Man of the House's Journal

and so it begins
Oh my,

Last night I was tucking my son ( I guess I need to say oldest son now) into bed and he wasn't quiet as rambunctious as usual which didn't bother me until he looked at me with a serious face and said, "Dad what's a homo?"

What's a homo. I have explained the mechanics of sexual relations between a man and woman to him ("Gross") and we have even touched on homosexuality (Dad, What's Gay mean?) but this conversation was destined to go further. It seems there are two boys on the playground each day who tease the other boys by bringing up sexual terms and asking them if they know what they mean. Most don't. So I have never been shy around my son, I delved right in. "Homo is a sort of a mean way to say Homosexual. A homosexual is a person who has sexual feelings towards a person of the same sex. Do you remember what sex is?" "Umm yeah, I think isn't that where a boy likes a boy..." "No, sex is when a man puts his penis in a womans vagina...... Because they are married......and want to make a baby." (God who is this talking!!!!!!! oh wait it's me) He responded, "Eewww."

I was feeling rather proud of myself and pulled the covers up to his chin and was about to kiss him goodnight when he got a puzzled look on his face and said, "So then what's bi?" "Ummm bisexual is when a woman or a man likes both guys and girls" "Oh, so that not as bad as homosexual." "Oh no being homosexual isn't bad, it's just different. People don't choose to be homosexual, they either are or they aren't It is something you are born into. Same thing with heterosexual(which I had explained also). Do you understand that?"

We then discussed how he was going to use this information. I asked him not to show it off, but just to know quietly that he knew what the other boys were talking about and probably in greater detail then they did (though who knows what movies those boys are allowed to watch)

Anyway, this one was relatively easy and already I'm doing better than my parents did. When a kid in my neighborhood called me "Gay" and I asked my mom, she told me it meant happy.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: baby crying

I completely rule
It came to my attention recently that I hadn't written anything in quite a while.

I've been busy. I had a kid (Baby of the house)and many guests and lots of travel, yada yada yada.

That's not what I am resurfacing today to tell you about.

I have been in as many as 5 and a few as 3 fantasy football leagues for the last 5 years or so. This year I considered not even doing it, but I've been in a couple leagues for a while now and I didn't want to stop doing it without good reason, so I signed up (for only 2 leagues) did my research etc, and so far (knocking on wood as I type this) I HAVE BEEN KICKING ASS!!!!!!

The funny thing about fantasy football is that you read all the crap that in online and in magazines (sporting news rocks) and you get your draft sheet together, you know several players who should be sleepers, you know all the guys with a history of injury, you know your league's scoring system and what is important, but it still takes a tremendous amount of luck to win a lot of games.

I drafted second in one league and 8th in the other magically in both leagues I got Shawn Alexander. In one of my leagues 3 QB's and 3 lesser RB's were chosen before Shawn!! Also in both leagues I got Steve Smith an every year super star who broke his leg last year and missed most of the season. All he has done this year is catch more balls for more yards and more touchdowns than any other receiver in the league.

It doesn't end there. As players have bye weeks you need to replace them with other players, last week I picked up two players and inserted them in my lineup in one league, both guys scored TD's! Neither guy had done much all year up to that point.

So, while I was prepared, I know that many of the other guys in these leagues are too and if it weren't for a lot of luck in addition to a good draft I would be back in the middle of the pack where I usually am, but it sure feels cool to be #1 in both leagues for now!

D.O.T.H.
Well, I have reached that point in life where I am taking personal satisfaction from my kids achievements.

My Daughter took an interest in baton twirling a couple years ago and had asked for a baton for christmas and her birthday and had gotten various little toy batons. Lo and behold, this summer there was actually a twirling class offered at the local park district. The instructors are a pair of sisters, one of whom is the twirler for the local High school and the other is the twirler for her university. Two very talented girls. DOTH was psyched and eagerly attended each class and *ACTUALLY PRACTICED* her baton.

This was rewarded last weekend when the high school had "Jr. High night" and the younger sister asked DOTH to accompany her on the field for the halftime show. Needless to say, she was adorable and they worked out a very cute routine where they passed their batons back and forth and did a variety of different types of twirls. The crowd was very supportive and my girl got to covort with all the cheerleaders band members flag girls etc..

Of course I got it all on film and it was a lot of fun. Hopefully this is something she will pursue because she was definitely having a lot of fun doing it.

MOTH

Current Mood: bored
Current Music: Here I go again (stuck in my head)

oh wait.... I have a journal?
I have been having a on again off again love affair with this thing lately. I keep thinking why on earth should I write here. No one (ok maybe 3 people) read it and I just say really boring and repetitive stuff, mostly whining about the upkeep of the journal or minutia of my personal life. But then I think of the positives. If I am in a horrible accident and get blown into little pieces, maybe one of my friends will show this page to my wife and kids so they can see some of my more strange and self absorbed thoughts.

Anyway after 20 days of inactivity I should give a life update. Work has gotten busy, I am finally selling the land I bought in Iowa 2.5 years ago for a substantial profit. I went camping with coop, had a block party where I got drunk with 70 year olds and I still daydream about moving to the country and pursuing a life more closely tied to nature and manual labor.

Oh and Geocaching. My sister (who is extremly cool) recently introduced me to geocaching, which is essentially tromping through the woods looking for a little container someone hid there. It is lots of fun and I have been doing it in my spare time as much as possible. It is also a nice way to get out of the house go for a bike ride and get a little excercise(which I NEED).

anyway, I don't actually have much to say, just wanted to be self indulgent for a few minutes (as usual).

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Skypeing the office

ouchie
I got a little splinter or something in my thumb some time last weekend. I didn't even notice it until yesterday when it was obviously infected a little because it was sore and there was a tiny bump on the tip of my thumb. This morning I awoke to a thumb two sizes too big. and it is incredibly sensitive to touch.

I was unable to button my shirt (am wearing a t-shirt now) and zipping my pants was both difficult and painful. Actually typing this is painful. The space bar is not my friend.

The worst part of all of this is that I play golf about once a year and this weekend is that once. Normally I would ignore this damned thing as much as I could and hope it went away and it probably would in a few days. However instead I am going to the doctor where I will likely be poked and prodded.

I'll let you know how it goes...

MOTH

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: the gentle throb of my thumb

I need better habits!
I have this inability to write a short entry that is infuriating. I always think of 10 things I want to write about, start writing and am dissatisfied with what I have written, then put it aside until I am disinterested.

I need to just do some stream of consciousness style writing and slap it up here so I can see what I am thinking from week to week, month to month. (Which is really the point of all of this, right?)

My sister came out last weekend and we went geocaching. (www.geocaching.com) It is actually a lot of fun. Sort of a mini treasure hunt where you find a little box of some sort at the end with a variety of little treasures in it which you take in trade for some little treasure of yours which you leave behind.

All very fun, and the kids LOVE it. I have made it clear to my lovely wife that she needs to get me a GPS device for my birthday so we can continue to do these sorts of things. It seems like a nice way to spend some time outdoors with a goal in mind and a tromp through the woods.

Dogs are gross
I had a runny nose the other day. (Yeah that's right you can stop reading now, this is going nowhere good) I must have blown my nose like 30 times. Seriously. I blew my nose so much that it got worn raw by the Kleenex. Anyway, I put the tissue's in the waste bin by my desk. This is nothing new, but the quantity was certainly novel. At any rate I woke up this morning and the trash bin was on it's side and all of the kleenex was either missing or ripped to shreds.

Yummy!

I hope it doesn't kill her or worse give her a nasty case of gas. Worse for me I mean(of course). Seriously it boggles my mind that this creature that we give lots of food too, probably more than we should, as well as the occasional treat and the frequent dropped item we are eating, is so hungry that she wants to eat my day old snags. IN VAST QUANTITIES! EEEEWWWWW.

Oh well, Dogs are gross.

Current Mood: cheerful

Weekend warrior
It seems like I spend every week doing the same boring stuff, then I have interesting weekends. Last week was no exception.

I went to a cub scout camp with S.O.T.H. this weekend. It was pretty fun, shot bb guns and bows and arrows, did some hiking and other general cub scout stuff. One item of note was that all the camp counselors carried around bags of beads in their pockets and any boy who introduced himself to a counselor would receive a bead, and the boys were encouraged to trade beads with each other with the promise that these were Merlin's magic beads and they would be used later for some strange and wonderful purpose. This of course threw all of the 8-9 year old boys into a frenzy to see who could collect and trade the most/coolest beads.

Of course S.O.T.H.'s favorite part was that after the big bonfire (yes we had a bonfire in 90 degree heat) we went back to our camping area and had a much smaller fire and during that time the boys from the different campsites formed into little gangs and went to "war" with each other. I am still unclear exactly what the war was comprised of, but I do know that S.O.T.H. felt that all of the boys from the neighboring campsite were horrible people and he was very happy he wasn't in their campsite.

This strikes me as an interesting little sociology experiment. These boys all live within a 10 mile radius from our house, most of them will go to the same highschool S.O.T.H. will, they all have a tremendous amount in common with the boys that ended up in our campsite, yet as soon as it got dark they all decided that the same boys that they had been trading beads with all day were the enemy. The ONLY difference between these boys was that they were spending the night in a campsight 50 feet further down the path from ours, yet they were instant and mortal enemies.

Most of the boys came with their dad, but one in our camp site came with his Mom. She was a nice woman probably 40 or so and has kept herself in good shape unlike so many moms around our age. Because our sons hit it off, I spent a decent amount of the weekend talking to her and we were friendly to one another. I guess this made her think that I am a pig. We get done with the last activity of the day and she turns to me and as a whispered aside says, "What did you think of that Tommy?"

(Tommy was a camp counselor. Most of the counselors are boy scouts who volunteer for the experience it gives them and the badges they can earn, so these boys are giving up a summer weekend to shepherd cub scouts around in 90+ degree heat basically because they are nice kids, Tommy was no exception but he also had hair halfway to his ass, a goatee only a 16 year old could love, about 10 bracelets on each wrist and several necklaces he wore outside his shirt. By the S.O.T.H.s assessment, "Tommy was cool!")

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I had thought Tommy seemed to take himself a little more seriously than most of the rest of the scouts, but I chalked that up to him wanting to be taken seriously despite his appearance. I replied to her, "He seems a little gruff but I think the boys liked him." and she says to me something to the effect of, he was walking around limp wristed the whole time, I think he's gay and it gives me the creeps.

I would love to see the face I made at that moment because I know I was furiously trying to think of the correct response. All I could come up with was a shrug and the comment, "I dunno, my Gaydar isn't that great." Thankfully she dropped it after that and there was no more discussion of Tommy or his man loving penis. Of course about 10 minutes later after kicking myself for not coming up with a better response I knew what I should have said, "I dunno, my Gaydar isn't that great. I didn't realize my sister was gay until she was 25 and I was 30." That would have shut her up, damnit.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: If you want to sing out sing out

20th high school reunion
That's right folks, do the math, this is the year I turn 38. Me and the entire 1985 high school class. Last weekend I went to my wife's reunion and I have to say that the majority of us aren't aging so well. I mostly was checking out the women (surprise surprise) and out of prolly 50 ladies that were there, there were about 5 that were worth looking at and two of those were wives of guys in the class.

For some reason I am thinking that there will be more eye candy from my class, but I will find out for sure in a couple weeks. I have googled several of the women who will be there just to see if I could find anything, and the most impressive by far is Becky (Bishop)Nickels As with my wife's class, the funny thing about this is that the hottest girls at the reunion were not the same girls who were lusted after by everyone in highschool. My little theory is that the second tier girls had enough rejection in high school to motivate them for the rest of their life, but the hotties had so much affirmation that they could ride on that for long enough to go completely to pot.

This is (as usual with my theories) a massive simplification, but I think it is in the right direction of the truth.

Queen rocks!
My 9 year old son has discovered Queen. He likes to listen to it loud (as it was meant to be listened to IMO) I played him "Flash Gordon" and he loved it and that became the gateway to the entire "Greatest Hits" double album.

He told me last night that, "Queen rocks!"

Just makes me laugh. I wonder when he will discover some of the more unsavory of my album collection? I think music opened my eyes to many things as a teen, and my parents listened to John Denver, Barry Manilow and show tunes. My collection is decidedly larger and more diverse than theirs and we actually play music in the house all the time.

Should be fun to rediscover my own music as my kids do for the first time.

Current Mood: good
Current Music: "We are the champions" through the floorboards

too much stress
It's late and I'm tired. I went to a baseball game with my kids for fathers day today. The Kane County Cougars were hosting the Burlington Bears. My kids aren't really interested in baseball so much as they are interested in eating and drinking everything possible and watching all of the between innings entertainment and then begging to go home as soon as they figure out that I am not going to buy them anything else. So, while it had potential as a nice fathers day gift, reading the Sunday paper from cover to cover in my underwear might have been nicer.

I am a little on edge because I have this big requirements document and project plan due for our second client. I fucked around all day on Friday and got too little done and now I feel like I should be emailing out a draft on Monday. Since I was busy with family and friends all weekend, I have to bust my ass all day on Monday to try and get some passable doc in for a draft review, I also need to call a bunch of current clients for the two Indian firms I am trying to sign agreements with so I can try and determine if they will suck or not and I am nervous that one or more of these things is going to slip another day.

I suck. I sort of wish this hadn't been fathers day weekend. If it had been anything else I might have been able to squeeze in several hours today to knock out the requirements doc and give myself one less insurmountable obstacle to tackle tomorrow. Oh well, I am hopeful that I actually get up early and work hard and get this shit behind me so I can then be responsible for keeping up the damned document. How on earth did I get a job that I am so ill suited for? Me keeping a document up to date? Fuck. I hate this type of crap. I want to create once and get the hell out. I am motivated by fear of looking like a dumbass and this is a powerful fear, so I am confident I can pull it off, but that doesn't make me look forward to it.

Ok enough of my paranoia and self flagellation.

We went to a party on Saturday at some people's house who we barely knew(Jane and Brian) Jane is an arty type and I don't know what Brian's story is, but they have a cool place. Brian has transformed his backyard into a japanese water garden/kids playland dream/big ass country garden all in one. Pretty damned impressive. He has built from scratch a big hill in one half of the back yard which has a really nice waterfall at the top cascading down a beautifully terraced series of thin tan/slate type rocks to a pond dug into the bottom of the hill thoroughly stocked with big ass goldfish. Surrounding this he has a great perinneal garden of very colorful flowers, and at the bottom of the hill is a patio that has chairs surrounding a cool clay oven thing designed to keep people warm while keeping smoke away, not your typical suburban iron firepit.

The other half of the yard is a trampoline and home made two story tree house complete with PVC tubing for a phone from the top to bottom, a pole to slide down, rope ladder(also home made)and lots of other cool gizmos when I say home made, I actually mean "really very well made". He has put in some serious hours in that back yard and I didn't even mention the awesome and huge garden in his side yard with an insane amount of tomatos and herbs. I don't know what someone does with 20 tomato plants, but he's got 'em.

So the moral of this fathers day weekend for me has been massive feelings of inadequacy.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: wothly snores

odd occurence of the week
The tree in my daughter's best friend's front yard had a problem this week. It seems that a colony of carpenter ants invaded and pretty much hollowed it out. The biggest limb fell in a storm and because it was on the little strip of land between the sidewalk and the street, the city had to come and chop it up etc..

The workmen decided that the tree itself was in no immediate danger so they sawed the limb off close to the trunk and chopped it all to bits and left.

This left a big gaping hole in the side of the tree and a lot of pissed off ants. For about an hour the ants were climbing all over the tree (picture a 60-70 foot maple that is over 2 feet in diameter completely covered in ants, an impressive sight)then the ants gave up looking for the second story of their home and started to clean house. It was a windy day and for the next couple hours a steady stream of ants kept coming to the edge of the opening and dropping bits of sawdust over the edge. Ants are cool.

So what prompted me to write about this was the reaction of the best friend. She was really worked up about losing the tree. Her mom had explained that the tree would have to be brought down because it is so big and now that it has been hollowed quite a bit, it could possibly fall and crush their house. The BF was literally in tears and kept protesting that the tree must not be cut.

I've known this family for a few years and know them to be pretty middle of the road on most issues, definitely not the type to raise a crazy tree hugger unwilling to listen to reason. So I asked her mom why the BF felt this way. Her reply was that the BF hates any type of change. The BF overheard this and repeated it with a tear streaked face, very earnestly, "I don't like change".

Now I am no child rearing expert, but that seems like an odd sentence to come out of the mouth of a seven year old, and a pretty crappy self fulfilling prophecy for this girl to live with. I know that at some point we have to stop blaming our parents for the people we turned out to be, but breaking out of the mold that you are created into in the first 10 years of your life has got to be harder than beating any drug addiction.

I hope the BF loves her first job out of college, because unless they fire her, she'll be there for life. Not to mention the first guy she dates who doesn't dump her, she'll marry him.

M.O.T.H.

Current Mood: mildly irked at my kids
Current Music: Stack o Lee Blues

One more thing
Today is my son's birthday! He is 9. Wow. He is getting to ages that I can remember things happening. Pretty cool. Happy birthday to S.O.T.H.!

Current Mood: festive
Current Music: Happy B-Day to you...

All in the family
My great aunt turned 90 on Sunday. My wicked stepmother organized a big celebration on Saturday in Brazil, IN and most of my family drove or flew in for it. It was fun. One of my sisters made it as did one of my half brothers. I don't have the energy to go into the whole weekend right now. The shorthand version is that most of my family (aunts uncles etc..) dislike my stepmother and delight in talking about her and how thoroughly she has her evil hooks sunk into my dad. So of course the conversation frequently turns there. I agree with everything that was said about her, but I was pretty sick of the topic before it was over. I like the other side of my family because they are the same breed of hicks without the insane drama that seems to grip my dad's side.

On a more positive note, my uncle is the Clay County Judge! He was appointed by the governor and really loves his new gig. It was cool touring the courthouse and listening to a few judge stories. He also owns 20 acres outside of town that includes 2 former strip mines that have been ponds now for 70 years or more. The water is amazingly clear and blue (and deep) it was pretty cool. I own some river land in Iowa that I thought was pretty cool, but his land is so much cooler. I want a pond. I wonder if there is anything cool to strip mine for in Iowa?

A bunch of people at work are now wearing pedometers. Apparently someone read that Donald Rumsfeld stays fit by walking 10,000 steps a day in the corridors of the pentagon so they went out and bought pedometers and are obsessed with them. it is funny that wil every activity I do now, I find myself wondering how many steps it is, and how I would compare. On average, pretty poorly. While working out of your basement has its advantages, 10,000 steps are not among them. I think I would make 10k on almost every weekend day, and maybe on Mondays when I have soccer practice. Otherwise, I think I usually live in the less pedestrian world of 1-3k. Oh well, we can't all be the paragon of health and fitness that Mr. Rumsfeld is.

Oh. Back to the family reunion. We stayed at a bed and breakfast that was a converted YMCA. complete with full court basketball. It was pretty cool. We woke up both morning and shot baskets , played horse and generally worked up a sweat. I want a basketball court in my house!
Ooooh, looks like I can! I just have to move to themiddle of nowhere.

Current Mood: good
Current Music: Skypeing the office

i'm not dead
I keep thinking about things I can write about, but not actually writing anything....

For instance I was surprised to find that I had not written about my brother in laws visit two weeks ago. The short version is that he came, we partied pretty hard for three days straight while our daughters played together. Then they left. He married my wife's sister and they live in St. Paul. He had a week off between jobs and just felt like getting out of town. It was one of those visits that was great, but also great to end. I was partied out. Must be getting old.

In other news we still have no baby names picked out, though we have a long list of names we don't like. We are looking for something either unusual or maybe something that was once common but that has fallen into disuse. One thing we disagree on is that the woman of the house(WOTH) seems to favor guy names that end in a vowel sound. I am not naming my kid Rocco, Santino, or Giancarlo.

I htink it is safe to assume that anyone taking the time to read this drivel knows what I look like. Given that, I had another in a long string of "Oh my god you're 37!?" conversations this week. This one was with a 32 year old woman who was shocked that I have a (nearly) 9 year old. It never ceases to amaze me the goofy double standard people have about fat and thin, young and old. For instance you would never tell a stranger that they are too fat, but many people have no problem telling me I am too thin. Also a person who is 30 and looks 40 probably doesn't get any crap about it, but whenever anyone finds out my age for the first time, they make a comment.

I honestly don't mind, but the WOTH is in the same boat as I am and these comments drive her crazy. Now that she is pregnant, all the comments just get ratcheted up. All the fat women who live near us give her crap about being skinny and pregnant. I think they just want her to blimp up like them so they have one less person making them feel guilty about polishing off all the ice cream in the house for the fourth time this week.

Last comment for today: The socially conscious Pope (no not that Pope!)has decided to out my little corner of the internet to an old friend, so if you are reading this, Hi Mo! To his credit he called me to "warn" me that Mo had found his blog and so now he couldn't say bad things about her and since he has a link to mine she may find it. Once I told him I didn't mind a bit he responded by linking here in his next message while writing about her. He's a crafty one. So Mo, I think you will find I am a boring blogger who writes infrequently and then only about my boring life so you are welcome to stay and peruse, but don't expect too much.

Current Music: Skypeing the office

Rulers of the universe
As previously mentioned I am the head soccer coach for the daughter of the house and 9 other girls. As also previously mentioned I have a high opinion of women. They are generally more trustworthy, harder working, more organized etc.. than their male counterparts.

Most marriages I am aware of consist of the guy going off to work, making decisions all day long, interacting as an intelligent adult with other intelligent adults and then coming home shutting off his brain and taking orders from his wife all evening. I don't mean this as a criticism, just a fact. Women rule the world. Maybe not the business world, but definitely the vast majority of homes throughout America (and probably the world).

Getting to my point, I really have to scratch my head and wonder when it happens, I have 10 crazy, distracted, not paying attention to anything except the voices in their heads girls on this soccer team. It is amazing that we ever play any soccer. We have a hugger, who must hug everyone several times per practice and usually pick them up as part of the hug. We have a doll lover, who brings a doll with her to every practice and every game and makes me hold the doll while she plays(ok so she IS practicing giving orders to the men in her life already), we have 2 girls who are perpetually too tired to carry on and must collapse in a pile on the field several times a practice to illustrate their fatigue, we have 2 others to whom the monkey bars at the end of the practice field are an irresistable draw and no matter how many times we tell them no, they end right back up on them, another to whom any stationary ball is an invitation to kick it as far as she possibly can (especially if it is the one I was about to pick up) etc..

None of our girls seems to care enough about soccer to focus their attention on it for more than 30 seconds at one time.

It does make me smile to think that 10 men will have their lives controlled by these little girls in about 20 years, I guess they are busy learning how to manipulate their parents right now and thus begins their training to control every aspect of the lives of their loved ones in years to come.

Current Mood: Full
Current Music: Mona Lisa in my head

Slobro
Well, it's been an interesting week.

I got home last Friday night and promptly broke the veneer off of my front tooth by biting down hard while wrestling my son. There was no contact I just caught it funny or something. I looked like a complete snaggletooth and I am vain so I decided to superglue it back on.

When working with superglue and dental products, my word of advice would be to stick with the gel. The liquid I used ran over the edges of the tooth and stuck the damn thing to my fingers. Not to be put off, I ripped my fingers free (if you've ever used superglue you know what I am talking about) and tried again. This time I was successful in getting enough glue to get on the tooth and I jammed it into place (after carefully drying my tooth for a couple minutes) and it worked!

I had 2 soccer games that weekend and ate several meals (very carefully) then had a marathon Dr's appointment on Monday with my wife (it's a boy, more on that later) and all went down without a hitch.

Much whining on my part convinced my dentist to see me on Tuesday afternoon rather than the next Monday and so off I went. I was surprised that he had never seen someone who had used superglue to stick a tooth back on, but he hadn't. He commended me for my ingenuity and proceeded to fix the tooth. Well it's just a temporary while a permanent one is constructed to match my other teeth, but it looks better and it on better than the superglued version and it only has to last three weeks.

My dentist is an interesting case. I thought he was gay the first time I met him, and I'm still not sure either way. He is 40, single, built like me, keeps himself very tan and his smile sparkling white (of course). He is completely anal. His office is the most meticulously clean dental office I have ever seen. The reason I go to him though is that he is the best dentist I have ever had. I broke my front tooth off when I was 10. I dove into 2 feet of water in Nicky Voss' pool and got a fat lip a bloody nose and lost half my tooth. Since then I have lived in 5 states and had at least one dentist in each one work on this tooth. It has never looked right (to my satisfaction) until Dr. Bennet worked on it. He talks with a slight lisp but he always makes a point of talking sports with me and calling me dude. I have come around to thinking he's straight but I am amazed he hasn't been hunted down by some gold digger, he is obviously loaded, perhaps he's just having fun and playing the field. I will say that the only assistants he hires seem to be very cute women around the age of 30, but they are also all very good technicians so perhaps it is just a coincidence that they are cute....? I doubt it.

I am really prattling on here. Quickly on the Dr's appt with my wife. We had a sonogram with the nastiest sonogram technicain ever, but all looked good and not even her sour puss could make us sad. We are having a beautiful bouncing baby boy. His brother wants to name him Slobro after a pokemon card. Other suggestions have been (in no particular order) Grant, Edgar Allen, Repooc, several other Pokemon names, Ken (as in the husband of Barbie), Ken (as in the name of grandpa), Bubs(Which is what one uncle will call the baby no matter what it is named), Arthur (as in the ardvark)and many more. Needless to say, with this assortment to choose from, the lady of the house and I are underwhelmed. Please feel free to sumit more suggestions.

-MOH

Current Mood: content
Current Music: hum of computers

Cable modem dilemma
DSL suck. Actually when I had DSL on a dedicated line, it was great, but then mt provider went out of business and I switched to SBC DSL which they insisted be installed on my existing phone line even though I already had a dedicated line in my house and connected to a modem and computer. Then my DSL began to suck. I put up with it for TWO YEARS until I recently came to my senses and got a cable modem.

Which brings me to my drama/dilemma. In signing up for the modem, the cable company let me know that if I wanted to add basic cable to my modem it was essentially the same price. So craving better reception, I bit, and got basic cable. At this point the sales lady explains to me that there are two install charges onee for each product. I worked with the dispatch group of a cable company for three years and I know that there aren't 2 installs so I gave her a bunch of crap about this and she finally removes one of the installs but it was pretty irritating to me that they try to bully people into paying for work that isn't going to be done.

So the nice thing about all of this was that they came out the next day and installed my cable modem and it ROCKS. Much faster than the DSL. They also installed standard cable, not basic. I signed the form which clearly said basic on it, but the cable I got has ESPN etc..

So, we have spent a lot of time teaching our kids to be honest, not to take things that aren't theirs, always tell the truth (but don't be hurtful with it), respect other property etc.

Now we are stealing cable. I know that it is wrong, but it is so nice. I can rationalize it all day long. They made the mistake. I didn't realize until after he was done what had happened. They were trying to rip me off by charging for 2 installs, etc...

To make matters worse, they had a QA guy come out 2 days later to check the cable guys work and he didn't catch it either (and by then I knew and didn't say anything. So in order to fix it, I have to call them up and have them come back out to remove all the cool new channels I have. It's not the end of the world or anything but I don't want to do it. Somehow stealing from a big corporation doesn't seem as bad? Everybody does it if they can get away with it? I dunno, it's a moral dilemma. What I want to do and what I know I SHOULD do are at odds, and my desires are beating out the noble course of action thus far.

To make this seem even more odd, I have barely turned on a TV this week, so I haven't even seen what there is to see yet, but I know that more choices is a good thing when it comes to TV.

I wonder if you go to hell for stealing cable? Thou shalt not steal, so I guess so. Oh well this is just the latest in what I am sure is a long list if there is anyone keeping a tally somewhere.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: my wife watching the food channel in the background

Long live Oprah!
Just writing to write today. I have been productive at work this week, had my first soccer practice as head coach and it went pretty well. Have the first game this weekend and my Daughter is really looking forward to it. Going out to work in NJ next week, and that should be good. Hopefully will be putting the final touches on this demo I've been working on for a big client.

Nothing has me outraged at all right now. Oh! One exciting piece of news, I got laid yesterday because of Oprah. The wife has been pregnant and had a lot of morning sickness and even though that is over now, she has not been very motivated sexually. I should say here that this is usually not an issue for us, and I know that she'll be back and I haven't complained much but apparently Oprah had a show on the dangers of ignoring your husbands needs. El Mujer apparently took this to heart and I now have a new found love for Oprah.

Current Music: Skypeing the office

On my mind
Here is a random list of things I want to do before I die.

Live in the country
become a potter/build my own kiln
catch, clean, fry, and eat a fish all at once. Repeat.
have a huge garden
not to owe anybody any money
become a jeweler/melt metals/make molds
work for myself
care very little for the opinions of others
really learn to play guitar (picking and grinning)

When I think of these things (and other daydreams) I usually picture them as being about 2-3 years away, maybe 5 at the most. Bu then when I really think about it, I realize that if I want to assist my kids in paying for college (i do) I am going to have to stay a member of the rat race for a while longer than that. There is also that pesky insurance to worry about. I suppose I could figure all this out some how and just jump in and go back to school for a year or two and immerse myself in art classes and learn to do these things that sound so interesting to me while juggling the family responsibilities. I am fairly certain Crista would support my crazyness even just to see what would happen.

I would need to find the perfect set up. Rural home with at least one (preferably more) usable outbuildings, enough land to do a crazy garden, plant some trees, bushes, and lots of flowers. A giant compost pile. Maybe an animal or two to round out the picture. All sounds good to me. Of course the ultimate goal would be for Cooper to be able to correctly identify the specific flaws of three different quarts of bad milk on his way to FFA stardom....

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