Assumptions based upon one side is ignorance

Sorry, I know it's been along time since I've written. A lot has gone on since the last entry. For the most part, vacation and school have played such large roles in my life that I didn't even have a few minutes to jot a few lines down. I'm hoping to get back in the groove here as things start to take more of a pattern.

I am totally amazed when someone tells me a story about an argument or disagreement that has occurred that is totally one sided. I want to support that person, because they wouldn't be telling me if it weren't important. The only problem I have is that it is so obviously one sided that it is laughable to think that there isn't any more to the story. Furthermore the ignorance or immaturity of the individual in getting the other side of the story is beyond comprehensible. Then again, maybe that's why I take too long to make decisions. I don't think about it from my side, but all sides. It could be a big weakness on my part, but I'm not ready to give up my curiosity just yet.

There's Only Room for Two on the Bus

Since the beginning of time, we have had poop problems in our house. Tucker, for instance, learned how to hold poop really well by the age of 3 months. This continued until 3 years old when we had no choice but to give him prescription strength laxative that forced him to go. It took me multiple hours per day over 1.5 years to establish a pattern with him, including re-teaching him that when we get the feeling, we need to go to the potty and poop. We spent many, many days at the doctors, enemas every so often and stressful days trying to get him to poop. He would hold it about 1 week long.... Tucker is the perfect regular guy now when it comes to poop. And yes, I do pat myself on the back for this.

Over the last month or so, we've noticed that Ryan, who is 4, has started trying to hold it in a way that was similar to Tucker. Sure he's had a few accidents, but he's gotten pretty good at holding it. We swore to each other that we were not going to go through what we did with Tucker again. That's why around a year ago, I established a nightly pattern with Ryan too. As with Tucker, they can hold poop all they want during the day, but when it's time for bed, it's time to poop. Like I said, Tucker is regular and Ryan is fairly regular too. Lately though, Ryan continues to say, "I don't want to go Poo-Poo," even though we can clearly see that he has to.

This past Saturday night, after a day long company party, I could tell that not only was Ryan tired, he had to go poop. I knew he was holding it all day, so when we got home it was straight to the bathroom to go poop. Of course he started in with the whining about how he didn't want to go poo-poo. I wasn't buying it so I encouraged him by giving him relaxing talk about what happened during the day and getting him to think of other things besides poop. You might call me the Poop Whisperer. Anyway, after 30 minutes of "Relaxation," he starts to go poop. The relief on his face was evident. Because I knew he was working hard to hold it, I thought there was more poop to be had. I then encouraged him to go more. It didn't work so I pulled out the trick that the Poop Doctor had told us to use with Tucker. It was the Poop Party trick.

So, I told Ryan that his poo-poo wants to go to the Poop Party with all of their friends, so won't he just let them go so they can have a good time like we did that day. Ryan got a smile on his face, looked down in the toilet and said, "There's two of them and there's only room for two on the bus." I lost it. I hadn't laughed so hard in a long time. Needless to say, he ended his stay on the potty and it was time for bed.

Even now as I write this, I can't help but chuckle.

Sugar, the kids alcohol

We all remember those times when we've drank something that made us go absolutely nuts. Not drunk necessarily, but pumped up and ready to go. It's a burst of energy, whether negative or positive, that you really can't control.

For me, the drink that does this is "Fat Tire Beer." I have no clue as to why only this beer makes me go a little batty, but it does. I try to stay away from this beer.

For my kids, especially Ryan, it's sugar. Sugar in any form, for the most part, will put him bouncing off the walls. I forsee some problems down the road with diabetes, but the doctor doesn't...yet.

Anyway, tonight after dinner, we went out for ice cream. Nick had a double-scoop of Orange Sherbet, in preperation of our Kauai trip. Tucker had a scoop of Island Escape and Ryan had a scoop of Bubble Gum. After the second spoonful of ice cream, you could see Ryan eyes start to change. After the third spoonful, he started moving around in his seat. The fourth did him in. He was officially drunk off of sugar. He danced around the table for a few moments, would come back and take a bite and dance around again. He would go over and try to get a bite of Nick's, with no luck. So, he would come back and have another bite. By the time we left, he hadn't even finished his ice cream but the sugar high was in full force. We let the boys run it off, so we thought, outside.

When we got home, Ryan was still wired and got out of the truck faster than I've ever seen him. By this time, he managed to get Tucker riled up and they went nuts in the front room. Tucker tried to teach Ryan how to do a cartwheel, but some things will never happen. They continued for 30 minutes of full blast going nuts. Remarkably there was no crying...at all. Like all good things, this too had to end and it was time for bed.

I think that letting them run it off and going nuts in the front room helped with getting them to bed. They weren't whining and just went upstairs. This doesn't happen very much these days.

Although I've never noticed, I wonder if the boys are going to wake up with hangovers tomorrow.

121 IQ WTF????

I was a little bored tonight, so I took an IQ Test at Psychologytoday.com. I figured that I've taken enough of these goofy things online before to boost my ego, so why not another one. Well, the surprise was on me tonight when the test actually had questions that I had to think about. I was quite entertained, intrigued and actually felt challenged as I went through the many pages of questions. I thought for sure that I was doing well, because I actually didn't guess all the way through like the other dorky online tests. Anyway, I finally get to the last page of the test and see pattern matching questions. This page was quite different than the others and by the time I finished the test, my brain felt like it was melting. Viewing that many different patterns and colors tends to cause havoc on my thought patterns. The good news is that I finished and felt good when I did...until I saw my score. 121? Is that good? Does that suck? It said I was above average, but what does that mean? It clearly doesn't mean that I was the best or I got 100%. I could purchase the complete test results for a fee, but did I really need validation? Probably not, but what the hell it's only a few bucks. So for 3 bucks, I got absolutely nothing of value. Nothing to help boost my ego. Oh, it did tell me that I was in the 85th percentile and that the highest score for a male who was 41 is 146, but it gave me crap. It actually said the following:

"Good job! Your performance on the test was slightly above the population average - well within the normal range. This means that while you don't excel in terms of the skills assessed on this test, you are still doing very well.
Keep in mind that your results on this test (and any other IQ test, for that matter) can be affected by factors other than your knowledge and abilities. For example, fatigue, medication side-effects, formal education level and area of study, training, practice, the number of similar tests that you have taken, etc. all can influence your score without necessarily reflecting on your real potential.
You should also realize that this test does not assess all of your potential. It only evaluates your ability with analogies, pattern recognition, classification, arithmetic, and logic. Your score would certainly be different if it included your verbal skills, emotional intelligence and social insight. "

Well thank you very much... for nothing.

The Future is so Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades...

Well new glasses at least.



Today I went to pick up my new glasses. I'm so excited because these glasses actually have a customized clip-on sunglass module to replace the sunglasses that I lost last year during a rafting trip. (Yes, the one in the picture below)



I'm told that these glasses are kind of stylish and really not like me at all.

Here is a picture of them:

Anyway, it's always amazing to me that eventhough my eye perscription hasn't changed since high school, when I get new glasses it takes a few days for my eyes to adjust to them. Shouldn't they just be perfect for my eyes based upon the perscription? Call me crazy, but that's the way it should be...IMHO.

So now I'm all set with sunglasses and ready to go on our trip to Kauai in August.

Vomit and Nudists and Bears...Oh My!

It's been a few days since I've updated because of a family trip up to Lake Tahoe. We were gone from Thursday until Sunday and what a time we had... not necessarily all good.

The trip started of well enough. Both Gina and I got of work a little early, finished packing up the car, putting in the video players and off to pick up the kids. Gina went into daycare to get the boys while Nick and I waited in the car. She came out with 2 very happy boys with one of them who had a bit of a tummy ache. Every time Tucker has had a tummy ache in the past, all he needed was a little poop time and he was good to go. Gina had him try before we got in the car, but no luck. So we go on our way...

We make a quick stop at 7-11 for some snacks and plan on eating dinner in Vacaville. We were quite amazed at the lack of traffic. We were sailing around 75-80mph on the freeway. We were easily going to make it there by 9pm. I heard Tucker cough and my knee jerk reaction was to panic and look back. Normally it's nothing, but this time I see Tucker with his hand over his mouth trying to hold back vomit. Yuck!! It kept spewing out. We immediately pulled over, cleaned him up and the car around his seat. We gave him a few swigs of water to swish around in his mouth and spit out, and we were good to go. He said he felt better after that, so why not, right?

We stop in Vacaville at TGI Fridays for dinner. I was a little worried about Tucker eating, but he wanted dinner because he was a little hungry. He ordered shrimp, which he didn't like. He did, however, love Nick's flat iron steak. So, he threw a munch on it and we had to buy another one so Nick could eat more. This was quickly turning out to be the most expensive meal in Friday's history. As Nick and Tucker start chowing away at the 2nd steak order, I look over at Tucker and I see Gina's hand start moving towards his mouth. Yes, he is vomiting again. Both Ryan and Nick say, "Ewww Gross!" and turn their heads. That doesn't, however, keep them from eating. We get some help from the wonderfully understanding staff at Fridays and begin cleaning up. We ask for the bill so we can get the hell out of dodge as quickly as possible. I ask Nick to take Ryan outside while we finish up and Nick turns back to me and says, "Can you put the rest of that steak in a to go box?" I couldn't believe he could even think about eating at this point. Grosss!!! Needless to say, I don't ask for the steak in the box. No telling what spewed onto it. We eventually get cleaned up our ducks in a row and get out...with extra plastic bags.

We were going back and forth on whether to go up to Tahoe at this point, but decided to go ahead. Hey, we figured that he only threw up when he ate. We just wouldn't feed him until he was better. He passed out around 10pm in the car and we got into Tahoe around 11pm. FYI, no matter what time we leave, we always get there around 11pm. Odd, but true!

We wake up fairly early the next morning. Gina and Tucker woke up at 5am because Tucker was feeling much, much better now. He ate well for breakfast and it didn't come back up, which was a good sign. Nick and I went on the boat with my brother-in-law. I think it was around 9:30, so the lake was still pretty much empty. I drove while Dominic rode the wake board. Nick tried many times to get up on the wake board, but was still having a hard time. He road the inner tube though and had a lot of fun. After we got back, we all packed a lunch and walked to the main beach.

The water was cold, as usual, and the beach was fairly crowded for a Friday. Dom, Nick and I played volleyball out in the lake for quite a bit. It was fun, but I wasn't feeling well. I don't know if it was too much sun or I was getting what Tucker had. I was hoping it was too much sun. I decided it was time for me to go back to the house and rest. For some reason, the rest of the gang followed me. I slept the rest of the day and night. No vomiting, but then again, no eating either. I'm pretty sure I had what Tucker had the night before, but I wasn't going to eat and experience the worst of it. The good news is that I knew it would be over tomorrow. I kind of got the feeling that Gina wasn't happy about me sleeping the rest of the day, but it really didn't matter. I don't know that I would have woke up for the second coming...

On Saturday, we planned on going to a beach that only reachable via boat. The ride there was great. It could be that I was feeling better too. I still wasn't really eating, but I didn't want to chance it. The day was warm, but not too hot. As we pull up to the crystal blue shore, I notice some guys on the shore who had some odd looking shapes. Then I took a closer look and realized that they weren't guys at all, but topless women. I asked Dom and Nan, "Is this a nudist beach?" Nan replied, "Sometimes!" I said, "Wohoo!!! Let's go!" As we got closer to where we anchored, Nicholas says he wants to swim in. He jumps off and starts swimming to shore...in the general direction of the boobies. He is a normal 11 year old boy in my book and didn't even notice or acted like he did. My brother in law and I, on the other hand, made sure we were wearing dark sunglasses. Anyway, we stayed at the beach most of the day and really had a great time. The water there surpasses the water at many of the public beaches. I still can't get over how crystal clear it was.

Later that night, Gina and I went gambling. I had received some sort of settlement check from Cingular the month before, so we each took 100 bucks and blew it gambling. We ended up losing only 60 bucks. Not too bad, considering Gina had to win a 100 dollar jackpot around midnight. I think if she would have put the full amount in she might have won 10k, but oh well. Shoulda, Coulda Woulda!

Every evening after we got back, my brother in law would go mountain biking from Brockway Summit down to Tahoe City and then back. The first night he scraped his arm. Although it looked bad, it was more of a badge of honor to him. On Saturday's ride, he fell down hard on his knee early on in the ride, but kept riding the 10 more miles to get back. When he got back, his knee obviously looked swollen. As the evening came, it started looking like a balloon. But he wasn't dead yet, so he said it was okay. It was in no way okay, but it was his knee, not mine.

Because of his knee, on Sunday morning we didn't go on the boat. It wasn't my bro-in-laws choice, it was ours. He would have gladly taken the boat out, but there was no way I was going to ask him to move. His knee by this time looked more awkward than the Pope in a Muslim Mosque. Due to some other issues, our family just went to the beach and had a good time. I entertained the young ones by catching minnows in the two buckets that we had, while Gina and Nick laid out F-bombs while riding the Jet Ski's. I felt bad for the dad next to us. He had been trying to catch minnows all morning for his kids with no success. Here I had 8 in one bucket and he had just a sunburned back. We left the Beach around 2:30 to go back and pack and head home. We ended up home around 10pm. Everyone was tired and satisfied by the trip.

Oh, I almost forgot about the Bears part of my title. On Saturday, when we came back from the beach, I was greeted by someone in the complex who let me know that a little while ago there was a black bear sniffing around the parking lot and that he did some sleeping in the bushes between the building before getting up and taking off. I never saw the bear, but have no reason to not believe the person. That afternoon, the boys and my niece were out on the balcony looking and yelling for the bear. Fortunately, they never got the bear back our way.

My 4th of July

4th of July has traditionally created a host of memories for me, both good and bad. I don't know that I'm going to have a lasting memory of today as nothing memorable came out of today. It was, however, a perfect day for me to spend with great friends and family and to reflect a little on what 4th of July means to me. I've never really had the chance to do this.

Recently the 4th of July has been a BBQ that we have hosted. In the past, the 4th was a trip to my aunts house for her Birthday Party/4th of July Celebration. Both didn't involve me really relaxing and going at my own pace. I always had to put on a show. A show I didn't necessarily want to put on, but one I felt obligated to do. It really became the "Ugh!" Holiday for me.

Today we hung out with friends and I was able to talk as much as I wanted or be quiet just to think about what's going on in the world today. I loved it. The day did start out with a neighborhood parade, where the kids decorated their bikes and scooters and rode around the block. I would guess there was about 75-100 people who did this. It was a lot of fun and best of all, someone else planned it. We ended up at our friends house for great food and drink and simple conversation. There were no family arguments, people were there to have a good time and be happy. It worked for me. I was very happy. Afterwards, we went to some other friends house so the kids could do some swimming. I caught myself falling asleep in the chaise lounge a couple of times. Once again, relaxed. When we got home, it was a simple dinner and then bed a few hours later for the very tired kids. They had a lot of fun today too.

Many times today I found myself thinking about the country in better/simpler times. I thought about my cousin in Iraq who is quite possibly going through the worst times any soldier could be going through. I thought about how I could fix the world today. I thought about the best way to teach my children about democracy without clouding their view with my anger of the way things are currently being handled. I thought about what would happen if some idiot shot off an illegal firework into the gully behind our house. I thought about how stupid Joss Stone is for signing in an Independence Day special....for the United States. (Does she not know the country that we celebrated independence from????) I thought about terrorism and if something bad would happen today. I thought about the terrorism that goes on and on in many countries throughout the world.

Out of all the millions of things that came as thoughts through my mind, I think the one that sticks out was the smiles on all the kids faces today. I don't know that I'll remember that forever, but for right now it is a happy feeling that I don't want to lose.

To Catch a Thief!

This morning as I was getting ready in the bathroom, I heard a loud thump coming from my bedroom. I've heard that sound hundreds of times because the boys love to jump off of chairs, couches, beds, etc... I didn't really pay attention to the noise at all. Then I heard another noise that I've heard before, but not quite as often. It was the noise of large amounts of change being moved around. I go around the corner from my bathroom to my bedroom and what do I see, but Tucker playing with my big bucket of change. I thought to myself that it was kind of cool to see him counting the change and recognizing the difference between a quarter and a nickel. Then he asked the dreaded question... "Can I have it? Can I have your change Daddy?" I thought hard about the answer to the question and actually tried to act like I didn't hear it by going back to brushing my teeth. I knew that if I said yes, it would cause problems with the other two boys. That along with the fact that I've been saving my change for a year or so and didn't really want to give it up, made me say no. I said, "I'm sorry Tucker, but that's my change. You have your change basket in your room, Bubba has his basket and Ryan has his. This one is mine." Then the whining came into play, but I still held steady and said, "I'm sorry, but No."

I went back to finishing getting ready and I heard Tucker say to me, from the other room, "I'm going to my room to get my clothes on." I first thought, WOW, that was easy. Then I noticed the change scattered around my bucket on the floor and wanted to let Tucker know that he needed to come pick it up when he was done getting dressed. By the way, Tucker rarely gets dressed on his own without me asking him first. Anyway, when I went into Tucker's room, I saw him putting money in his change basket. I asked him what he was doing and told the truth by saying, "I'm putting money in my basket." I asked him where he got the money and he told the truth once again by saying, "From your bucket." I told him thanks for telling the truth, but that was stealing and the fact that I told him he couldn't have the money is was doubly bad. I told him how disappointed I was. He cried, of course, but I held steady. I told him that tonight I would give him his punishment and he needed to tell me why what he did was wrong.

Fast forward to this evening, Tucker knew what he did was wrong and why it was wrong. His punishment was only one song for a week before bed. In case you don't know, music is extremely important at bedtime for our family. It's more important than story time, which they get too. Anyway, this was pretty devastating to him and I told him that if he stole again, he would be without songs for a whole week. He said he wouldn't steal again without telling me first.... LOL!!!

Kids are great!!!

Betrayal

Sometimes my anger and frustration get the best of me. I think it's the frustration that brings on the anger, but nonetheless, I hate it.

Today I learned of something that happened last week that would have typically sent me the other direction. Due to a few years of therapy, I'm not moving away, instead I am moving closer. Trying to find answers. Trying to find a way to make heads or tales of what causes people to act certain ways. I am truly unhappy about the events, but think that what happened is maybe a way to open up dialog and get things moving forward in the right direction.

The Day After...and some recipes

I hate going to sleep knowing that I have to get up early to do something. I must have woke up about 5 times during the night. Ryan crawled into bed around 7am. I got up at 7:30 and immediately got to work on the outside. I got the tables and chairs ready for pickup from the rental place. I went to the grocery store to pick up some breakfast food and get my daily morning diet coke. When I got home Gina was awake, so I went back to "Watch TV" aka sleep.

We were planining to go to a Birthday Party/Open House later that day, so Gina and I had to split up duties. I took the boys to Toys R' Us to pick out a present and she stayed home to do laundry. After getting home, we fed the kids lunch, got ready and headed on out. It was nice not to have to really do anything for the party. We were just able to enjoy it. We left around 5pm to come home and change the boys wet clothes and go see Ratatouille.

All of us really liked the movie. Eventhough we were quite the tired bunch, the movie kept us wide awake in a packed theater. Ryan was falling asleep on the way home, so we got them all into bed by 9pm. Then it was on to more cooking for the week.

I BBQ'ed some chicken breasts for Gina for the week. I wish I could remember the spice combinations that I use. They are different every time, but turn out rather tasty.

For those who are interested in my rib and chili bean recipe it's quite simple. I take some basic store bought items and add to them. Here they are:

Ribs

• 1 Slab of Baby Back Ribs
• A basic pork BBQ rub. (anything at the grocery store should be fine. Paprika should be the first ingredient.)
• Basic Hickory BBQ sauce. (Don't get the name brand, get the cheapest brand)

Directions
Score the membrane from the back of the ribs (If you miss this, your ribs won't be as tender)
Add 1/4 cup of brown sugar to the rub that you purchased. Add 2 tablespoons of garlic and herb mixture. Add 3 table spoons of Italian Seasoning.
Rub the BBQ Rub mixture liberally on both sides of the slab of ribs and let site for 30 minutes at room temperature.
Place the slab on the grill at medium high heat. The meat should be on a direct fire at this time
Turn after 5 minutes and grill the other side for another 5 minutes. (Use your own judgement on this. There should be grill marks on the ribs. Black is good...)
Once you have seared the ribs, take them off the direct fire and move them to the side for slow cookin.
Take your BBQ sauce and add 1/4 cup of brown sugar...yes more. I like to add some red pepper flakes to this as well, but didn't on Saturday. Also add 1/4 cup of beer. A dark beer or stout is best.
Now brush your ribs, meaty side first, with your BBQ sauce and let sit in the grill for 2 hours. Yes, that's right 2 hours. Anything less gives you a tough rib. About 1 hour and 14 minutes into it, you can turn the ribs over and baste the backside with the BBQ sauce. After another 15 minutes, turn the slab meaty side up and baste on last time. After 2 hours, is up, take the slab off and let them sit for 15 minutes before you cut them up. <-- Very important.

Chili Beans

1 lb of ground beef. (Fattier GB tastes better, in my opinion)
1 medium sized yellow onion (chopped)
4 cloves of garlic (minced)
1 large can of diced tomatoes
3 large cans of Pinto Beans (yes I cheated on this one..)
1/4 cup of BBQ sauce
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
2 tbls of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 cups of beef stock
2 tbls of Italian Seasoning.

Directions
Carmelize the chopped onions in the Olive Oil. When they become translucent, add the ground beef and mash it up. It needs to be rather fine. Once the ground beef is brown, add the minced garlic. Add the can of tomatoes and incorporate well. Once things looked to be evenly mixed, add the beef stock and let boil for about 15 minutes. (medium boil is all you need) Add the brown sugar and BBQ Sauce and let simmer for 30 minutes. Now add the pinto beans and simmer until you see that a couple of them have split. Salt to taste. I like to add red pepper flakes, but didn't due to spicy food complainers.

I love to cook.

Also of note is that the measurements above aren't exact. I taste when I cook. Above is just a starting point. I'm always adding and taking out depending on taste.

So Fun!

I'm tired and sore. Although I had a great time today, it was a very long day. A long day of running up and down the stairs in the house and outside. I'm must have run about 2 miles yesterday...of course with a beer in my hand.

The group was a lot smaller than we expected. We were expecting closer to 40, we ended up with 31. I thought for sure we would have extra food. We didn't, not even close. I'd like to say that we planned everything perfectly, but it was more like luck. We probably could have cooked more chicken, so there could be seconds, but I think we were okay. We had one slab of ribs left, after cooking 9 of them. 2 tablespoons of chili beans were left over and there was some more rice casserole and bean salad available for doggie bags.

Total consumptions was as follows:

• 9 Slabs of Baby Back Ribs
• 34 pieces of Chicken
• One large crockpot filled with homeade chili beans
• 1/2 ton of bean salad... 1/2 was left in the pot and divided up for doggie bags.
• A really large amount of rice casserole.
• 32 chesscakes, not cheesecake or cupcakes, but chesscakes.
• 2 gallons of tequilla
• 750 ml bottle of Triple Sec
• 4 -1.5 litre bottles of margarita mix.
• 3/4 case of beer
• 2 cases of sodas
• 12 Capri Sons
• 3 bottles of water
• 30 marshmallows (For Chubby Bunny)

Writing the consumptions numbers makes me feel better. I always love when people eat and looks like everyone ate well.

My sister-in-law brought marshmallows for a game called chubby bunny. Basically what you do is stuff a marsmallow in your mouth and say, "Chubby Bunny." You continue to stuff another marshmallow in your mouth and say the magic words until the group decides they can't understand you any more. You cannot chew the marshmallows at all or your thrown out. I guess I did okay, because I got second to my much younger and bigger cousin. I won a really cool towel. This game was a lot of fun and I think next year we should have a couple of different games with prizes. We could do the shoe flicking contest. Maybe some three-legged races. It might be fun to have a cooking contest of sorts too.

I was bummed to see everyone leave so early. My family, outside my immediate family, tend to eat and run. This year I didn't serve food until 4:30 pm. I tried to keep them long enough to visit.

When everyone left, I was tired. Gina was so tired that she got the boys to bed and then herself to bed around 8:30. Although I was tired and sore, I knew if I didn't do some picking up, we would be in a lot of trouble and I'm sure that Sammy would get in to everything. I picked and cleaned up everything that would get Sammy's attention and then got to bed around 11:30.

I totally forgot to take pictures. So if you have some, please send them my way.

I often schedule too many things in one day. Not because I want to, but because I don't know how to say no to someone who wants to help me. Today, the day before the big BBQ, Verizon Support scheduled someone to come out and check the lines, because my DSL speed is pure crap. As much as I wanted to say, "Can we reschedule?" I didn't . I do technical support myself, so I know how I think of a person who says no to a troubleshooting appointment. I think that the problem must not be that important to them, so why should I go out of my way... I know, it's a bad thought, but that's all part of the thought process and you have to move on... Anyway, I didn't say no and let them schedule themselves to come in the afternoon. I figured I would work from home.

On my way to work, I get a call from the Tier 2 technical support person saying that someone can come out to the house now if I want. I said, "Sure, what the hell?" So instead of going to work, I go back home and wait for this dude... and I wait. The guy doesn't even tell me he's there and when he leaves. He calls me up and says, "I checked your outside lines and everything seems okay, so it must be on the inside or your DSL router. I'll have someone come out during your regularly scheduled appt. ERRRRRR! Talk about frustration. Luckily, I work for a very understanding company who knows that nobody ever really takes time off and works from wherever they are. So I stayed home and got some cool research done... And no, it wasn't PORN. So I finally call Verizon at 6:30pm and ask where the guy was and I was told that my ticket was closed. I was pissed and told them that I was and I needed to be getting what I paid for and expected some sort of compensation for the lack of effort on their part. Guess what? I got a month free...when it decides to work. Anyway, since we have the big BBQ tomorrow and the Verizon guy didn't show, it was time to finish what was needed for tomorrow.

First off, I opened a bottle of beer. Simply wonderful. I put all the tables out with umbrellas. I pulled all 50 chairs out in a place that had easy access for everyone. You think I'm going to set them up too? No way...okay I probably will, but it sounded good to say, "No Way" I put up my brand spanking new, state of the art outdoor speakers. Okay, not state of the art, but down right cheap. They do sound fairly good though. I also started my pre-BBQ ritual. I BBQ'ed the veggies ahead of time and decided to make some chili beans, last minute. I finished the night marinading the chicken.

Gina on the other hand does some much flippin' stuff it's borderline insanity. After she got home from work, she did the Costco thing, the Safeway thing, picked up the boys and came home. Then she proceeded to bake something called Chesscakes. Not Cheesecake, but Chesscake. I tried one and YUMMY. Unfortunately, when she was taking out some of these cakes, some of the molten sugary substance oozed out on her finger. She screamed an F-Bomb and the word CRAP!!! It must have hurt big time because it actually disrupted here for around 30 minutes. She was in obvious pain and nothing could help her. She did laugh a little bit when Tucker came in and said, "What's CRAP?" I thought he said crab, so I said, "You don't know what a crab is?" He said, "No, CRAP!" Gina laughed a little and said it's poop. He replied with, "I wanna see!!!" We then had to say that mommy got hurt and it was just an expression to let out her pain. He didn't get it, all he got was that he now knew what the word CRAP meant.

So after Gina started feeling a little bit better...after a beer or two. She finished the cakes, made a bean salad and started decorating. Here it is 12:30 am and she is still decorating. She is absolutely nuts. I just hope that everyone realizes what she does to make these things special. It's not always the case and sometimes we all, me included, take it for granted. I know that once I go to bed, she is going to stay up and make her world famous chocolate covered pretzels.

Tomorrow morning it's up early and get ready for the crowd, which will probably start showing up around 11am. I'm hoping it's a partying crowd tomorrow. I'm in the mood to have a great time.

Barfing Dogs, Funny Kids, Stressed Out Wife and a Backed Up Sink

Barfing Dogs, Funny Kids, Stressed out wife and a backed up sink. It's been a heck of a day. I think the best news of the day is that Sammy, The Barfing Wonder Dog....didn't. That's right he didn't barf on the way to or from the groomers today.

Some people know that Sammy, our dog, has terrible car sickness. We can't even go around the corner without him puking. We always have a roll of paper towels handy to catch the vomit. What's odd is that Nick will catch the dogs vomit with a paper towel, but won't pick up poop with a shovel. I wonder what that's all about. Anyway, today was a dream come true... no barfing from the Wonder Dog and he looks good too.

So if you read yesterday's blog you will know that I had a bit of a hard time communicating to Ryan about being safe and listening...with your ears. (as opposed to what???) Anyway, while we were in the car he said to Tucker, "What's your problem?" After he said it, I remembered that a few days ago when we were walking into the grocery store he said it to a stranger walking by. He looked straight into the eyes of the stranger as we were walking in and said, "What's your problem???" I was horrified and hope that the guy, who was bigger than me, hadn't heard it. I was wrong. He whipped his head around, looked at me, then looked down and saw Ryan, who didn't have a clue what he just said. The guy laughed. Phew, what a relief! Anyway, this morning I was going to try and communicate to Ryan that it wasn't okay to say that to strangers. I personally don't care if he uses it with his brothers or me, because it is meant to be a joke on his part. So this morning I say, "Hey Ryan, do you remember the two things we talked about last night?" He did and told me exactly what I wanted to hear. "Music to my ears" I told him that there was another thing that he needed to remember. I said, "When you pass by a stran..." He interrupted and said, "I know, I know, don't talk to strangers!!!" While I was proud about his knowledge of this, it wasn't what I wanted to communicate to him so I said, "That's great that you know that, but when you pass by a..." Yep, he interrupted again with, "I know, I know...Don't talk to strangers without an adult!!!" Well that even better that he can clarify his statement further, but... That still wasn't it. So once again, I tried to say my statement, only to get interrupted again with the same results. This happened about 10 times. I thought Nick was going to pee his pants, he was laughing so hard in the back. Tucker was trying to interrupt Ryan, but finally gave up. It was impossible. This is when I brought in the bribe. I told him that he could have a piece of candy if he listened to everything I had to say. He did listen to me asking him to not say, "What's your problem?" to a stranger this time, but quickly followed it up with, "I know that. Can I have a piece of candy now?" A deal is a deal so he got his candy. I asked him again, later on in the car and sure enough he remembered. I guess I'm just not getting it... at least not fast enough.

So we are two days until our BBQ. Gina is starting to show some signs of stress. She really wants to roll out the red carpet for everyone and make sure that nobody feels put out. I, on the other hand, love to ask people to help out. This year, instead of telling people not to bring anything, we have said, "Sure, bring whatever you'd like." I think my mom mentioned salads or desserts, which is perfect. So we are preparing on cooking the main course... or are we. As you might expect, Gina is worried that what if there aren't enough salads or desserts. Because of this, she is making a salad and desserts... just in case. As I was doing some picking up in the living room, Gina comes in and says, "I'll trade you." Of course I am curious as to why, so I ask, "What's wrong?" She says, "The sink is clogged." Ugh! Our kitchen sink/pipes are so old they fart dust. They clog with the simplest of things. It's not like she was putting a small child down there. It was a small amount of leftover pasta and to top it off, it went through a garbage disposal. So I go down to the garage to get my pipe wrench, because the only way to clear this out is via a snake down the drain. Guess what, there is no pipe wrench and I have no clue where I put it last. I thought it was in the garage with the rest of the tools, but nope, it wasn't. So now as it's getting close to 10, I realize that I"m not going to find it and we either call a plumber for 150 bucks or wait until the morning so I can get a wrench and comeback and fix it. We are waiting.... So Gina decided to chug along and make some cookies, rice casserole and a salad. This is my superwoman. Of course, she is stressed out about everything, but never gives up until it's completed to her liking. I just can't wait until tomorrow evening when we drink beer and champagne while we setup the tables and stuff. I'm sure she will chill out then.

Some more good news is that the Verizon guys are coming out tomorrow to fix my DSL lines. I purchased speeds of up to 1.5 mbps, but haven't gotten faster than 384kbps. I think the phone lines are as old as the pipes.

At what point in your life do you realize when you are doing something unsafe? Maybe I was just always a safe kid growing up, but yesterday I had to sit down the two youngest boys and talk to them about safety and listening.

I was working on the pool filter while they were swimming with their older brother. Things were going just fine. Nick is awesome with the little guys. Then Nick wanted to get out and the craziness began. These guys seem to keep trying to out do each other at everything. It was all fine for a bit, then they started jumping on each other in the pool and holding the other one underwater. If they were older that would be one thing. The fact that they don't swim is another.

I asked them to get out and they acted as if I wasn't even there. I continued to ask until I had to talk in my LOUD VOICE. If you know me, you know that I have a really loud voice in general. My LOUD VOICE is louder than most PA Systems. Trust me on this one!!! Anyway, that got their attention and I got them to come to the pool. I tried to explain to them about being safe in the pool and what they shouldn't be doing, like jumping on each other when nobody knows how to swim. You think that would have been enough, but, "NO" they didn't even hear a word I was saying. They kept doing it until I had to get them to the edge of the pool and pull them up out of the water by their floaty suits. Well, Ryan was the only one who was wearing one. Tucker got the message and came right out. Ryan thought I was just playing around and jumped back in the pool, then Tucker started walking back in. I just didn't/don't get it.

I finally got them out, took off their clothes and put towels on them and told them to get in the house because I needed to talk with them. I was trying really hard to remain serious as I viewed this as an important issue. They still weren't getting the importance of this and kept messing around all the way back up to the house. Ugh!!!!!!!

Once in the house they both sat on the couch and I tried to tell them how important it is to be safe and to listen. Ryan kept jumping around and giggling, causing Tucker to laugh with him. Sure it was funny and cute, but I remained serious and started to get frustrated as they weren't listening to my message. In the middle of my serious speech Ryan raises his hand and says, "I know why you need to be safe." I felt like this was tremendous progress considering I didn't think he was listening so I asked him why. He told me, "You need to be safe so I can go to the bathroom right now." He then jumps up....naked and runs to the bathroom. That set Tucker off and he couldn't help but crack up. I almost lost it there. It was hilarious, but I remained serious and then talked toTucker when Ryan was in the bathroom. Tucker got the message, so I let him go downstairs. Now it was on to Ryan....

I tried asking him to remember 2 things, Be Safe and Listen. He eventually got the Be Safe thing, but couldn't remember the Listen thing. He kept interrupting by saying he had to say something. I told him that he could say it after he told me what 2 things he needed to remember. He could remember the Be Safe thing, but not the Listen thing. He kept saying, "No Fighting??" Finally after about 15 times, I figured that I better let him say what's on his mind so it will release some space to store the listen thing. He said, "Sammy's hair is falling out." While that was true, that was the last thing I thought he would say. Right after he said that I asked him again. "What 2 things do you need to remember?" He quickly replied, "Don't Fight, Be Safe, and Listen with your Ears." Holy Cow, wtf??? What made a difference there? I would love to know if anyone has any insight. It's absolutely crazy.

If I could figure out how to get those answers quicker, I'm sure I would be a much better father and perhaps pass on my knowledge to others in the same boat of frustration...

So many things went through my mind today it was well... mind boggling.

First off, we all woke up fairly late this morning and the day started off with grouchiness. I couldn't stand the mood I was in when I left the house. I did, however, see that Paris Hilton was released last night.

Thoughts on Paris Hilton: Now I am one of those people who do think that she was given a raw deal because of who she is, but... and a very large but... I believe that she is what's wrong with teenagers growing up. It's great to aspire to live a life of luxury and privedlege, but what kids don't understand is that the only real way to get to that point is to work hard at it. They think that it is owed to them, so they take advantage of everyone around them to try and live that life. It just makes for a backstabbing world, ala Perez Hilton, and every other tabloid. I can't control it or do I plan to try. All I can do is make sure that I raise my kids to know the value of hard work and integrity. Anyway, it was great to see how happy she was to be getting out of jail, but it reminded me of a small child around 11 getting a highly wanted christmas present. Then it hit me, she really isn't all there. Something is definitely wrong with her, mentally. I don't know what it is, but I'm sure it will come to me at some point. I love to make observations.

Meanwhile, back to my life...

Because everyone was late today, the lunches weren't made and I was to rushed/lazy to make lunches for them. They have the option of getting a hot lunch at daycare, but it's mainly for the toddlers and are quite bland in flavor. Because of this and to get them dressed quicker, I bribed them with Lunchables. When they hear that lunchables are the prize, they get dressed quicker than they ever have.

So we get to the store and they know exactly where to go. If you've ever been in the store with Tucker and Ryan, you know that they have to have everything. There was one time that I took them shopping, gave them each a basket and let them choose whatever they wanted in the grocery story. They always remind me of that when we go. Anyway, to get to the lunchable section we have to go through the Health and Beauty Aids section. They pull out every coupon, smell every shampoo, conditioner and a few deodorants. When we get to the lunchable section, they have to look at every box and inspect it thoroughly. I know exactly what they are going to get, "Chicken Strips," but they really want to make sure that they get the best toy possible. The funny thing is that I don't even think they like these things and would rather have salads, but salads don't come with a toy... Phhht! Toy, who are we kidding. It's a piece of plastic with a design on it. But it's something and they finally choose....the chicken.

Then it's back down the HABA aisle and they smell the remainder of the shampoos and grab the rest of the coupons they missed. Tucker thought it would be cute to put a few coupons into an ice cooler that was in front of the checkout counter. I told him that he was wasting paper and that for his punishment he should take it out of the cold ice water and put it down his shirt. He started to refuse, but before he could Ryan yells, "I want to put the cold paper down my shirt." I tell you that kid wants to try everything at least once.

Tucker wanted to take the bird egg to school today to show the class. It was kind of cool to see Tucker and Ryan so careful in holding the bag that the egg was in. You would have thought they were caring a human heart to a transplant victim.

Today, Nick also came home with his new "BabySitter." She just graduated from high school and let's just say that Nick was trying to act real cool around her. He's at that odd age where he doesn't need a babysitter, but we feel weird leaving him at home alone, so we got someone to just "hang out" with him and transport him to soccer practice, Great America, Raging Waters, etc... We will see how it works this summer. Next Summer will be interesting, since Tucker will have an open summer too.

I look foward to the days that no babysitters are needed.

Gotta keep chuggin along. Sure there are still quite a few things to do before the party on Saturday, but I can just sit back and rest, right??? WRONG!! I gotta keep moving.

As we get closer to party time, Gina and I tend to get stressed out. My family is not the type of family that needs to have everything perfectly planned. We are quite informal and really can be comfortable anywhere. Gina and I, on the other hand, work hard at trying to be informal. What that really means is that we want to have everything just right...or right enough.

Gina did more shopping today and purchased probably the last of the non-perishable stuff needed for the party. We will get the food probably on Thursday and start cooking what can be cooked on Friday Night. It looks like somewhere between 30-40 people will be coming. I'm thinking it may be more like 40, but who knows.

The tables have been rented, the chaise lounges have been put out by the pool. The staff have all been told their responsibilities and the menu has been planned.

Although it seems like a lot still needs to be done, there isn't really much now. One thing I do need to do is get Sammy groomed. He is blowing coat like crazy now. I could take an hour and comb him out myself, but the amount of hair that comes out is gross. Since I already cleaned off the patio, I would prefer not to do it and get hair all over.

Tonight I BBQ's a beef tenderloin. Around 3/4 of the way through cooking the beef, I ran out of propane. It was a good thing I did, because the meat was cooked just the way I like it, medium-rare. I got sidetracked during cooking so I wasn't really paying attention, until I heard the pop.

I was able to put together my cooler that Gina got me for our anniversary back on the 1st. It's a pretty good sized cooler, so I hope it will hold all the drinks. As I was putting the legs on it, Ryan kept asking me why I was putting in another screw. That got old pretty quick. Finally I told him that if I don't put any screws in, there won't be anything to drink at the party. I don't know why that worked, but it did. I think he just wanted an answer that would show how it would affect him. Kids are amazing.

You could tell that Tucker and Ryan were still tired from the weekend. They weren't really all that busy this evening. Nicholas is with his father until Wednesday, so we have all been missing him. The dog is going nuts without him too.

Someone asked me today if I write in this blog everyday, to which I answered, "Yes." They followed up with, "Why?" I hadn't really given it much thought until that point. I guess it's some kind of therapy. I've always loved to write. I hated to read, but loved to write. Weird, isn't it? Could be an arrogant/selfish thing???

Writing truly does help me keep control of my thoughts and lets me move on. I will continue to write everyday as long as I'm able to. Some days will have something worth reading, other days won't... Like today!!!

With that being said, I will end for now. I need to upload some more photos to share with the family.

Although wake up time should have been around 7am this morning, it ended up 2 hours later due to the late night at the wedding the night before. This was the day to finish cleaning up the yard, pool area and do anything else that we need to do to get ready for the big party next weekend.


I took a quick trip to the local hardware store and bought a shovel to replace the one I broke last week. While I was there I saw a cool little fish fountain that was on sale. I figured that it would fit perfectly in the area of a bush that I took out last week, so I bought it. After I got home, I got started.


First the patio needed to be tended to. The wine grape vines were out of control. From the looks of it, the only solution was to cut off some of the vines. I felt bad doing this because grapes were already forming and I felt like I was wasting. I decided to take the crazy vines and redirect them around the railing on the patio. Remarkably this went really will. One of the vines actually had grown through a bench. I had to take apart the bench, remove the vine then put the bench back together again. Tree Huggers must love me now.


One the patio was finished it was down to the pool area. I took pieces of old bush and through them in the yard rubbish bin and then what I dreaded happened. "RETURN OF THE YELLOW JACKETS" Yes, the yellow jackets returned with a vengeance. I found the nest in one of the light fixtures near the pool. Luckily I had a can of spray so I could get rid of the fairly large nest. A few of the critters fell out after I sprayed, then the rest came back looking for revenge. I picked them off one by one and remarkably didn't see any other. As I was picking off yellow jackets, Ryan was using a squirt gun to squirt spider webs. He squirted one spider web and all of the sudden I heard a scream. I went to take a look and a black widow spider came crawling out, thinking it had scored a large bug. Nope no bug, just a pest with a squirt gun. I need to get rid of that spider, but didn't have the right stuff yet. I do have a picture thought. Check out all the little guys home. This was after I spayed it a couple of times...


I covered the bare areas of the plant beds with tanbark and all of the sudden started hearing the sound of baby birds. I looked up towards the nest that we have in the bell outside our house, but couldn't see anything. I took a closer look and both the mother and father bird came really close to me. That's never happened to me, so I was pretty awe struck. I respected their wishes and left the nest alone. I found a partial egg out on the lawn, so I brought that in for the kids to take a look. Maybe they should learn to respect the homeowner by not discarding their egg shells on my lawn.

I put together the fountain and got that going. As I was working around the area of the fountain, I almost fell asleep. It was quite relaxing. I also hooked up the lights to the umbrellas and cleaned out the BBQ's.

The bottom line of the day was that I am sore. As a matter of fact, I'm heading to bed now.

Most weddings that I have attended have been joyous occasions, but the wedding that I went to with my family was perhaps the nicest occasion ever.

The wedding was held at Villa Montalvo in Saratoga. The day was supposed to be a little cool with wind and since it was an outside wedding, the wedding party was a little worried. Not this time. The weather was quite warm. It was probably 84 degrees, but felt like 94. Because the guests were seated in the sunlight, there were parasols available to shield the sun. Tucker and Ryan really liked their umbrellas. The wedding was officiated by the brides brother and added a great personal flair to the wedding.


As nice as the wedding was, the reception was something that people will remember for quite awhile. The bride and groom are really fond of children. Because of this, they insisted on inviting all the kids of their guests. Because of the number of kids, they set aside a special room that looked like a candy store for the kids to play in. They hired childcare for the kids and had tons of activities for them ranging from a Balloon Sculptor & Caricature Artist to Play dough and Coloring. It was quite amazing and many people went in the room to check it out.



Dinner was great along with the wine selections. The party favors were a Do-it-Yourself Candy Bar. Like the kids room, this was a large table with jars filled with every type of candy you could imagine. All you had to do is grab a bag and start filling up. Our boys loved this one.

The wedding made 7 hours feel like 7 minutes. We all had such a great time!

So if you are in the vicinity of Santa Clara can you please check the street to see if my ass is somewhere? That's right, I lost my ass.

I usually fair pretty well when playing poker, but something was off tonight. The cards just weren't coming. It could be that I was out of practice, since I haven't played in over 6 months or it could just be that I was gun shy and wasn't betting correctly. Regardless, I sucked big time tonight. So if you happen to see an ass on the side of the road, it might just be mine.

If there is a silver lining to this cloud, it is that I will hopefully now start getting invited back to some poker games. Winning at poker is great... great for you. Nobody likes to play poker with someone that knows how, so if you win, you aren't on the top of the list. Hopefully tonight, I will move up the list a little.

Every once in awhile you do something that just makes you feel good. A couple of weeks ago, I made the decision to give my old Diamante to my niece Jenee. She just turned 16 this past January and needed a car. Coming from her, it was that she needed a car that didn't have a stick or wasn't called "Shrek." I just love that name.

Anyway, my old car was just sitting in the driveway doing nothing. Gina and I swore that we would drive it until it died. A year and a half ago, we broke that promise and got a new car for Gina. So there the Diamante sat, lonely, undriven for 18 months. The old car seats were still in their places in the back seat. Junk from years gone by were in the trunk. I purchased the car in 1995 and it still had some stuff in there since then. GROSS!!!!

Cleaning out the car was a fairly easy task. Everything in it was throw away stuff, in my book. We hadn't used anything in that car for 18 months, so we probably didn't need anything. It took me a couple of hours to clean it out and wash it. Oh yeah, then came the part about trying to start it.

Before it was sent down to the minors 18 months ago, I just purchased a new battery. The problem with a car battery is that if you don't use it, it can go bad. It did just that. I lifted the hood to jump start the car and what did I find? I found my worst nightmare. I found a damn wasp nest. I flipped, ran into the garage and got the bug spray and sprayed a whole can on it. I think the smell killed every yellow jacket within a 30 mile radius. Those things were dead. There were about 20 dead wasps on the ground when I was done and about a dozen more in the nest. I finally won... So, I jump started the car and got it running. I was amazed at how smooth it still ran, considering the gas was that old too. I drove it around a bit for old times sake and I had forgotten how smooth the ride was too. For a split second, I thought to myself. I could just drive this car again and save a million dollars per year in gas. (I drive a Yukon XL) But nope, this car was for Jenee. She's a good kid who has done a ton of babysitting for us over the last year, so she deserves it.

She picked up the car this weekend and drove it home to her house in San Leandro with her mom. Today when she went to register it, she needed some documents that I neglected to get. I actually lost them, although there is a family dispute of who has possession of them. I just know I don't and since it's my blog, I will say that I am right. Because of her not having the correct documents from me, I had to act fast because the car was useless to her if she couldn't drive it. When I heard from her mom, my sister, I downloaded the forms, filled them out and took them to get notarized. I drove up there tonight to drop them off. So, hopefully she will by this time tomorrow be the proud owner of a Black 1995 Diamante.... and get a job!

Wow, 2 posts in a day... What gives?

Ok, here's what gives. I just got through with perhaps the grossest of gross duties in the entire world. Cleaning out a septic tank would probably not be worse that this.

Tonight I had the wonderful task of cleaning out the freezer. Although I really don't mind cleaning out freezers and refrigerators in general, this was a little different. You see, a few weeks back, the power went to our freezer and refrigerator in the garage. Since we don't park our cars in the garage, we didn't really notice what was going on until we smelled something funny upstairs. We thought something had died, quite possibly the squirrel who occasionally likes to take shelter in our roof. We hadn't heard him this year, so why not?

One night we decided to investigate where the smell was coming from. Gina went out to the garage and got blasted with the smell. We still thought that something was dead in the house, but since the smell was in the garage we were thinking skunk, rat, raccoon, anything but what happened next. As we were looking for the source, Gina happened to open up the refrigerator and didn't really notice anything accept that it wasn't cold. We don't really keep much in there, but bottles of beer and cans of soda. Since they are sealed, there really wasn't a smell. Then, she opened the freezer door and "Holy Shit!!!!" There was blood from the meat in the freezer mixed with a frozen lasagna mixed with a bag of ice (now bag of water) mixed with ice cream mixed with now rotten chicken. It was absolutely disgusting. The look on Gina's face was classic. It was kind of like the look on Jim Carrey's face in "Dumb and Dumber" when he saw his friend riding of with his girl. To make a long story short and on to me (selfish plug), Gina ended up cleaning that freezer that night. Boy was I ever thankful. I did everything I could to help the cause by getting her bags, spraying air freshener, etc.... Then after she finished cleaning up, she still noticed a fairly strong smell. She then opened the main freezer, which was right next to the refrigerator. Guess what she found???? A FREEZER FULL OF ROTTEN CHICKEN, MEAT, FISH AND VEGETABLES!!!! <--That's where I come in.

I figured that there was no way I was going to clean it that night. It was already almost midnight. I did what every man in my position would do. I found a way to get power back to the freezer so it would freeze everything up and get the smell back down to normal. Guess what, it worked!!!! (That's a tip I am going to remember forever) Anyway, fast forward to a few more weeks and we have tonight. D-Day! Garbage pick up is tomorrow, so I figured I should get it cleaned up before our big party on June 30th.

Even though I knew what I had to do, I kept procrastinating. I BBQ'ed tonight (Jamaican Jerk Pork Ribs, Lavender Chicken and and plain chicken...yummy!!!!) That took up a few hours. I was more than helpful getting the kids to bed tonight. Around 9pm I figured it was time to see if I could get Verizon to get my DSL speed up to where they promised it should be. Then a voice came to me. It said, "Quit stalling, you need to get out there and just do it!" I stalled for just a few more minutes and then said, "Ok dear! I'm going out in the garage. Wish me luck."

I turned off the power to the freezer and began the task of removing all the spoiled contents of the freezer. I pour a glass of hot water over the top and got my trusty hammer and screw driver working on the most disgusting crap in the world. I even wore a surgical mask to help with the smell. It didn't work. As I was hammering and pulling stuff out to put in the garbage, I couldn't help but wonder if this is what a serial killer must go through. If so, it is definitely not for me. I like my profession quite nicely, thank you! I thought about some local coyotes or mountain lines running into the garage because of the smell of rotted flesh. Of course it probably would smell bad to them as well.

Many times I gagged and about 3/4 of the way down, I realized that what I was pulling out was bacteria at it's worst. I started freaking out about how I might get really sick and what would happen if I touched the doors in the house and the bacteria got on one of the kids. I know, I'm a little paranoid, but it was a stressful moment. Anyway, in my paranoia, I asked Gina to go get a bottle of bleach so I could clean off the remnants of bacteria from any place I touched. She didn't want to, but could see that I was freaking out, so she did. (That was very nice) Anyway, I finished around 11:05 and even got to clean out the freezer with bleach. I forgot about the effects of breathing bleach in an enclosed surface and almost passed out. That would have been a perfect ending to my evening.

All in all, I feel good about what I did tonight. I accomplished the things I set out to do, like procrastinating long enough until I was ready and actually cleaning out the damn stinky thing.

Now that I have wash my hands with bleach and finished this entry, it's off to the showers and then to bed. I'm beat.

So I had to write this before I forgot about it. Today at lunch we watched as the Parking Ticket lady gave out about 20 tickets to people in the parking lot across from our office on San Fernando and 2nd street. She gave a ticket to anyone who was over the line. Now I guess that I can make some sort of sense of that if it is impossible to park in the space next to the car in violation. These cases, for the most part, were different. There are two lines on each side of a parking lot. My take on it is that you need to park within the outer most line. She wrote a ticket to anyone who was over the inside line. Just a fraction over the line was enough to get a ticket. I was fuming inside and was waiting her to give me a ticket, since I parked there today. I was waiting so I could fight it in court and take pictures of different cars who were ticketed and weren't ticketed. I know the city is hard up for money, but this is ridiculous. In surveying the parking lot, I only saw 2 vehicles that were in clear violation. They were taking up two spaces. The rest of the ticketed cars were not impeding anyone elses ability to park in the space next to them and there was no safety hazard associated with their parking job.

Sometimes I just don't understand the reasoning behind when or when not to give a ticket.

After work today, Gina and I took the boys to Nick's biological fathers house so we could meet the two girls that were going to be hanging out with Nick over the summer. I can't say the babysitter word... Anyway, they seemed like normal girls and even after I did my normal investigation of them, I didn't think anything other than positive things about them. That's a first, considering the ones we had talked to. It's a relief to have that taken care of.

So, I can't tell you lengths I go to so I can make sure my family is safe. I've turned into quite the investigator and can pretty much tell you anything about anyone these days. All I need is an email address (could be old), Full Name, and general area of where this person lives. From this I can pretty much tell you everything about them. It's a talent that I pretty much keep to myself.

Maybe it's just me, but the kids seem to be listening a little bit more these days. It's nice. It could also be that I'm mellowing out a little bit too...

There is something about Monday's at work that I can't get enough of. I know that most people really can't stand going back to work on Monday, but I rather enjoy it. It could be that I just love my job so much that I can't get enough of it. I'm not quite sure about that one, but I do know that it's reaching those micro goals throughout the day that really makes my workday a fun one. I guess this is why I do what I do and will probably do it until the day that I die...

Everyone was pretty tired this morning. We had a really busy weekend and you could see the tiredness in the boys eyes when they woke up. Nick is with his biological father, so it was just Ryan and Tucker that I had to tend to this morning. It was quite an easy morning compared to every other morning. I think it had to do with a couple of things. One, I was up around 6:30 and ready by 7am and another was that they were just too tired to put up a fight. We were out of the house by 8:15, but if I pushed it we could have been out by 7:30. I was quite suprised that not only was it easy, the boys didn't even get into their brotherly fights of who gets what sink, what stool and gets their shoes on first. Ryan even went on to offer to share his toys without even been asked. Amazing... I know!!!

I got into work by 9:15 and cleaned up some stuff from the weekend before heading into the weekly corp. meeting. It's a great, open and upfront meeting about the state of the company, what we have done, what we are doing and absolutely anything else we feel needs to be covered. With a small <20 ppl company and a very, very close knit group of employees, anything and everything can come up. I wouldn't have it any other way. My co-workers rock!

Meeting is finished by 11am and back to the grindstone, helping out some rather amusing customers and putting together some things to help all our customers. Then off to lunch with the gang. Everyone at the company eats lunch together in the lunchroom. We all go out and get our lunches at different places in the vicinity, then bring it back to the lunchroom for a great time. It is here where everyone becomes so close knit. Just like our company meeting. Anything and everything is brought up here. I almost feel sorry for new employees just starting out. It is quite an experience, but they usually get up to speed rather quickly. Sometimes this can be a test for an interview candidate. We hope that we don't scare them off too much.

After lunch, it's back to our desks for more work. The day ends around 5:30 for most, then we are all pretty much back online at home working around 8pm until 11pm. There is tons of stuff to do in a startup and you can never do it all. You can, however, keep yourself up to date with all that's around you and your marketspace.

So after I got home today and ate some dinner, I did a little bit of clean up in the yard. We are having a large family party on the 30th of June. Roughly 40-50 people are coming to our house for swimming and a BBQ and a few drinks. We used to have it on the 4th of July, but people travel to our place and quite frankly I don't blame them if they don't want to have to drive home late at night only to wake up early the next day for work. I want them to stay as long as they want at our house, relax, have a drink and leave when they want.

So back to the cleanup... The wind was blowing so pine needles and god knows what else was flying in to the pool. Instead of using a skimmer (the manual stuff), I was lazy and just turned on the pool sweep and filter. I know, I know, I'm wasting energy, but I had other things to do.. Other things like pulling these weeds that were choking some of our plants around the lawn. I've never seen such a thing. These weeds had weaved themselves in some fo the bushier plants and were litterally strangling the flowers. It was odd. Also, I had to dig up one of my favorite plants in the Patio Area. It had just gotten too big for the patio area and was taking over. It didn't helps its own cause by having dead flowers on it either. It's a spring plant and had hundreds of flowers at one point this spring. They are all gone now and the plant just looked ugly. It took awhile to get it out and I broke a crappy shovel in the process. Once that was done and I was mauled by a few hundred mosquitos.. Okay, I'm lying, it was just one or two, I started to clean the BBQ. I figured I better start now as I am going to be cooking about 10 racks of ribs on that puppy come June 30th. I leave that BBQ solely for rib smoking and use the other BBQ for the sausages, chicken and anything else that I'm cooking that day. Gina uses the two ovens and stove for the rest of the cooking. We love to cook.

So as I was doing that, Gina was brushing Sammy our dog. He started blowing coat today and he was absolutely a mess. We could literally pull chunks of hair off of him with our fingers. We collected two plastic grocery bags of hair from him today. As Gina said, "It would have been nice if I had thought about changing out of my work clothes before starting this." Looks like she will have some dog fur work clothes.

The kids were still great tonight. Tired is more like it. They watched Willy Wonka (the Gene Wilder version), barely ate any food and then went right to bed. Gina and I should have done the same, but we are suckers and feel that we at least need to do some work before we go to bed. This ends up taking us to the midnight hour wondering why we were such fools to stay awake and work.

This brings me to the end. Gina just said she is off to bed, so now I have an excuse.

Good Night. One of these nights I'm going to write about the nightly routine that Gina and I have. People think it's a little twisted. It might be, but it works well for us.

Until that time.

Wow, what a day.

After a night of semi-partying with some good friends, I was able to sleep in on Father's Day. Sleeping in for this household is around 8am. My wife told me to go lay back down after I came downstairs to the smell of a great breakfast. Who was I to talk back. That's exactly what I wanted to do. I got antsy around 8:30 and came down to eat. Yummy!!!

After breakfast, I took my mom back to Hollister and visited my dad in the hospital for awhile. He's looking better, but you can still tell that something is obviously wrong. He goes through terrible mood swings, but doesn't really know that he is. He lifted his hand to my mom today after she dropped something of his. My mom just blows it off and pretty much tells him to kiss her ass. He really doesn't have a clue as to whats going on. One thing I found about him since he got out of ICU, is that he hates to talk. He will say Yes or No to questions, but he doesn't really want to talk about anything. It's a sad situation. He pretty much wanted all of us kids and mom to leave. I cut out of there early, because I had a Father's day BBQ to go to.

I got home around 2:15 and then Gina and the boys got home around 2:30. We took off to my sister-in-law's house for the BBQ. We had a great time and the boys went nuts with a water slide that my wife bought for all the kids to play with. I got a lot of sun, but had a really good time. Since we've gotten back, I've been fighting off sleep, but it's looking like it's gotten the best of me. After checking my work email, I think I am going to sleep.

So after trying to sleep in on a Saturday, I got up along with everyone else to get ready for a soccer game...in Richmond. I was a little leary about taking the family up there, because in the previous 24 hours there had been 6 murders in this small town. I know, I'm probably paranoid, but I have the right to be worried.

Before we left, I checked online for the directions and the weather. The directions were easy enough, and that weather seemed like it would be a pleasant 68 degrees. Nice, compared to the 100 degree heat we had the last two days. We got ready and took off at 9:30.

We were supposed to be there at 10:30, one hour before game time. Getting there was as easy as I expected. We left a little earlier than we had to, but I'm glad we did....so I thought.

When we got there, I was quite flabbergasted at the condition of the high school where we played. Like most schools, they had portable classrooms in the back of the school. You could tell that these were in use during the school year, but the windows were all boarded up. It wasn't just the portables either, some of the windows in the school were boarded up to. The condition was absolutely horrible. I can't believe that the State Education Dept. would let a school get in this type of condition.

Anyway, we found the soccer field in the way back (We were the second ones there.) and we got out to 54 degree weather, with winds up to 15 mph. IT WAS COLD!!!!!!! It was definitely going to be a long game. We didn't bring any jackets, Nick didn't wear any warmups, it was going to be miserable. It was at that time, my mom, who was with us, said the most clever thing I think she has ever said. It was, "I think I'm going to watch the game from the car." Although I felt obligated, for some odd reason, to watch the game from the sidelines. Gina, My Mom and the kids watch the game from the car. Everyone commented on how they had the best seats on the field, and I have to say, "I agree."

Nick's team didn't win the game, but they played great against a really good team. I was proud of how they played, especially Nick. He has improved greatly over the last year. He was tired when the game was over, and he should have been.

We got home around 3pm, just in time to rest up for an hour and get ready to go to a friends house for a BBQ. As usual, we had a great time with our friends, whose kids are the exact same age as ours. We just got home around 10pm, after I dropped off Nick at his dad's house for Father's Day tomorrow. I wish he could spend it with us... every day for that matter, but I understand.

Tomorrow I am taking in the morning, after breakfast, to see my dad. He's in the hospital full time now. My mom thinks that he will come home at some point. Unfortunately, I don't see it happening. He has too many things wrong with him for this to happen. Don't get me wrong, it would be great, but I think it might be too much to ask.

Oh yeah, I forgot. I setup my new DSL connection today. Now that I have gotten Directv and Verizion DSL, I can officially tell COMCAST to Kiss My Ass! Nobody over there seems to want to do what's right for the customer. There motto should be, "We do the littlest possible to service the customer." That's exactly what they do and that is exactly why I am getting rid of them and may quite possibly be getting Directv for the rest of my neighbors.

So the good news is that Tucker's pre-school graduation was much less emotional that Nick's. It could have been that they crammed about 50 adults in a room that was designed for 15 Pre-kindergartners. It could be that it as over 90 degrees outside. It could also have been that I cried enough for the week, so I was done... ;)

The two people that run the pre-school where Tucker graduation from, where about as emotional as anyone could get. They have had the majority of these kids since they were 12 weeks old. They are as much a part of them as we are. I don't think our kids will ever forget them or their teachers. It is truly a great place.

After the graduation, there was a party for the kids and families at the local JCC, but not religious based, which I think that some people may have thought so. It was supposed to be a pool party, but a little accident in the pool before we had gotten there closed the pool for a couple of hours. To make up for the loss of pool time, they had set up an inflatable water slide/jumpy house type of place. The kids absolutely loved it. I think more than the pool, once it opened after a thorough cleaning. I had a great time mingling with the parents and making sure all the kids remained safe when we got to the pool. I couldn't believe how awesome this place was. Everyone was so nice and the facility was absolutely amazing. We are considering joining.

We ended the day with one of my world (I mean family) famous BBQ's at the house. We had the kids favorite, RIBS, and a host of other foods for them. The kids were really tired, but they couldn't help but eat 2 slabs of ribs. (Boys eat a lot)

School Graduations are a funny thing. I remember growing up that we go an 8th Grade graduation and a High School graduation. This year, my 41st, I find out that there are Pre-School graduations and 5th grade graduations. I kind of understood the pre-school one because it really is a big deal to be starting "Real School" for a kid. I remember how proud I felt the first time I stepped in to Mrs. McClary's class at Loma Vista School in Salinas, CA. 5th Grade graduation, on the other hand, I was having a hard time with...until today.

My oldest son, Nick, has just finished graduating from 5th grade. They had a complete ceremony where awards were given and they even walked in to Pomp & Circumstance. They sang a few songs for us and were quite good. Since I'm very critical of music and singing, most of you know that this compliment means something. Anyway, as the kids sang their last song and tears were flowing down my face, I realized that tears were flowing down everyone's face. All the parents, grandparents, teachers, and even some of the kids. It was at that point I wondered why all the tears at this graduation? I don't remember tears at 8th grade graduation or High School graduation, for that matter. It was then that I came up with this theory:

Pre-School and 5th grade graduations are emotional because your child that you have raised is taking another important step into adulthood. During these times they pretty much are who you raise and expect them to be. They are good kids by you and you are very proud that they are turning into nice young ladies and gentlemen.

8th grade graduation you are still very proud of them, but for some parents there is a sense of relief that they will at least be able to function with an 8th grade education... The tears are there, but not nearly as much as the 5th grade one. The struggles of the middle school teen and their parents make this graduation, "The graduation of relief"

For High School graduation the tears are far and few between. Don't get me wrong, they are there, but it's more for the excitement of, "You are now old enough to get a job and get out of the house." Yes, it's true. Parents look forward to this graduation so every child of theirs can see what it is really like to be an adult. Sure they are going to college and you will still be supporting them until the end, but with college you won't have to deal with them missing a sock in the morning or fighting with their siblings.

So that's my theory, in a nutshell.

Today I was so proud of Nicholas as he accepted his 1 millionth award, but more proud of him for singing aloud so everyone could hear his voice. There were many shy kids, but we raise ours to not be shy and be expressive. It was a great, emotional feeling to see Nick so animated during his songs.

My middle son Tucker, will be graduating Pre-School tomorrow. I cried quite a bit during Nick's, I'm wondering what it's going to be like at Tucker's.

I'll try and write about the blubberfest tomorrow.