Accidental CEO

I can't let this go.

2012-01-22T16:55:00.001-05:00

This is what $8,000 worth of draperies, pillow covers and duvet covers looks like. Someone got raped.

If Life Was Fair Part 10

2012-01-05T21:17:00.000-05:00

If life was fair I would have learned by now that unless I want to feel like I have been financially raped, I must give my wife a specific non-flexible budget for a household project and not agree to give her any more. I just have committed myself to paying over $8,000 for drapes in ONE fucking room!!! Oh wait, that is two rooms. I forgot about the small windows in the laundry room. Regardless, it is a total of four windows and I feel so fucking stupid.

If Life Was Fair Part 9

2012-01-01T23:02:00.000-05:00

If life was fair our garage wouldn't smell like cat piss and decaying dead rodents.

The shit my 5 year old daughter says

2011-12-18T23:16:00.000-05:00

Today my 7 year old daughter walked by in close proximity to my 5 year old daugher as she was going up the stiars. My 5 year old daughter said "Hey sister! You smell like vagina." It was all I could do to contain my laughter.

If Life Was Fair Part 8

2011-12-13T15:39:00.000-05:00

If life was fair I wouldn't let so much time elapse before I filter through all my emails. I haven't done it in about a month and it has taken over 6 hours to categorize and delete the emails.

If Life Was Fair Part 7

2011-12-13T15:37:00.000-05:00

If life was fair I would still have enough energy to have the same level of drive towards both my family and my job- lately it has been an unequal balance in favor of the family. I guess if I don't straighten this shit out it will require even more drive for my family because we will be poor quickly if the business goes in the shitter.

If Life Was Fair Part 6

2011-10-18T13:35:00.000-04:00

If life was fair someone would have invented a toilet seat that would automatically put itself down when it sensed a woman nearby.

If Life Was Fair Part 5

2011-06-07T18:51:00.000-04:00

If life was fair I would stop wishing for eternal youth and be 21 again with my current level of immaturity and a less passive personality.

If Life Was Fair Part 4

2011-06-05T20:08:00.000-04:00

If life was fair I would still be 23 years old.

If Life Was Fair Part 3

2011-05-25T21:03:00.001-04:00

If life was fair my three children would pick up after themselves and I wouldn't have a house that bears an uncanny resemblance to a landfill after being detonated by a 3 meagton bomb.

If Life Was Fair Part 2

2011-05-25T12:48:00.001-04:00

If life was fair women wouldn't mind if their husbands had several girlfriends and vice versa.

Sharting

2011-05-11T23:09:00.000-04:00

So I am in this foreign country eating some foreign food. I have been here a lot and eaten this food a lot. For some reason what I ate last night did not do me right. I had delicious lobster creps, carpaccio, and arrabiata with fettucini and two excellent dark German weiss beers. Today my stomach has felt queasy and all I ate was some watermelon and a salad.

Tonight on my way home I sharted. Ran down my leg and everything. Quite nasty. Luckily is was mostly liquid and not enough volume to be noticable to anyone but me.

If life was fair....

2011-05-06T21:02:00.000-04:00

I am going to start a series of posts that expresses the dreamworld of life...that utopia that we all dream about... that unachievable... that dream that will never happen.

If life were fair I would be good looking enough for my wife to want to have sex with every night...

Robin Meade

2011-04-28T11:27:00.001-04:00

Robin Meade is fucking hot but I wouldn't notice because I am married.

Katy Perry

2011-04-16T04:41:00.001-04:00

Katy Perry has some nice lungs.

Getting Lucky

2011-01-04T00:29:00.000-05:00

The last time I scored was when the wife got completely trashed on December 28 drinking moonshine with the sister-in-law. She came to bed at 4:00 AM when she normally goes to sleep at 9:00 PM. She had been smoking cigarettes. So now it looks like I only get lucky when the alcohol has dulled the thoughts. Welcome to marriage.

Dry Spell

2010-08-28T00:02:00.003-04:00

I don't rember the last time I had sex.

Stupid Fucking Cat

2010-08-27T00:28:00.000-04:00

Indoor cat pissed on my coat and clothes,sharpens its claws on the furniture, and pukes all over the house. I guess this doesn't bother the wife but the kitty is coming close to the gas chamber.

Broken Arm

2010-07-15T23:26:00.000-04:00

I was with the three hellions at Grandm and Pop Pop's house last night hanging with my brother and his family who was visiting from out of town. I was in the kitchen cleaning up after a nice dinner of orange roughy, fresh baked bread, salad, baked potato, fresh tomatoes, etc. My sister-in-law came to me to tell me that Lolo needed me.

I went to the back porch where she was and she was sitting up cradling her right arm which was obviously deformed with a break. She was in tears.

So we ended up in the emergency room untill 11:00 pm where they put a splint on too tightly. It swelled at night and caused a good amout of pain. She got a real cast put on today- they did not set her right arm- the break was not nearly as bad as the one on her left arm last year. She was such a brave girl.

Transubstantiation is such a fucking idiotic belief that it makes me want to vomit.

Another trip....another ..... ummmmm. Whatever

2010-06-17T19:18:00.001-04:00

So I arrrived at the Holiday Inn Express in Wadsworth Ohio tonight. It has been a tripping busy day. I was in the car for a total of probably 1.5 hrs between home and the airports and I probably was on the phone for 1.3 hours of that time making no less than fifteen different calls.

The hotel has a "happy hour" where they have free beer! Yay! In my college days "free beer" was one notch below getting laid which was one notch below going to heaven. Getting laid is still one notch below going to heave because in the wife's point of view it is one notch below taking out the trash after cleaning out the cat litter.

Anyway, I digress.. I drank a no-name Magic Hat beer that is very tasty and yeasty. I give it a solid seven on a scale of one to 10... or a solid 6.5 on a scale of 1 to 6.9. I can tell I am typing when I am intoxicated because I would never type such a sentence as before I were not such at the age of 41. If I were at the age of 25, I would start out the post with that statement.

So what was I saying about the beers I was drinking? Oh yes.

I am drinking a Redbridge right now. It is a product from Anheuser Busch that is brewed from Sorghum without using any wheat or barley. It is a 4.2 on my scale of 6.9. However, if I had Celiac (spelled Coeliac in the rest of the world) Disease, it would be a 7.69 on the scale. Applause goes to Anheuser Busch for brewing this beer for a small subset of the population. Wikipedia says that about 1% of the adult population has the disease which makes the carrier ill from consuming wheat and barley. I am not sure where Anheuser Busch is coming from on this one. Normally they would be motivated solely by profit and shareholder satisfaction. But one has to wonder about this one. Is this just an experiment? Does AB know something that the rest of us don't about Celiac Disease? Is AB causing AB disease? Maybe they are genetically modifying all the eggs in women throughout the USA through the ingredients of Bud Light to cause the women's eggs to fertilize into an embryo that carries the gene for Celiac disease.

So that must be it. Since their normal brands suck and they see that they are losing market share because they produce what is in effect water with alcohol (Budweiser, Bud Light and most all other AB products) they have devised an evil plan to produce the only beer for those who cannot consume wheat based products. Then they have evolved a strategy to make everyone born in the USA allergic to all the other beers in the marketplace. How brilliant yet how evil. It must be a conspiracy! Boycott AB!!!!

Well despite the evilness of the non-regulated brewing industry (yuk, yuk!) I am still going to buy beers that are not like sex in a canoe. You know the joke. American mass brewed beers are like sex in a canoe... fucking close to water.

I need another beer.

A New Hero

2010-05-27T21:36:00.000-04:00

Check out Pat Condell on YouTube and on his web site. This guy is funny. Some people might find his views extreme but I think there is a lot of truth in his rants.

Now for a great joke:

Why don't catholics use condoms?
Because little boys can't get pregnant.

Love it!!!

Preschool Pedal Power

2010-05-16T22:27:00.000-04:00

Lolo has been riding her bicycle with training wheels long enough to outgrow the helmet we have for her. So today we went to Toys-R-Us and bought a new helmet for her. It has pink hearts and peace signs on it.

When we got home Lolo asked me to take the training wheels off her bicycle. We had tried this before and she was very unsteady and screamed if I let go of her seat as I ran along beside her. She gave up on it about two to three months ago and asked me to put her training wheels back on which I did because I am a good daddy and I always do as I am told.

Today was the turning point for her. We started mid way on the tennis court heading east and I held her seat just as before and I guess I was not expecting anything different. As we started I felt that she was not leaning to one side or the other like she did before so I just let go and she kept on going on her own until she ran out of tennis court.

I ran to meet her with praises and we tried it again and she rode the length of the tennis court this time without me holding on to the seat. She was in a sheer skirt so she wanted to go inside to change into pants. I told her to wear jeans. She was so excited that she ran to tell her mother.

I waited and waited for her to come back. It seems she got distracted because she finally came out with jeans on eating a popsicle. So we waited until she finished the popsicle and she got back on the bike and rode up and down the tennis court with me helping her start each time. She was a little hard on the breaks but I coached her how to apply them lightly and she picked it up immediately.

I then suggested that we go to the neighborhood road our house is on. There are only three houses on our little tree shaded street so I convinced her that it was safe. I got my bike and helped her roll her bike down our 30% grade driveway. At the bottom of our driveway I got her on the bike and started her off. She rode all the way down the hill to the field and put her brakes on at the end and stopped without falling over. She rode at least 369 feet (as measuring using our county's GIS system) without any assistance from me. We rode back and forth that same stretch. I suggested that we go further but she didn't want to. She seemed pleased with the single route we were riding.

After about ten minutes we headed back up to the tennis court and she rode around in circles on the court for about 30 minutes showing off for me and her grandparents that had just showed up bearing banana pudding. She still was having difficulty starting off on her own. She was getting better at it but still not completely sure of herself. That will come in due time.

So her soon-to-be four year old brother saw what was happening and heard all the accolades his sister was getting. So he asked me to remove his training wheels and so I did. I held on to his seat and pushed him along and he was a little more wobbly than is sister but seemed pretty steady. So I turned him around and pushed him again. This time I removed my hand from his seat and he kept going!!!!! I had to grab him to keep him from falling after about three seconds but he had the balance. then I started pushing him around the court with just my hand on his back pushing him but not keeping him balance. I'll be damned he pretty much got it too!

So what a damn great day! Two kids learned how to ride their bikes without training wheels.

Well the day started off pretty shitty. The wife and I were downstairs around breakfast and they were getting prepared to go to church which was the topic of conversation. Lolo asked me "Daddy why don't you go to church?" and I replied "Because I don't like church."

The wife almost had a stroke. She was so fucking pissed off at me that I would tell the kids that because as she put it "it was a slap in my face." I didn't even think about it when I answered the question. I just told the truth. Church is not my thing. I was forced to go to church when I was growing up. I didn't have a choice then but I have one now. I disagree on children attending church because they are children and have limited ability to understand. Church teaches only one religion and teaches it as the one and only truth. Children do not have a chance to form an opinion based upon their own thought.

I believe that one should not subject children to such things that they cannot possibly understand. People should not be brainwashed in one direction simply because they had the misfortune of being born in one geographical location or withing a society that practices one particular religion. Humans should be given the chance to consider religion rationally when they have the ability to understand the constructs associated with religion. Humans should not learn of only one religion but of all religions and of science and then make their own choices when they have the maturtity to do so.

It just so happens that I am in a marrige where my wife wants our children raised "in church" as she was. My kids go to a Christian school and are subjected to enough brainwashing there. I originglly inteded on our children to be educated at the Montessori School but the wife did not like the size and the lack of organization and structure of the Montessiori School so we compromised on the Christian Day School (which is actually where I attended elementary school). I don't take issue with the wife taking the children to church (usually two to three times per month) but I am confused as to how she wants me to handle questions which will arise about my belief.

I will not lie to my children because I think they should know that not everyone is brainwashed. Of course where I live everyone else will think that I am pretty much a bad person because I don't have blind faith in the god of their choosing.

I have had enough of typing about this shit. I will have to deal with it later.

This is beer?

2010-04-17T21:07:00.000-04:00

I am drinking a Michelob Ultra and really can't believe this shit is considered a beer. It is a lot like the rest of the standard American beers which are the equivalent of sex in a canoe- fucking close to water. I can't even imagine trying the ultralite MGD 64 and Budweiser Select 55. I guess if you really want to get drunk while drinking water, these beers will perfectly fit the bill.

Still hungry

2010-04-17T20:56:00.000-04:00

Yesterday the wife was driving the kids home from school and Atticus said in all seriousness, "Mommy, I'm all out of boogers." I guess he just had to go hungry.

The Menace of Pine Nuts

2010-04-14T23:00:00.000-04:00

I was on vacation with the family last week and one of the wife's friends met us at the beach with her two girls. Last Friday night, the wife's friend made a great little appetizer by spreading cream cheese and topping it with pesto, dried cranberries and pine nuts. It was a very tasty appetizer and I ate a shitload of it. Later that night I got hungry and had a few handfulls of pine nuts to calm my growing stomach.

All was well until this past Sunday night when I began to notice that no matter what I ate, it left a bitter taste in my mouth. I first noticed it after I ate green grapes so I thought there was something wrong with the grapes. On Monday I noticed that everything I ate left that foul bitter taste in my mouth- I mean everything including water! The bitter taste would go away after about 10 minutes but only to return the next time I ate something.

So I did some research on the net and found bitter taste in the mouth can be attributed to tooth decay, sinus infections, acid reflux, brain tumors, and rectal lice. I really didn't think I had any of these. Then I ran across a forum where hundreds of people had posted about the same symptoms of the bitter taste from anything they ate that later went away. It seems that pine nuts are the culprit. It is being debated wheter the origin of the pine nuts might have something to do with it.

I have eaten pine nuts a lot in my lifetime but this is the first time that I ever experienced this. I think I will try Pine nuts again but only if they are from Italy and not China, Korea or Vietnam.

A Week Off

2010-04-05T22:58:00.000-04:00

So I am out of the office on a "vacation" with the family this week. For some reason the wife is feeling a little sick or down. I hung out with the kids all afternoon by myself. Of coures the wife spent all last week alone with the kids when I was in Honduras and she drove down to the beach with them without me and was here for two days with them without me. So she deserves a break.

I really wish that my libido would go away. I see all these twenty-something girls on the beach with their nice bodies and wish I wasn't attracted. Not that I would ever do anything about it but it just a mental tease just looking. Oh well, at least I get to look.

I am trying to just relax and forget about work for a while but I just can't forget about all the shit I need to do. Alcohol helps.

The things kids say

2010-02-18T21:24:00.000-05:00

Adrienne has often performed this one for me. If I am home at nights (off the road from travels) I am usually the one who gives the kids a bath. Adrienne loves to grab a cup and try to piss in the cup before she gets in the bath. Needless to say she doesn't have any sort of semblance of aim so she pisses all over the floor and maybe gets a little bit in the cup. At least she is close to the bath and I can throw her in there but it isn't fun mopping up all the piss on the bathroom floor.

Yesterday when the wife was putting Adrienne in her car seat getting ready to head out for school she looked at the wife and said "Mommy, your vagina is stinky."

Learning to read

2010-02-02T23:26:00.000-05:00

Lolo is really reading very well. She now has books that she reads to me. Like One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish- she can't read the whole book but she can read a good amount of it.

I sat down with Atticus tonight and read Clip Clop to him. He was picking out letters and pointing to them and saying them. He is recognizing a lot of the alphabet such as A, I, W, M, P, S and T. He probably knows others but that is all we got to tonight. He shows interest in learning the alphabet.

His twin sister on the other hand really shows almost no interest. She marches to the beat of her own drum for damn sure. She likes the wife's chicken and dumplings that she makes. When she asks for the wifes chicken and dumplings she calls it chickling and dumplings. She still calls a bathing suit a babe in soup and she loves to call me and other people "Stiky Pants"

A day

2010-01-10T21:29:00.003-05:00

So the wife took Adrienne to church today. I got to stay at home with Lolo and Atticus and I am very happy I didn't get pressure to go to church. They stayed gone for a long time. I put Atticus down for a nap around 1:00 pm and Lolo and I cleaned house, cleaned the fish tank, straightened up the sofa pillows, moved a small desk to Lolo's room, moved a chair and ottoman from the man-cave to the living room, folded blankets and more. Lolo was very helpful. I also put weather stripping on the crawlspace door and the front door.

I took Atticus and Lolo to Home Depot with me to get insulation to block some of the big holes from the crawlspace into the heated basement. When I was there our friends - call them Bill and Fluffy- called and asked if we wanted to come over for home cooked pizzas. The wife was already in her PJs ready for bed at 6:00- she was tired from all that Churchin'. So I took Atticus and Lolo with their pajamas over to Bill and Fluffy's house. They g0t to play with their kids and I got to drink wine and socialize which I don't so do much - socialize that is.

The kids had a great time and actually took baths and put their pajamas on. We ate well and drank well and had a great time. I got home with the kids at about 8:30 and got the kids teeth brushed after they woke up the wife and bothered her for a while. I had to read Lolo a book called "Barnyard Dance" by Sandra Boynton, which she mostly read herself- not too bad for a 6 year old.

Then Atticus refused me to carry him to his bed as normal. I tried to pick him up but he screamed at the top of his lungs that he wanted his mommy to carry him to bed. I ended up reading "Clip Clop" by Nicohola Smee to him. I was amazed that a the end he pointed to each letter in the text Clippity Cloppity and called them out by name. He can spell him name when you ask him how to spell it. I think this is not too bad for a three year old, but I am a little biased.

Yesterday I took the twins out to Home Depot to get some weather stripping and then took them by the parent's place. My dad was in the hospital for his second carotid artery surgery and just got the word that he could go home yesterday evening. He was doing much better at this point after his surgery then he did after his first surgery. Last time after getting out of the hospital on his 13th day of the stay, he got an infection and did not feel good again for over one month until he went back into the hospital for his infection. The incision in his neck became infected. He was readmitted to the hospital. After a few hours of getting a room in the hospital he was coughing hard and his incision opened up and all results of the infection drained out- he said ti was over two cups worth.

So hopefully he will pass through this rehabilitation phasee quickly and withoug incident.

So this time he is doing much better and should not get the infection he had last time.

Can't Sleep

2010-01-05T05:53:00.002-05:00

Went to bed at 11:30 and woke up at 3:30 not able to sleep becuase my sinuses hurt like shit and they keep draining back in my throat. I don't know if it is because the fucking cats are in the house now. They used to be outside cats but it has been very cold here (lows of 18F) so we feel sorry for the cats and let them in the house.

Now the wife lets them have free range of the house when they used to stay quarantined to one room. Maybe I am allergic to those fucking furballs.

I have been laid out on the sofa in the man-cave watching Palladia which has been playing a lot of Sugarland videos. Jennifer Nettles is so hot.

So it is 6:00 AM now and sork today is going to be a lot of fun. I seriously need to get motivated at work and lack of sleep ain't gonna help any.

Lolo lost another tooth standing in line at some christian book store about a week ago (the wife buying presents). Apparently other people in line offered her money if she pulled her very loose tooth out. So she yanked it out and after cleaning up the blood she cleaned up by collecting $25 from people in line. That's my girl.

On my own with the hellions

2009-11-15T20:18:00.002-05:00

The wife took a much deserved weekend away with her girlfriends. She left on Friday morning. I picked up the kids at school at 3:00 and I was planning on meeting the mother-in-law and dumping the kids on her but when I got to school Atticus was tugging at his ear. It was nice and red and he said his ear hurt. So off to the doctor I went.

We have Aetna health insurance and their network it bad in the area where I live. Ok I am being too nice. The Aetna network fucking sucks where I live. My cardiologist and both of the two urgent care centers (where you can take a sick kid on the weekend or after hours) are out of network. Aetna network SUCKS!

So I was planning on going back to work cuz I have so much shit do to. But I sat in the doctor's office with Atticus for about an hour and a half. My mother-in-law came to the doctor's office and picked up the girls and took them to her house. So it was just to boys at home Friday night. I don't remember what we did so it must not have been too exciting.

Yesterday I took Atticus to the lake and drove the boat arouned and continued to be perplexed at the oil pressure guage continually bouncing between normal pressure and no pressure. I hope it is just the sending unit.

Today I took all three of the hellions to my brother's house about two hours drive away. He is in the process of building his house. He has the framing, roof, subfloors and drywall up. The first floor is painted. it is going to be a nice house. The kids enjoyed their time there and didn't want to leave because they got to play with their cousins.

Tonight was hell getting them to sleep because they were all so tired without any nap. Hell, I'm tired too!

Waste of time

2009-11-11T21:27:00.002-05:00

I rented a movie called "Meteor" which I find out (after watching it) is a mini series starring Stacey Keach, Christopher Lloyd and Jason Alexander. I watched the DVD and I will never get those two hours of my life back. It absolutely sucked.

AFib and Enemas

2009-11-10T22:09:00.002-05:00

This past Sunday Adrienne was beside herself with pain in her bottom- "My bottom hurts!" She kept asking us to wipe her bottom. She had not had a bowel movement in several days so the wife went to the store and purchased a child's enema which we adminstered. The first try the wife inserted and squirted but didn't pull the mini turkey baster out before letting go of the bulb so it just sucked all the medication back into the enema. So she had to reinsert while I held Adrienne down screaming. She then removed the baster before letting go of the bulb and the medication reached the colon as needed. The bonus was that when the wife pulled out the turkey baster she got a few good squirts of shit on her arms. She just loves getting shit on.

About one minute later Adrienne had explosive shit in the toilet where it was supposed to be. She had immediate relief from her pain. That was two days ago.

Now she still has not had a bowel movement since the enema and we are concerend that she is constipated again because she is complaining that her bottom hurts. The wife bought some oral laxative but it takes 12 hours to work. We will keep our fingers crossed that the laxative works. I am of the impression that Adrienne is afraid it will hurt to poop (due to the constipation) so she won't try. Whe she won't try to poop it just keeps getting worse.

Today I am pretty sure I went into Atrial Fibrillation. I had eaten lunch at home as was sitting in front of my computer (what an unusual occurance) and I notice my heart jumping around in my chest. It was pretty much the same feeling I had gotten before when I was in Atrial Fibrillation. I drove to work and went in for a while and went straight back home. I laid on the bed for about twenty minutes and took my blood pressure which was normal. I then was back in rhythm. Thank Zeus!!! I hate being in atril fibriallation! I hope this shit doesn't start happening again after the two surguries I have been through.

Challenges Keep on Coming

2009-11-08T00:06:00.002-05:00

Lolo had oral surgery yesterday. She had an extra permanent tooth that was horizontal in her pallet and was blocking the descending of her regular permanent teeth. The doctor had to remove three of her top baby teeth to access the extra permanent tooth.

The prescription they gave her to relax her before surgery made her kind of confused and she cried before she go the IV but when they got it in she said that she didn't even feel it.

The surgery took about ten minutes and I got to go back to see her wake up. She was really knocked out and I had to carry her out to the car. She rode lying down with her head in the wife's lap. When we got home we looked at the gauze in her mouth to change it out since it was becoming soaked with blood. The wife found an extra tooth just protruding out of the gauze. She apparently had lost a bottom tooth right after surgery or when they put the gauze in her mouth. We were happy she didn't swallow it.

She definitely has a different smile now with all those teeth missing. She certainly is growing up.

Adrienne went to the doctor on Thursday because she had been constantly complaining (very loudly when in public) that her bottom itched. The doctor diagnosed her with a yeast infection and gave her medicine. She had been on teh medicine now for almost three days and she cried about all day today that her bottom hurt and itched. She urinated on the floor and on the sofa so we are now worried about a urinary tract infection. We went through so much hell with Lolo- we certainly don't want Adrienne to go through that too!

Atticus has a toy catalog that he as obsessed over for almost two days now. He looks through all the pages and asks me or the wife what each toy is and how much it costs. He is particularity fond of a Harley Davidson motorcycle battery operated toy that he could ride. It is $219 (I can remember the price because he has asked me how much it costs about fifty times today) so I don't think we will be getting that for him.

I drank too much red wine last night.

Looking Back to Pee

2009-11-03T09:49:00.001-05:00

Adrienne pee peed in the potty for the very first time at 7:20 on 5/6/08. Obviously that was not the end of diapers- it still took another year before diapers were a thing of the past.

My Father's Health

2009-10-11T23:07:00.004-04:00

This morning my father had a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack) also known as a "mini-stroke" or "warning stroke". I was not there but this is what my mother relayed to me. He had arisen early to go to his church to help cook breakfast. When he got back he went to get the newspaper and came back in the house. He was slurring his speech and my mother could not really understand what he was saying. My sister-in-law was there too and she had difficulty understanding my father as well. My mother had called me to tell me that my nephew wanted to see Lolo so they could play. I loaded up Lolo in the car and drove to the parents. When I got there Mom was pulling out of the garage in dad's car. She stopped and rolled down the window and told my dad (twice in a very mean tone of voice) to stick out his tongue. When he did it went to one side which is a sign of a stroke. I told her to get him to the hospital immediately.

She called me on the way and asked me my opinion of which hospital they should go to. We have two hospitals in the county in short driving distance. I instructed her to go to what I felt was the better of the two. I made sure Lolo was cool staying with the sis-in-law and went to the hospital. The already had Dad in a room in the Emergency Department. The doctor talked to us very clearly, personably and he took his time. This was much, much better than the last experience I had in a ED.

Dad's signs improved and his speech got much better and when he stuck out his tongue it no longer wagged to one side. They took him for a CT scan and brought him back quickly. A nurse told us that the CT scan was normal and that there were no anomalies. So we sat there and waited. I waited for probably another 45 minutes and decided that they would probably release him and the parents were both telling me to get back to the family. So I left and headed to Lowe's to buy the shit to paint Adrienne's room including a $100 chandelier that looked like it had purple crystals on it but looked pink in Adrienne's room. So now I get to take that back sometime.

Well they decided to keep Dad for 48 hours for observation since a TIA can be a warning sign for further stoke.

It is kind of torturous to think about but one day my father will die. Today made me really think about that. How will I handle it? I guess I am more afraid that my mother would pass away first because my father really cannot seem to be able to take care of himself. It isn't something that I really like to think about but nevertheless, I think i am rather mentally prepared for when it does happen.

I love my father and he was a very good father to me and to my brother- not perfect because no one is, but he was very good to us- even when I wanted to fight him for making me come home from a party when I was 16 or 17 years old. He was always there, he always provided for us, and he put up with my mother belittling him continually and treating him like a piece of shit while at the same time taking very good care of him physically.

Blowing off steam

2009-10-11T22:21:00.005-04:00

Business sucks.

Adrienne's finger is healing very well. We went to the orthopedic surgeon last week and they took the stitches out which was an excruciating happening for Adrienne and both me and the wife. The orthopaedic surgeon questioned why the emergency department doctor did not use dissolvable stitches. He did tie one or two stitches using the dissolvable type but the other four he used regular stitches and poor Adrienne didn't understand the reason they had to come out. The orthopaedic surgeon said that the emergency department doctor should have to take out the stitches.

Atticus has been to the doctor last week with an ear infection. He still has a tube in his left ear and there was a bunch of wax and nasty stuff that was blocking the tube from doing its job. The family doctor removed that and put him on an antibiotic and he is fine.

I went to the doctor the week before last with a cough and they put me on Azithromycin which did nothing because I had to go back to the doctor Friday with a low grade fever and splitting headache. I never get headaches, so when I do, I am definitely sick. I have been coughing for the past three weeks. My family doctor listened to my lungs and thought he heard something. They took a chest x-ray and sure enough I have walking pneumonia. So I am on another antibiotic.

So all three of the hellions were at the mother-in-law's house Friday night. Saturday morning we got up and I was feeling pretty good. The wife took a shower and I walked into the room as she was putting her clothes on. She looked at me and I looked at her and she said "What? You are looking at me like you want to have sex. We have to get some stuff done" which meant painting Adrienne's room.

It has been at least three weeks since I have gotten any, so the streak continues. I guess I can't be too critical of her because she is on a drug that decreases her already pretty low libido. Also I didn't get her anything for our 9th anniversary. She never said anything to me about this, but I know it really, really bothers her. I hate these occasions because I hate trying to buy something for someone else. She did spend $70 of our money to buy me a massage for our anniversary (which of course I would have never bought for myself). I guess I am just going to have to force myself to buy presents and learn to live with the lack of sexual satisfaction with a partner and just be appreciative of what I do have.

A Traumatic Night

2009-09-29T00:32:00.003-04:00

Well tonight started out normal enough. I arrived home and ate dinner after everyone else had finished- this is pretty normal. I normally get home about 6:00 PM. Atticus and Adrienne got in the shower together. I got them out and dried them off. My sister called and I talked to them while the hellions were running around playing. I handed off the phone to the wife so I could get the kids finished for bed. Got the pajamas on Adrienne, Atticus and Lolo and then while the wife was still on the phone.

Adreinne brought me the green from that is a puppet that croaks the tunes of Old McDonald, Frere Jacque and London Bridges. They love it when I chase them with the frog and make it nip at them when they are writhing in giggling fun on the floor. I chased Adrienne and Atticus into the the master bedroom and had a few songs they both jumped up and bolted out of the bedroom down the hall and towards Atticus' room. Atticus entered his room and immediately slammed the door as Adrienne reached for the wrong side of the door (the side with the hinges). The door slammed on her index finger and she immediately started screaming. I was right behind them but not close enough to stop the door slamming. Blood was going everywhere and I grabbed her up and took her into the master bathroom. I had a look at it and it looked like the tip of her finger was crushed.

Her fingernail was perpendicular to the rest of her finger. It made me feel so, so, so horrible for playing part of this. It was her right index finger and she is right handed. I felt like such as ass even though I knew that these things kind of happen. We are always telling the kids not to slam doors but they are kids and they don't listen to their parents.

It was about 7:40 and we needed to get to the hospital. We had two other kids and I felt that we didn't have time to put them into the car. The wife called my mother who lives about six miles away to come over. I called a neighbor because I thought we needed to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. Adrienne calmed down pretty quickly and was really brave. Fortunately the wife was more coolheaded than me and got some ice to put on Adrienne's finger.

My mother arrived before the neighbor did and I sent the neighbor home. We headed to the hospital and were seen by the triage nurse within about five minutes. Adrienne was not crying but she had been shivering some. She was very calm and cried a little bit when the triage nurse put the heart rate monitor on her uninjured finger.

So we went to an Emergency Department room and sat for about 30 minutes before we were seen by a young doctor who didn't have the best bedside manner. During the wait, Adrienne didn't cry and joked with us. I held her in my lap the entire time.

The doctor looked at it and told us that she would definitely loose her finger nail that might or might not grow back. We needed a x-ray to see if there was a fracture. Another ten minutes passed by and we wen to the x-ray department and Adrienne sat on my lap and did a great job of holding her hand in position for the x-rays. She still was not crying.

The x-ray showed that the tip of her had been fractured. The doctor called it a tuft fracture. He ended up putting four stitches in the finger to put the tip back in place. Two of the stitches were in the nail bed. Adrienne really cried during the stitching. The doctor had to inject lidocaine several times- she really screamed the first time he put the stitch needle so he put more lidocaine in the finger and she really screamed.

She was crying that she wanted to go home and when the wife or I said something like "the doctor is making it better" she sobbed and said through her tears "I don't think so" That made us all laugh.

We felt so bad for Adrienne. It was a really tough and painful thing for a three year old to go through. We were very proud of her and she did such a wonderful job. The nurse said that usually they had to hold down children. Adrienne stayed in place and didn't try to move her hand. She also was very tired. After it was all over the nurse brought her a purple popsicle and Adrienne at it all.

We stopped by McDonalds and got her chicken nuggets and a sprite with a barbie toy. The doctor wrote her a prescription for antibiotics and pain medication so I ran to Walgreens in Hickory (since it is the only 24 hour pharmacy in the county) and got back home about midnight.

I am really concerend that the doctor did a good job. I don't think he irrigated the finger enough (but I am not a doctor) and I don't konw if he got the tip positioned correctly. I am eager for an orthopedic doctor to look at an x-ray of her hand.

It just kills me to see my children hurt. I guess the moral of the story is that we need to enforce the no-slamming door policy.

The calm after the storm

2009-09-23T22:06:00.003-04:00

Last night went pretty well. Initially more hell was raised and more tears flowed from Adrienne who was not giving up anything. The wife ended up sleeping all night with Atticus so she didn't get much sleep.

The melt down really didn't arrive until this morning when Atticus did not eat and began screaming the words 'I want my blue binky" over and over and over and over and over without cessation for about twenty minutes. I had to wrestle his clothes and shoes on him dealing with as much resistance as he could put up. But as I alway tell him: "I WILL win so why are you fighting?"

They all calmed down once in the Expedition. School went fine and nap went well without issue. In fact he went to bed tonight wihtout any problem either and the wife is in our bed tonight. Lolo didn't even ask at all about her mouth plug. All is good.

Bye Bye Binkie

2009-09-22T23:08:00.002-04:00

Atticus the 3 year old and Lolo the 5 year old both are addicted to pacifiers. Neither sleeps without one or rides in a vehicle without one. It was way past time for them to give up the habit. We all know the bad things about it such as guaranteed braces, etc.

I had not pushed the issue and the wife enjoyed the little peace the pacifier brought her throughout her day. However still sucking on a pacifier at five is a little too far! The wife and I came to an agreement that the binkies had to go.

The twins preschool teacher just had a baby. So we made a big deal of giving all the binkies to the new baby. I made a "Binky Box" where they were supposed to keep the pacifiers from one week prior up to today when they gave them away to the baby. Sometimes they put the pacifier in the box but most times they didn't.

We had binkies strewn all over the house from one end to the other and across all three floors. The wife did a good job of rounding them up and cutting a hole in the end to render then unusable.

Psychologically I think Lolo was more prepared than Atticus. She is old enough to know that no one else in her class uses one. She has slept over at a friends house without one and she camped out with her father witout one. Lolo shed some major tears at first for about three minutes before bedtime. But she accepted it and has fallen asleep without incident. In fact she and her sister sleep together and her sister (the one addicted to her blankie and thumb) was raising hell because she wanted to read another book and I said no because it was well past their bedtime. Lolo went to sleep and I have not heard from her since which was about three hours ago.

Atticus on the other hand is a little different. He played the big game fine. He normally does not go to sleep when you close the door. He likes to stay up to play for about an hour before he falls asleep. He did this tonight as well but when he got tired and wanted to go to sleep he exited his room and went to our room where mommy was sleeping. He got in bed with her and I think that is where they are now. Atticus sleepig with us in our bed is out of the ordinary- it only happens on rare occasions in fact almost never. I am not sure if he and the wife are still in our room or if the wife took him to his room and laid down in bed with him there.

Maybe just one more night of trauma without the binkies and then it will be all over.

Electricity Nazi

2009-09-13T09:56:00.002-04:00

Something I do every day- I walk around the house and turn out all the lights that have been left on in empty rooms. There are always lights on! I am probably saving a shitload of money because I switched all the lights to compact fluorescent bulbs. My kids rarely turn off lights when they leave a room. My wife sometimes turns out lights when she leaves a room. They don't have to work to pay the electric bill so I guess they really don't give a shit. And it isn't just that. I beleive in being a good steward of this planet and if I see an opportunity to contribute a little less to the destruction of our environment, I am going to do so.

The wife calls me an Electricity Nazi.

Bitch session over.

Supercar Heaven

2009-09-10T21:28:00.005-04:00

I had a good friend in middle and high school whose father built a pretty large company from a small one he took over from his father-in-law. My friend's father needless to say became pretty wealthy. He also was a car nut. Apparently he was good friends with the President of Porsche back in the day (late 1980's and early 1990's) so he was able to get his hands on a brand new Porsche 959. It took him several years to actually get the car imported into the USA because it was not street legal. From what I remember he had tried to get the modificaitons done to it to make it legal. I think he had all of those modifications completed when I took these pictures.

According to Wikipedia there were only 337 of these cars built.

My friend's father does not own either of these cars anymore. I had heard that he sold the 959 to Jerry Seinfeld but I don't know if this is fact or not. I do know that Jerry Seinfeld owns one.

I don't know about the Ferrari F40 here but he owned this car too. I was hanging out with my friend and we washed the cars for his dad. We had done this several times before with some of his other cars and he used to take us for rides as a reward for washing them. I distinctly remember him taking me for a ride in his supercar of the month at the time which was a red Ferrari Testarossa. We hit 160 mph on a four lane road and I about shit in my pants.

Unfortunately I never got to ride in either the 959 or the F40. I just was amazed standing there looking at the $1 million worth of vehicles!

Difference in Offspring

2009-09-10T21:26:00.002-04:00

The twins are so different. Adrienne already can maintain momentum on the swing by herself. I can get her started and she can for the most part keep swinging back and forth. Her brother Atticus has no clue but seems to want to try to do it. It won't be long before he gets it too.

I am just wondering when it will get easier to get these kids to bed. Atticus still pitches a holy hell of a fit almost every night with the crying and screaming. This too shall pass.

Learning to Ride a Bike

2009-09-03T00:54:00.002-04:00

I took the training wheels off Lolo's bike this weekend. She can balance a little bit but she isn't comfortable with me letting go of the bike. I always hold on to her seat to keep her from falling one way or the other. She freaks out if she thinks she is going to fall. Regardless it hasn't kept her from wanting to continue to try. It should take her several more attempts before she is riding on her own.

Bad boy today

2009-09-02T23:20:00.002-04:00

I really fucked up today. I was supposed to pick Lolo up from kindergarten at 3:00 PM. I neglected to write the appointment in my calendar so my crackberry will buzz me that I have something to do. So I was immersed in work on a phone call and completely spaced it until the wife called me. When I answer the phone here is the conversation verbatim:

Me: Hello
The wife: I am so mad at you. You better leave RIGHT NOW and get your ass to Concordia to pick your daughter up. She has been crying.
Me: I'm leaving right now.

When I got there she was not crying (thank Zeus) and talking to a woman who turns out to be an old classmate of mine. Lolo was in good spirits and was happy. I apologize profusely to her but she said: Daddy, even though you forgot to pick me up I still love you.

Gee I wonder where she got that from?

Kid Vices and Rolls Royce Limo Rides

2009-08-18T21:13:00.004-04:00

The kids all have their vices.

Adrienne sucks her thumb and has a special "blankie" that she loves- she normally doesn't sleep without it. Kind of normal for a 3 year old.

Atticus doesn't go anywhere without his pacifier that we call "binky" Until recently he had a strap that clipped to his shirt so he had it on him ALL the time. Now he isn't wearing that but he still can't ride in a vehicle or sleep without a binky in his mouth. Sort of normal for a 3 year old when the parents didn't push him toward giving up the habit.

Then there is Lolo. Starting kingergarten tomorrow and she turned five years old in January. She still can't seem to ride in a car or sleep without a binky. Last night was only the second time in her life that I can recall that she didn't sleep with a binky in her mouth.

The first time that I remember her not sleepign with a binky was this past March I think when we camped out in tents on the parent's property in the cow pasture. She fell asleep in a sleeping bag beside the bonfire and I carried her to the tent where she slept fine without the mouth plug.

Last night Lolo had a sleep-over with her good friend Alyssa. Alyssa's grandfather owns and runs a billion dollar company. Therefore, Alyssa's father and mother are very wealthy. They own a Rolls Royce Limo. Alyssa's father chauffeured Princess Alyssa and Princess Lolo around the town all dolled up in their princess dresses. Apparently Lolo had the time of her life and enjoyed picking up the phone in the limo to instruct the driver where to go next. So she slept without the plug last night. I believe it was out of embarrassment that she didn't use the binky.

Last year when I was taking her to school every morning to drop her off she always made a point to remove the binky from her mouth before she got out of the car to go into school. She would be embarrassed to go to school with it.

So yesterday we had orientation with the PreK3 teachers and the topic of conversation turned to the kids vices. One of the teachers gave the wife encouragement to get rid of the binkys pointing out the future troubles with teeth. I think the wife may be on board now trying to get rid of the vices. We will have to wait and see.

First Day of School

2009-08-18T21:11:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow is the first day of school for the kids. Lolo will be in Kindergarten which won't be a big step for her because she went to the same school last year for Pre K4. Adrienne and Atticus are going to the same school as Lolo and will be in PreK3. They too went to a pre school program last year but they were in a different school.

I am trying to figure out how I am going to afford all this private school education.

Too much TV

2009-08-16T09:14:00.002-04:00

I am concerned about our youngest daughter Adrienne. She prefers to poop outside in the mulch. She just left me a nice present there.

But more of a concern is that she always wants to watch TV while her siblings play outside. She prefers to sit there glued to the TV and we allow it. Lolo and Atticus regularly play together outside but Adrienne more often than not just watches TV. She will play outside too but not as often as her brother and sister.

About a month and a half ago Adrienne started sleeping in Lolo's bed. She was scared of the dark and regularly slept with all of her lights on. Now it seems to be working better with her sleeping with Lolo.

Jonesing to Ride

2009-08-09T21:13:00.002-04:00

I did a thorough clean job on my bike's chain, derailleurs and gears today. I also changed both tires and the front tube. It had a very slow leak but the rear tube did not so I didn't change it.

Have you ever tried to work on your bike (or get anything else done for that matter) while watching a three year old boy and a five year old girl. There were a million questions and just a general sense that I was not paying enough attention to either of them. I tried to accomodate both of them the best I could while changing the tires and tubes.

I put on Vittoria Zaffiro Pro II Road tires I purchased from Nashbar at www.nashbar.com. I got two of them for $44.98. I bought from Nashbar because I thought I was not going to have to pay sales tax but I was wrong. The Nashbar site could have been better because I don't recall it telling me that I was going to have to pay sales tax until I was at the last step of checking out.

Anyway, I am really eager to get back on the bike but I have a trip planned next week. I was gone all last week to Honduras. These back-to-back trips suck but I just hope it helps keep my company in business. The economy has really put a big hurting on us.

Despite the fact that my business is struggling, I did score twice last night thanks to a week's absence, a candlelight bath, a couple of glasses of wine, smooth tunes and a nice relaxing conversation about the offspring. We need to do that more often.

Cha-ching.

Days at the Lake

2009-08-09T08:31:00.002-04:00

We took the family and my brother's family to the lake last weekend. We all had a blast just chilling and swimming. It was the first time that we did not have big issues with the boat. For the first four trips to the lake the boat would not start. I cannot begin to describe how badly this sucks. The kids get all excited from the anticipation and we spend quite a lot of time getting all of our shit packed, then we drive 25 minutes to get to the lake hop in the boat and it won't start! So you try to contain the three kids on the dock while you try to get the boat to start. Sucks so hard.

Anyway last weekend the boat started with a jump box (portable battery jumper) and off we drove with five kids five and under. We swam and drove the boat around. The kids loved it.

Lolo tried to waterski for the first time. She wanted me to drive the boat and her uncle to be in the water with her. Unfortunately no one thought to instruct her to let go of the rope handle if she fell. Well of course she didn't get up on top of the water her first try and he held on to the handle and it dragged her through the water. It scared her and she cried a little bit. It was enough to make her not want to try again so she just tried one time.

The kids are now at the breakfast table chanting "Run away, run away from that poop!" over and over again. Classic.

Swimmin Lessons

2009-07-29T22:05:00.001-04:00

The three hellions are doing very well in swim lessons. Lolo just completed the Ray class and is moving to Starfish. She swam the entire length of the pool today without a life jacket or any help. Adrienne is being moved to Eel. She just loves the water and is pretty much a natural at it. Atticus will remain in Pike. He isn't as crazy about the water and really doesn't like getting his face wet. But he still will stay in the pool all day long.

Business is Bad and the Economy Sucks

2009-07-28T20:08:00.002-04:00

I am very concerned about my business. Our sales are off over 65% on our core items. Right now all of our profits are coming from one type of product being sold to one customer for one specific application in one industry. We are more vulnerable now that we have ever been- even when we were losing a million dollars a year on 12 million in sales.

I've got a marketing plan that I am implementing that should help with sales. So I am doing what I know to do but I really, really need the economy to come back!

It Runs in the Family

2009-07-25T22:05:00.002-04:00

Last weekend the whole five of us in the family went to Pennsylvania for a family reunion. My father's mother's side of the family that is. Although my paternal grandmother is long gone three of her sisters are still alive. My father is almost eighty and he grew up with his aunts as they are about seven to ten years older than him. They always called him Sonny. My mother loves to mock him (in a very mean way) and call him Sonny as in "Sonny boy always gets what he wants. Everyone take care of Sonny Boy." She is a very mean spirit to my father.

But I digress. We went to one of my father's aunt's son's house in York, Pennsylvania. He is the owner of a grocery store so he always has lots and lots of food at the reunions which we have about every five years. I don't know a lot of the people at these things but it is always good to get away and the guy who hosts it has a pool and he kids love that.

One of my relatives brought her award winning show dogs who were two very lovely, lively and friendly boxers. My tree offspring stayed in the pool almost the entire day swimming and splashing about. Adrienne and her twin brother just turned three in May and Lolo is five. They are swimming very well for their age. The twins have had a good amount of success with potty training and they almost have it down.

Adrienne hadn't gone poopie in several days so we knew it was just a matter of time before she asked for someone to take her to the potty to poopie. I was relaxing by the pool drinking a beer (imagine that) and Adrienne climbs up out of the water on the ladder saying she needs to go poopie. I look at her and as she turns around I notice that she has three but cheeks poking out of her bathing suit. Now normally she doesn't have three but cheeks but it just so happened that she had placed a very nice sized turd in her bathing suit to make the nice third hump.

Unfortunately the nearest bathroom was a walk out of the pool area, down the hill, through the crowd and into the crowded house. I looked around and saw only my immediate family so I removed her bathing suit bottom and shook out the turd over the fence in the bushes. Unfortunately the turd was still visible from inside the pool area but no one was going to bother to move it.

So without ever leaving the pool area, we wiped the little ass clean and put on a new bathing suit so the swimming could resume. After about ten minutes I hear the same announcement as Adrienne is getting out of the pool. I look up to see a repeat of the bulging bathing suit bottom except the bulge was much larger. This time I picked up the crapping three year old and held her out away from my body as far as possible and walked directly to the truck. I laid her down in the back and removed her steaming full bathing suit bottom. I chucked the fecal matter into the nearest low bushes away from everyone's sight and cleaned up the tot once again.

So several of my immediate family had seen the first turd tossing over the fence of the pool into the bushes. While I was away cleaning up the second brown offence many of the relatives were still at the pool. They spied the two boxer show dogs running around the perimeter of the pool fence. One of the dogs got really lucky and found that wonderful turd that my daughter had just recently deposited into her bathing suit but was now resting peacefully beneath the bushes on a nice soft bed of pine needles. Being a show dog of course the boxer did exactly what any other normal show dog would do and immediately gulped down the turd in about five or six bites with a good amount of chewing just to make sure the full effect was realized. The dog then went about it's business as if it had not just devoured a marvelous dish of toddler turd.

So my brother who had witnessed the entire unfolding of all events was hanging outside the house a few minutes later talking with the owner of the show dogs. He certainly didn't mention anything about the shit eating incident because he is just too damn polite. While they were talking the two boxers joyfully bounded up to their owner craving attention like boxers do. The owner of course loves her dogs so she gave them the attention they wanted by letting them lick her fact. She commented as they were licking her "My, my, what have you gotten in to?" My brother did a pretty good job of holding it all together so the owner never really realized that she had my daughter's shit all over her face.

Who ever said that potty training can't be entertaining?

Life is not fair

2009-06-20T22:25:00.003-04:00

Why is life not fair?

1. I lost a lot (for me) of money when Cape Fear Bank's assets were turned over to the FDIC. Their stock is now worth $0.01 and I bought it for $10.00 per share (I think). I have too much invested in individual bank stocks.

2. The wind is blowing so hard outside I am afraid that a tree is going to fall through my house.

3. My core sales are off 65% from about eight months ago and my company's profits are off almost as much.

4. I am saving nothing toward retirement. My real retirement plan is for the business to do well enough that I will be able to set money aside in the future.

5. Doing business is going to continue to get more difficult with Obama in office and I will get to keep less of my hard-earned money as the government sticks their hands further into my pockets.

6. I don't score every night- or every month for that matter.

8. My wife would not give me permission to score with someone else besides her.

9. If she did it wouldn't take me more than five minutes to finish.

10. My libido is not diminshing with age.

I Hate Lawyers

2009-06-17T22:46:00.002-04:00

I have just signed a licensing agreement and I feel like I am running naked through a field of razor blades carrying a 55 gallon drum of isopropyl alcohol with holes in the bottom. The agreement puts almost all of the risk on my company - the licensee. The licensor is taking comparatively no risk. The licensor will not even warranty that he has the rights to license his invention.

I could go into all the details but I would bore myself and I know them all and no one reads this anyway, but if someone sues my company claiming that the product we are manufacturing under license infringes on another patent we are completely fucked because the inventor is not even claiming to have the rights to license what he is licensing. Were my company sued in this manner we would have no recourse with the inventor.

Normally I would never enter into an agreement that is so one-sided but without this agreement my company is effectively out of business. Eight months ago when our business outside this product we are licensing was good, I would have never signed this agreement and put my company at such risk. But now our core business has dropped off a cliff and the inventor has us by the balls even though he really doesn't know it.

His attorney is not an intellectual property specialist and the attorney I am using most certainly is. It is painfully obvious that the inventor's attorney doesn't know much about intellectual property law. The agreement he as drafted speaks so loudly to this point that I can even see it. Nevertheless the inventor is going by what his lawyer tells him to so they effectively are bending me over and ramming it home.

The agreement is so far outside the norm for licensing agreements that it is absurd. The licensor's attorney says this is a "hybrid" situation so it doesn't fall under what a normal licensing situation would entail The only thing "hybrid" about this agreement is that it is so one sided and that if I didn't sign it I might as well declare chapter 7. No other company with a sane CEO that was not desperate would sign an agreement like this.

I feel so damn vulnerable and I am pissed off that I had to be in this situation. I feel just like a prison bitch.

Poopin' Milestons

2009-06-15T00:16:00.002-04:00

The twins are somewhat potty trained now. Big boy still prefers to poop in his underwear but has the pissing in the toilet thing down. The poop in underweare is always a blast when the poop is not solid. Big girl is about at the same place. I took them to a park yesterday and she pooped in her underwear. The walk they do after they shit their pants is so fucking funny. It is a stiff legged thing. I hope they can put two and two together and figure out that if they hold it until mommy or daddy can take them to a potty it will be a lot more comfortable.

The family is at our mountain house this week and I am here at home trying to go to sleep after preparing for my board meeting in the morning. Business absolutely sucks big donkey you know whats. Our core business is off over 65%. If it weren't for the new product we picked up to manufacture we would most likely be out of business. That opportunity came along at just the right time. If the economy doesn't pick up soon I don't know what the fuck I am going to do.

Ain't life fun.

Abstinence Streak Ended

2009-06-07T00:05:00.002-04:00

Through no fault of my own the two month abstinence streak ended last night- no blood related children within 30 miles did the trick and I didn't even have to initiate. It was good for me but I am pretty confident it was a major disappointment for the wife.

When the wife is away

2009-05-26T20:48:00.002-04:00

The wife went out with some friends tonight and I cooked the kids dinner played with them, read them books, let them watch the nightly ritual TV of Backyardigans (either this or Barnyard, Max and Ruby, Diego or Dora), read to them again, put diapers and pull ups on and somehow miraculously got them all in bed without their mommy.

So now I am waiting and hoping that mommy comes home horny since it has been almost two months. I have not begged for it because the wife has been going through a very difficult time since her father took his own life at the end of March. It was a horrible, horrible experience that I would wish on no one.

I am optimistic that the wife is starting to feel better and maybe I am a selfish person becuase I want her to have sex with me so soon after this tragic event. I sure as hell am not going to initiate sex now but I wonder how long I would have to wait if I were to wait until she initiated it? It could possibly be six or more months. Unfortunately for both of us our libido is quite different.

Tractor Shows and Broken Arms

2009-05-17T20:45:00.003-04:00

Lolo broke her arm the day before I left for Honduras two weeks ago. It was a Sunday and she was at my Mother-in-law's house playing with her distant cousins and she tried to do a cartwheel while running in flip flops. It snapped both her radius and ulna about in the middle. It was a good break because it did not occur on any of the growth plates so there was no need for pins or screws.

Lolo was a trooper and didn't cry until she thought she was going to get a shot. Her arm looked really horrible as you can see from the picture. Ouch.

She is healing very quickly and she should get her pink cast removed by the middle of June.

Yesterday we all went to the local tractor show and tractor pull. I bought a six pack of deep fried double stuffed Oreo cookies. Never again... enough grease to produce several piggie pornos. We then took the kids to a nice little cafe where an classical guitarist was playing.

I'm tired.

Unibroue Chambly Noire

2009-04-14T21:49:00.006-04:00

I was so pleased with the beer I had last night that I thought I would try another bottle of Unibroue. I purchased a bottle of Chambly Noire. I am not as impressed with this beer. It has the awesome bubbly effervescent sparkle that I love in a bottle fermented beer but it has thin body compared to what I had last night. It doesn't have the sweet undertones that the Trois Pistoles has but it is dark and has a clean taste.

I'm In Three Year Old Hell

2009-04-14T20:43:00.004-04:00

I know that what I am experiencing is pretty normal, or at least I hope it is. Trying to put my 3 year old twins to bed causes a LOT of mental anguish on the child's part and the parent's. Both twins always demand that mommy put them to bed and if I carry our son to his room he is screaming at the top of his lungs for his mother. Of course his mother has to tend to his twin who also demands that mommy put her to bed.

If you let the male twin in the same room with the female twin while mommy is putting her to sleep the male twin is bouncing off the walls and knocking shit over while screaming so then the female twin will not settle down and go to sleep. Thus I am forced to remove the male twin from the room and take him to his room producing from him the most unpleasant writing, screaming, kicking, crying and fit pitching one could imagine.

I have tried a small light spank on the rear just to get the boy's attention but only after positivie reinforcemnt fails. Of course the negative reinforcement doesn't work either so when I put the male twin in his bed and try to cover him up he immediately jumps off the bed and bolts for his sister's room where his mother is.

I have to keep reminding myself that he is just three. But this is difficult when it happens EVERY night and it will continue to happen EVERY night until he grows out of it.

I need a beer.

Excellent Beer

2009-04-13T22:10:00.003-04:00

I love good beers. I am drinking a bottle of Trois Pistoles by Unibroue. It is a bottle fermented beer with 9% alcohol. It tastes really bubbly and full bodied with a full mouth feel (does that also mean full bodied) and I just love the taste. One 750 ml bottle cost me about $7 and had made me feel really good tonight while I sit here watching Star Trek the Next Generation and browsing on the net with this shitty internet connection at our beach condo in North Myrtle Beach. The connection keeps dropping out.

I gotta pee.

Flying Squirrel Follies

2009-03-28T21:51:00.003-04:00

I was sitting here in front of this computer earlier tonight and I though I heard some rusting and scratching. I wrote it off as the noises my son makes before he goes to bed since his bedroom is directly above my office.

A few seconds later I heard scurrying and caught a glimpse of something moving on the floor in my peripheral vision. It went around my desk and in a corner piled up with miscellaneous shit. The scurrying noise stopped. I stood up very slowly to get a look. At first I assumed it was a rat but when I saw it I noticed the wide tail. Then it jumped from the floor to the wall. I have a grass cloth wall covering in my office. It climbed right up the wall (as if it had done it many times before- it obviously knew it could get a grip on the wall) and then ran around the perimeter of the room, behind the filing cabinet (I hate papers and I need to get rid of that damn thing) and then to my window sill where it stopped.

It sat there on the window sill about five feet from me and just looked at me. Staring at it closely I noticed that it was a squirrel. I had an old folded shirt on the floor in front of the window so I stood up very slowly and slowly picked up the shirt while the squirrel just stood there looking at me. I threw the shirt on the squirrel and grabbed it up. I squealed a little bit but it was unhurt. I put it in a large bin made of see through plastic and took it upstairs to show the wife.

It didn't look the same as the squirrels we see around here in our yard by the thousands. It was grayish brown and had some stripes that ran from its front legs to its back legs along the sides of it's body. It wasn't much longer than 6 or 7 inches with its tail and it had large eyes. We assumed that it was just a juvenile gray squirrel with an eye problem.

Instead of killing it we decided to let it go. So I took it outside, put the bin on the brick wall surrounding our patio which is about four feet high. I opened the bin and jumped out and then glided about ten feet away before hitting the ground and running away.

At that point I realized that it was a flying squirrel. I didn't even know that we had flying squirrels in this part of the country but by Thor we do!

So now I want to know how that little bastard got in my house and then in my office!

Demanding Little Minions of Satan

2009-03-24T22:00:00.002-04:00

The following is a conversation between my almost 3 year old daughter and me:

Adrienne: Where is my blankie Daddy?
Me: I'm sorry honey, I don't know.
Adrienne in an annoyed tone: Well, go get it!

Gimme a 1098, 1099 DIV, 1099 INT, and a K-1

2009-03-10T22:55:00.001-04:00

Preparing the information for my accountant to prepare my tax return is becoming extremely burdensome. The properties I own are sucking me dry and I am spending way too much time keeping up with all the bookkeeping. I need a personal secretary. I have already put about five hours into this and I will probably have to take a day off work to get it completed.

Grrrr. Maybe a flat-tax would be better. I better study up on that one.

Life Goes On as Kids get more Smartassed

2009-03-09T21:09:00.002-04:00

The wife is sick. She has a cold.

Lolo likes to watch the Food Network. She wanted to see a person's cooking show who she said looks like Uncle Greg but with skikey hair. Well no such person has a show on at 8:00 pm on Monday so she was disappointed.

I need to fill out the forms to turn over my information to my tax accountant but I am so tired and I have been procrastinating.

Out.

Another Glorious Day

2009-03-08T22:54:00.002-04:00

We had a great time last night with our friend coming over. They brought their kids and our hellions and theirs played very well together. We ate steak and drank. So I guess I am trying to kill myself with cholesterol and saturated fat.

I had put the trailer on the bike and rode the kids around. Up and down the very steep driveway and up and down the road in front of our house. It was one hell of a workout. Especially after walking the greenway in the morning, picking up sticks, working outside and washing both Volvos. It tired the shit out of me. I guess I am not 20 anymore. Plus my heart rate is still in the 80s, I have not exercised pretty much at all since mid-November, and I am a slacker. All the activity pretty much slammed me. The drinking certainly didn't help. I had two beers and two Makers and Ginger. I was feeling no pain. But I am kinda stupid because I am still on warfarin sodium (coumadin) and I am not supposed to drink because of that medication. Maybe I really am trying to kill myself.

The hellions were SO tired last night after all the play. The twins went to sleep about 8:30 and Lolo didn't go to sleep until about 10:15! I think that might be a record for her.

The wife and I got in bed about 11:30. No nookie for me this weekend.

This morning got rolling like insane as usual. The wife was running late for teaching Sunday school so she took off and I kept all three hellions. We rode bikes and played on the swings. When the wife got back she came to me and pulled me aside because she didn't want to tell me what she was going to tell me in front of the kids. She said through tears that she got a speeding ticket on the way to Sunday school. I guess she was terrified of my reaction.

I just told her not to worry about it and gave her a hug- being the perfect husband that I am.

Since we have been married she has received four speeding tickets- in eight years. Once she had a cop follow her for 5 miles. He told her that he gave her every chance to slow down but she never looked in her rear view mirror and she continued at about 80 mph so he pulled her and ticketed her.

Then last year- I think summer - she got another one and now this one. I used to give her hell about driving too fast. When she got the ticket last summer she told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to rag her about the ticket and that I was not to bring it up again. I have observed her wishes.

Now she has done it again.

I was very nice to her today but I just don't understand it. She is smart enough to know that speeding is dangerous. She is smart enough to know that speeding tickets cost a LOT of money. She knows that she speeds. I have explained to her about how the odds of getting killed go up exponentially when you speed. None of that seems to matter.

At the risk of being considered hypocritical, I have had two speeding tickets in my life. The last one was about eight years ago where I did not notice the reduced speed in a work zone.

This shit really pisses me off. I just don't understand why someone would continue to not pay attention to their speed when they know the facts and that the odds are that they are going to get a ticket. I guess I will continue to keep my mouth shut but it really pisses me off because she drives the kids around. Her failure to pay attention to how fast she is going increases the odds that our kids will be hurt or killed. I guess it is just like that fact that the wife will not normally tighten the 5 point harness in the twins' car seats. She routinely leaves them loose which also significantly increases the probability that they will be seriously injured in a wreck.

Ok, I am finished venting but I am still pissed off about it and the fact that she knows she is wrong but refuses to attempt to modify her behavior even when it can mean that she is sacrificing hers and the kids health and safety. I guess it is kinda like me drinking while taking coumadin. So maybe I am a hypocrite- well at least my behavior is not putting my children's health at risk.

I'm out.

Skiing for the second time and Miscellaneous Rablings

2009-03-07T15:50:00.005-05:00

Lolo skied for the second time on Tuesday. She did such a great job! I bought her a private lesson that lasted an hour then she went up the slope called Easy Street with me about five times. She loves skiing.

A-man really wanted to ski too but he is too damn young. Maybe next year he will be able to go.

My business sucks big ones. Orders for our manufactured goods went from an average of 11,000 dozen in September 2007 to an average of about 3,000 dozen this past week. If this keeps up I am quite possibly fucked. I will have to lay off more people and do some drastic downsizing. The economy really, really sucks.

I am listening to Kiss 95.1 in Charlotte. I have been listening to it for about 5 hours while working around the house outside. I washed both Volvos and cleaned out the garage. This damn radio station has played the same songs repeatedly over and over. I hate top 40 radio.

The kids are at the in-laws right now. They went down there yesterday and the wife and I had a night out on our own. We just went to a local Mexican restaurant and then came back home and crashed.

The water heater in our Mountain House is dead and will need to be replaced.

We have friends coming over tonight. Two couples and their kids. Wow, it is nice to have somewhat of a social life every now and then.

Snow Job

2009-03-02T23:08:00.003-05:00

I didn't take Lolo skiing since last post because it was raining at the slopes.

Last night it snowed about 4-5" so I spent most of the day at home but did go into work for about 3 hours. I was supposed to fly to Lafayette, LA today but that trip was rescheduled for Wednesday. I am hoping to put the finishing touches on a licensing agreement.

I took the kids sledding in our yard down a small hill. They loved it but it didn't last long. We decided to head to our house in the mountains to hopefully enjoy some skiing with Lolo tomorrow. She is complaining about her ear huring and it is about 7 degrees F here now at our house in the mountains. There is abour 12" of snow on the ground. So with Lolo complaining about her ear I don't know if we will get to go skiing tomorrow or not.

The economy sucks and I am concerned about my business.

Herpes

2009-02-26T13:08:00.001-05:00

Now I am getting a fever blister in the corner of my mouth. So much fun.

I had a sleep study done on this past monday night. Insomnia hit me and I couldn't sleep. I got in bed at 10:30 and didn't fall into a deep sleep until about 2:30. The good news is that I did not stop breathing but I am not confident that this means I don't have sleep apnea. I didn't even snore during the study but I know I snore frequently normally.

I am taking Lolo snow skiing tomorrow. I need a break so I am looking forward to it.

Sometimes is aint' no fun to be the boss

2009-02-25T17:15:00.002-05:00

I just terminated the position of a 20 year employee. She is an excellent employee which whom I have no qualms. She does good work and has a good attitude. There were a few issues such as her lack of knowledge of financial accounting and slow learning time on computers but all-in-all she was a good employee.

I have hired a new person as my CFO and he can do all of the duties that I need on teh financial end plus the duties of this former employee so it did not make any sense for me to keep her on board.

I hate firing people and hope I never have to do it again. But I know I will and I will do my best to be completely fair about it.

The A-Man and Potty Training

2009-02-22T17:20:00.002-05:00

So the A-man has an ear infection. He is on antibiotics and they are making his rear end really, really red and sore. So much so that he actually wanted to poop in the potty. Today he did just that for the first time that I have experienced. He used about 35 square feet of toilet paper and flushed about twelve times but he actually did #2 in the toilet.

No such luck with his twin sister.

Sick Kids

2009-02-17T21:30:00.002-05:00

London has strep throat. More antibiotics.

Adrienne vomited in her bed three separate times the night before last. Each time we changed her sheets and cleaned up. So last night she wanted to sleep on the floor. She told me the other night "I have bomit on my purple blankie daddy." She is over it and healthy now.

The A-Man some dark ooze coming out of his left ear. He went to the doc yesterday and he has a full blown ear infection in his left ear but he was feeling no pain because he still has the tube in that ear.

The A-Man went to the pediatric ophthalmologist today because he has been blinking his eyes a lot. The results are good news- he has good eyesight and his eyes are in good shape.

I have major snot and a stuffy head.

The wife is not sick.

Valentines day was a day from hell. All the kids were with us due to sickness and they all behaved terribly.

Grrr.

Mouth Ulcers

2009-02-09T22:46:00.003-05:00

Dammit I hate mouth ulcers. I get them about once a month. I have a spot on my tongue that is sore as shit and a big assed canker sore on my lower lip in the right corner of my mouth. It is painful- acidic foods really hurt. Love pain!

Where will tomorrow lead

2009-02-01T23:08:00.002-05:00

I just blew $1500 on a rug for the fourier to please the wife. We spend almost $1000 per month on education for our three children and they are not even in grade school yet. I am involved in four mortgages. My business is sucking big time. I am worried what will happen if the business goes further in the shitter.

I think i need a drink.

Rediculous Item of the Day

2009-01-31T23:43:00.003-05:00

There is a car customization place close to where I work. People actually pay to have this done to their cars.

Can you say "waste of money?" This car has 30" wheels with tires that cost about $2000 each. It has a flat screen in the driver door, what looks to be a 27" flat screen where the stereo would go, a flat screen in the dash in front of the passenger and possibly more. I don't even know if this thing is legal for the road.

Lolo still has a fever

2009-01-30T07:55:00.003-05:00

I am concerned because Lolo is still running a low grade fever - 99F. She has been running the fever since Saturday last week. She has been taking antibiotics since Saturday last week. My concern is that the antibiotics are not working and that her urinary tract infection will spread to her kidneys like it did two years ago when she wound up in the hospital.

Epson Stylus Photo R300M Clogged Nozzle Report

2009-01-28T22:21:00.003-05:00

I had clogged nozzles on my Epson Stylus Photo R300M. One color remained clogged no matter how many times I ran the nozzle cleaning program. I was looking into using some sort of cleaner to clean the heads but I could not find any locally and didn't want to wait for delivery from online ordering.

I stopped by the local Cartridge World store and talked to the nice people there. The told me that the nozzle cleaning worked by actually applying a little vacuum to the nozzles to try to get the stuck ink out. I don't know if this is true or not.

I had purchased some refilled ink cartridges on line and sinc installing those I had been getting teh clogged nozzles. Plus I had not used the printer much so this also contributed to the nozzles getting clogged. I pulled out one of the old refilled cartridge and replaced it with another refilled cartridge and still had the same problme. Anyway, I purchased all new Epson ink cartridges and pulled out all of the full refilled cartridges and installed the new Epson cartridges in my R300M. I immediately had all unclogged nozzles even before running the nozzle cleaning program. Supposedly the printer works best on Epson ink because it is formulated specifically for the printer. Other inks can cause problems.

So let this be a lesson. If you have an Epson printer, stick with the Epson ink cartridges. If you clog up your heads for good there isn't too much you can do besides get a new printer or try to buy some type of head cleaning kit.

The Eyes of Atticus

2009-01-28T22:05:00.002-05:00

Everyone has been noticing that Atticus has been really squinting lately and blinking his eyes more than normal. His teachers and parents have certainly noticed. So the wife took him to his family doctor today and they gave him a pretty basic test and it semmed pretty conclusive that he was having a difficult time seeing certain objects at a distance.

So now we are going to get an appointment for Atticus at a pediatric ophthalmologist. I am afraid the poor bastard has my poor eyesight. But he isn't even three. I didn't need corrective lenses until I was about seven or eight. Needless to say I am worried.

Adrienne pitched a fit about going to bed last night (as she does every night) and would not put on her night gown. So the wife put her to bed wearing only her diaper. About twenty minutes after closing the door and turning out the light, Adrienne managed to put a dress on all by her self. Not too damn bad for a 2.5 year old!

Lolo pitched a fit about having to get ready to go to school this morning. She has been out of school for two days with a fever but no fever this morning so she went to school despite her bad attitude. Once the wife got her clothes on her all was well with the world and Lolo rode to school in a good mood.

Bedtime for the kids has been getting later and later. Last night it was 9:00 before we got all of them in bed. Tonight we turned the tables and they were in the bath by 6:30 and in bed by 7:30. What a relief!

A Brief Accumulation of Some Cool Southern Sayings

2009-01-26T21:33:00.003-05:00

Skunt - a molestation of the word skinned. "I reckon he done fell and his leg got all skunt up."

Learn - a verb meaning to teach. "Them boys is kinds stupid. I been learning them all day and they still kaint figger out how not to bust up them dies"

Mommerwrennim - a molestation of the phrase "Mother and them." If you really wanna sell some of them encyclopedias yer gonna have to go up 'ar and see mommerwrennim.

Yens - a molestation of the phrase "you ones". Me walking into a country restaurant in the middle of Bakersville, NC with my family. The hostess approaches and asks "How many of yens is ye?"

Dest - a molestation of the noun Desk. "I put them papers on yer dest."

X-tree - a molestation of the word Extra. "I done thought I had four but I ended up with seven so I had two x-tree."

Like - a molestation of the word Lack. "Well damn, I done thought I had two x-tree. Eyes supposed to have four but I got one so I like three"

Leaning toward Schronce's - Very specific to the northern Catawba County NC dialect. Something is out of place or crooked. "That thar telephone pole is leaning toward Schronce's. It looks like it done been hit by an 18 wheeler."

Dinner - Lunch. "Damn, its almost 1:00 in the afternoon and I forgot to eat dinner!"

Hawldon I'll geeteemferya. A molestation of a request to hold on the phone while the answerer notifies the requested party. "May I please speak to Rufus?" "Hawldon, I'll geeteemferya"

Raaas - a molestation of the word rice. "I like me some whyt raaas with sawsige gravy"

Rhyt Naaaas - a molestation of the phrase right nice with right acting as an adjective synonymous with the word very. "That there Lamborghini is rhyt naaas lookin'"

Oh the joys of living in the south.

Lolo getting better

2009-01-25T22:52:00.002-05:00

Luckily Lolo didn't have a high fever last night at all and slept the night through. She actually slept from about 4:00 pm to 8:00 am. Her fever is in check and I think the antibiotics are working well.

I worked on our phone. We subscribe to Packet 8 which is an internet phone similar to Vonage. The phone was acting screwy so I had to configure the Packet 8 gateway to have a static IP and then I had to configure the router to forward ports to the Packet 8 gateway. You have to do this if the Packet 8 gateway is behind the router. I am also going to configure the QOS to make sure that all bandwith is dedicated to the phone. Since I have a 10mbps down and 1mbps up this shouldn't be a problem.

As the Clock Ticks

2009-01-25T00:00:00.000-05:00

It has been over a month since I have had sex......

with someone besides myself that is...

It has been over 8 years since I have had sex with someone other than my wife....

Are guys the only ones who think about this shit?

Using the Epson Stylus Photo R300 to print directly to a CD or DVD

2009-01-24T23:41:00.002-05:00

I have owned the Epson Stylus Photo R300M for many years now and just today tried to use the separate tray to print directly to a DVD. The R300M is the exact same thing as the R300 except it has a useless LCD display to view your pictures from your media card without having to use the computer. I never have used this feature and never will.

I just ordered a spindle of DVD-R media with an inkjet printable surface. I opened the manual for the R300M in pdf format and followed along with the directions to print to a DVD using the included tray. The directions leave out one very important fact.

I followed the instructions precisely and every time the printer would print 7cm too far to the left and 7cm too far back.

After searching the Epson web site for a solution and finding nothing I filled out the site's email form for techincal support. The site analyzez your email before it is sent and suggests a resolution to the problem. At this step it finally gave me the information that I needed.

You must select Tray 2 in order for it to align to the correct location. So I endured a lot of unnecessary frustration but did find the answer. I hope this can help someone else!

Lolo is sick

2009-01-24T23:30:00.002-05:00

The wife went to the beach this weekend and all three of the hellions were at the in-laws last night so I had a night to batch it but I sat at home and watched Hancock and just hung by myself. I have no social life. I did ask one of my friends to go out but he is so whipped that he wouldn't go. His wife is about 7 months pregnant and won't let him do anything. Not that being pregnant has anything to do with it. this is the same guy who didn't go to his own bachelor party.

Anyway I am a loser with no social life.

My mother-in-law called me this morning with the news that Lolo did not feel well. She didn't get out of bed until about 8:00 which definitely means she is sick. She had a 101 degree fever. So we met at the usual meeting place and I took Lolo to the local urgent care center. We waited for over two hours before we were seen by the doctor. After the first hour Lolo vomited all in my lap. I felt so bad for her. This shit is scary because the last time she vomited with a fever after complaining about it burning when she peed, she ended up in the hospital with a kidney infection. So the doctor prescribed her Promethazine (aka Phenegran) to settle her stomach and Sulfamethoxyzole which is antibiotic.

I dropped by CVS on the way home and deposited the prescriptions, dropped off the movies I rented and filled the car up with gas. I then took Lolo home and put her in bed. She was very lethargic and hot with a 102 degree fever. For the first time in her life (to my knowledge) she was at home alone because I didn't feel like putting her back in the car to go pick up the prescription. We live about 300 yards from the CVS drugstore so it took me about five minutes to go pick up the prescriptions. She was fine with being at home alone i guess because she felt so bad.

So she kept the Promethazine down and then also kept ibuprofen down and then it was smooth sailing for the Sulfamethoxyzole. She has been asleep for about 4 hours and is is getting close to midnight. I hope she sleeps through the rest of the night. It just kills me to see my kids sick!

Two in the terrible twos

2009-01-03T21:48:00.002-05:00

Here is our nightly bedtime ritual for the past several months:

Bath Time- usually pretty calm except for me getting compeltely soaked with all the splashing.

Diaper Application- usually pretty civil and uneventful.

Brushing Teeth- Rarely do i get both of the twins to brush at the same time. Always one is off running around and will not come when called. Then I have to go pick the rebel up and bring him/her to the sink kicking and screaming and try to divert to get him/her to brush said teeth. Meanwhile the other sibling has the faucet wide open and is splashing water everywhere in the bathroom. But they actually do brush their teeth after they have swallowed all of the toothpaste.

Book reading time- Can be civil at times if they can agree on what book to read and where to read it. We always read a book before bedtime. We have done so for at least a year and a half now.

Tuck in and light out- Usually around 7:45 PM we try to get them in bed. The beginning of this process is announced by saying "it is nite-nite time" which is always proceeded by a deafening shrill scream of "Noooooooooooo" by Atticus while he bolts for the nearest getaway corridor. Neither of them will let me put them to bed. The wife has Atticus of in bed and Adrienne is always in the room so I remove her so her brother can be tucked in. I have to physically remove her (every night) and she kicks, screams, punches, writhes and thrashes to get out of my arms. If i put her in her bed she immediately bolts for the door and runs to her brother's room and slams the door open to invoke more screaming and crying from him.

So I hold her convulsing body in my arms until the wife closes the door on Atticus with him in bed screaming and crying. I pass Adrienne to the wife after she arrives in the room. The wife rounds up the little girl and gets her calmed and tucks her in and turns out the light. This cannot be done successfully by me.

Then I turn to Lolo who is almost five years old now. I take her to her bathroom where we brush her teeth. She does not swallow the toothpaste but actually uses it correctly and brushes her teeth. Then I supervise her going to potty and flushing. I used to retrieve the toilet paper from a top shelf (the location was in order to avoid the entire roll being flushed down the toilet by aforementioned male destroyer) and hold it for her to tear off but now she does it herself.

We then proceed to her bed and I read her a book. I read her at least one book every night. No kicking, no screaming, no crying. After the book is read she is ready for sleep. She always gives me a hug and I tell her I love her as she sucks the polyethylene molecules from her pacifier. In the past before I left the room she has always requested that her mother to sing her a bedtime lullaby- normally "away in a manger" or something of the sort. But last week when the wife came into her room she has told her "you don't have to sing to me tonight mommy. I am tired. You can just tell me goodnight." Ahhh another milestone.

So that is our nightly routine which is enough to test the likes of people who have raised twenty offspring. I honestly don't know how my wife has remained sane with having the kids at home to herself all day long. School starts back on Monday and both of us are really ready for that. The twins school costs over $600 per month for 5 days/week 9:00 am to 1:00 pm but that is a small price to pay for the wife's sanity.

Fractals

2008-11-27T01:20:00.003-05:00

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?

2008-09-30T12:57:00.003-04:00

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

2008-09-21T11:33:00.001-04:00

Pressure

2008-09-12T04:06:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-09-04T13:47:00.003-04:00

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

2008-08-17T11:05:00.002-04:00

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

2008-08-14T04:08:00.002-04:00

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

2008-07-28T22:07:00.002-04:00

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

2008-06-26T00:34:00.002-04:00

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

2008-06-14T22:07:00.002-04:00

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

2008-06-08T22:27:00.002-04:00

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

2008-06-06T22:23:00.002-04:00

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

2008-05-22T22:10:00.002-04:00

John Hagee is a retard.

Bluegrass Buddies

2008-04-29T23:31:00.002-04:00

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

2008-04-19T14:09:00.000-04:00

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