I feel the burn....in my eyes

Unfortunately these days I have become accustomed to the burning sensation that I usually feel in my eyes. Part of it comes from staring at a computer screen all day. The other part of it comes from wearing contacts for long periods of time and being up later every night than I should.

Today's economy is sucking me dry. 

It is unfortunate that my main job doesn't seem to cover all of the expenses that are in my life...and I like to think that we live pretty modestly. The only debts that we have are a mortgage and a van payment. In order to make up what is lacking I have not yet resorted to selling internal organs, but I do feel like in some ways I have sold my soul. 

I'm tired. I work 40 hours a week with my main job. The nights that I am able to come home at a reasonable time I try to be a good dad and husband. Other nights I can be gone late either working on computers or painting. Or I could bring the computers to my house, like last night, and be up till 2AM working on them. And the weekends can also be filled with work if it is there...and sometimes even when it is, the money can still be tight. 

I was just thinking the other day about all the people in the world out there that know what it is like to come home from work, kick their shoes off and just relax or do what they enjoy doing. I don't know how much debt they might have, but they aren't busting their humps working more than one job. 

If I didn't have the economic pressures that I have currently here's how I would spend my free time:

Weeknights- I would come home from work and have dinner with the family. After dinner I would either help my kids with their school work or play with them, read to them or whatever they wanted to do. After they went to bed I would help my wife with whatever chores around the house needed done so that we'd be finished with everything in time to maybe occasionally watch a movie, TV show, or read a book. Then I'd aim to be in bed by 11PM every night.

Weekends- I would get up and have breakfast, watch the news, and solidify plans for the day. When the dew had evaporated I would mow the lawn. I'd then take care of whatever household chores/projects needed to be done and then have the rest of the day to do whatever with whoever. 

I would really like the idea of going to bed earlier so that I could get up earlier. For me there is a great sense of "completeness" that goes with being able to have a long and fulfilling day of achievement of goals. It might help with my ongoing depression. 

I remember one of my favourite "cycles" of my life. It was a pretty short one but it was the best: We were on a vacation in Washington. It was in July and the sun would set around 9:45PM. Once it got dark where we were [on top of a mountain] it was dark. No street lights, only the moon and stars. I was usually in bed and asleep by 10:30. The sun would then rise, and I would rise with it, around 6AM. It was such a refreshing cycle.

My problem with all of that though is that by nature I tend to be a night owl. If the conditions are right, sometimes I could easily find myself up and busy until 4:30AM after getting up the previous morning as early as 7:30.  I've had to adapt though. I just can't do that very often anymore. Although, occasionally when I'm under a deadline for something I may go for several days on only 3 or 4 hours of sleep each night, and sometimes throw in an all nighter. 

Things might appear to be easier for us if my wife worked....but that also would then add another set of complications that we don't currently have. That would mean we'd also have to find childcare. Our daughter is Kindergarten age but we have chosen to homeschool our kids to keep them out of the ever shallowing mires of the public education system. Sure, we'd have my wife working, but then probably 3/4 of her paycheck would go toward paying someone else to raise our kids most of the time. Why? 

I would really like to see a return to a local economy system. All too often small town economies are overthrown by the big cities that attract more people to work there. The higher wages from the big cities then drive up the cost of everything else that comes in contact with it. Real estate goes up because incomes are higher and people can better "afford" the new cost structure. Increases in wages lends to an increase in money circulation which then also further inflates the cost of living. There's really no way for the middle class to ever get ahead of the cycle.

We're working on it though. From here on out we're committed to pouring almost every extra cent into paying off the debts and simplifying our lives so that one day I can come home from work and just sit down and watch TV if that's what I desire to do.

In the meantime.....I just wish I had time to take a nap once in a while.

Meeting Minutes

It has been a month since I've rapped at y'all. Sorry about that. My life has just been a crazy mess of all sorts of stuff. 

Let's recap June-

All I remember was my daughter's birthday. She turned the big 5 this year. Wow, time really flies. If you have kids then you understand this well. It hits home even more when you sit back and look at photos of them growing up right before your eyes. A few of them that I looked at seemed like they happened just last week; only to remember that it was actually over 2 years ago. Hold on to them tightly and treat them well because the time is short. 

Another June moment was the confirmation that we are now expecting our 3rd child. So far the pregnancy is going well and my wife is still looking pretty hot. Well, she's always a hot preggo but I am sure that we won't have much time to really worry about that stuff. Now that we've already got 2 kids to keep us busy, and with how quickly the this last year has gone by, I'm sure that the pregnancy will breeze right by. I am pretty thankful for that because I remember how hard our first pregnancy was. The first few months blew right by. The next 4 months went by at a "life as usual" pace. The last month was killer. The anticipation kept me up each night thinking that my wife's every move meant that she was going into labor. Baby, when you're ready, we'll be waiting for you.

Pivot point 3 for June was my decision that I really needed to start working out again, seriously. My daughter told me one day after I got out of the shower that I looked like I was going to have a baby. That hurt...but she was right. 

I will be 30 next month and although I am still about 5 years away from entering those "mid-life" years I don't want to be one of those fat and unhappy middle-agers. My diet needs adjusting, which I'm working on, and I need to offset all of my hours sitting at a desk during the day with physical activities. Admittedly, getting into the swing of things is really hard, but I can say that I already feel a difference. I've lost 10 pounds and I feel a little more confident about myself. I don't need to be Mr. Universe but I also don't want to maintain my staus quo. 

On the job front-

I'm still at my regular day job. Not really going anywhere with that one.

The computer gigs keep coming in. I am usually making 2-3 calls a week on my customers and I am continually getting new ones.

I have also started to take off with painting. So far I have done the interior of 2 rental houses and a display wall in a photo gallery. Coming up sometime in the future I will have another home interior, a photo studio backdrop wall, 2 apartments and possibly 2 condos. If you or anyone that you know of is in the need for a painter just let me know or send them my way.

My book is still very slow in development. I have some upcoming time that I need to take off of work though so hopefully I can find myself in some secluded places for a few days and finally get it finished. I imagine that it would be a lot easier to crank out more books in less time if that was the only thing that a person did. 

My parents' divorce isn't getting any easier. My dad has been out of my mom's house for about 2 months now. We seem to see him every few weeks when he comes up to visit. It is nice to see him but it is hard because he seems to always be on a limited schedule and he's really unhappy. 

My mom is doing much better than expected though. She has begun to find ways to pick up the pieces of her life and move on. She is a strong woman. She is keeping herself busy with people and things to do and I'm very proud of her. 

Back to work.

Thanks for reading.

News Break 5.23.08

Fitting picture.

This is how I seem to feel most of the time as of late. I really don't want to spend the whole post here talking about my parent's divorce so I'll only hit the high points.

Divorce sucks. The reasons don't matter. Period.

Divorce starts to bring out all kinds of "truths" that have been hidden over the years. You find out that people either may or may not be who you knew or suspected.

My mom is having a very hard time with everything and I can understand from a distance. After almost 32 years of marriage it would be hard to find out that your husband had been having an affair for the last year. It would then be hard to set your sights on trying to pick the pieces back up to see what can be salvaged only to find out a year later, before your 33rd anniversary, that the last year had been for nought.

My dad, as we have come to find out, began casual email correspondence with an old co-worker. After two or three years it escalated to something more. It essentially turned into a second life. Now as more and more comes back to the surface the plot only thickens and becomes more complicated.

I plan on meeting with my dad this weekend to discuss some of the insanity in which he now lives. I'm glad that we are finally meeting because I was beginning to fear that he was avoiding me and that our relationship might altogether dissolve. He is, after all, still my father.

My mother has rightfully told him that as soon as the house is refinanced in her name and she has ownership that she wants him out. I kind of hate to see that happen but it is what she needs to be able to move on with her life.

I find myself loving on my kids more these days.

One thing is for certain in life- nothing in life is for certain; circulum ad nausium.

In other news, I was recently able to finish tiling my bathtub surround. I only have a few pieces of crown moulding that need to be replaced. For the most part though, it feels pretty good to have a project complete. I haven't seemed to be able to do that for a while.

I am typing this post through the Safari web browser.

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend. My motto: Oppose war at all possible costs, but support our troops when it does happen.

That will be all for now.

Captain's Log- Star date 4.19.08

It feels like it has been an old school G.I. Joe kung fu action grip since I've dropped a post on y'all.

So much stuff has been going down these days that I just can't seem to catch up with it. I'm just going to go in the order in which things creep up on me thinker.

I have been working my way through watching Dexter- Season 1. I have got to say that it is probably my new favourite series. It was originally made by and aired on Showtime but CBS also tried to make it into a slightly sanitized version for prime-time television. I have not been watching it there. I've been watching it in its raw form as originally aired. The premise is that Dexter is a blood spatter expert [do those even really exist? who cares?] for the Miami police department. He's got a secret though. He's really a serial killer...but the catch is that his victims are only deserving ones who have caused great harm for others. So it's really one of those that even though you know that he is in the wrong for what he is doing you still cheer for him. Kind of like Porter in Payback. I love the show and can't get enough of it.

My wife and I recently had to work through miscarrying a baby. Thankfully it was only after a few weeks of pregnancy, but I still feel sad about the loss. We are doing alright though.

Speaking of the wife, she is down in Des Moines this weekend only getting Jesus.

It has just been me and the kids tonight and will do the same tomorrow until she gets back. While I admit that there are certain times that I do look forward to the brief moments of temporary bachelorhood...things are just not the same tonight without her being here. Even though most nights we might be doing our own things around the house I guess tonight I just miss her presence.

We now have another cat again. We weren't sure what to think of her at first. She came to us from a house where she had 13 other companions to share litter boxes with. For the first several days she didn't really seem to want to have anything to do with us and then slowly she started warming up to us. Now after a few weeks she is roaming the house, trying to snuggle up to the dog and occasionally letting our daughter pet her. We finally named her. Fiona. She'll probably never catch on. She is a sweet cat that sounds like a dog's squeaky toy when she meows but she needs to learn the art of cuddling. It makes the dog jealous though.

The recent earthquake in Illinois has once again reminded me to try and be aware enough of my surroundings and the unknown that I don't get too overtaken with surprise about anything. It's even more amazing to me that the place where the earthquake happened is also the same place that holds the record for the worst earthquake in U.S. history.

I am still [very slowly but surely] working on my book. In case I didn't mention the title here before it will be called The Unauthorized & Incomplete Autobiography of Rage Perry. It's been fun so far. Now I just need to finish the damn thing.

I am now beginning the initial stages of what I hope will be my new career path. I have high ambitions to leave the cut-throat corporate IT world to pursue painting again. So if you want your house painted just let me know and I'll see if we can work something out. :-)

I am currently listening to a classic Radiohead tune called Creep. The song is a perfect stimulant for conversation as to various contextual relevances of the "F" word.

Earlier I listened to a tune from Red Hot Chili Peppers. One thing is for sure about them- whether you love or hate them they are a band to be commended for their diversity and substantive offerings. I just wish the drummer would wear clothes.

What ever happened to Dave Matthews? And where in the world are Waldo and Carmen SanDiego for that matter?

I need to go let the dog back in. I'll be right back......

OK, I'm back.

I think that's going to be all for tonight. If I think of anything later I'll scribble it then.

Wrapping Up The Passion

Today marked the end of the Passion Week.

The festivities begin with the glorious Palm Sunday where pastors and preachers proclaim the "Triumphal Entry" of Jesus into Jerusalem. This serves as part one of the two week drama/tragedy.

I've never understood why it was called a "triumphal entry" since the same crowd that welcomed Jesus [according to the narratives] was the same one that crucified him. That doesn't sound like much of a triumph but rather a "crawfish" as they used to say back in the old west. [that's where you agree to one thing and then go back on your word....for all y'all that don't speak old west]

Next in the procession is Maundy Thursday. This is the day that is commemorated as the day that the Last Supper [or last Passover] was held with Jesus and his followers. It also remembers the prayer in the Garden of Gethsamane before Jesus was arrested and handed over to the Elders and Judas Priest.

Good Friday then follows with the remembrance of the awful torture and crucifixion of Christ. The problem with this day of remembrance though is that if you follow a real calender of events you'll find that in order for Jesus to rise from the dead after 3 days and still have it come out on a Sunday....then he would have had to have been crucified on a Wednesday before he had his Last Supper.....but I'm no math expert.

Saturday is then all quiet so that we can catch all of the basketball games on TV.

Sunday is then the main event. The day that you get up earlier than normal so that you can scoot off to church in time to catch the sunrise breakfast and all that follow. If the kids are lucky then the Jesus Bunny would have left them jolly chocolates in either various places around the house or in a nice wicker basket on the dining room table.

What I observed today at our church was a strange mix of all that made me feel weird. I saw many people who normally just wear jeans and t-shirts show up on dresses and suits. What's the difference? Why dress up more today than any other day? I really started wondering if maybe there was a funeral following the service or something.

Our pastor's sermon seemed to lack the luster that you'd typically imagine for such a day. He can always deliver a good message but for some reason today just seemed a bit out of touch for his normal presentation. To top all of that I just felt kind of bad that I generally just wanted to stay in bed all day.

We had company this weekend. We went to bed at a somewhat reasonable time last night. Well, we usually find the sack somewhere between 11pm-2am. This morning though we needed to be in the van and off to church by 7:30am in order to be there with our food for breakfast at the time that they told us.....we needed to be there by 8:00am. What time did we get there? 8:20. Nobody seemed to make a big deal out of it though so that was OK.

It was hard enough to get up, let alone get up and get 3 adults and 5 children ready to go in a short amount of time. We got there though and had our breakfast. When breakfast was done it was then Sunday School hour- something that we are never really there for. So the wife and her friend decide that would be a good time to head over to Wal-Fart and pick up some goods while I hang out in the adult Sunday School class and listen to them brainstorm about better ways to try and get good with folks before they try and sell them Jesus. I stayed around until they broke up into small groups and then that's when I found a comfy chair.

I normally get upset with people who don't have the common courtesy to pay attention to speakers in public but today during the service I lost it several times. What would otherwise pass for my deep meditation on the themes of transcendent nature ended up only being me dozing off by accident. The first time was during the offering. The other 3 or 4 times were during the sermon. Man did I feel bushed.

So much to do and keep up with today that my afternoon nap just couldn't come soon enough. I feel refreshed a bit now and I feel even better about finally spending some more time with my kids today. I haven't had a whole lot of time with them lately. I need more of it though.

Another Easter in the books. Did I miss anything?

Caught Up

It has been more than a month now since my last post here, so I apologize to my readers...if I have any left.

I would like to thank my wife for reading this. She is about the only one that I know of who reads this because she is the only one who ever comments. For everyone else, thanks for reading too...I just don't know who's out there.

So much has been happening lately-

The new year was brought in. Welcome 2008, although you feel a lot like last year so far.

This year we spent our first New Year's Eve in a bar. That is not typically something that my wife and I would do but this year was different. My aunt and uncle were in town visiting. My aunt is only six years older than I am and my uncle is only 4 years older. We both have kids that are close to the same age as well so it really felt more like hanging out with friends. The bar was busy. It was the busiest place that I have ever been in. I'm sure that if the Fire Marshall had stopped by that he would have shut the place down; but we almost saw a fight take place right behind our table so that helped add to some excitement.

What was the fight about? There was this guy that had already had too much to drink and someone else that was there with him wouldn't give him his keys. It was funny at first but then it got annoying. We weren't hoping that they would fight, but we were hoping that the drunk guy would either get a cab or walk home. He was in no shape to drive.

Anyways, we had a good time. We drank some beer, smoked some cigars and brought in 2008 together.

I took two weeks off of work around the holidays.

Note to self- it is always harder for me to return to work with good spirits after taking that much time off at once.

I didn't do any more podcasting during my break or up until now because I am not sure if it is worth my time.

Since I have returned to work life has pretty well returned to normal. I get up, drive to work, work all day, come home and maybe work some more, spend a little time with my family, spend a little time on the Internet, and then I go to bed only to get back up and do it all over again. Five days a week.

The Iowa caucus is now over. I can finally go through my day without having some presidential wanna-be calling me to tell me what is wrong with the other candidates.

I went to our district caucus. I admit that I went to caucus for a Republican candidate; but that was only because he was a Libertarian at heart. I was disappointed to find out that the Republican caucus was basically just an inflated version of an opinion poll. I think that I like the Democrat's use of this function to weed out the weaker candidates better. It seems to have more of a point to it. It was an interesting experience though. I had never done that before.

Now it appears that Giulliani and Edwards have dropped out of the race. I wasn't going to vote for either of them but I didn't see that coming. Neither did I foresee John McCain climbing the wall the way he has been lately. I think that the race is showing some interesting things though-

• Republicans are possibly starting to see Mitt Romney as a cardboard candidate; he looks shiny but there's no depth to him. Sure we'd all like him running our company but not necessarily our country
• Republicans don't have as much faith as expected in Mike Huckabee (pun kind of intended)
• Democrats have revealed in the dropping out of John Edwards that there are a bunch of them that don't really care for either Clinton or Obama

I would like to see Ron Paul get elected. We need a good renegade in office for a while.

Movies I've recently seen-

Juno, Superbad, Shoot 'Em Up, 1408, Heat, Saw IV, Hostel 2, I Am Legend, Untraceable, The Reaping, Vacancy, An Evening With Kevin Smith, 28 Weeks Later - I guess that seems like a lot of movies in the last month.

Actor Heath Leger recently passed away. It is always unfortunate whenever anyone dies. It is always even more unfortunate how the press handles such events. It is always then even more unfortunate how the Westboro Baptist Church handles such events.

I have recently switched from drinking a lot of soda and coffee to drinking tea (with only a minimal amount of sugar or none at all) in their place. I now find that I am not as hungry as often and my pants now feel like they are getting bigger.

I don't blog as much as I'd like to. I don't do a lot of what I want to as much as I'd like to, but I hope that I am learning to better prioritize my time to allow for the things that are most important.

Mr. Mom

Today I let my wife have the day to herself. What this meant was that she started off by sleeping till about 1pm and then got up and got ready to go off to do other stuff without me or the kids. I was glad to be able to give her that time because she runs a very hectic ship here on the home front.

Days like today are really good for me for perspective. They are good memories for me to zero back in on if I ever come home from work some night and feel frustrated that dinner isn't made or that the kitchen or family room is a mess. It happens. It happens even more when you've got two crazy kids that both require a lot of attention and supervision.

This is a tribute to all the moms out there who make the sacrifice for their families to stay home instead of being in a full time job outside of the home. I'm not saying that stay-at-home mom's are superior in any way but they have certainly chosen their vocation carefully. I could not do it. I would like to think that given the right opportunities and circumstances that I could be a full time stay-at-home dad, but there is just no way.

But what did happen today was good:

Making breakfast for the kids is usually no big deal; it is getting them to eat it that is the challenge.

Bathing the kids can be fun; but there is always this certain level of assumed vanity that goes into it for me because I know that my son especially will be just as dirty as he was before the bath by the end of the day.

Lunch, see comments about breakfast.

My afternoon duties today included doing some dishes and trying to get my kids to pitch in and pick up all of the toys that were not being played with. Sometimes I feel like that endeavour is like trying to pull long nose hairs off a gnat. We did eventually get somewhere though.

Horse rides; my kids like to think that I am a horse so they climb up and down off of me as many times a possible. The irony in that is that when they actually are near a horse- once they get on it is hard to get them off.

Cartoons, Cartoons, and Cartoons; I am not really a fan of just sitting my kids down in front of the TV and letting their brains become mush, but sometimes you just have to do it for the sake of your own sanity. Thomas the Train Engine, Bear in the Big Blue House, and many old Loony Toons characters became closer friends today.

I love my kids, but I have to give the bigger shout-out today to my wife who does all this stuff every day.

Salmagundi

It has been a while since I've typed so now it's time for the latest instalment. This one very well may be all over the place and fairly random but just hang with me, or just move on.

First things first- I received an email from a reader that said that they found one of my posts on Minneapolis to be "anti-climactic." I had written about a fairly recent business trip up there and stated several nice things about the Minneapolis/St. Paul area but then ended the post by saying something to the effect of even though it is a great place to visit, I'm not sure that I would want to live there.

He said that in light of it being a decent post that he was confused as to why I would leave it so open-ended like that...and then made the comment that after then seeing my hair that perhaps it made a little more sense.

Sorry if you don't like my hair. Sorry if you're so shallow enough to really truly try and stoop to the level of judging a person by their "cover." As a writer I am open to constructive criticism about ways that I can improve the quality of my posts but when someone starts throwing jabs about intelligibility being linked to the fuzziness of someone's hair then, pardon me if I say....well, fill in the blank with the phrase of your choice. The conversation has been ended.

OK, now that that is out of the way....

A loooooooong time ago, sometime last year, I was talking about a renovation project that I had started in my house. It was a big deal. We had this room that we didn't know what to call. It wasn't a closet, it wasn't a bedroom...but it did have a 1/2 bathroom in it which made it that much more quizzical. Well, we decided that we wanted to get some kind of use out of it, but the problem was that it was the only room in the whole house that we were certain had absolutely no insulation, no real good source of electricity, and no heating ducts going to it. I think you might be able to track where I'm going with this now.

In order to make this room work, I had to really just start things over from scratch. I removed everything from the bathroom and covered up the pipes. We moved everything that we had been storing in there to another room. I then went out to my garage and got a few hammers and a pry bar and started having a field day. The room was once mainly bad plaster work that was later "patched" together with even worse wallpaper and then sealed up with paint. Not any more. I took things down to the bare frame.

I ran more wire to accommodate more electrical outlets, split off 2 existing light switches, re-did the ligthting for the room. I then insulated the room the hell out of the room before putting up brand new sheetrock. When that was done I mudded, textured, painted, and now I am in the very last stages of putting up the last of the trim around the doorways. So a year later I almost have this mamma-jamma under wraps.

Work at my regular job has been what it is, but I don't like to blog about that.

Because of all of the stuff going on in my life right now I really haven't had much time for family, relaxing, or leisure. But once things are finally to a near stop then I've got some things on my list to tend to-

1. Reading- I have books that I would like to read but I've just not had the time to read any of them lately.
2. Working out- I have not worked out in.....too long. I now finally have the room again to get my equipment back out and use it. I am tired of being tired and I know that working out again will help.
3. Catching up on the shows that I've missed- Thank God for Tivo.
4. Playing with my kids- I can finally come home from work and not be distracted by everything else that is going on.
5. Write some much needed music- Last night I was listening to a tape or 2 that I had from 2 concerts that my college band did several years ago. We really didn't put everything into our group that we could have and we weren't as good as we could have been, but in my estimation, for a half-assed band we also really weren't that bad either. I miss writing and playing music and I once again feel inspired to do something about it.

We currently have company in our house. My wife had a friend from high school who was a foreign exchange student from Germany. She is now back here in the States visiting us. I have to admit that it feels kind of exotic to have a foreigner here in our house with us to give us different perspectives and such. She has a lot of interesting stories from around the world. Thankfully she seems to feel right at home here with us and I hope she really does. I also hope that we've made the stay nice enough that she'd want to come back. Hopefully we can all meet up in Ireland someday as well and have a tour there.

Well, with all of that now having been said my children are now awake and ready for breakfast so I need to go get that ready for them.

I'll be back much sooner next time than I was this time.

Combustacation

How many blog posts start out by me saying how worn out I am? Well, I can't break tradition with this one...

I spent most of the weekend working. I worked and worked, and then worked some more. I worked a total of around 15 hours this weekend which meant that I was up well into the night. That was with my "regular" job where I moonlight as an antivirus support engineer.

Then I had work lined up for my own "business" on the side which also drained some more life and energy out of me. I really need some R & R coming up here soon or I am going to catch on fire like the dude that is featured here in the photo to the right.

I do have to give props to my wife though. She probably should be sick of my absence by now, but instead she just keeps encouraging me to keep going and while I've had my own stuff to do she has been working on a monstrous project of cleaning out our house and garage of junk.

That's right, I have a big dumpster sitting out in my driveway right now that is pretty well full of junk; stuff that I've either had in my house, my basement or my garage for way too long. We are in the final stages of getting some stuff rolling to do a facelift on our house. Yep, new siding, windows, soffits, facia, gutters, and two of our porches rebuilt. This should mean a much warmer and energy efficient winter for us...not to mention the quieting of the trains that pass through town in the night.

I am only working for 3 hours tomorrow. Then I'm back in the office for Thursday and then out on Friday to make a nice 4-day-weekend. Nice.

the other night I watched the movie Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil. It was a pretty good movie.

My hair is now long enough that I have moved into the ponytail stage...of sorts.

Whenever I go over to my parent's for lunch, I always have this fear that I left their place having gone to the bathroom but forgot to flush.

I heard an ad on the radio today about investing in gold. They said that it was the best investment that one could make. As a "gift go get you started" they were offering to send you a free silver dollar. Hmmmm, invest in gold and get a silver dollar.

I find it hard to sit in a breezy air-conditioned room and not want to lay back and take a nap.

I finally watched most of the movie Zeitgeist. It is very interesting, but then again most conspiracy theory movies are interesting. I am usually pretty skeptical of conspiracy theories because I don't think that people are generally intelligent enough to carry them out...but I guess you never know.

I don't like how newspeople have changed over to use the word pleaded instead of plead for the past tense of the phrase "to plead."

Presidential candidate Tommy Thompson wants to eliminate cancer. Good luck with that.

I am tired of the political races already. Bert is running against Ernie who can't say anything good about Spongebob. Puppets. That's all they ultimately are. Puppets.

We temporarily provided refuge for a dog on Sunday, but then she peed on our floor so we put her outside and called the vet. The vet found her owner and she made it back home OK.

That football player who got in trouble for dog fighting claims to have "found Jesus" through all of his turmoil surrounding the incident. I'm pretty sure that Jesus was trying to hide as he probably didn't want to be involved in dog fighting. Poor Jesus.

That is enough for tonight. I think that my headache is strong enough now that I should listen to it and stop for the night.

Another Chapter Being Written

Hello bloggereaders.

In today's installment we will talk about a few happenings.

Today after church we went to a Taco Bell/KFC. If we would have known beforehand what we were in for we would have opted for plan C. That's right, plan A had already failed and plan B was almost just as bad.

Upon entering the establishment we could already see that the patrons there looked like they were standing in line at the DMV. Apparently service was really slow and when the folks did get their food the orders were wrong. We, I later came to find out, were no exception.

I typically like to be as laid back about fast food as I can because I know that both the food and the pay are generally of low quality. Any given day could be either the cashier's best or worst day of the week. Apparently today was the worst day for ours. That's really too bad though, given that today is the first day of the week.

So I step up and give the lady my order. It was going to be quite simple- 1 meal that was some taco crispy wrap thing [the name escapes me now] and 2 SOFT shell tacos; one with meat, cheese and lettuce, and the other with just meat and cheese. And then I ordered a Teryaki buffalo wing meal. They got my order right but the wrap thing didn't have all of the ingredients, and both tacos were HARD shell with meat, cheese, and sour cream. NOT what we ordered, but I had a feeling that the lady behind the counter may have had a gun....and I didn't want to find out. The up-side was that we got 5 drinks out of the deal somehow.

Then after we got home I needed to mow the lawn because it looks like this might be a week full of rain; we'll see. I don't trust weather people any farther than I can throw them; and with my bad knees I don't really feel like giving it a whirl any time soon. I found out that I should start thinking about replacing my riding mower. It has been a good mower but I had to jump start it with my car today and I found some "additional" parts to it laying in my driveway. I have no idea what they are or where they go.

I also found out that my son has a temp of 103.2. No wonder he has been being a turd.

In other news- I've decided to write a book about my pseudo memoirs from college. It will be fiction based on what may or may not be true stories. I will change some of the names to protect the whatever. I just felt that the world needed at least one more book in the library. I'm currently working on Chapter 1.

That will have to be all for now. I'm hot and sweaty from mowing; yes even after riding a mow...and I am in charge of supper tonight.

I'll catch you all on the other....

Another Wednesday Night Post

I just want to let the record state that the dude on the left is not me.

OK, now that we've got that out of the way we've come to another Wednesday night post. You all know what that means- [in case you don't] not anything more than the rest of my posts.

it is Wednesday night and I'm sitting here watching To Catch A Predator on NBC. What a sick world that we live in that they can have a show like this that has as many episodes. Each episode is pretty much the same as the last; they lure people in and then snag them when they have them.

So let's recap the last week or so. Since last Wednesday I've been working on this horrific spreadsheet at work. The long and the short of it is that we are getting ready to be audited. I am convinced that auditors only have their jobs because someone who had too much time on their hands created the position for them. People who don't work in your department come through and survey everything that you do and whether or not you have everything documented. Then they tell you whether you pass or fail, but they don't tell you in advance what they are looking for to begin with. So after Thursday and Friday I needed to blow off some steam. I didn't really get the chance though so I waited until last night.

Last night I had some time to kill so I decided to stop by the old diggs where I grew up. I stopped by the old shopping mall that I used to frequent just to see where it was headed. It had been a few years since I had gone there for anything and it looked like it was turning into a ghost town. There didn't seem to be many shops left in business. Well last night I saw that it is starting to turn back around.

I walked in the doors by Target. After I took about 10 steps inside I heard an old song playing over the mall speaker system- Wanna Be Startin' Something by Michael Jackson. I had to chuckle to myself. As I think about it now it seems even funnier because Michael Jackson's Thriller was the very first record that I ever bought.

As I walked around I did some several familiar places. The Shoe Carnival, The Cookie Company, Sears, JC Penny, Yonkers, are all still there. I was also somewhat surprised to see that there appeared to be 2 different churches that had their offices set up there right next to each other. Talk about a possible manifestation of competition. Then as I walked further down the stretch I saw a mini-golf place that was really dark. As I walked up closer I saw that all of the lights were black lights and all of the courses were lit up in florescent neon colours. It I had been high it would have been really trippy...but I wasn't and I kept walking.

I admit that I was also on the lookout. I don't really consider myself to be a popular person, but I have had a history of running into at least 1 person that I know wherever I go. Tuesday was no exception; I ran into my High School Spanish teacher. We chatted for a few moments and I told him how his class had served a good role in my life and how it helped later develop me in my career and personal life. He is no longer teaching though. He said that the parents had just gotten too cooky for him. They were getting mad at him for calling on their kids in class. Wow, the educational system seems to have reached into interesting realms.

Tomorrow I am meeting up with an old college friend of mine who is currently attending seminary. I think he's been in seminary for about 8 years now...well, it's probably been more like 4 or 5 but now he's back to being a full time student so maybe that [and good behaviour] will cut some time off his sentence.

My wife and I are looking forward to the release of The Bourne Ultimatum next Friday night. I loved the first 2 in the series and I'm sure that this one will be just as good.

Speaking of movies, I should go see what's playing up in my room. In case you didn't get that- I'm tired and need to go to bed.

Ugh!!!

My brain feels pretty fried at the moment.

I took last week off of work and I really needed that break. I worked on a room in my house that I started back in November. I didn't get as far on it as I had hoped but I guess every little bit counts. I worked on it Mon-Thursday.

I had resigned myself to only work on the room during the day. Then at night I would just relax and have time with family and friends. I pretty well met this goal. My daughter went up to my wife's folks for the week so it was just me, the Mrs, and our son. We had a good time.

Then this past weekend we were able to see some friends that will be moving. They have been friends of ours for several years and now they will be moving because of the guy's job. Even though we only saw each other every few months, we had kids close to the same age, we all had a great time, and we will be missing them greatly.

I also found out last week that it sounds like my parents are going through another nasty spell. I emailed my mom to see if I could get some answers without asking any real questions. I kind of did. Then I emailed my dad more directly about it last night, but when I checked my email this morning I just had one of those "failure to deliver" messages...because my ISP sucks. It said that it would continue to try and send the message. So I've just been waiting. In the meantime I have been trying to check the account to see if he has gotten my message and/or replied back. I can't do that right now though because our webmail with my same ISP...which sucks...is down.

I hate our ISP, but it is our only option right now. Well, its our only option for broadband. We did have another company come into our town and offer an alternative wireless broadband connection but we can't pick up the signal at our place. What a bummer.

So now I sit here at work feeling like I want to jump out of my skin.

Our daughter will be ready to start school next fall so this weekend my wife and I are going to be attending our first home school conference to look at curriculum. What a mind bubbler.

This week

Today is Memorial Day and I'm taknig the whole week off of work. I started working on a home remodel project back in November that still has not been completed and I am tired of looking at this room in the shape that it is in.

I've torn all of the walls out, insulated, installed new windows, and I am now trying to get all of the rest of the sheetrock put back on the walls.

It is crunch time and I need to work like I'm getting paid.

I've been tired

I haven't really blogged in the last 15 days or so because I have either been too busy working on various things or I have just been too tired to care. So I extend my apologies to the few of you who read this.

This last weekend was bad. It was very, very, bad. I suffer from depression. It isn't all of the time, and I'm not fully diagnosed or manic depressive or anything, but I certainly know what the emotional pendulum is like.

To ward off my issues I take a combination of Valeria Root and St. John's Wort. They are natural dietary supplements and they don't cost even a fraction of what my previous prescription did. It also seems to infiltrate my system fairly quickly too, so that's a bonus to get me back on my feet.

Depression sucks. It sucks even worse when you can't really seemingly do anything about it either. Everything seems to be going fine, and then out of nowhere you are blindsided by rage, fatigue, sadness, numbness...etc. Not only do you feel bad, but it also then affects your family and friends. Thankfully my wife is understanding, and I do what I can to try and explain it to my almost 4 year old daughter. It just makes a man feel like a lousy dad.

Well, I'm back on the pills now after 3 days and I'm starting to feel better. I'm still tired but overall I don't feel like I need to be hiding out in a cave any longer. It helps to get out of the house and into some sunlight. Thankfully the weather is getting better also. That means that we can go for walks at night and the exercise also helps.

If you suffer from depression I feel your pain. Hang in there.

Forecast

I can't really give a forecast other than to say that it is just not very nice outside.

We got a lot of freezing rain today and it is still snowing outside. I currently cannot open my back door. The screen door is frozen shut at the frame and there are several inches of frozen snow holding it closed. We are supposed to receive 8"-10" of snow by the time this storm is over. We've also lost power once tonight. That was almost pretty exciting. It got me thinking.

I had plans. I had plans tonight to watch The Departed with my wife after the kids went to bed. The lights went out in the middle of supper. We had a flashlight going while we tried to round up all the candles. I started thinking about all of my evening plans; blogging, movies, music....how I wouldn't be able to do any of these so I may as well go to bed right after the kids. Then just as we got all of the candles lit the power came back on. Now 5 hours later the lights are flickering again.

We aren't going anywhere tomorrow but I'm sure that I'll be having a helluva time shoveling all of the snow and ice off my porches and sidewalk.

Sunday mornings I seem to still have this sick desire to scan the network television stations to hear the latest in the nonsense rattled off by all of the tv preachers. There is usually Kenneth Copeland, Jesse Duplanis, Creflo Dollar, Beth Meyer, Robert Schuller, and then some no name guy from Aberdeen, South Dakota. He parts his hair on both sides and is bald on top. I'm not sure how he does it. So where he lacks in the whole theologically mysterious entertainment, he makes up for in presentation. Don't get the mental image confused with Benny Hinn though. I wouldn't want to insult this guy like that.

Well, it is late and Alias is on. I wish that I had the energy to stay up and watch it. Jennifer Garner is good looking, although she's not quite worth it as much as Jennifer Love Hewitt is in Ghost Whisperer. Mmmmmmmm......

I'm going to head to my room and pick up a book to read until my eyes can't take it any longer.

My New Blog

I started this new blog because I needed a bit of a break from what The Reluctant Disciple was bringing forth. I hope that this new format will be better than the last.

I don't even really know what the point of the last blog was, but I think that I am more in tune with what I want to accomplish here in this one. It seemed as though the last one came off as only showing 1 of the 2 extreme sides of the pendelum swing in my life. I hope that this one covers all.

In response to a comment from Travis though...I respect your option and value it, but I must say that I can't guarantee that this one won't have tension either. I plan to hit everything here, so if it gets too serious for comfort then just wait a while and we'll get back to something else shortly.

That is the tension in life though. Not everything can be serious, but not everything can be overlooked. If there is anything that I have learned in my life lately it is that I must examine absolutely everything without leaving any stones unturned.