Ashamed

In my previous post I was quick to use a photo to correspond with the story about MySpace purging sex offenders from their membership. I've since had a chance to research more information about the person who's photo I used and I think I was horribly out of line and insensitive for doing so. I have since taken the photo down and edited out my crude comments.
Hindsight has led me to see they were out of line and I am ashamed I did that.

To anyone that might have been offended or uncomfortable, I apologize.

I won't speak about this any more on here, but if you're really curious I will be very open about it if you ask.

I Feel Slimey

Any time my life has a connection to sex offenders that goes beyond my species or address, it makes me feel a bit sick. What am I talking about? The news that MySpace just canceled the accounts of 29000 registered sex offenders from their member list! Granted, there are over 180 million people on the site and 29k is a lower percentage, but it's still a connection that I don't care for. It's guys like the one in the picture to the left that really make this a sick and twisted society.

One of the saddest and funniest stories I've heard lately is what is calling the Furry Grim Reaper. There's a cat in a nursing home in Rhode Island that "predicts" a terminally old person will die in a few hours. The article talks about how this brings closure to the families that are notified that their loved one has been visited. Or maybe we should be saying "Marked." Maybe it's just me, but my first thought would be, "Is that animal contagious?" or "What is that thing getting into that might be causing frail old people to be pushed over the edge?" But no, this nursing home puts up a plaque on the wall to "commemorate" the cats' contribution!! Unbelievable! Doesn't anyone in Rhode Island have a bologna detection kit? Seriously though, these are OLD PEOPLE who are hooked up to life support machines, and when their extremities turn blue and their breathing becomes labored, there are just a few possible outcomes that we'll see.

My brother Cecil and his buddy Tom have put up another episode of their podcast, Everyone's A Critic. You can either use the link on the right or you can do a search for it on iTunes.

The NFL training camp season is upon us and I can't think of many more times throughout the year that I look more forward to. Of course it helps that the Bears are still strong favorites to return to the Superbowl (although the odds and history are against them) and for some reason my Cubbies have decided to make this an interesting season and are competing for the MLB playoffs. That doesn't happen that often ladies and gentlemen, and considering a subpar Cardinals team won last year, anything is possible.

And I'm just a few weeks away from the Chicago Comic-Con!!

Life's a Buffet

Lately it seems that I just can't get caught up on rest or sleep. It's cliche, but I spend most of my time feeling like a zombie. I just seem to walk around in a perpetual fog, tired and having a hard time focusing.

I made a minor change to the blog here; on the left hand side I created a list of what I am currently doing, so to speak, in so much as what I'm reading or watching on TV/DVD/Movies. Given our current lifestyle, don't expect me to tell you what movies I've gone out and seen......I don't get out much at the moment.

I've been getting frequent updates and information about my 20 yr high school reunion which will be taking place this September. Even though I didn't have many friends in high school or wasn't very popular, I enjoyed going to the last reunion if for nothing else than to see what's happened to the beautiful people. I ended up having a blast and drinking a little bit more than I should have, but I don't think I made an ass of myself, so it was a good experience.

I'm not sure I want to go to this one. Getting out of the house is a chore, so that alone has been causing me to waffle a bit as to whether or not I should attend. Today I get what I guess would be called a registration form and it says that the dinner will cost $81 a person! That's pretty steep, but it's not a price I haven't paid before for dinner. The kicker is that it's for a BUFFET DINNER????? They want $162 for my wife and I to have beef sandwiches, fried chicken, and mashed potatoes? Come on. I just can't justify that at all. We could go to some top shelf restaurants in Chicago for less than that and have a fabulous night, instead of getting dressed up for Boston Market. This doesn't look good at all.

We had a scare here at home with my son Perrin. He some how found his way into a bottle of infant ibuprofen and drank an unknown quantity of it. How he got the child safety cap off, I don't know, but it happened. We induced vomiting and I left work early and bought some syrup of ipecac and we monitored him the rest of the day and evening. Luckily nothing happened, but it sure worried me and scared the living shit out of Meva. So, there are new policies in place to ensure that doesn't happen again. Man, those kids are into everything!!

Insomnia

The last week or so has been horrible for my sleep. I guess I'm back in that same old grind of either staying awake into the wee hours with my mind wandering and worrying about things it really shouldn't be that concerned with at that time of the night, or I'm up late trying to bludgeon my mind into slumber with mind-numbing activities, or I take some pretty strong anti-anxiety meds and completely crash like a log. Since I absolutely hate taking meds, especially ones that knock me out, I've been spending the time awake instead of when I should be sleeping.

The worst part to me is that whenever I try to write, I just simply get flustered and what I put out isn't anything I'm happy with. So the quest for clarity is on once again.

We went looking at houses tonight with the kids. They were incredibly well behaved for what we put them through, which is their norm. We've been blessed that way. Instead of looking at real homes tonight, we thought we'd cover all our bases and check out some double-wide manufactured homes. No matter how nice they are, and don't get me wrong there were some nice ones, they're still trailers to me. Unfortunately the pricing is attractive, so there are a few we may end up considering.

We received our first official offer on our house tonight while we were out. My agent says it's a lowball offer though, so I'm not too happy about that. With selling this home I've noticed there are some people out there who think that since the market is sluggish, that they can just make ridiculous offers and get away with it. I sure hope that's not the case with this, because I might just dig in my heals and become a real beast.

There's not too much else happening at the moment. My wife went and saw the Harry Potter movie by herself while I watched the kids. I'm supposed to take a turn here soon, but for the life of me I don't know when that's going to happen. I might just wait for it to come to DVD and catch the Simpson's movie instead. The trailer they keep showing with Homer walking a pig on his ceiling and singing "Spiderpig" just kills me. I enjoy the Simpsons, but wasn't sure if I wanted to see the movie.........that one clip pushed me over the edge. We'll see.

Fun Weekend of Sorts

This was the first time I had worked in almost a month and I really didn't enjoy myself one bit. We can definitely use the money, but I would much rather just spend time with my family instead of putting up with idiots who think they know something about shopping for furniture. I think I am getting beyond burnt out at this point because I can't seem to sell shit. I know that inside, I am getting less and less patient with people. I am becoming such an old man!!

My brother Cecil had a birthday party on Saturday. Meva and the kids and I all showed up and spent about 3 hours hanging out and talking with friends, some of whom I haven't seen in years. We had a good time and I got to play some unique games like bola toss and zombie pinata smashing. My first shot at the zombie pinata, I hit it's body clean off of its head---of course everyone knows you have to take out the head, so I didn't do to well there in that regard. It was a blast though and I look forward to doing stuff like that again.

Our realtor called us and said she expects to get an offer on our house within the next few days. That's good too because we're really ready to get this move over and done with. We are planning on looking at some new houses here on Tuesday, and some of them look promising, so hopefully we'll find something we like. I don't think we're going to go with the house we put a bid on previously. It's a nice house, but there's something about the town that isn't sitting right with us, and we think it would just be better to choose elsewhere. I'll keep everyone posted here as developments warrant it.

That's about it folks, I've been pretty busy this weekend, so I haven't had a chance to really pay attention to the news, so I don't have anything to comment on. But NFL training camps will be opening up this week and next, so that's always a good sign.

Who Turned Out The Light

Well, I'm struggling with my dark thoughts again the past couple of nights. Sleep has been for shit and I'm just barely dragging myself through the rest of the day this week. I don't know how other people handle this, but fighting depression is extremely exhausting for me. I hope this spell passes quickly.

On a more positive note, I had a chance to spend a few hours with many of my close friends and family over the weekend for what was the final edition of the triplets first birthday party. It was a real treat getting to see everyone that stopped over. The only real sad part is that I feel as though I hardly had enough time to talk to everyone. I guess when someone leaves and you're still wishing you could spend more time with them, that it's a good sign.

After almost two months on the market, we have the strongest nibble on the house yet. I call it a nibble because there hasn't been an official offer yet, but I feel more optimistic about this one than I have about any other one to date. It's an older couple who are renting a house elsewhere and their landlord is selling the house, so they need to find a place of their own. That's definitely in our favor, as is the fact that their daughter lives two doors down from me. They told our agent they'd let us know if they were interested by the end of the week. I sure hope I get a call with an acceptable offer.

I've been having some digestive problems lately that have been quite painful at times and completely inconvenient. Lots of vomiting. I've had problems in the past with an ulcer and it's caused irritation and swelling right where my stomach and my esophagus meet, causing me to gag and choke on ridiculously small pieces of food at times. This Thursday I am having a procedure to dilate my stoma (I think that's what that area is called) to help things move along. It involves an endoscopy, which is a fancy way of saying they're going to shove a camera tube down my throat, gotta love that. I have an exceptionally strong bite and gag reflex, which came into play when I had may gallbladder removed and this procedure was given to me the first time because I bit the bite guard almost in half and came close to crushing the scope!

After years of curiosity I finally got around to seeing Citizen Kane. I keep trying to look at it from the perspective of someone from that generation who may have saw it when it premiered, but it's not working for me. It was mildly interesting, but in the end I just wasn't satisfied or that impressed with the story. Say what you will about it or me, but that's how I felt.

I don't have anything else to add today, but I have a feeling I will be on a bit of a rant tomorrow.

Things Are Happening

It's been a pretty busy week around here. The entire family spent 5 days in Ohio visiting my In-laws and having the first of my kids birthday party celebrations, We came home on the 4th late at night and then the kids had a doctor's appointment the following morning. In between then and now we've had 5 showing scheduled for the house, of which I've had 2 blow us off and not even show. So for the better part of the last 8 days or so, I've been completely out of the loop.

Regardless, I did get the absolute bullshit news that Scooter Libby was pardoned. Say what you want to about Bush, Republicans, or even politics in general, but I really have a problem with the ease and lack of accountability that goes into this type of blatant "Fuck You" that the American people and our legal system are given. Any time someone is tried and found guilty in the country, I feel nervous when one single person can pardon that person based on a whim or person bias. That my friends is a very very broken part of our system of government. The fact that Bush does this should come as no surprise to anyone.

Focusing back on the personal, it's going to be hot and muggy this weekend. We have another birthday party for the kids on Sunday, so I fear we all may just melt! At some point I have to mow the lawn and fix some dead patches with seeding and laying some new soil. Ya gotta love doing that in 95+ heat.

I finished my comic script for a story I've been working on called Atonement. I'm still excited about it and I've received some feedback that has been incredible and insightful. I can't wait to get back into the story and rework it based on what I've gotten back. It just brings me one step closer to getting to my goal of being a paid writer.

That's it for now, I'm beat!