that I'm paid to use my brain, and it always seems new and refreshing. I had been told as far back as 2 years ago that I was being paid a substantial bit less than others in the company performing the same duties. There was some talk of giving me a salary boost, but nothing ever came of it.

I never made an issue of it, because while I'm certainly not getting rich doing this, there's food on the table and a roof overhead. Plus, like I said, I enjoy the work. I got a new boss back in August (my fifth in less than 5 years - go, corporate America, go!), and he has been substantially more "hands on" then the other four. I like him a great deal, he seems very genuine and not a blowhard corporate ladder-climber like many of the others. He has also pushed very hard to see that I get the salary adjustment that had been discussed. He has, apparently been successful in doing so, but I haven't yet gotten official notification or any of the numbers yet.

Yesterday, his operational counterpart was visiting my workplace and stopped in my office to let me know of the probable upcoming raise. I should have been ecstatic, but he had the usual (and expected) list of wants/demands that are dangled in front of any employee in that situation. As he rattled off all the things that he'd "like to see", I found myself thinking of finding other work for the first time since I've been here. There was no rational explanation for it, his wishlist was perfectly reasonable. But, I think that after having so many people breeze through here with differing expectations and outlooks, I've gotten tired of having to justify myself and my work. I've always been praised as a solid worker, and our location is consistently listed as an example of how to run our type of business. But it's never enough. I have to explain why I don't want to advance or relocate and why I "choose family life" over work.

Much of the issue, I'm sure, is that I had not slept well the night before and wasn't feeling particularly well, to boot. I hope that today proves better for my attitude, because I would genuinely like to be happy about this.

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I hope that anyone still checking on this blog has a very happy Thanksgiving. I'll try to stop in here with updates when I'm able!

Weekend Recap

2007-10-08T11:31:00.000-06:00

All in all, it was a relatively pleasant weekend here. Saturday was the last round of soccer games for both kids, and instead of the snow/rain/cold/wind mix that was forecast, the weather was pleasantly autumnlike and very tolerable.

The kids were then invited to a friend's birthday party - beginning less than half an hour after we got home from the last soccer game. We threw lunch down them, then went to the party (the daughter of some good friends, so hiccup and I stayed to visit and help out).

Saturday evening, those same friends invited us over to their house for dinner and to let the girls have a sleepover with their daughters - coincidentally and conveniently their oldest is only five weeks older than C. Their youngest is just a shade younger than A. It works well. A good time was had by all.

Sunday, we went to pick up the kids, and decided to drive up the mountain to take pictures of the snow that had fallen overnight. I'm very much enjoying my rediscovery of photography as a hobby. Sure, the pics aren't THAT great, but it gives us a nice excuse to get out of the house. The mountain was beautiful, and we had a great time goofing around in the snow.

A was looking a bit rough when we picked her up that morning, and she steadily wilted as the day wore on. She actually fell asleep in the car, and again when we got home. I think she has strep throat for the second time in about 3 weeks. Bah.

With both kids returning to school, we've been tempted to keep the instant care facility on speed dial. At any given time, it seems that one or the other has got the sniffles or a sore throat. Thankfully, hiccup and I have been successful in fighting off and/or avoiding whatever bugs they're bringing home. Saturday I got a new insight into my psyche, though. When I woke up, I had a very strange swollen lymph node on the bottom of my jaw (situated more or less directly under my tongue). I've never had that happen before, and I have to admit it spooked me a bit. I've always had a "when it's your time to go, it's just your time" attitude, but apparently my mom's brush with lymphoma and my uncle's death from cancer have made me a bit hyperalert.

The swollen node is shrinking today, so I guess I'll live.

Freecycle: Now Starting to Scare Me

2007-10-04T07:18:00.001-06:00

So, yeah, the one from yesterday was weird. But today?

Wanted: Babysitter

I am looking for someone who babysits I have a 18 mth old and a 5
year old I am looking for a babysitter for my 18 mth old. I am a stay
at home mom but I am returning to work and all I can find is
daycares that are open from 8-5 so that doesnt really give me much time
to work. My Schedule is still in the air but worst comes to worst
it will be 8:45am - 9:00pm, however my husband works 1 month until
5:00pm and the next month until 7:00pm then all over again. So if I
had to work that late my husband would be picking the kids up. I am a
very pick mother though I WILL NOT allow anyone to drive anywhere
with my child I want someone who is going to have a schedule and do
some activities and stay at the daycare site with him. I dont want
him to be in one of those daycares that the kids do whatever they
want and watch T.V. all day. I prefer him to be on the same schedule
everyday example: (breakfast, play, snack, outside, lunch, story,
nap, ect....) I am very nervous about leaving my baby with someone I
need someone honest, dependable and trusting. I dont want ANYTHING
bad to happen to my baby, you hear about those horror things all the
time on the news about how babysitters beat the children or sexually
abuse them or leave them in the car and they die. So SERIOUS INQURES
only please I will also have to go with a process before letting
someone watch him like interveiws, checking things out like living
situations, background like CPR or if you could help him if he was
choking. ect. thanks my name is Cara and I can be reached by email
leave me a number and tell me a little about yourself. I also wouldnt
mind like a nanny (someone that comes to my house to babysit) I feel
the child is more comfortable in their own enviroment) Thanks.

And then, from the same person, posted roughly 22 hours later:

Wanted: Babysitter

Needed A.S.A.P Babysitter for Monday - Saturday 8:00 or 8:30 am to 5:00
or 7:00 pm he is an 18 mth old and on Saturdays I would need my 5 year
old son there too. I need someone responsable and mature. Someone who
will keep my children on a set schedule and not drive anywhere with
them. My 5 year old will be in school then the boys & girls club
monday - friday then be baby sat only on saturday. Please e-mail me
with your info or call me at XXX-2817 my name is Cara thank you.

Yeesh.

A Long Overdue Freecycle Redux

2007-10-03T10:21:00.000-06:00

urgent need of playpin for my kids

i would appreciate it if someone could help me today and get
me aplaypin i am going on cleaning jobs and really need one
to put my twoyoungest in the playpin while i clean my at my
jobsites. please someone help me. i just started my cleaning
business and didnt think of needinga playpin but i would greatly
appreciate it if someone could help me out i will pick it up
immediately thank you melinda

It's Somehow Not Right...

2007-09-28T09:42:00.000-06:00

...that I woke up this fine Friday morning with the song 'Mairzy Doats' stuck in my head.

I wonder what that means for the rest of the day.

Delayed Weaner

2007-09-20T15:07:00.000-06:00

hiccup and I share a common disdain for formality. When we were married 12 years ago, we decided that we wanted no part of a traditional church ceremony. As luck would have it, her uncle is a baptist minister and my parents have a large yard. Perfect!

People generally have set expectations for weddings, so we went through a bit of the usual ceremony. But it was a short affair, outdoors, and the guests were seated mostly in plastic lawn chairs on the grass. Most came dressed for a typical wedding ceremony, in suits and dresses. A few of our close friends came in jeans (not a problem by us, but some of our older relatives gave funny looks). Mostly, we wanted to have a party. The wedding was an aside to the pigroast/beerdrink that we had planned for directly after.

At the time, my parents owned a couple of very eccentric outdoor cats. They were brothers, both neutered males. They were also extremely friendly, and a bit goofy. One was a grey tabby named Snake, who was so docile that we had seen him literally get beaten up by a mouse he caught. Snake surrendered that fight after the mouse had bitten and held onto his upper lip. Pathetic. The other kitty was a HUGE, overweight cream-colored weirdo named Mister. Mister was not often seen far from the front porch, where he liked to sit in hopes that someone would offer him a lap. He was, apparently, taken from his mother a bit too early for his liking as he tended to try to nurse on anything and everything. He also drooled more than any dog I've ever seen. Equally pathetic. The two cats were given free run of the property during the wedding because, why not? One of my most enduring and favorite memories was watching those two idiot felines go from lap to lap during the wedding ceremony. Reactions to Snake were usually either a brush-off or a quick pet and ear scratch. No one knew how to react to Mister jumping onto their lap, sucking their clothes and leaving behind puddles of cat drool.

Presenting Captain Bringdown

2007-09-18T14:00:00.000-06:00

ACK!!

Stop this week, I want to get off! I've had cancellations and postponements and moved meetings and employee shortage and insufferable stupidity and frantic child-shuttling and insomnia and uncertainty and a friend is in the hospital and they don't know what to do and...it's only Tuesday.

Time and Its Effects

2007-09-17T14:56:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was the 6th anniversary of my brother's wreck. I marked the occasion by forgetting about it completely until I was lacing my running shoes this morning. I don't know what to think of that, really. Perhaps I'm just tired.
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It's been quite a while since I've provided a neighbor update, and it has been interesting, so here goes:

The house to the south of ours was sold to a couple of guys who have been fixing it up with the hopes of selling it by next month. They've put in new carpets, painted the exterior and interior, re-roofed, repaired fence, etc., etc. It looks a lot better, but they're doing a half-assed job at best. Given the price that they're hoping to get, I sincerely doubt it will be occupied anytime soon.

Just to the north, we have vacancy. Blissful, quiet vacancy. Weightlifterguy had moved out a couple of months ago, yes. But he rented his house to his 19 year old loser of a nephew and 4 or 5 of the nephew's drinking buddies. It has been a bad scene, folks. The police have been to that house many times since then. There have been fistfights and 3 AM profanity-laced tirades. The idiots had taken to harassing the sweet 70 year old widow across the street from them. We know for a fact that they had been in our backyard at least once, trampling a tomato plant and leaving behind a flip-flop. I was constantly throwing beer cans and cigarette butts back into their yard. I am not a person who is generally predisposed to the emotion, but I found that I hate those people.

hiccup spoke with Weightlifterguy this morning, and apparently he had to evict all of his tenants a couple of weeks ago - with a baseball bat. They had trashed the house, completely and devastatingly. The carpets are ruined (they had at least 2 separate litters of puppies living there), sheetrock beaten, and windows broken. He told them to get out, and expects it to be at least a couple of months' restoration before he will be able to put the house on the market. I don't know what he was thinking by renting the place to those idiots. There was really only one possible outcome. It's a shame, too, because the house is (was?) really nice. I'm really glad we weren't around for the big confrontation there, because the idea of Weightlifterguy angry and wielding a baseball bat is not a pleasant one by any stretch.

Looks like we'll be playing neighbor roulette soon. Given the events of the last year or two in those houses, I'm game.

Evocative Addiction

2007-09-12T10:39:00.001-06:00

When I was 14 years old, I suffered from some really annoying environmental allergies. My hometown is heavily agricultural, and there was no end to the allergens floating about in the summer. I tried the various over the counter concoctions, but they either made me drowsy or made my heart pound like a jackhammer. I got a steroidal allergy shot, which helped but was pricey. My parents weren't able to afford too many of those, so the family doc recommended that I try having a cup of coffee in the mornings, as caffeine works as an antihistamine.

Coffee did seem to help a bit, and I found that I REALLY enjoyed it. Not just the buzz, mind you, but the smell and the flavor and the...well, everything.

This was well before the "coffee revolution", and my dad was strictly a Folger's man. It was all I knew.

When I left for college, I had a friend who was a bit more worldly. He introduced me to good, whole bean coffees and I was hooked immediately. I found that I preferred a nice, dark French roast to any other, and that has been my bean of choice since then.

I once read somewhere that smells can evoke more memories than any of the other senses. True or no, every time I open the canister to put more beans in the burr grinder, I remember what that first bag of French roast beans smelled like when I opened it in my dorm room. I remember cold mornings in the little trailer house. I remember leaving for the hospital from the little house on Beech street as well as the the house on Hayes street and the house on Raton well before the sun came up. I remember nine years of mornings staring out that window into the backyard, waiting for the grinder to finish so I can brew that first pot. Powerful little things, those beans.
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So, yeah, I haven't posted much lately. For one, I've been monumentally busy for the last couple of months, both at work and shuttling kids to and from various events. This morning, I felt like typing, so I'll just throw out a couple of posts. Two-fer Wednesday, or something.

I'll Remember What I Want to Remember, So Cram It!

2007-09-12T10:38:00.000-06:00

I dropped by one of my former favorite web hangouts again last evening to see what was shaking. I noticed that there had been recent posts in a thread dedicated to remembering the events of 9/11/01, so I gave it a quick read.

Among the expected heartfelt posts were a few others urging us as Americans to quit attributing so much significance to the events of that day, and to remember that on a global scale, the number of deaths experienced here on 9/11/01 can be matched in number on any given day. The latter is certainly a valid point. We should remember how good we've got it every single day of our lives.

But, what I think these folks are losing sight of is how many people were affected by those attacks, both directly and indirectly. Granted, I don't know if there's any tangible benefit to reliving the event year after year, but speaking strictly for myself I find it extremely difficult not to.

Because of those people and those planes, I lost 2 people who were close to me. It changed my life forever. I cannot forget that, and I most certainly don't want to.

I don't think that there are many folks left who still feel that the war in Iraq was the right course to take, or more to the point that it wasn't a horrific, misguided mistake at the very least. Most people are at least bright enough to grasp that, even if their backgrounds and ideals differ.

I find that my lack of global perspective is not due solely to ignorance, nor is it due to bigotry or a sense of superiority coupled with warmongering nationalism. More likely, it's due to the fact that I am a relatively simple man, and I lead a relatively simple life. My obligations to my family eclipse most other pursuits. My contribution to the planet will likely be no more than to do my best to raise my children well and teach them to respect others and do what is right. And I'm perfectly okay with that. I also don't think that I'm the only person around working toward the same goals.

So, I think I'll continue to mentally mark the day each year. If not for attacks, I might still be able to hoist a couple of mugs with Robert, comparing our brews. I might still be able to joke and trade music with Kyle. I don't want to forget that fact.

Dysfuncturama

2007-08-01T15:16:00.000-06:00

A recent online conversation reminded me that the issue of sibling estrangement is not a new one for my family. I have an uncle (my mother's oldest brother - Greg), who severed all contact with his parents and siblings roughly 25 years ago.

The issue at hand, as in so many cases, was money. Greg and my other uncle, Roger, had taken over the family business and the partnership did not go smoothly. Given that I was only 10 or so at the time, and that nobody seems to particularly want to talk about it, I don't know a lot of specifics. I do know that it eventually came to blows, with Roger leaving town, and Greg taking over as sole owner of the business. Greg, for whatever reason, saw fit to stop communicating with family from that point forward.

Because of my age when the original blowup took place, I was able to follow the later events with relative objectivity (pun, sadly intentional.) Greg's behavior has often been childish and selfish. Sometimes it has been cruel and slanderous. I don't honestly know what drove him to behave in this manner, but I suspect some sort of persecution complex.

My grandmother contacted Greg after my mom started chemotherapy for lymphoma, and again after Roger was diagnosed with cancer, but Greg didn't so much as telephone either of them. He did send a sympathy card after my brother was killed, but he did not attend his own father's funeral.

My uncle Roger died of esophageal cancer three years ago. He was a very interesting individual - whip-smart, loud, crude, highly opinionated, obnoxious, and genuinely hilarious. He was one of my favorite people. My family and I visited him at his house several times in the months before his death after he became bedridden and any hope for a recovery had given way to an acceptance of his rapidly approaching death. He was very frail toward the end. Just a year before, he had been a big man with a big belly, a big voice and a big personality. In his final months, he lost the girth and his voice was a barely audible, croaky whisper. But he never lost the crude, wicked humor.

Two weeks before he passed away, we went to visit Roger for what would prove to be the final time. Somehow the conversation turned to his brother. He joked that he wanted his ashes scattered in the flower beds at Greg's house..."I'm gonna haunt that f*cker."

Part of his ashes were scattered on top of a peak near where my grandparents had a mountain cabin. His wife kept part of them. Part of them are now mingled in with the soil around his brother's daisies and potentilla bushes. My parents and I have no idea how they got there.

Dealing with Awkward Social Situations

2007-07-30T11:19:00.000-06:00

The weekend here was pleasantly packed with activity, and a good time was had by all. For the second week in a row, we got to watch a hot air balloon rally! We watched the balloons launch early Saturday and Sunday mornings from a hill near the local community college. It was a good time, but the kiddos are a bit worn down from lack of sleep.

Saturday night, there was a decent local band playing at the balloon launch site, and after they finished there was to be a balloon glow (they light the propane burners of the balloons around dusk, producing a pleasant glow.)

The mother of one of my brother's best friends is a balloonist, and we ran into her at the balloon glow. We had a nice visit, but she asked about my sister. It's difficult to explain to people that I haven't spoken to her in over a year, that my parents can't even get hold of her, and that we have no idea how she is or what she's doing for a living. I guess there's never going to be an easy, non-awkward way to tell people this when they ask, but I'm considering making up stories.

- She was abducted by aliens in the late nineties and we haven't heard from her since.
- Sister? What sister? (would work best if followed by a Peter Lorre laugh: "Ah-HEH! Ah-HEH!")
- She became a born-again Christian and has run off with a preacher named Roy.
- She had herself cryogenically frozen until the world is free from both Spam luncheon meat and the letter Q.
- *cluck tongue, shake head* She just hasn't been the same since that gopher attack.
- She fell through a wormhole that appeared in her pantry and is now hurtling toward the planet Zweeenbloy.
- She took her Harry Potter obsession just a bit too far - she just up and apparated.

I dunno.

Too Many Doin's A-Transpirin'

2007-07-12T08:57:00.000-06:00

I took Tuesday off to watch C run a 5k roadrace. They have a race just prior to the annual fair and rodeo parade here (hey, it's bigtime excitement.) She ran extraordinarily well - a 33:22 for 3.1 miles. That's less than 10:30 mile pace, which is pretty well flying for a 7 year old kid. I'm awfully proud of her. It's neat enough that she's doing this kind of stuff, but she genuinely enjoys it.
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That afternoon, I went to retrieve something from the back of my pickup and saw our neighbor to the south going out to get his mail. I gave him the standard guy-greeting nod and he returned the same. I thought at the time that he was looking pretty rough - hey, it happens.

Last night, we looked out the window and saw 2 police cars and at least 7 other vehicles parked right in front of their house. More cars were pulling in all the time, some practically parking in our yard. Okay, that's a little strange. We went out to the garage to snoop, and there were a LOT of people standing in their driveway. hiccup snuck across the street to visit with some other neighbors and pump them for info.

Turns out, the neighbor guy had been having a REALLY rough time. I had felt for some time that he was really outspending his income. Then, there was the strange "wife moves out one day, girlfriend moves in the next day" weekend. He had a couple of his vehicles repossessed last month, and lost his partnership in the business he started 2 years ago.

He committed suicide at his shop sometime late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning. I don't know much more than that, but things are really complicated.

We didn't really know him all that well. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but he had no money sense whatsoever and definitely had an affinity for weird relationship situations. He had a 7 or 8 year old son.

It's been a weird month, and Friday the 13th approaches. Be afraid.

Miscellaneous

2007-07-09T08:08:00.000-06:00

Conversation from Saturday afternoon:

me: Did Weightlifterguy get rid of his hot tub?
hiccup: Yeah, I saw the guys from the spa store loading it on a truck yesterday.
me: *looks out window* Holy crap - he's moving or something!
hiccup: Maybe he's just getting rid of some junk.
me: No, he just drove by with his barbecue grill in the back of the truck!
hiccup: Oh, yeah - that's serious!

We're still not sure what's going on next door, but things have been conspicuously quiet over there for the last week. We've seen Weightlifterguy taking his snowmobile trailer back and forth, and he's only got one vehicle sitting in the street (a significant reduction from the 6 (!) he's had parked there in the past). The barbecue grill being gone is a big flag, though. This dude named his dogs Sirloin and Porterhouse.

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We've started the fall preparation early this year. We managed to get a BLM firewood permit for one of the wilderness areas about 25 miles from here. This is the first year we've been able to score one of these permits. We went up to get a truckload yesterday, and had some major technical difficulties with my chainsaw. We have to have our 2 cords cut and loaded by the 18th, so I'll be back at it later this week.
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We had a fairly good thunderstorm yesterday afternoon. We got about .6" of rain in about an hour, and the new roof didn't leak. So - YAY US!

About to Hit the Wall

2007-06-26T09:06:00.000-06:00

I had hoped that this summer we'd get a chance to slow down and take things a little easier. It ain't happenin'.

When we moved into our house nearly nine years ago, we knew that a re-roof was going to be needed before long. With different combinations of roofing sealant, tar and a Pabst beer can (no, I'm not kidding), I've managed to stop a few leaks here and there and stall for a lot longer than we really should have. We decided that this was going to be the summer that we were finally going to have it done. After taking bids from no less than 7 roofing companies, we decided that every roofer in town must have be supporting incredibly expensive cocaine or Faberge egg habits. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to do it ourselves.

Last week was the week, and I put in for 3 days' vacation. It was a disaster from the get-go. Hot temperatures, friends cancelling out on us, our dumpster arrived a day late...and then, Friday. Friday, I got a call from work. The FDA arrived that morning to do an inspection. This is usually a large part of my job, dealing with inspections and making sure regulations are being followed. I told my boss that I was simply unable to come in to work because my house had no roof on it at the time. At all. She flipped her lid. I ended up having to go in to work on Friday to talk to the inspector. My production counterpart at work had been to our house Thursday to help us with the roof, and had already explained my situation to the inspector. She agreed to arrange her schedule so that I could deal with her on Monday. That was a huge relief, and my boss seemed to cool off a bit when I told her what was arranged.

As it happens, we eventually got the roof done. The inspection finished up yesterday. The auditor had nothing but praise for us and our staff, and left without one single bad finding. Not too shabby.

After having spent four 12+ hour days on the roof, sweating my brains out, then a 13.5 hour workday yesterday, I am beat. I have so much catch-up work to do that it isn't even funny, and I'm so exhausted I can't think clearly. Wheeeee!

Poor, Lonely Blog

2007-06-14T08:02:00.000-06:00

I guess this is kind of a sympathy post. To be honest, I just haven't felt like typing anything up, so I'm a neglectful blogparent.

We had a fun time last weekend - camping in Yellowstone. We saw all sorts of wildlife (I got to see wolves for the first time!), and took a lot of photos. There are a few of the best ones posted on here on my flickr account.

Next week should be interesting. I'm going to try my hand at reroofing our house. My dad is going to come over to help, and a coworker who used to roof houses for a living has offered to pitch in as well, so it should be okay. I just hope it doesn't rain.

I hope to have more to say in the near future.

Meanwhile, at the Post Office...

2007-05-18T10:41:00.000-06:00

...Granules of crushed chickpeas left in an unidentified small plastic bag at the post office make for a hazardous materials threat....

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I realize that we all need to be on constant lookout for terrorists, but there's a fine line. This has become a joke.

I want some hummus now.

Hell in a Handbasket

2007-05-18T09:24:00.000-06:00

hiccup and I moved into our current house nearly nine years ago. We love the house, and at the time we loved the neighborhood. It's quiet, and the people were friendly and down to earth. A lot has changed over the course of those nine years, and the residents of the neighborhood have changed as well.

I'm about at my wit's end with a few of our neighbors. I don't think I'm being unreasonable, really. I've spouted off a few complaints here at the ol' blog from time to time, but things are sort of spiraling out of control. It is now to the point where I have thought, for the first time in nearly a decade, about moving elsewhere.

The people across the street from us moved in last summer. They yell at each other a lot. The man of the house prefers to not wear a shirt...ever. And we've heard some genuinely disturbing rumors about his past. I tend not to take a lot of stock in that sort of talk, but in this guy's case, I'm beginning to wonder. He creeps hiccup out. She prefers to not hang out much in the front yard now.

The house next to ours on the south side is a rental. There have been 4 different sets of renters there since we moved in, and for the most part we've gotten along well with them. The latest family was pleasant enough for a while, but things have gotten weird. Originally, it was the current guy and a woman he'd met just 6 weeks before. They lived with her daughter and periodically his son. Both kids are the same age. The little girl was very slow, mentally, but a nice enough kid. The boy is trouble. A while back, he decided that all of his friends had missing teeth, so he should be missing some too. So he pulled them. All of them. Himself. To say that something's not right with the kid would be an understatement of epic proportions. He moved in permanently with them a couple of years ago. Suffice to say we don't let our kids play with him much. The couple got married a few months after they moved into the house. Last month, the lady suddenly moved out with her daughter. The very next day, another woman moved in with her 3 kids. Family stability is clearly not a priority for this guy. We have had multiple encounters with them over the course of the last 2 years because their dog is eating the fence between our houses (he jumps up the 6' fence to bark at us and chews the tops of the cedar boards.) The same dog has also stripped most of the siding from the back side of their house. They don't seem to have a problem with it. I don't put up with my own dogs tearing up my stuff, much less somebody else's.

The house on the north side is getting to be the worst. When we first bought our house, it was occupied by an older couple who were both very pleasant. The gentleman passed away 6 or 7 years ago. The lady lived there alone for a while, but remarried and moved out. She sold the house to her daughter and son-in-law. I have referred to them as Mr. and Mrs. Weightlifterguy in the past here at ptooeyhesaid. The daughter and her husband seemed like nice enough people at first, but have gotten steadily more annoying over the course of the last 3 years. First, we got irritated with the insane amount of stuff they accumulated. At one time, they owned 7 cars, all parked along the street. They have a corner lot, so they just spread out the collection in front of their house, and eventually in front of ours. Then they got a snowmobile trailer. Then a fifth wheel camper. Then 3 motorcycles. Then, 2 pitbulls. Christmas night, 3 years ago, they and some guests got into a HUGE fight just outside our bedroom window. I'm not talking argument here, I'm talking fistfight. Drunken, profane screeching, blows landed, cops called, redneck fun. At 3AM.

Now, apparently, Mrs. Weightlifterguy has moved out of the house, and Weightlifterguy's sister and nephew haved moved in. There are also 4 children there, and another young woman who must be the nephew's girlfriend. The car stereo encounter I wrote about last month was with the sister and nephew. They are very, very rough folks. Weightlifterguy's sister is one of those people who lives in a constant state of high drama. She also believes that there is no problem or situation that cannot be resolved if she just yells loud enough. She's a real charmer. Monday night, she was screaming at someone over the phone while standing on their back deck. hiccup had to ask her to keep it down after she had yelled "F*CK YOU!!!!" about 5 times - our kids' rooms are closest to their deck, and they had just gone to bed. The harpy's reply was that hiccup should mind her own business.

Yesterday, hiccup called to let me know that Weightlifterguy was sitting on the back deck with a tattoo gun, giving his nephew a tattoo.

Our backyard is our favorite place in the world, and now we're finding ourselves unable (or at least unwilling) to spend any time there. I don't know what to do.

Freecycle is on a Roll

2007-05-11T11:16:00.000-06:00

Wanted ....

ok here is my list of wantsFans that work wood for building a play house
and fire wood femalegoat who can be milked.
Tracy

Possibly also some punctuation and functional spacebar and shift keys.

recieved
thank you for the Chickens they are a great addition to our
flock andthey seem to get along well with our girls.
Tracy

Please note that these two entries are from the same person.

The Attachment to Objects

2007-05-10T09:56:00.000-06:00

Last month, my dad drove my brother's old car to our house so that I could see if I could sell it. My parents were afraid that it might bother them to sell it in their town and run the risk of seeing it drive by on a regular basis. Fair enough, says I.

The car was bought and paid for by my brother with money he'd earned from a couple of summer jobs while he was still in high school. It's a Saab 900, and he purchased it from a lady in Salt Lake City who babied it. It was always a nice car, and he was very proud of it.

When I got it from dad, there were a couple of problems that needed to be addressed before I thought that it would be fit to sell. Firstly, the heater control was stuck on full blast, which made warm weather driving a bit uncomfortable. A visit to eBay and $15 got me a heater control rod to replace the broken part. Secondly, a mechanic in Laramie had botched up the installation of a new fuel pump, and the car had always smelled of gasoline. Okay, it smelled STRONGLY of gasoline...Okay, okay, it reeked. It's actually a pretty common problem for Saab 900s, because the fuel pump is accessible from the passenger compartment. I did a little research, bought some parts from a Saab specialty website, and pulled the pump out. I replaced the seal and retaining ring, put it back in. Lo and behold, it now just smells like an old car. Sweet, sweet sense of accomplishment.

Monday afternoon, I put a FOR SALE sign in the window and parked it in at the front of the parking lot where I work.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a call from a gentleman interested in the car. Turns out he was very interested, and I had a check in hand 45 minutes later. Nice, but in a way it makes me sad. That car was one of the things that most reminded me of my brother. I find it odd that my parents hung onto it in their garage for 5 1/2 years when it bothered them to even look at it. It's weird to me that an object can affect any of us this way. The thing is just a car - a hunk of metal. But, the last memory I have of my bro was of him driving off in that thing one late summer evening. Now, I may see it running around town. And so it goes.

Freecycle: Be Afraid

2007-05-08T08:47:00.000-06:00

DESPERATELY NEEDED: GUN
I need a gun in working condition - rifle like a
.22 or even handgun.I will get it registered in my name. My horse was chased
tonight by atan pitt or Golden Retriever and Metro told me to get a gun
ASAP.PLEASE let me know if you have one you can part with or know of areliable
place to get one.THANKSBritt

Oh, FYI, Metro in this case is Metro Animal Control. I don't really see them telling someone to "get a gun." Just a hunch.

A Lesson in Tact, From hiccup

2007-05-04T09:21:00.000-06:00

hiccup has been doing quite a lot of volunteer work for our daughters' schools this year. She's been on several committees at C's, including one to help hire a new principal.

That committee had a meeting this morning, and she ran into a shamelessly self-promotional witch of a woman who is on another committee with her. A conversation took place in which the she-devil mentioned how she had started her own business, volunteers time pretty much everywhere, has found a cure for death, and in her spare time she likes to let everyone on earth know just exactly how wonderful she is.

The reactions of some people to hiccup's being a stay-at-home mom have become a steady source of irritation for her over the last 7 years, and when it came up this time, I think she may have hit upon the perfect response:

Wonder Woman: "So, do you work?"
hiccup: "I stay home with the kids."
Wonder Woman: "And does that make you happy?"
hiccup: "I am positively giddy."

Credo

2007-04-27T08:22:00.000-06:00

My wife, hiccup, and I like to watch movies. Our taste in films is admittedly a bit off-kilter, and that's just the way we like it. We generally shoot for bottom-of-the-barrel B-movies. Mid-'50s sci-fi with giant radioactive insects are the best, but we've found that we've watched so many of them that it's getting difficult to find anything new. We've been forced to branch out a bit.

Lately, we've been on a martial arts movie kick. I really like these films. They're simple, sure, and the plots are laughably predictable. But they're fun. There's something to be said for movies that have no message, and are meant only for entertainment. Also, even in the cheesiest low budget ones, the action scenes can be pretty impressive. Those cats really ARE fast as lightning.

I find the dialogue in these to be great fun, particularly those that have been translated and redubbed with English-speaking voice actors. The other night we watched a flick called Invincible. It starred, believe it or not, a Bruce Lee impersonator who billed himself as Bruce Lee, Bruce Li or Dragon Lee, depending on the film. It was a fun movie to watch - cheesy and packed with great phony sound effects.

During one moving scene, our hero consulted with his mother as he was about to go out and avenge death/defend honor/kick ass, and the mother pleaded with him not to go, delivering a line with such raw voice actor overemotion that I find myself still cracking up about it. I have found my new motto in life, for I too am "...only one man, and I don't know ANY kung fu."

Unpleasant Encounters

2007-04-25T15:03:00.000-06:00

Firstly, yes it has been a month since I posted. It has been an insanely busy month filled with work, kids' soccer games and dance classes, home improvement and general pandemonium. Sometimes it's exhausting simply existing.

Justine's recent post reminded me that I wanted to jot a quick note about what happened to me a couple of nights ago.

Our house is on a very quiet street. It's a very good thing because I am a ridiculously light sleeper. To the point that the furnace kicking on often wakes me up. I also retire relatively early most nights because I wake up very, very early. My head had just hit the pillow a little after 10 on Monday night when very loud rap music thumped its way into our bedroom. I figured that it was someone visiting the teenager across the street and they would leave soon. After 5 minutes or so, curiousity got the better of me and I went to to the window to see what was up.

There were two cars parked on the street right in front of our house. One was aimed the wrong direction, and there were several people gathered around the nearer of the two. The doors were all open on this car, which was obviously the source of the racket. I decided that I really didn't like being kept awake by these idjits. I went out to the living room and turned on our porchlight, hoping that would be enough to spur them to move on. Unfortunately, it wasn't. I got dressed and went out to the car to ask them to turn it down. As I was walking up, I noticed that two of the people gathered around the car were kids. There was a girl who looked to be about 10, and a boy who was perhaps a couple of years younger. A lady was kneeling at the passenger door of the car, letting fly with an impressive stream of expletives - "I don't have the effing keys, dips*t." "I don't effing know where they are." "Eff you." Charming.

There was a man in the driver's seat of the car, twiddling knobs on the car stereo. I yelled at him that there were people trying to sleep, and asked if he would turn it down. He looked at me, bleary-eyed, and said that they were being quiet. I pointed out to him that his stereo was very loud, and again asked him to turn it down. He turned it down to a more reasonable level, and I thanked him. As I turned to walk away, he cranked it up VERY loudly for just a second, then back down. Fine. He made his point. That'll show me. I went back into the house, grabbed my phone, and figured I'd give them a couple of minutes before I called the police. As it turned out, they drove off after just a short while, and I went back to bed.

My wife asked me if I was scared, approaching them like that. Truth be told, I wasn't really until I noticed how out-of-it the dude behind the wheel was. You never know, I guess. The really frightening thing was that there were two kids out well after 10PM on a weeknight with at least one chemically impaired adult and another who was demonstrating a less than wholesome abuse of the language.

Who are these people, and why do they live like this?

Freecycle Strikes Again - Special Bonus Edition

2007-03-26T13:23:00.000-06:00

NEEDING: VERRY IMPOTANT
A bassett hound or a schnousher my
husbands booses neibhor's dog gothit by a car on 15th street and she is an older
lady. She is verrydevistated and would like to find a friendly new companion.If
anyonecan help please let me know her dog was her life and i hate to see
hersad(MY # IS XXX-5760) if you have one of theese or know someone whodoes
please give me a call or e-mail me Thank you!!!!!!

Oww, my brain.

But I've got mine. Friday morning, I spotted a listing on the local Freecycle group for a pair of Bose 901 speakers. I e-mailed back as fast as my fingers could type, and was apparently the first of many responders wanting them. My wife met up with the lady just a short while after, and as it turns out I scored a nice little find.

They're the series II from the mid-'70s. Cloth driver surrounds, non-ported cabinet, solid wood. They sound sweet, and I'm pretty happy!

Lamest. Excuse. Ever.

2007-03-19T10:03:00.000-06:00

I often have trouble sleeping. Last night's sleep was awful, but the reason is novel, at least.

I received my spiffy new homebrew keg system last week, and Saturday afternoon was spent boiling wort for a new batch to fill the keg with. I'm making a triple-hopped ale. I finished the boil, put it in the fermenter, and placed the fermenter in the shower in our master bathroom. I like to use the shower for fermenting because the temperature stays pretty steady, it's out of the light for the most part, and if there is a spillover, it just goes right down the drain. I was a little worried when I checked on it yesterday morning, because there was no indication of fermentation. My fears, as it would turn out, were completely unfounded.

Yesterday afternoon, I peeked in on the beer again. Fermentation had started up in a big way. I've never had a batch of beer ferment this vigorously. The foam blew the top of the airlock off, and you could actually hear it fizzing and burping.

Last night, I noticed that I could hear the beer foaming away while I was lying in bed. That's right...I couldn't sleep because the beer was too noisy. Stupid noisy beer.

Music is Powerful

2007-03-15T11:49:00.000-06:00

I'm sure that anyone dropping by my blog is well aware of the ongoing fight between the corporate music giants and the few vehicles we have left by which we can hear genuinely good music and/or new and exciting artists. It goes without saying that we should not allow this to happen, and I'm sure that all of you have contributed in the grassroots campaign to save the music. The corporate-types who seek to control the music industry do so in many ways, and it's frustrating to me that artists who most deserve exposure will never get it through the "conventional" channels.

The man in the video linked below is named Jason Isbell. He's a member of Drive-By Truckers, and I consider him the most talented songwriter in that group (which is saying something.) He's had a solo album recorded for a couple of years now that has been in record company/legal limbo and subsequently unreleased. It's another example of how we can be denied truly exceptional music.

This song is called Dress Blues. It is beautiful, and it's giving me chills.

Spring Forward X2

2007-03-13T11:52:00.000-06:00

The weather here has been almost freakishly nice lately. March, typically, is a big snow month for us. This year, we've had temperatures in the fifties and sixties. It's been fun to get a reprieve from winter, but after last summer's wildfire scare I'm a little fearful of the coming fire season.

As we lost an hour Sunday, I gained a year. We had a quiet day at home, for the most part. My wife and I played tennis for an hour or so in the morning, until it degenerated into us just trying to hit one another with the tennis ball (as it always does). Then, the weather was nice enough that we could spend the entire afternoon in the backyard goofing off and listening to music on the patio.

I had purchased myself a new pair of sunglasses as a present to myself last week, but I was surprised to find that relatives had gifted me enough cash to buy something that I had previously filed under "unattainable and unnecessary extravagances." So, by Thursday or Friday, I will be the proud owner of a spiffy new keg system for my homebrew. I can't wait!

Or Maybe it's the Tremendous Body Odor

2007-03-09T11:01:00.000-07:00

I would estimate that at least one third of the times that we make plans to get together with friends, they end up cancelling and backing out on us. We'll arrange something, then they'll remember a previous engagement or something else will come up or whatever.

I wouldn't feel bad if it were just one set of acquaintances doing this, but it seems to be the same for anyone we hang out with.

I mean, hell, if we're that annoying just don't agree to the plans in the first place. It would save us a lot of planning and headaches. Often, it even costs us money, and that's annoying.

I can take this several ways, I guess. A.) Folks are secure enough with our friendship to feel that we won't be bothered by it. B.) We are doormats. C.) Our friends (or relatives, as the case may be) are inconsiderate jerks. D.) We are the lowest on the friendship totem pole E.) All of the above.

Well, it happened again. Bah. Hanging out at the house and watching a movie sounds like fun anyway.

Ghosts on VHS

2007-03-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

Part of the reason that my posts have been sparse lately is that I'm working on another project. Last weekend, we went to my parents' house for my grandmother's birthday. While we were there, I dug up a couple boxes of VHS tapes (old home movies.) Most of the tapes are of my brother's track races. There are also quite a few of my high school cross country and track races, a couple of my sister's swim meets, assorted piano recitals that my bro and sis did, our wedding video, and a few miscellaneous family events and gatherings. My goal is to get all of them converted and copied onto DVD.

As would be expected, there are a lot of things on these tapes that I'd forgotten about in the last 20 years. I've seen footage of my great uncle who died in 1989, my grandpa and my uncle who both passed away a couple of years ago, and a lot of footage of my brother growing up. There was footage of my friend Leshelle running hurdles. She was killed in a wreck in 1991. It's been interesting - alternately entertaining and very sad.

I'd forgotten how my brother intentionally mispronounced my sister's name for several years. I'd forgotten about how my uncle kept grabbing our brand-new video camera and surreptitiously filming his wife's ass. I'd forgotten about how another one of my poor doddering, senile great uncles had spent a good part of our wedding reception seeking out young women to hug. I'd forgotten about the piano recital where my eight-year-old brother finished his piece, stood up, took a bow, noticed his shoe was untied, tied his shoe right there onstage, then bowed again.

I'd also forgotten about how much my lack of competetive nature frustrated my parents. I'd never really gotten the impression at the time, but they had a tendency to be plenty critical of me. During a lot of my high school races, they can be heard on the camera: "He's not running very well, is he?" "Why doesn't he pick it up?" "He's just not doing ANYTHING." I'll admit that I probably could have pushed myself harder quite a bit of the time, but I never cared to. But, in my defense, during at least one of those races I remember getting blisters on my feet that covered nearly the entire sole of my right foot. Bad shoes, or something. I suppose that in order to be among the best, one has to have a special sort of drive that I fundamentally lack. That being said, what percentage of us can say we've run a half-mile in less than 2 minutes? A mile in 4:46? I've done both. So there.

I also copied the race where my brother broke the high school record for the mile run. That's the one I really wanted to preserve, as I fear the VHS tapes won't last forever. Perhaps I'll Youtube it.

Thankful for a Happy Marriage

2007-03-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

Last night, our friends The Possible Perverts invited us over to their house for pizza and beer. We've known them for about 4 years now, and have gotten to know them pretty well. They're both smart and funny, and can be a lot of fun to be around. Unfortunately, they have one of those confrontational marriages. There is a lot of friction in their relationship, and they like to butt heads with one another. Often, it's the kind of friendly scuffle that most married couples like to annoy one another with from time to time.

Yesterday evening was different. They were really fighting. Pointed verbal jabs and thinly veiled insults were flying back and forth at a pretty good clip. It was uncomfortable for us, and neither my wife nor I slept well last night.

It has to be difficult for them (and their children) to live in an environment like that. Threats of divorce have been bandied about the entire time we've known them, but always for stupid or childish reasons. I can understand this level of animosity if there is abuse, infidelity or even financial trouble, but their biggest conflicts are over ridiculous things.

I'm afraid I'm at my wit's end. I don't want to sever ties with the people who are probably our closest friends right now, but I don't want to see any more episodes like last night. Part of me wants to speak up and tell them to lay off of one another, but I know that would be disastrous. So, I guess we just wait it out and hope that it was an isolated occurrence.

(nah, I don't think so either.)

Reasons Adulthood Bites #347

2007-02-28T13:18:00.000-07:00

We got a little money back from the IRS. Not a huge amount, mind you, but a bit. The trouble is that our house needs some new shingles and we're going to use it for that instead of buying a dune buggy or something.

Because I Was Awake Too Early, That's Why

2007-02-22T08:44:00.001-07:00

I find that there's a fine line between early morning and the middle of the freaking night. This "morning" I managed to find myself on the wrong side of the division line. We had a shipment scheduled here at 4:00 AM, so I was up and at 'em at 2:45. That, folks, is not morning - even for me.

I haven't really felt much like writing for a while now. I'm not sure why. Could be that I'm just not feeling terribly interesting. I've been a bit under the weather for most of this week, so that's part of it.

I'm starting to feel a bit better today, so I've got THAT going for me.
We're in the midst of preparing for another visit from the in-laws this weekend. Pray for ptooey.

Perils of the Digital Age

2007-02-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

A year or so ago, we had a computer crash on us. Bear in mind that in our house we have "several" redundancies in that department, so it shouldn't have been a big deal. But this one happened to have a lot of our digital photos on it. Basically, every picture we had taken of A from birth to about 3 years was on this thing, so it was more than a bit of a bummer.

The computer in question had a power supply basically blow up, and the mother board was nice and toasty. I had pulled out the hard drive at the time and stuck it in a drawer. I cannibalized what I could off of the machine and sort of forgot about the HDD.

Yesterday I was in one of the local office stores, and saw an external hard drive case. I picked it up and plunked the drive from our deceased machine into it.

Lo and behold, we have all of our photos back! I'm going to make copies of all of our stuff on another drive and burn a couple of DVDs of them. This isn't going to happen again.

Therapy

2007-02-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

Fifty degrees outside
Windows rolled down
Driving down the street
1200 watts of Rockford Fosgate to the ears

To A on Her 4th

2007-02-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

So, tomorrow you turn four years old. It's been a ride with you, you know. You have added to my already impressive collection of gray hairs during the last couple of years.

I say without hesitation that you may be the most interesting person I've ever known. You are truly an individual. I'm sure it will be an issue in your future, but take my word for it - the world needs a few oddballs.

Your quick wit and fierce intelligence frustrate your sister even more than your parents. Sometimes you just flat-out baffle her. You are a thinker, and she doesn't really have time for things like that. I didn't really expect it, but I think you've managed to be the catalyst for her in a lot of matters of learning. I don't think she would be trying to learn to tell time if you hadn't figured it out first. Also, I'm pretty sure you read disturbingly well. I think you have been able to do so for several months, but for some reason you prefer not to let the cat out of the bag. Last summer, you asked your mom if she had finished reading the novel 'The Blue Nowhere.' You asked her by title, and she knows you had not been told the title of the book. It's scary, A. Really scary.

You spent a couple of years honing your verbal skills before you could be bothered to learn how to move your body to navigate this world. Up until just a few months ago, you preferred to be carried, you would lean or prop against anything instead of standing. You have had a pretty good share of accidents that have nearly given your mom heart failure. You burned your hands badly on the fireplace when you were just learning to walk. You've bashed your head into so many things that I have threatened to permanently put a helmet on you. Then there's the tooth. Your poor tooth. It finally surrendered this October after at least 4 major collisions. Thankfully, you seem to be gaining the upper hand on gravity.

But what you have lacked in coordination you have more than made up for in an unsettling level of eloquence. You talk a lot. Constantly, really. The practicing has made you extremely articulate. It was about six months ago that you asked so many questions that your mom finally asked you to be quiet for a few minutes. You replied "But mom, I'm just being inquisitive." I don't know that there are too many 3 year olds who can use the word inquisitive in a sentence. Your mom and I have both been overwhelmed at times by the amount of your talking. It's such a constant presence that we liken it to a loud mechanical drone which sometimes makes it difficult to concentrate. We've done some pretty stupid things because we can't keep our train of thought on the rails while your monologue continues.

You were the most easygoing baby. You slept well, you ate well, you hardly cried at all. This was especially good for your mom, because I was gone for most of your first six months. When you were about a year and a half old, you got to be more assertive. Since then, you have been HIGHLY opinionated. It's been a struggle at times, but we've all managed. I don't think that you complain as much as you used to, but I would estimate that you voice your displeasure over something at least every 5 minutes.

You are also a homebody. That's something I can easily identify with. You don't like to leave the house for anything, no matter how cool or exciting it might be. It's okay. Most of the time, I don't either.

Your eating habits have been a challenge for us too. You don't really like to eat meals, only snacks. And you have interesting taste in food. You like the sweet. You like the grease. We once watched you dip a Frito in the whipped cream filling of a Ding Dong snack cake. That's just wrong.

It's going to be very interesting to watch you develop over the next few years. I couldn't tell you how many times your preschool teachers or parents of your classmates have remarked about how much they like you. You are a charmer, despite yourself. You're an amazing little person, and as much as I complain about your quirks, I sincerely hope you don't change.

Just So You Know

2007-02-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

A recent visitor to my little blog was referred here by Google when they entered the search string 'dorito super bowel.'

I'm second from the top for that particular query.

The Trick is in the Breathing and Throwing

2007-01-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to a lot of Drive-By Truckers lately. It's good music, with a lot of the elements that I enjoy: You can't really tell if it's country or rock or what, the melodies are catchy, musicianship is top-notch, and the lyrics are deceptively clever.

They have three songwriters, so the songs themselves can vary pretty wildly in tone and style. Today I happened to pay attention to the lyrics of a tune off of their latest disc called "World of Hurt."

So if what you have is working for you, or you think that it can stand a reasonable chance, and whatever's broken seems fixable and nothing's beyond repair
If you still think about each other and smile before you remember how screwed up it's gotten or maybe dream of a time less rotten
Remember, it ain't too late to take a deep breath and throw yourself into it with everything you got

It's great to be alive

Word.

Simple Pleasures

2007-01-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite happenings in the week leading up to the Super Bowl is when I see an advertisement or sign that reads "Super Bowel." It seems to happen every year, but so far I haven't spotted it.

I'll keep you posted.

I've Gotta Start Having a Subject in Mind Before I Start Typing

2007-01-26T09:48:00.000-07:00

Wow, I don't know where the time goes sometimes. Both of the kids are doing dance classes, my wife is taking a class, and I've been under an avalanche of work. It's nice to stay busy, but a tad hectic.

We're headed to visit our respective parents again this weekend. It's A's 4th birthday next Saturday, so we're going to have her "family" birthday get-together in conjunction with my mom's which is this Sunday. I'm also going to set up a wireless router for my parents brand-new broadband internet connection. That should be interesting.

I've been busy around the house, too. We are nearly finished with the basement bathroom from hell. Just a coat of stain and urethane on the trim around the tub, and some grout on a tile cap I installed on the half wall, and it's finished. I really was starting to wonder if we'd ever get it done! We also got rid of a pretty hideous loveseat that I've been carting around for about 15 years. We replaced it with a nice little desk that the kids can play computer games or do homework on. Our dog, Sadie, was the only being in the house that used the loveseat, and she's pretty miffed at us. She's going to have to learn to cope.

Meanwhile, my mood has improved somewhat over the last couple of days. I guess I've learned a few things about myself this month, so that's got to be a good thing.

I also found out that the kid who was the driver of the truck the killed my brother and his friends is having a parole review hearing in the near future. He's also probably going to be transferred to a minimum security facility that is only a couple of miles from my parents' house. That's bad juju, I'm thinking.

The Boom/Bust Rollercoaster Meets the Heavenly Telephone Repairman

2007-01-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

The economy of my home state is heavily dependent on the mineral industry. As a result, there is a very exaggerated boom/bust cycle. The last real energy boom for our state petered out in the early eighties, meaning I've lived most of my life in a depressed economy.

When I was in grade school, I remember years where the class size would reduce by nearly half over the course of the school year as people lost their jobs and moved from the area. We had close family friends who lived in Jeffrey City, so I got to witness a ghost town happening.

Right now, we're at the opposite end of the cycle. Economic times here are as good as I've ever seen. People actually have money. Well, not me, but I KNOW people who have money. Home prices have more than doubled since we moved back in 1998. New houses are being built as quickly as possible due to the large numbers of people moving to the area.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
C had mentioned a couple of weeks ago that her class was to have a new student. He came to class for the first time yesterday. His family moved from Bakersfield, CA. His mother has never lived outside of California, and she has never driven in the snow before. My wife visited with her a little bit yesterday while picking C up from school. The new student's mother actually asked if my wife could pick her son up and drive him to school because she was too afraid to drive on the snowpacked streets. While I suppose that it would be a bit of an adjustment to get used to the snow, it seems like it would be far harder for me to put my child in the car with a complete stranger than it would be to make an adjustment in my driving habits.

The lady called my wife on the phone last night to finalize plans. While visiting, the new kid's mom happened to mention that she was afraid that she'd be unable to call because her phone had been malfunctioning. Apparently, she had prayed that the phone start to work and it finally did. Yes, Divine Providence fixes broken phones.

I Don't Need No Stinkin' Cohesion

2007-01-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

I decided that I needed a change this morning and shaved off the moustache that I'd worn almost continuously for nearly 16 years. When my wife saw it, she asked "WHAT HAPPENED?!" It's going to take me a while to get used to it. It might take her even longer, as she really hasn't seen me much without it. She did mention that she'd forgotten about the scar on my upper lip (I fell onto the corner of a metal toolbox when I was a toddler).

There had been a big scare here at my workplace a couple of months ago when upper management had threatened to close our location down due to lower than expected productivity. I don't work in production, so I'm pretty much at the mercy of whatever trend the demand for our product tends to follow. There's apparently been a major turnaround. I read some very good news yesterday that will probably guarantee my job security for years into the future. So I've got THAT going for me.

We had six head of deer in our front yard yesterday evening. I think all of the wind and blowing snow got them confused, and they were headed into town. It was pretty neat to see. Unfortunately, it looked like one of them had recently been hit by a car. But, she was getting around well enough, so it may have just been superficial.

Not too much on tap for the weekend. I'm going to try to make a run to Home Depot to pick up some sort of millwork to finish off a cap on the half-wall in our basement bathroom project from hell, as well as some sort of corner molding to finish off the tub surround. Oh, and football. Gotta watch some football.

I Feel Ripped Off

2007-01-17T05:05:00.000-07:00

The chunks at the bottom of that photo were in a bag of Doritos that I was munching on with lunch yesterday. The weight on the bag of chips was advertised as 15 7/8 ounces, and the chunks of seasoning weighed 2 ounces.

Maybe somebody's trying to tell me to cut down on the tortilla chips.

Sometimes the Past Dredges Itself Up

2007-01-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

I heard a song yesterday that reminded me of her. I suppose that I've really only loved two women. The Green-Eyed Girl was the first.

Clear back in elementary school, she was my sister's best friend. She was a tiny blonde girl who talked a lot. She was over at our house often, and she and my sister remained virtually inseperable until they were in high school.

My sister goes through phases. When she decides that she's through with an image, she often discards her friends as well. When she was a sophomore, she apparently decided that The Green-Eyed Girl didn't fit the image she wanted to portray, so she stopped calling her.

I was a couple years older. I'd been dating a girl for a couple of months, but she dumped me after I broke a date to visit a friend in the hospital after he'd had a car accident. I figured she'd understand. I was wrong.

The Green-Eyed Girl asked me for a ride to lunch one afternoon. We went and had a great time. Up to that point, I'd never really considered her dating material, but she was cute as hell and my sister didn't seem to want to hang out with her anymore. I asked her if she wanted to see a movie, and she accepted.

For the next nine months, we did the things that high school sweethearts do. She was very pleasant company and had a wild streak a mile wide. Her dad taught shop and built houses in his spare time. Her mom was a nurse. Neither one of her parents was around much, and they essentially left her to mind her two younger siblings. I think that the increased responsibility of being a sort of second mother coupled with her absentee parents made her needy and attention-starved. She wanted attention any way she could get it, and in my hormone-crazed teenage state I was happy to provide attention. Given the way things would go for her in just a couple of years, I still feel guilty about that. But, she was a knockout.She was wild.She looked amazing in that little cheerleader uniform.She liked to leave the lights on.She didn't care who was in the front seat of the car. It didn't matter to her that her parents were upstairs, or that the parking lot was full of people.

I left for college the next fall. At the time, she planned to go to a different college out of the state, so we just sort of decided that we would part ways. She visited me at college once, then...it just fizzled. I met the woman that I would marry that year and that was pretty much the end of The Green-Eyed Girl and me.

Her plans to escape the state for college fell through. She attended good old UW, and started hanging around with my sister again. They did wildly irresponsible things and took great risks. The Green-Eyed Girl was pregnant before she finished her freshman year. I visited her in the hospital after she had her daughter. It was one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had. Her parents were in the room, as well as her little brother and sister. The baby was in a basinette beside the hospital bed. Among the many thoughts racing through my head at the time was the sobering realization that things could have been very different. It could have been mine.

She gave the baby up for adoption and resumed classwork. The next year she was pregnant again. She dropped out of school, eventually marrying the father.

The last time I saw her was at my brother's funeral five years ago. She had aged considerably and was a bit heavier, but still gorgeous. She seemed happy. I'm glad that she was able to pull back from the tailspin. She and her family have since moved far away. I know that she stays in touch with my sister, but since I don't stay in touch with my sister I don't get much news.

I pulled out the few photos I have of The Green-Eyed Girl this morning. Seventeen years have passed. A lifetime. I honestly don't think we would have worked together even under different circumstances. There were too many differences between us. But I still think about her occasionally, and I'm thankful for those few months.

I Can't Believe I Haven't Posted for a Week!

2007-01-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

Oh, what a week!

The big inspection finished up last Thursday. I'm pretty happy with the results. They found some stuff (they ALWAYS find some stuff), but it was nothing serious. I put in three 14-hour days last week, so I was pretty ready for the weekend.
Saturday, we had two extra kids around the house. My wife's friend N had a continuing education class all day, and her husband was stuck in Dallas due to the ice storm. Their two little girls are very, very close in age to ours, so they get along really well. They all had a good time, but by the end of the day, my ears were getting a little sore. I boiled up 5 gallons of homebrewed red ale Saturday afternoon, so I've got something to look forward to in a few weeks.

Yesterday was deemed home improvement day. I spent a good chunk of the day cutting ceramic tile for some of the finishing touches on our basement bathroom from hell project. Using a wet saw in an unheated garage when it's below zero outside is no fun at all, and I don't think my fingers have warmed back up yet. But, there are just a few little things to finish, and the bathroom will be done. At last.

It's slowly warming up a little bit outside. We haven't gotten much above 10 degrees F since last Wednesday. It's supposed to be almost 20 today, but the wind has picked up again, and it's blowing all of the snow around.

My wife and I have this somewhat unusual business arrangement/friendship with a wealthy doctor and his wife here in town. The doctor is a former employer of mine, and my wife has done bookkeeping and general toadying (is that a word?) for both of them for seven or eight years. They are very nice people, but can be very high maintenance. Last month, the doctor's wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had surgery last week, and the biopsy results were not good. Downright scary would probably be closer to the truth. Stupid cancer.

Meanwhile, the mood really hasn't improved much. Have you ever heard the term "fear of impending doom?" I think I've got that. I mean, even more than I usually do.

Fear of impending doom. Yup.

Blah Blah Blah

2007-01-08T13:38:00.001-07:00

Still feeling pretty blah today.

I'll probably be scarce for much of this week during our big inspection. These things usually spell 14 hour days for me.

The weekend was pretty exciting by our standards. I had to replace a leaking faucet on our kitchen sink. This is a job that should have taken 20 minutes, but somehow managed to stretch out to nearly four hours due to supply lines being too short or leaking, fittings being different sizes, and all of the other disasters that pop up when doing home improvement.

We also bought my wife her first ever brand new laptop computer yesterday. It's very nice, and that brings the tally of working computers in our house to five. That's right, we have more computers than people.

We rule.

OnWHEEEEEEEE!!!!!

2007-01-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

I really haven't felt like my usual chipper self for the last couple of days. There's no good reason for it. Things have been going very well for me, I'm just out of sorts.

I'm finding myself bored with my job, which hasn't happened since my last job change. It's not that anything on the work front has changed, I just haven't been happy with it for a couple of weeks. I thought that taking time off around the holidays would help my attitude, but it really seems to have exacerbated the situation. To top it off, we have a major inspection scheduled next week. My apathy probably won't help that very much at all.

And, while my family life remains very satisfying, I feel sort of alone. I'm extraordinarily lucky that my wife is my best friend. But, most days she and the kids are the only people I speak to outside of the workplace. Our friends The Possible Perverts have been at each others' throats again, threatening divorce for the third time in a year by my count. A nice get-together with them is pretty much out of the question.

My wife thinks that I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. I don't know if it's anything that serious, but at this point I can't figure out how to approach the problem. I went for a nice run outside in the sunshine on New Year's Eve, which definitely helped. For the last couple of days, the skies have been dreary, and the wind has picked up again. More of the same is on tap for the weekend, so it looks like time outside really won't help much.

This too shall pass, I suppose.

Freecycle Fun, Chapter 3

2007-01-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

Wanted -
Buck goat

I don't wanna know.

Happy New Year/Reading Too Much Into It?

2007-01-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

And so, blog o' mine, we begin another year. I have reached that point where the changing of the years goes by like flipping through the pages of a book. Last year was a pleasant blur of activity, and I'm hoping for a repeat.

We have adopted a tradition of ringing in the new year by staying in and cooking dim sum. This year we had paper wrapped chicken, steamed dumplings, broccoli salad and a bottle of Korbel. It's not terribly exciting, I guess, but it's what we do.

Friends of ours had asked us over to their house New Year's Eve, but they ended up getting stuck in the middle of Nebraska in an ice storm and had to cancel. Probably for the best, really. For starters, we really do prefer to stick to our own little routine. Also, when we last spoke to them they insisted that it would be safest for us to stay overnight at their house (probably true), and that they had bought a special bottle of wine for the occasion - Folie à Deux Winery's Ménage à Trois Red.

I hadn't really given it a second thought. My wife brought it up yesterday and says that she's still weirded out by it and will have a hard time looking them in the eye the next time she sees them. Regardless of their intentions, I think the comedic potential here is notching up.

Happy New Year, all. May your year be happy, healthy, and free from sorrow!

Uncharacteristic Introspection

2006-12-27T13:38:00.000-07:00

I've never been one to make New Year's resolutions. I sort of take life like a constant opportunity for self-improvement. Whether any of us take the opportunity is another matter, but the opportunity is always present.

But, I suppose that the passing into a new year does inevitably lead to some self-examination. I've been doing a bit of that over the last couple of days, and I think I have found some things that I need to work on.

It may surprise some of you (particularly those of you who have met me), but when I was a child, I was very shy. PAINFULLY, extremely shy. I grew up relatively isolated, and the adjustment to a more social atmosphere was difficult for me. For the most part, I became able to approach people by the time I was 16 or 17. Before that, it was nearly impossible.

While I will never be a particularly gregarious person, I am now able to meet new people, have conversations without stammering, and I don't live in constant fear of judgement. However, I think that one of the last vestiges of that shyness is that I often find myself unable to ask for things that I really want, or even things that I am due. It happens in both professional and in personal situations. I tell myself that it would be a bother for the other person, that I should probably just do it myself, that it would be too selfish of me to ask, etc., etc.

It's not that I want to make extravagant selfish demands, but I think I might be a bit happier if I could occasionally just go ahead and ask. Or delegate. Or command, if need be.

Too Tired to Think in a Linear Fashion

2006-12-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

Well, we survived it. There were three visits with the in-laws during the last 2 weeks, and we made it through with no casualties. Christmas was the usual amount of kidchaos, but I think they had a good time.
I finally convinced my parents to spring for broadband internet. I didn't think it would ever happen.
I think I slept roughly an hour and 45 minutes last night. I don't know why. The father-in-law brought a huge prime rib roast yesterday. Perhaps it's beef poisoning.
I am wiped the heck out today.
Go toss Mitchell a few bucks, would ya? He's just that good. I checked into it. Artists using the MyMusicBlaster service that he has linked on his myspace site get 65% of the dough for the tunes purchased through the service. Unbeatable, as far as I'm concerned. Whether they think so or not, major labels really don't need the megabucks they're raking in. These unsigned artists are where it's at, and services like this WILL revolutionize the way music is marketed.

The radio outside my office is playing a Captain and Tennille song...I think I will go be sick now.

Today's Freecycle Fun

2006-12-20T07:56:00.000-07:00

Miniture Pinchers
I
have two 4 yr old Mini Pins, one mail (fixed) and one femail (fixed)

Whoo. Mail pinchers.

Weekend Redux

2006-12-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

My wife's parents came to town Saturday and took us to see the Moscow Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker. Now, I'm not a big fan of ballet. I suppose it's sort of wasted on me. I can appreciate the fact that it was very well done, and that the dancers were very talented, but I can't say that I really enjoyed it. I sat there for over two hours thinking things like:

-"*prance* *prance* *prance*"
-"I haven't watched Top Secret in a long time."
-"Whoa, that was pretty cool!"
-"Hey, that old lady has nachos. They sell nachos at the ballet?"
-"*flounce*"
-"I want some nachos."
-"Wow, I bet she could really..."
-"Heh. Sugarplum fairies."

But the kids enjoyed it, and the music was cool, so it wasn't a complete waste.

This was the second visit from the in-laws in just a couple of weeks, and I nearly reached the breaking point with her mother yesterday. She can be very critical, and it does get old. We sat through digs at my wife's cooking (my wife is an excellent cook, her mother absolutely does not cook at all), the snow tires I have stacked next to our back patio (I'm saving them to give back to my dad and don't have room in the garage), our house (not big enough, the basement windows are too small, etc., etc.), and our van (hard to get in and out of the back seat). I can put up quite a bit of these, because frankly I don't care much about her many opinions. But when she started in on the kids, I almost lost it.

One of my mother-in-law's more baffling (and infuriating) beliefs is that we can somehow "train" our youngest daughter to not be left-handed. When we were at a restaurant yesterday, the waitress set a bowl of applesauce to A's right side, and she used her right hand to hold the spoon and start eating. Because she usually makes a HUGE mess if she uses her right hand to eat, I asked her to switch hands and eat with her left. The MIL took issue with the fact that I wasn't letting her "choose" which hand to use, and that if we'd give her the opportunity to, she could learn to use her right hand just fine. I bit my tongue and let her spout off, but one of these days...

Outsider

2006-12-15T08:50:00.000-07:00

I find that with each passing year, I seem to get farther and farther away from what seems to be the U.S. societal norm.

We don't have cable or satellite television at our house. Other than football games, we very rarely watch broadcast television. We watch a lot of movies, but tend to stick to older sci-fi and horror flicks. My coworkers often converse about TV shows, and I give a lot of blank looks when they ask me about them.

This year, I've read an awful lot of the usual griping about Christmas letters. My wife compiles one each year and sends them to 10 or 15 of our friends and relatives. We genuinely enjoy receiving them from others, too. Yesterday, we got one letter from a family friend of my wife's, who got married about six months ago. She enclosed a photo of her new family. We also got one from a lady who went to high school with me who is expecting her first child in April. I don't hear from these people often, so I really like to get these updates. Where's the harm in that?

Last week, I saw an ad in the paper for someone hosting a Botox party. Kee-ripes, people. That's beyond the pale as far as I'm concerned.

And then, this morning, I read Mist1's guest post for MaidenNewYork. I. Am. Speechless.

Both Joyful AND Triumphant

2006-12-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'll readily admit that I can be extremely juvenile and petty. Just keep that in mind.

I occasionally satisfy my inner 14 year old by flipping the bird to any missionary walking down the street who waves at me when I drive by. It just annoys me when they wave like that. I know damned good and well it's a requirement for them, so it's inherently insincere. Last week, I indulged myself in a rude gesture at a pair walking up the street a couple of blocks from my house.

My wife stated from the passenger seat: "You're certainly full of the Christmas spirit."

Yes. Yes I am. I am SO full of it.

Oh, It Blows Alright

2006-12-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

It's almost alive. It whistles and howls, clatters, smashes, thuds, shrieks and slaps. It is always there. You step out of the house and it's the first thing you sense. You can't sleep at night because it's crashing into the house. No matter how tightly you batten down the hatches, it sneaks into the house and you can feel its chill seeping through the windows, doors, even electrical outlets.

Garbage cans roll around the streets, sometimes traveling blocks at a time nearly as fast as the cars. A few trees have remnants of plastic grocery bags hanging high in the branches, whipping like ribbons.

Everyone you see leans against it.

You must be careful when you open your car doors. Aim the front of the car into it. NEVER open more than one door at a time.

When it does snow, it will drift quickly, leaving bare patches of dirt. The bare dirt will be picked up and thrown on top of the snowdrifts, leaving them crusty and brown.

It will be here until April or May.

My Brain is on Vacation or Something

2006-12-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

It's not as though I haven't had ideas for blogging, you know. I've had plenty of ideas. I've started posting on why I choose to run for exercise/recreation (recxercise?), the time I got to meet James McMurtry, the funny game C and Lucinda the pug have been playing, the impending holiday season and my wife's inevitable freakout due to it, how I seem to have stopped doing all of my former hobbies, how my boss seems to have forgotten that I exist, the anticipation of possibly receiving cheese as a Christmas gift, weekend plans... Heck, I'd even thought about a post regarding how seemingly harmless childhood or adolescent remarks have caused us all trauma (in reference to a post Alithinks had a bit ago).

But I can't seem to formulate a coherent post. I mean, not even up to MY usual standards, which is sad.

So I'll just sit here and drool on my keyboard for a while, I guess.

Have a good weekend!

nollij is powr

2006-12-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

Actual conversation:

- "Cute shar-pei. What's his name?"
- "His name is Wrinkles, but we call him Wrinkie-Joe for short."

I Swear, Some Days...

2006-12-05T13:06:00.000-07:00

Today started like any other. I went downstairs to our little exercise area and set out to lift weights. I was about halfway through my workout, about to finish doing some lat presses, when the bar came crashing into the back of my head. After standing up, swearing, touching the growing bump on my noggin and swearing again, I looked at the machine to see what had happened. The bolt that secures the weight plates to the cable system had somehow worked its way loose. I swore at it, then tried to fix it, but the cable had wound around one of the pulleys in such a way that couldn't free it without a wrench. So I swore at it. Then I decided to skip the weights and do some situps. Every time my head touched the floor, it hit right on the spot where the bar had whacked me. Every time this happened, I swore.

I finished those and went back upstairs to make some coffee. I switched on the light in the range hood like I do every day, and the bulb popped and burned out. I swore at it, then went to find a light bulb. We were out. I swore at their absence.

I managed to get through making coffee, showering, and eating breakfast without incident.

I spilled coffee in my lap on the way to work. As you might imagine, I swore.

I'd ask for a do-over, but I'm not sure I want that either.

Stick This in Your Ear

2006-12-01T13:41:00.001-07:00

Oh sure, I know my free music recommendations have gone over like a lead balloon here, but I'm not going to let that stop me.

Rexway invites you to download every song they ever recorded. For free.

So there.

honk honk honk

2006-11-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

I'm not a big fan of pop music. Okay, that may be a gross understatement. Top 40-type songs are, in general, pretty lame.

The place where I work has radio piped throughout the main part of the building. Thankfully, I don't usually have to listen as I can hide in my office with my own music playing.

Today, I've had to spend a good bit of time where the radio is playing, and it's starting to get under my skin. Yes, the songs are every bit as vapid as usual, but something new has apparently become popular. I've heard two songs (at least, I think they're two different songs) using what sounds to me like a bicycle horn for percussion. It's almost as if they're intentionally trying to be irritating, just to see if people will buy it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, and I've been informed that I owe Sopie an apology. To be honest, I'm not really sure which of my witty (heh) comments is the one that tipped the scale. But, if I crossed the line with any (or all) of them, I am genuinely sorry.

Real Live Customer Service

2006-11-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

I had the strangest thing happen last week.

I had recently renewed my subscription to Paste magazine*, online. My payment was processed through, but after a couple of months I received notice that my subscription had expired.

I called their customer service number and was connected almost immediately with one of their representatives. She was pleasant, well-spoken, and helpful. In less than 5 minutes, she found out what had happened, said she would fix it, and took my phone number in case there were any problems.

I just checked this afternoon and found that she had kept her word, and my subscription has been extended appropriately. That's the first time in YEARS that I've not had a fight when calling one of those customer service numbers, so YAY PASTE!

*If you're a music fan, and you're not familiar with Paste, click that link. Have a look around their site. You'll be hooked.

Freecycle Freeloadin'

2006-11-27T09:42:00.000-07:00

I have to check out the Freecycle postings every day. It's not because I'm in need of anything in particular, but the posts can be so entertaining.

New for today (all are, of course, sic):

Offer: toliet
We just replaced our toliet with a handicapped toliet, so we have our old one to give away.

Needed
I am in need of either a loveseat or about 4 cinder blocks.

Needed: TV
TV, any size above 27", Color. Remote Controll not needed

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and toliet is the sun!

Either or, eh?. Wow. How are you going to make that work?

Y'know. It's bad enough that a person NEEDS a television, but NEEDING a large TV specifically? Ehh. Beggars/choosers.

Found in Today's Classified Ads

2006-11-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

TIBETAN YAK. Registered, breeding stock, Wooly, Imperial and Royal. 232-XXXX

Christmas is coming up, and I have found what I want.

Nemesis

2006-11-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

For three and a half years now, we've fought. We've quibbled nearly every time we've tried to work together. I can't understand why it's been so difficult for you to cooperate. It seemed that even the simplest tasks have been beyond your capability. At times, these encounters have almost become physically violent.

It was inevitable that you would eventually be given your walking papers. I just don't know why it took so long for someone to finally decide that they'd had enough of your belligerance.

I met your replacement today. They are everything you were not. Eager, straightforward, efficient. Yes, I think we'll get along fine.

Yes, we've got a new copier now. You can eat it, Pitney Bowes DL200.

To C on Her 7th

2006-11-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

As years go, 1999 was pretty good for me. I was back living where I wanted to live after a couple of years in Colorado. Your mom and I bought a nice house, and we had decent jobs. We had a little convertible and spent a lot of time driving around with the top down, and the tunes cranked. Life was good.

It got better when I found out I was going to be a dad. I will remember the moment I found out for the rest of my life.

You entered our life seven years ago today, and changed our whole world. It was the warmest November on record. The week before you were born, the temperatures were in the 70s. I wore a t-shirt with no jacket when I drove your mom to the hospital.

You were smaller than we expected, but you were perfect. You were never shaped like a baby. We had a hard time finding clothes that fit you because you weren't a compact little stubby-chubby like other babies. You were thin, and had looooooong arms (and even longer legs) that didn't quite fit into those footed baby outfits.

From the moment you were born, you have been in motion. It barely stops when you sleep. You have more energy than anyone I've ever met, and that is saying something. You have always had extraordinary coordination and a knack for athletic activities. Yesterday, you gushed that you got to do the coolest thing in gym class where you ran from one side to the other over and over again. You were excited that you got to do windsprints!

You never want to miss any excitement - even if it means skipping sleep. When you were a baby, we didn't sleep much. Sometimes the only thing that worked was to set you on top of the washing machine in your bouncy chair. Sometimes we had to put you in the pickup truck and drive around. I spent a couple of nights on your bedroom floor. I put you in your windup swing and slept while it rocked you. You'd wake up when it stopped, I'd wind it again, and we'd sleep for a few more minutes.

You were your mom's girl for the first three years. There were times that you wouldn't even let me hold you. That changed shortly before your sister was born. I got to stay home with you for a couple of months, and you decided that you could be my buddy. Even though those were really stressful months, I'm very glad that I got to hang around with you and gain your acceptance.

When I had to leave for six months for work, it hurt us both a lot more than we realized at the time. They initially told me it was only going to last for 2 or 3 months. I told my boss that he had to find a way to get me back home when we woke you up for your mom to take me to the airport and you cried. You asked me how many more mornings we had to do this, and if you could wear your special socks with the stars on them. Out of all of these seven years, that was the time where I felt I had failed you the most.

You seem to have inherited your father's penchant for thrillseeking. It's a wonder you haven't given your mother a heart attack on a couple of occasions. She still talks about the time you dragged your little plastic slide up to the top of the big slide on the swingset and she stopped you before you could ride the little slide down the big slide. And yet, you almost never get hurt. How do you do that?

You are a very bright little girl. You do well in school, and we're very proud of that. But even more than that, we're proud of your giving nature. Every teacher you've had has remarked on how empathetic and genuinely caring you are toward others. That's a very special gift, especially for one so young.

I feel that it's your mom's and my greatest accomplishment that you are a secure and confident person. I'm so glad you have graced our lives with your presence, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for you.

Happy birthday, munchkin.

To the Guy Driving Behind Me

2006-11-16T07:10:00.000-07:00

Yeah, hi there. I see you're in a hurry. No need to drive that closely, you know. It won't make me go any faster. Yes, I realize that I'm driving the speed limit. I have my reasons. Care to hear them?

My brother and my sister-in-law were both killed in vehicles. My grandfather died from complications following a car wreck. My dad was in the car with him. I was 2 years old at the time.

I watched in my rearview mirror as my sister plowed her Oldsmobile Omega straight into a guardrail at 60 mph. See, she reached down to get her cigarettes from the floor of the car and accidentally jerked the wheel to the right. She lucked out. She got out without a scratch.

The speed limit is 30 mph on this street. That's as fast as you can legally drive here. It's also what the street was designed for. See, when engineers design streets and roads, they place signs and traffic controls in a certain way relative to the speed that cars will supposedly be travelling. You kinda throw a wrench in the works when you drive 45 mph in a 30 mph zone.

See that big building off to the right? That's an elementary school.

About 12 or 13 years ago, I was driving up a residential street a lot like this one. I saw a ball come rolling out from between 2 parked cars and slammed on the brakes. I missed the little boy who came running after that ball by no more than half a foot. If I had been travelling any faster, I would have hit that little boy.
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It's funny. I love to drive, but cars scare the living hell out of me. I managed to make it through my wild teen years without any automotive disasters, which is a miracle. I've only been in 2 accidents in my entire life, and both times were when the person behind me was unable to stop because they were driving too fast on slick roads. Neither one amounted to much more than a scratch on my bumper.

This morning, on the way to work, I picked up the inevitable tailgater. I don't break the speed limit when I drive. As a result, I almost always have another car following too closely.I fully realize that this annoys everyone else on the road, but I'm sticking to this strategy. The person this morning was REALLY close - close enough that sometimes I couldn't see their headlights in my rearview mirror. When I turned onto a 5-lane street, they roared past. I watched them as they weaved in and out of cars, ran a stoplight, turned left right in front of an oncoming car, and pulled into the parking lot of my workplace. See, after all that effort, and endangering who-knows-how-many people, they never made it out of my sight. They made it to the same place I was going no more than 10 seconds before I did.

Folks, it isn't worth it. Leave earlier. Slow down. There are no valid reasons for driving like that.

The Name Game Revisited

2006-11-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

Name fads are weird. Anyone remember the -ette suffix fad from 30 or 40 years back?

I've known a Bernadette, a Collette, an Inette, a Trinette, a Dawnette, several Jeanettes, a Paulette, a Johnette, and I'm sure dozens of others that aren't immediately springing to mind. One particularly good-humored lady mentioned above said that she considered herself lucky not to have been named Kitchenette or Dinette.

I lived in a trailer park during the early to mid-1990s. At that point, I was convinced that every single girl under the age of 14 was named either Britney or Amber.

Said a Give

2006-11-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

A had her tooth extracted yesterday. The procedure went quickly and smoothly. I asked her last night whether it felt better or worse with the tooth gone, and she didn't hesitate a moment before saying it hurt a lot less now.

My wife found her a special T-shirt to wear to the dentist's office. It has a stick figure tripping and falling, with the caption "I do all my own stunts." It was a hit with everyone at the office, and I can't think of anything more appropriate for her to wear. We should buy her several of them.

One thing we did find out was that she is a mean drunk. Prior to the procedure, she was given Versed, and then waited a few minutes before being taken back to the chair for the extraction.

My wife waited in the waiting room. A little boy about A's age who had also been sedated was brought out after his procedure. He was full of love. He told the nurse that he loved her. He told the receptionist that he loved her. He told his parents that he loved them.

A was brought out just a few minutes later. She threw punches. She bit. She was belligerent.

My wife brought her home, and tried to keep her occupied while the sedative wore off. While lying in bed, she looked up, bleary-eyed, at my wife and said "YOU HAVE 4 NOSE-HOLES!!!" Then she stuck her finger up Mom's nose as she counted. "1...2...3....4!!!"

She was quickly shoved away after she said "YOU HAVE THREE EYES!!!"

One of the Good Ones

2006-11-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

Our friend Sherry e-mailed us yesterday. She's getting married next spring! It was, of course, very nice to hear from her. But even more so, it was nice to get good news from someone who has had so much bad news.

Sherry was widowed before she turned 30. As it turns out, she has proven herself to be a deceptively strong person.

After her husband died, Sherry went through quite a rough patch (understandably). She didn't eat. She broke down. A lot. She turned her life around quickly, though.

Without question, she is one of those people who use their faith for strength. Given our difference in opinion on the subject, this led to a few late-night Long Island iced tea-fueled discussions of religion on our back patio. Civil discussions, of course. She is accepting of my heathen ways, albeit as baffled by my views as I am of hers. In a semi-sadistic way, I miss these discussions. Moreso, I miss having a friend right across the street. I miss hearing her bellering at her dog when the idiot animal took off running from the front door (I have considered asking the new owners of her house to periodically and randomly shout the name BESS!!! at the top of their lungs.)

She moved away from Casper a couple of years ago to start her own hair salon. Things have gone well for her, and apparently the man she will marry is the electrician who did the wiring in her salon. They will both be back in Casper this weekend for Veteran's Day, which will be nice. I hope it's smooth sailing for her from now on out. She deserves it.

Where'd Everybuddy Go?

2006-11-06T11:35:00.000-07:00

I suppose it's the time of year that kicks me into "contemplative and nostalgic" mode. I really see no other reason. Lately, I've spent a lot of time thinking about old friends that I've lost touch with.

At this point in my life, I'm left with very few people who I consider close friends. There are a couple of people that I hang out with occasionally, and folks from work who I chat with, but nothing like the relationships that I've had in the past. Of course, most of this is due to family life. There's no way I could be closer to anyone than my wife and daughters, but that's not to say that I don't miss having close friends outside the home.

I'm not a particularly difficult person to get along with (I hope), but I admit that I'm a bit eccentric, and people often find me strange. That fact doesn't bother me, as I find people who are about half a bubble off of level to be more interesting, anyway. The personality itself does make it difficult to meet people with similar interests and viewpoints.

There was a period in my life where I moved a lot. Shortly after we were married, my wife and I spent no more than 18 months in any one house for a period of nearly five years. That made it very difficult to remain in contact with friends we already had. Combine that with our friends making their own moves, and we simply don't know where everyone is now.

I miss them. I miss some of them a lot. I wonder what they're doing. I wonder what their kids are like. I wonder if they're still the same people I knew. I wonder if they think about me.

Green-eyed Girl - I hope you found the attention and the security you craved so desperately. You were always a genuinely special person. I hope you realize that.

Danger - I hope for your own sake that you slowed down. I've never met anyone so completely at peace with being out of control.

Best Man - I hope you never let her walk all over you.

BTC2 - I can't believe you're still together. I'm sorry if anything I said ever made you uncomfortable. It saddens me that we've lost touch so completely. I hope you both have all the happiness you could ask for.

Brewmeistress - I hope the voices have finally left you alone. Please don't hurt him.

BTC1 - It was nice to see you last summer. I wish I had more to say to you at the time. Take care of those girls!

Poet - Wow. P-freakin'-hD. I stumbled across your Livejournal a while back. Keep on writing!

Mr. Oones - Where the heck did you go? Toad told me he ran into you a while back. I hope your heart is still as large as the rest of you.

CeeZee - I hear you're a daddy now! And a salesman? I can see that.

Ugh - It occurred to me the other day that Z is old enough to drive now. That scares me on so many levels, you just wouldn't believe it.

Living the Dream

2006-11-02T12:03:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about my life's dreams this morning on the way to work. Given that I'm basically a simple creature, this is pretty much it for me. Right now, I've got pretty much everything I've ever truly wanted - good family, a house, and enough money to get by.

The catch is that I'd never really considered the stress angle of being the sole breadwinner of the household. Right now, my job is in jeopardy. It's nothing that will happen in the next couple of days, but the fact of the matter is that if a few things (all of which are, unfortunately, completely out of my control) don't change, I'll unemployed by this time next year.

I've been in this position before. The reality of working for a big corporation is such that at any minute of any given day, you can be handed your walking papers. It could be a merger, it could be a switch of departmental policy, it could be lack of profit, it could be spite. You just never know.

So here I am. I'll have to put up with the heavy feeling in my gut for the next few months until the situation resolves itself for better or for worse.

I'm good at my job. I went through extensive specialized training to do it. I spent half a year away from my family so that I could work here. All of that means nothing compared to the balance sheets and ledgers that all corporate drones are judged by, but it means a lot to me.

Yes, I realize it's only a job. The last time I went through this, I ended up far better. That's a given. But the uncertainty does weigh on a person.

I guess I'll keep plugging away, doing what I do. I'll let the bean counters do what they do, and they can figure out whether I continue living my dream or not.

ADHD Posting

2006-11-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

It was 7 degrees this morning. That makes for a brisk start to the day.

It fills me with pride that my oldest daughter can name all three of the Three Stooges on sight.

We took both daughters trick or treating around the neighborhood last night. A got more candy than C (SHHHHH, don't tell). I'm pretty sure this is because of her trouble pronouncing her 'R's. No one can resist the powers of "Twick or tweet."

I visited what used to be my favorite hangout on the web last night. It seems that every time I've done so recently, some random person has started an argument or slung an insult. Last night was no exception. It used to be a place that I frequented due to the attitude of acceptance and positive nature. That atmosphere is eroding, and it saddens me a little.

A will have her front tooth extracted next Wednesday. The pediatric dentist we saw yesterday was much more pleasant than her usual dentist. I believe we're going to try to switch both girls over to see her instead. The new dentist also has a lab tech who makes custom partials, so we can have A fitted for one later if we choose to. The other dentist was recommending we have both of her teeth removed "as a precaution." The new dentist sees no reason to do this.

I'm in a bit of a funk right now. I can't quite explain it. It could be that I was looking forward to my four day weekend so much and now it's gone.

Work is not going well. It's getting a bit scary.

If you haven't seen Marmaduke Explained yet, please give it a look. Then, laugh your @ss off.

Halloween

2006-10-31T13:01:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of posts lately. We've been busy.

If You've Got it, Flaunt It

2006-10-26T16:53:00.000-06:00

Both of the gentlemen who live in the houses directly across the street from us have sizable beer bellies. Coincidentally, they both spend a lot of time without their shirts on. Last evening, the southernmost of the two neighbors was standing in his living room, shirtless, facing the street for at least half an hour.

Why?

Unwanted Advice

2006-10-25T09:20:00.000-06:00

It happens to everyone, I'm sure. But I'm getting overtired of well-meaning people telling me how badly I'm screwing up and how I can fix it.

If I occasionally get a Snickers bar from the vending machine, I don't really need 2 or three overweight biddies telling me how many calories are in that thing. I ran 4 miles this morning, how about you?

Yes, I drink coffee. I drink a LOT of coffee. Yes, I am aware that I probably drink too much coffee, and I know all of the potential pitfalls of my addiction. Clear?

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On a completely unrelated note (heh), the NBC early news showed a graphic headline this morning reading something like "Such and Such Asks for the Withdrawl of Iraqi Troops"

"Y'all gwonnow. Git outta heeyah."

Chicken and Grumblings

2006-10-23T12:49:00.000-06:00

A person learns many, many things when they hang out with a three year old for a while. Over the weekend, A and I hung out together while my wife took C to a friend's birthday party. A spent about an hour cutting out little scraps of construction paper and gluing them to another sheet of paper. After a while, she told me that she had made a scarecrow. It was a pretty decent scarecrow, all things considered. I told her that it looked very nice. She picked up her scissors and began mowing through some more paper. I asked what she was doing. She said she was making food for the scarecrow. I asked her what scarecrows like to eat.

"Tacos."

A has never been a particularly good eater. It's almost always a struggle to get a couple bites of dinner into her. Yesterday was an exception. She asked for a second helping of grumblings. Yup, chicken and grumblings. One of my favorites, too.

Smashmouth

2006-10-20T08:47:00.000-06:00

I spoke with A's dentist yesterday. It's looking more and more like she's going to be missing both of her front choppers for a couple of years. It's way too early on to see if her adult teeth will be affected.

The dentist sort of rubbed me the wrong way. He was a tad on the arrogant side. When my wife said she wanted to contact a friend who is a speech pathologist, he said "I don't mean to dismiss speech pathology as a profession..." and then pretty well dismissed speech pathology as a profession. As a former mild stutterer, I tend to disagree with him in that respect.

We're going to see if he can score us a referral to one of the pediatric dentists in town, mostly because I'd just like to get a second opinion. I'm sure her dentist is very good at what he does (the amalgam repair job he did on A's split tooth was pretty close to incredible), but it can't hurt to get a second point of view.

I'm thinking about buying a helmet (with facemask) for that kid.

Another Day, Another Day

2006-10-18T20:08:00.000-06:00

My youngest daughter, A, has always been a bit of a klutz. She's a leftie, too, so the world just isn't built right for her. In combination, these two factors have resulted in her having a few accidents. Quite a few accidents.

One of these accidents happened about two years ago, when she was just starting to walk. She fell down on the sidewalk in front of our house and split one of her front teeth right in half. The dentist patched it together as well as he could, but the possibility that she would lose that tooth was always there.

Three weeks ago, she was playing at a friends' birthday party and managed to get smacked in the face with a pogo stick. It happens to kids, you know. The pogo stick loosened the bum tooth, which worried us a bit.

Last week, she fell facefirst onto the ceramic tile floor in our kitchen while running in socks.

Today, she had her first dentist visit in six months. She has a fistula and abscess above the broken tooth, and she may have to have both of her front teeth pulled.

As you might imagine, this has my wife in a bit of a state. I had a genuinely crappy day at work today. Ours is not a happy house this evening.

Spewing Forth Various Opinions

2006-10-17T09:43:00.000-06:00

I happened across a blog last year written by the aunt of one of the other runners who was killed in the same accident as my brother. I stumbled across it again last night. Sometimes it's interesting to read things from a different perspective. The blogger in question is an ultra-conservative, ultra-Christian woman who repeatedly voices outright hate for my home state. A very different perspective, indeed.
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My wife called a little bit ago. She had spoken with her mother. On Sunday afternoon, her parents went and bought a new desktop computer. In any other household, I would consider this to be a happy occasion, ranking somewhere slightly below the birth of a baby. But, the in-laws are the sort of people who should not be allowed to own or operate a computer.

-They will not connect their computers to the internet for fear of the machine getting a virus.
-They have absolutely no idea what the mythical virus might do to their computer.
-They will pay for antivirus software for the computer that will never be connected to a phone line.
-They only use the computer for bookkeeping.
-They will never update the software, not even security updates to the operating system.
-If they have any problems with the machine, they will call me.
-If they have any problems after they have called me, they will blame me.

They now own two laptops (both less than 2 years old) and the new desktop. It has never occurred to them that they could also use one of the laptops to do books. They use the laptops exclusively for storing their digital photos.

While I was helping my father-in-law Saturday morning, he wanted me to install a new DVD/RW drive in his clinic computer. I did the installation. My mother-in-law became very angry that I had "added new software" to the computer. What I had added was the software driver for the new DVD-ROM drive.

I rest my case.

Geeklife v1.1

2006-10-16T11:42:00.000-06:00

So I survived the weekend.

Truth be told, it was surprisingly pleasant. The weather was nice, the in-laws were relatively well behaved, and no one got sick.

Sunday afternoon, we stopped by my parents' for lunch and a quick visit. While there, my assignment was to find my old skateboard for C. She loves her scooter, and has been wanting to try a skateboard. I failed on my mission. I went through my folks' 30'X60' outbuilding from top to bottom, but I couldn't find the board.

I found something better!

I opened a plastic bin and found my old Nintendo! When my dad saw how excited I was, he said "We still have your brother's too." So, I now have two old, classic NES, complete with controllers and a wide assortment of games. I tried them both out last night, and they still work. My wife and I spent an hour playing Punch Out, Tiny Toon Adventures, and 1943. Too damned cool.

Oh, and I now have 11 pumpkins sitting in our basement. The van was a bit cramped on the trip back.

Over the River and Through the Desert

2006-10-13T08:50:00.000-06:00

This afternoon, we'll be loading up the minivan, popping in a DVD for the kids, and heading out for my wife's parents' house about 2 hours up the road. We're going to celebrate Grandpa Ernie's 93rd birthday. Ninety-freaking-three years...That is a long time for a bourbon-swilling, pipe-smoking, likeable curmudgeon to be on this planet.

I like Grandpa Ernie a lot. He's still very sharp. He follows sports rabidly and can still rattle off stats with the best of them. He's an interesting character, and who knows how much longer he'll be around.

We're also going to stop by the pumpkin patch. My parents (who also live in the same town as my wife's parents) live just a half mile or so up the road from a pumpkin farm. We've made a point of stopping by there every October for the last 4 years. It's a neat place. They sell pumpkins and bales of straw, host corn mazes, and all kinds of other autumny stuff. I hope we can pick up a good load of pumpkins this year. There are very few areas where I have a real talent, but I can carve a pretty mean pumpkin. I get one chance a year to show off my worthless skill, so I like to take full advantage of it. I carved six of them last year (the wife carved a few too), and I'll probably do at least that many this year. I've gone so far as to take the 30th and the 31st off from work. I should probably see a doctor or something.