Fractals

Today I changed a light bulb and after I screwed it in the socket I looked at my daughter and noticed that I was seeing fractals in my peripheral vision. I was seeing moving shapes and shit! Maybe on top of AFib I am going blind too. The fractals went away but they just returned about ten minutes ago after staring at the computer.

I am only 40 and I am falling apart.

Travelin' Blues or is it Highs?

I have killed both batteries in my laptop. Killed them dead. I use them so much and they go bad after so many discharge/charge cycles. So I have to troll through airports to look for an outlet. I am in the New Orleans airport right now and all of the outlets against the wall with rows of seats are not working. I found a working outlet with a seat just close enough to string my power cord.

Adrienne fell down the steps Sunday- all the way down from the top. She had put on a pair of hard plastic princess slippers that were about 3 sizes too big for her and tripped at the top of the stairs. Thank Freyja kids are small and flexible. She didn't even have a bruise to show for the fall- just a lot of tears.

This trip I met with a gentleman who has invented a product that we are manufacturing. We are at the beginning stages of our relationship and the first shipment will go out today. If all goes well with the manufacturing and delivery, we will add at least 10% to our revenues next year just on this product alone.

There just is not near the quality of eye candy at the New Orleans airport as in Mimai where I layover frequently.

I am hungry.

Asian chicks are hot.

I am really tired.

I remember the old days when I slept the night through every night and if for some reason I did become sleep deprived, all I had to do was wait until the end of the day or the weekend and I could take a nap. That shit doesn't happen any more. If I become sleep deprived it is tough shit now. I have to help take care of kids and when they are napping there is so much shit to do that I can't lay down.

Offspring are the largest time vacuum I could imagine.

I could puke

Pressure

Here it is.. 4:00 am on a Friday morning and I can't sleep. I have a board meeting Monday morning for which I am not fully prepared. The month end numbers have yet to be computed and I have to put the finishing touches on the budget for next fiscal year. This week has been pretty much a hellfest.

This week the man who used to be president of my company died suddenly at the wheel of his car on Monday. Luckily his wife who was the passenger was able to get the car stopped without hurting any one. This yesterday afternoon I find out my aunt (my mom's twin) has been given two weeks to live. Damn, life is fragile and right now I have just too much stress! I must hire a CFO to take some of this burden off of me. I have been itnterviewing but have not found the right person yet.

Blogging during business hours!!! Not good.

I despise what Maersk Line has done to me. They have given my company the absolute worst service I could ever hope for. Delayed ships, delayed containers, delayed trucks, terrible website that will not give me the information I need. I vow never to use Maersk Line again. We spend over $300,000 annually with them. You would think that I might get some respect. I cannot wait until our contract ends and will run screaming from them. It is difficult to put a number on what their shitty service has cost me but I am confident that it is well into the tens of thousands of dollars. for a small business that is not chump change. However, I can only assume that we are chump change to Maersk Line.

I had lunch with Lolo today. The school food is NOT TOO GOOD to say the least. I pick up my new used car tomorrow. It is a 2004 Volvo V70R with 80,000 miles. I just like Volvo station wagons.

Stress abounds at work. I need a beer.

Another boring post of miscellaneous ramblings

Last night was the first night for Atticus in his "Big Boy" bed. We purchased a mattress and boxsprings set for about $500. Thank Zeus the wife had a headboard, footboard and rails that she received when her grandmother passed. I don't even want to go into how much money we have spent over the past two months on stuff for the house. How about $30,000 worth?

Since the middle of July some of the big ticket items we have purchased:

3 Samsung flat screen TVs, 52", 40", 32"
1 Samsung Blu-Ray player
1 Whirlpool top of the line frontloading washer
1 Whirlpool top of the line steam dryer
1 Whirlpool French door, freezer on the bottom refrigerator
1 Whirlpool dishwasher
1 Bedroom suite - chest of drawers, bed & armoir
1 40th birthday party
6 outdoor wall lights
1 Water fountain
1 bird bath
30 rose bushes

I am sure that I have forgotten something. What the fuck. It is only money.

Adrienne started sleeping in her "Big Girl" bed about two weeks ago. It was kind of rough the first couple nights when she found out that she could get out of her bed when she wanted to.

Atticus on the other hand stayed put for the first night except that one time when he fell out of the bed.

The wife has signed up for classes to pursue a degree in nursing. I am all for her having a career outside of raising children. The only issue I have is that the house is always a wreck now. Clutter abounds in almost every room and it is continuous. There are countless piles of clothes, toys and various other shit all throughout the house. Every flat surface has some type of clutter on it- papers, diapers, sippy cups, toys, pacifiers, art, you name it.

I can't come down too hard on the wife because of this. She doesn't have the time to do everthing that she is doing now and keep a clean house. Plus, she was never a "neat" person to begin with. I remember back in 1996 when we first met. I saw her closet in her room and as the wave of shoes, clothes and other various shit came crashing out of the close, I thought to myself "Damn, that is a messy closet."

So what I am getting to with this is the question: What the hell is our house going to look like when the wife is taking class and studying on top of all the other shit she does with the kids. We really need someone to come in and clean the clutter on a daily basis. Now we have someone clean the house weekly. The clutter instantly returns within a day or two. I guess I will have to figure out how to afford a maid.

The wife took the kids to church. She has not put pressure on me to go. This makes me happy. It will certainly strain our marriage if she starts demanding that I go. I have given in to raising our children as christians. Unfortunately due to where we live (small town in the bible belt) there are not any good options for a secular education so our kids will go to a christian school. I went there and I turned out ok, hopefully my children will be as enlightened. Of course I didn't think for myself about religion until I was well out of college. I just hope they can have a critical eye.

Can't sleep

For the third night in a row now I have woken up about 4 hours into my sleep and cannot go back to sleep. This really sucks. There is just too much shit in my head- too much shit to do at work.

Austin is for Atrial Fibrillation

So here I am in Austin, TX. I have searched out to be what I consider to be the best doctor to help me with my Atrial Fibrillation condition. His name is Dr. Andrea Natale and he has just come to Austin from The Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Natale is world renowned for developing some of the techniques used to treat atrial fibrillation.

I just walked from my hotel to the Clay Pit, an Indian restaurant. It was delicious, I had the Jeera Sang with Lamb. It is a spinach curry- excellent. The problem was that it was a Texas-sized portion and I got too full too fast. I didn't want to waste any so I ate the whole damn thing.

Another thing I have noticed is that Austin is a college town and the St. David's Medical Center is adjacent to the University of Texas at Austin. I was rudely reminded that the only thing fair is life is a dog's ass... and that is in fair view.

If life were fair I would no longer be attracted to women other than my wife. I kinda hoped that when I turned 40 last week that I could look at a hot mama with the same indifference that I have when I browse Southern Living magazine. Unfortunately, that just ain't so. So I lead the life of a tortured man. Being here just makes it worse.

Add on to this torture the fact that the wife had a partial hysterectomy a week ago so I will get none in the next five weeks. It kinda adds up to life not being fair at all on the biological attraction end of things.

But then I always have my children to bring me back to earth. Nothing else is as heartwarming and wonderful in my life as they are. I just need to focus on them and my job... which is pretty much what I have exclusively been doing for the past four years.

Well, gotta go read up more on what I need to know tomorrow for my appointment with Dr. Natale.

Yeah, whatever

Lolo now is getting oral ulcers. The twins now are pretty much understanding most of what we tell them and they really are communicating with us. They are pretty much talking now.

AFib Strikes Again

Well it has been a little over a year but it happened again. After an awesome meal of German food last night to celebrate the wife's birthday and a good night's rest the wife and I took an energetic stroll this morning. Granted I am out of shape and have not trained in over two years and am seriously in need of cardiovascular exercise, but we walked very briskly for an hour.

I mixed up my soy protein shake like normal with crushed ice. After downing it I went into atrial fibrillation. This really sucks. I am supposed to have a board meeting on Monday morning then hop a plane for Dallas to visit customers. Now all that is shot to shit. I will be in the hospital getting thousands of volts shot through my body to stop and restart my heart- hopefully resulting in normal sinus rhythm. The last time i had to have the cardioversion was April 4, 2007. It lasted more than a year this time but I am taking propafenone 3 times a day. Looks like it is time for me to get serious about another ablation surgery.

The wife and I did the video on demand thing last night and watched the movie "Savage Grace" with Julianne Moore. That was one fucked up movie and what makes it worse is that it is a true story. Basically this chick is really psycho and unstable and is married to this rich dude. He leaves her for a younger woman. As a result the unstable woman latches on to her homosexual son and does 3somes with him and ends up having sex with him. If my mother looked like Julainne Moore I might consider it.

So the son stabs his mother with a knife in the kitchen and calls the cops and then orders chinese food and sits down to eat with his dead mother on the floor.

That was one fucked up movie.

Fecal Fanatics

The wife took the kids up to our mountain house for a little mini vacation last week. She has large balls to take the three hellions all by herself for the extended period of time she did. Adrienne who is two had diarrhea on the slide at the playground.

The next day the wife took the three hellions to the brand new YMCA close to our mountain house. While they were all splashing around in the pool Lolo left three logs in the pool. Because of this the pool had to be closed. So the wife slinked out with three kids screaming to get back into the pool.

Looks like Lolo is still stuck in the anal stage.

Lolo loves to read the book A to Z by Sandra Boynton. She recognizes every letter and can tell me what each letter sounds like. For better than half of the letters of the alphabet she can tell me another word that starts with the letter. For example the books first page has a picture of an Aardvark Admiring himself in the mirror. I ask her what other word starts with A and she always says "Alyssa" which is the name of her best friend.

Adrienne can count to ten and she has started reading the book Brown Bear to me. Not everything is intelligible but she definitely knows what each animal is.

Rejected

It has been at least two weeks since I got any. The wife and the kids were away for 4 days. Tonight the wife asks me

"can I get a pass on sex tonight?"

Being the loving, patient but hornier than a billy goat husband I am I said yes.

I wish she were in the mood more often.

I am just happy that my hand isn't broken.

Retard

John Hagee is a retard.

Bluegrass Buddies

I took Lolo to the largest Bluegrass festival in the world over last weekend. I was told that there were over 80,000 people in and out of the festival last weekend. I paid about $50 bucks to get us in and spent most of the time no soaking in the music but on the playground. Just goes to prove that I would walk the plank for Lolo.

My little niece turned 1 over the weekend and had just started walking. She walks several steps to either of her parents. My nephew Lucas was covered from head to toe is dirt and mud after playing about two hours on the playground- just the way he likes it.

Atticus demanded was a peckerhead at dinner tonight. The wife had cooked tortellini which they ate yesterday and put it in front of Atticus. He swept it to the side and said "No Like" and started screaming for "Pizza." Doesn't he know that Wednesday is pizza night?

Adrienne and Atticus are really talking a lot now. They can tell us what they want for the most part. A good part of their speech is still non discernible but there is even more now what we can understand. They love to say "Daddy have pooie." That is their favorite thing to say and laugh about. All three of them love to chime in when any one of them blurts out the saying. I always reply with "Nooooo Daddy doesn't have pooie"

I just got back from upstairs where Lolo had fallen out of bed and hit her head on a stool. She has a nice bump right between her eyes. Lots of tears involved with that one.

My (the wife's) Volvo V70 T5 has about 186,000 miles on it. I hope it lasts forever.

The business is now in the middle of undergoing C-TPAT certification implementation. Fortunately we are still making money in the environment of the media scaring teh shit out of everyone! The $3.50/gallon gas has been good for our business. The more oil that is drilled the more money we tend to make. Of course certification in C-TPAT will lower our initial profits but I am confident that it will pay more dividends in the end.

Temporary Sanity

This is what Adrienne and Atticus look like when they are not trying to wipe each other off the face of the earth.

A family that bathes together stays together

Lolo and her cousin Lucas love to take baths together. We had a big time in Charleston, SC two weekends ago.

Cousin Lucas

This is my nephew Lucas. He is quite a nuclear isotope of energy. He doesn't like clothes - we were just unlucky to catch him with a shirt on in this image. He loves to celebrate his birthday at least three times a month every month. Here is celebrating and his cousin Lolo was in the middle of a melt down for unknown reasons.

Lolo is growing up

Lolo is now four years old. Last week when I was out of the country on a business trip she learned on her own how to "pump" on the swing. She is a very sweet and well-behaved girl who has a very competitive relationship with her best friend Alyssa. This picture was taken on a trip to Charleston, SC that I took with my parents to a wedding.

Lolo's first time skiing

I took a day off of work yesterday and took Lolo to the mountains about an hour away. She was pretty excited about going skiing and I was feeling kind of guilty about being out of the office but I had my trusty crackberry with me so I was completely attached as normal.

At first I put Lolo between my legs and just slowly skied down the learner slope. This slope has a long flexible flat belt where you ski directly on it and ride it standing up to get to the top of the slope. After about two or three times of this it became apparent to me that I was not a very good snow skiing teacher and a four year old needed better instruction than I could provide.

We stopped after about 30 minutes to grab some lunch. I also bought Lolo a one hour private lesson. When I told her that I was going to get her a lesson she wined that she didn't want a lesson. So I told her that the lesson was going to be for me and that she could help me learn to ski. This actually worked.

She acutally took right to the instructor - Alex. He began by grabbing the tips of her skis and pushing them together to make the wedge shape while he was skiing backwards. They went down the learner slope the three times with me keeping my distance behind them.

Then they went straight for the beginner slope with the charilift. She was having a good time and I could see that she really didn't need me hovering nearby. So I took off up the mountain to the top and skied down the watery slush. Once of that was enough for me.

I found Lolo and Alex going down the slope. Lolo was doing very well for a four year old and she was actually skiing all by herself. She was still having difficulty doing the snowplow. The conditions made it more difficult for her to keep the wedge shape with her skis. It takes more strength to keep ones feet in the snowplow position. So Lolo was doing very well for age and for the conditions.

Needless to say we were both wiped out after getting home. I am getting so old- my back is killing me. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to being able to go again but it won't be until next year.