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!

Conservatively Speaking........

Things are not going very well if you like freedom, fairness, and liberty. Little by little, in ways too complex and subtle for the average American to notice, we are losing our personal freedoms in this country. Here's the latest steps backward at the hands of our government officials:

Who Needs Diversity, Seperate IS Once Again Equal

Thanks to our incredibly stupid Supreme Court, public schools are no longer able to allow their districts population to be moved around to ensure racial diversity. Make no mistake about this, today's decision is a very real threat to Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka KS. There is a reason that decision was reached almost 50 years ago and it's only a matter of time before this current "Bush" court allows for this law to be repealed.

The Constitution Is Play-doh

Once again our sovereign leader---oops did I just say that?---has chose to ignore the tenants of our Constitution and invoke the joke clause, otherwise known as executive privilege, and refuse a subpoena. I don't mind challenges to the Constitution, no true fan of our government should, but this guy uses the document like a sculptor uses clay. You don't like the shape? Just change it or ignore it.........what, you can't do that because your benefactor says it's wasteful? Then just get a specialist to come in and razzle-dazzle them until they forget what they wanted and agree to it under different verbage. Yeah elected officials, no wonder you half-assed supported education reform to make it look like you cared, but secretly set in motion a system to create thinkers to stupid to see what your little gang is doing!!!

It's just so nice to know how closer this country is slipping down a spiral towards a kleptocracy. I can't wait to get my GPS chip!!

Of Interest

Some of the things I've learned today from just a slight perusing of today's headlines:

In a pinch, you can use a mixture of toothpaste and pancake batter to conceal a "booty call" tunnel.

Apparently there is trouble in Scott City Missouri, inmates used a crude digging tool fashioned out of common prison materials ala' MacGyver, then cut a cement block out of a wall in order to allow a female prisoner to enter the cell of a male inmate, probably to recite Russian poetry and proper shiv technique. To avoid getting caught, they created a mixture of tooth paste and pancake batter to cover the hole and prevent it from being detected.


Canadian petro companies are considering using nuclear energy to pump oil.

Does anyone find it ironic that a company that exists to gain profit from burning fossil fuels, is considering using a competitive form of energy to perform their business? It's almost like Bill Gates using a Mac. Makes me wonder how the environmentalists are thinking about this?


If you shave off all your hair and cover your bald head in racist tattoos, you might be able to "blend" back into society.

Another white supremacist kills someone to escape prison. Normally someone that escapes from prison tries to hide; avoid being discovered; let's say "blend-in" regardless of the methods they use to effect this. I don't think its a stretch to say that. The guy here on the left that you're looking at is that guy. I'll let the photo do the talking on this.




Giant-Ass Penguins Roamed Ancient Peru

I know most people could care less about news of this type, but it has always fascinated me. It always takes me back to my childhood and allows me to look at life as a child once again. Think about it, wouldn't the world be a much more interesting place if 5 foot tall penguins wandered through the equator? Sometimes if I'm walking in a nature preserve or wooded area and stumble upon a goose, it hisses and startles me, sending my heart racing. Just imagine yourself in only Bermuda shorts, flip flops, and suntan oil laying on a Caribbean beach and a giant bird only slightly shorter than Sylvester Stallone appears out of no where? It would scare the living crap out of me. Just check out the picture of the fossil with this giant beak and I think you'll understand.

That's all I've got for today.

The Week That Was..

It's been a pretty active week around here for me lately, so where do I begin?

I've decided to put off the surgery on my hand for the time being. As much as it hurts and as much as I'd like to get it done, I just don't feel good about having myself basically operating on just one hand. When I have the surgery I don't think I'll be able to use that hand for a few weeks at least, but most likely it will be closer to 2 months. With that kind of recovery schedule ahead of me, I think it would be wiser to wait until we sell the house and move into the new place.

Speaking of the house, we had another open house today. I was at work for it, but Meva said we had a handful of people stop by with some mixed feedback. A few liked it, a few said it was too much money for them (don't ask me why they came if that's how they felt) and we had one neighbor who wanted to check us out because she's planning on putting her house on the market soon and she wanted to see what she had to compete with. It's not what I had hoped for in results, but we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Friday is my kids 1 year birthday. In some ways I can't believe that they're already going to be a full year old, but then in other ways it seems so much longer. It goes without saying that my life is completely different than it was a year ago, and I can't even imagine it without my three beautiful children. I can't wait for the next year just to see how they grow.

Meva and I are planning on taking the kids to Ohio next weekend for the 4th of July holiday so her mother can see the kids for their birthday. It will be nice to see Meva's family again and visit with everyone, but if it's anything like last time, this means even more work for me and less sleep since the kids will be off their normal schedule and very cranky. It will all be worth it though.

IN a completely unrelated note I just want to say that I can't stand Bernie Mac at all. I don't know what he's like in person, but when I see him on TV giving interviews or talking, I just want to cringe and look away. Something about the way he talks or acts just makes me feel uncomfortable.

That's it for now, I've got to figure out what I'm going to do for my wife tomorrow since it will be our 7th wedding anniversary.

Elmo is going to get me killed

Lately I've been spending my precious free time managing pain and trying to devour The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. The pain isn't that bad, but with it located in my offhand thumb, it does make simple household chores a bit of a problem, and on busy days I find it aching to the point that I don't want to even use the hand.

The reading of AAKC has been a true joy for me, and the farther I get into the book the more it pulls me in. That's the kind of statement you want to say about anything you read, and I can see why this book won a Pulitzer Prize. I have Brain K. Vaughn to thank for recommending this to me. In a very brief email exchange with me he suggested I read the book and remarked that he was jealous of anyone picking it up for the first time because of the sense of wonder and energy you get. I've probably got less than 100 pages left, but I can already agree with him there.

Yesterday was a bit surreal. If I were to give it a headline, Man Threatened With Death Over Missing Elmo. Seriously. That's the type of bizarre crap that you really can't make up.

In a nutshell, I spent just under $20 on eBay to get my daughter a stuffed Elmo doll, because she truly loves that little red muppet. I pay on time, but it never comes. I pay for priority shipping, but it's sent media mail. When I inquire about this, the seller refuses to acknowledge that and says she will refund my money when I send the box back to her.

I don't have the box or the Elmo!!!!, that's the problem.

She still doesn't get it.

After going through more emails, more patience, and the resolution processes of both eBay and Paypal (through which I paid) I am finally forced to try and contact her on the phone. Let's just say she's nicer in her emails than in person. She's not home, so I leave a message and say I'll call back later. Approximately 5 minutes later she calls me from her work and proceeds to yell at me about how big of a jerk I am and then hangs up on me. I tried calling her back (her number came up on caller ID) but I was gettng a voice mail system and hung up in vain. She immediately calls me back and condemns me for harassing her at work, calls me a bitch, and threatens to "whip my azz."

Did I mention she lives in Baltimore and I live in Illinois?

Now at this point I get a bit ticked off and I decided I would call her work and let the top person there know about her behavior and how she uses company time and resources. I make approximately 6 calls and get nothing but the automated voice mail. Turns out she's the top dog, must be one hell of a company.

But it doesn't end there, oh no. That would be far to easy.

I get another phone call, this time from the woman's husband. Among the many fallacies and ridiculous statements he made was

1. that he "listened" to me harass his wife 8 times on the phone (yet we only talked twice)
2. that I had no right to call her at work (although she called me from there)
3. that he was a law enforcement officer
4. that my house was going to be ransacked (for what, he never really could explain)
5. that he would personally come over to my house and beat me up
6. he wasn't just a law enforcement officer, but a Federal Officer
7. as such everything is within his jurisdiction,
8. he couldn't name the branch of federal law enforcement he worked for
9. and finally, that he was coming over to my house to "bust yo muthafuckin head in and keel yo azz," and then he hung up on me.

I'm not making any of that up. That's what he said and how he talked.

Although I am a bit embarrassed to admit it, just to be on the safe side, I did file a police report. I don't really expect anything to happen, but on the off chance that this knucklehead actually travels for his job or something, through eBay he does have my contact information. The last thing I really want is to end up as part of a special report of Dateline NBC or something.

All this because I love my daughter and wanted to buy her a stuffed Elmo doll.

Slow News Day

On a day of events that are of serious importance to this country and the direction we may be headed in our involvement in what has become an Iragi Civil War, namely the replacement of the chairmen of the Joint Chief of Staff and news that the US is arming Iraqi nationalists to fight al Qaeda, the same nationalists who were fighting the US just two months before.

Instead of important coverage of these important events, the nation was bombarded with coverage of Paris Hilton being forced from her home and back into court and told she had to return to jail. Much was focused on her screaming and crying as she was led out of the court room, obviously in tears.

It is an absolute blasphemy to every US citizen that this was the focus of the media world today. The only redeeming quality of the whole ordeal is that it's a strike against the rich and famous getting special treatment by our legal system. Horray! Let's just hope that it's not a momentary lapse of logic and common sense that slipped in between political special interests and old-boys club networking.

On a personal note, I just loved hearing that she broke down in tears and cried for her mom! I love comeuppance.

On a more personal note, I really got hooked on a subparly written TV series called Jericho, that was canceled by CBS. I've just hear word that they've since been picked up as a mid-season replacement for next year with the ordering of 7 new episodes.

By the end of July I will have made two trips to Ohio, had two birthday parties for the triplets, one major surgery, two separate medical procedures, and countless other projects to complete around the house as I keep it in condition for all the showing we have. I'm also still going to try and work every weekend that I possibly can during this time. There's a full plate if I've ever seen one.

In the meantime I'm going to try and write as much as I possibly can before I am unable to for a few weeks.

Still No Cause For Concern

It's been over a month since I last posted here. At the risk of sounding cliche, it's been extremely busy for me. I have some sick relatives who are fighting for their lives, my wife and I am trying to sell our house, and then there is the old standby---we're raising 11 month old triplets by ourselves. So to be sure, I've got a full plate.

In addition to the above, I've been undergoing occupational therapy for my thumb joint. Forgive me if I mentioned this in detail before, but my problem is that I have arthritis in my joint that connects my thumb to my hand. The picture to the left there shows the joint that's been causing me trouble for the last 4-5 years. Near as my doctor can figure out, I broke my hand a few times over the last 15 or so years and never had it treated. The result is that I no longer have any cartilage between that joint, causing the lovely sensation of bone rubbing on bone.

We tried the long shot of trying to improve the pain management with the therapy, but that was more to appease the insurance I have because let's be honest here--- how in the hell is moving my thumb in circles going to grow more cartilage?? It's not, but logic isn't something that is always used in medical decisions. So after three weeks of therapy sessions my thumb hurts worse and is less flexible than it was before. Thank you HMO of Illinois.

What happens next is going to be surgery. Usually this type of situation happens to the elderly, not someone under the age of 40 like myself. I think the most common type is to remove one of the bones in the joint, thus alleviating the pain. The other type is to fuse the joint together. The latter is the surgery I will be having. It's going to restrict some of my mobility, but I won't lose nearly as much strength as I would if they removed a bone. I'll meet with that doctor next week and I should have some better idea of when everything will come into place.

My wife also thinks that I might be having some difficulty with stress management, so she's scheduled me to undergo a thallium stress test. I don't know all the specifics of this test, but my wife seems to think this would be a good idea for me to do considering my age and other health factors. The basic gist I've gotten from this is that I'll be running on a treadmill hooked up to a bunch of monitors that basically checks to see how well my heart pumps blood and how the flow of blood to and from my heart is doing. Damn thing will take three hours supposedly. If they think I'll be running for three hours, I can already tell them that isn't going to happen no matter how hard I try. We'll see how that goes.

In other news, my sister is getting ready to move from Arizona to Kentucky. She's getting the normal pangs of doubt at the moment, but it's a good idea for her and she knows it, so I don't expect her to change her mind. Although she'll be away from her grandson, she'll be a lot closer to me and my kids, which will be nice.

That's it for now, the kids are up from their nap and wanting to eat.

A Cause for No Concern

Let me start off by saying a big Thank You to everyone that has written and phoned me in the past 24 hours about my last post. I was really touched by your concern and it was nice to hear from everyone. I didn't intend for any response, so let me just say that you all overwhelmed me!

I've written back to everyone individually at this point, but I'd like to publicly state a few things so that everyone gets to hear them directly from me.

First; This blog is part entertainment for me and part therapeutic. While I like to share myself and views with everyone, this site also allows me to deal with any issues I may have or may be going through. It is an introspective mentor, sounding board, and healer for me. Sometimes just by going through the movements of writing out my thoughts and feelings, I come to a better understanding of what I'm facing or even what I want to do. After almost 18 months of writing, this blog has become an integral part of me.

Second; In no way do I feel slighted or neglected by anyone. We are all very busy and have responsibilities and obligations that we have to see to. At the end of my post when I mentioned friendship, it was a very raw sharing of my feelings as I was attempting to combat my depression that night. It wasn't a major concern to me, but for whatever reason it came out as I was writing and sharing. Part of depression I think is the illogical embracing of ridiculous feelings as doubt creeps in. Meeting them head on, no matter how trivial, silly, or minor, helps me to dismiss them and think healthier thoughts.

Third; I am not currently treating this with any form of medication. I touched on it a bit in my previous post, but I am just tired of the medications. It's not that they don't work because some of them do, they just don't always work for everyone or on me. Currently I wasn't happy with any of the meds out there that I had tried, so I decided to try something new and that was to combat this without the meds using a very hyper-vigilant approach. What this means is that I am pretty constantly analyzing my feelings, motivations, and actions as I have become very aware of the patterns and destructive behaviors of this problem. For lack of a better term, I am fighting this out mentally. So far I think the results have been very good. But as a result of all this, I will possibly need to write and vent from time to time. It could be like a post such as my last one, or it might be something different, but it's all part of how I am combating this.

Fourth; I used the term "Self-Destruct" in my last post. I just want to iterate to everyone that this does not in any fashion mean physical abuse or suicide. It refers to making choices that are unhealthy and destructive in other ways. Such as purposely picking fights with people, neglecting responsibilities, or purposely making bad choices. Please, for those of you who may have thought this, I am fine.

Lastly; I just want to say that I took a risk in revealing this. I said in the post that one of my biggest fears and reasons for not bringing this up openly in the past was that I didn't want to be treated differently. That still holds true. I knew that bringing this up potentially opened the door to created a "Damned if you do, Damned if you don't" type of feeling for others. Rid yourself of those feelings and continue like you always have.

Again, I really appreciate the out pouring of concerns and interest that everyone has expressed. I means a great deal to me and I will definitely use it as part of how I deal with things during the real lows of this problem I have. Thank you all so much for caring.

How I feel

I suffer from depression. Big deal right, who doesn't? The older I get, the more I think that it is a big deal. It permeates into all aspects of my life and as I approach 40 I can see how it has even affected me physically. This is not something I talk about much, and I don't think I've even mentioned it to many people at all--- I would think that most people who know me aren't even aware of it. The reason for that is I've never felt comfortable letting people know about this.

I've always thought I'd be treated differently or that people would want to give me some additional sympathy or even pity as a result. I've never wanted to have a built-in "excuse" for bad behavior or poor choices that I might have made. I think that once you accept that type of crutch, you will eventually come to depend on it and use it in a very manipulative fashion. So for those reasons, I've always avoided mentioning it, especially when I was younger and first learned about this.

I bring this up because I think I'm going through a horrible patch of this right at the moment. This is the first time in years I've gone through this without taking some type of medication for it. The meds are tricky---sometimes they help you, but there are always side-effects that make them unattractive or unbearable. I took one that made me sweat profusely and experience heat flashes, and I've taken another one that worked for awhile but then made me feel jumpy, excited, and agitated. It all boils down to not feeling successful with anything I've tried. So currently I'm combating this on my own without any help, but it's incredibly hard.

I don't know if I've ever had a more difficult time than what I'm going through right now. I honestly think that if I didn't have babies to play with every day that I would have self-destructed by now. The thing about depression is that, for me at least, you feel a heavy solitude, even when you're surrounded by your friends and family. The best way I can explain it is looking at it as though each morning you wake up and find yourself wrapped up in a wet, heavy cloak of doubt. I say doubt because you end up not trusting yourself and you often lack the strength to throw off the doubt that is weighing you down.

The result of all this is that for the last few months I've felt extremely alienated and alone. Maybe I need counseling or something, but from the time I wake up until the time I eventually fall asleep, I feel disconnected from everyone. The worst part is that I know I would be extremely annoyed if I had a bunch of people hanging around. That sad contradiction is what I probably hate the most.

So, I often find myself up late at night, like tonight (it's about 3am), ruminating on everything. One of the things I've been thinking about lately is friendship or friends. If someone is my friend, I want to be there for them in anyway they need. What I've found about friendship is that I can find a more people to help me move or help me hang siding on my house than I can find to talk to or hang out with on a regular basis. I don't care about having help moving or getting a project completed when I've got an emergency, I'm more concerned with someone who just wants to talk to me or hang out with me because they really want to.

Maybe it's just depressed pouting, or maybe I've just become such a cantankerous bastard, but I find I have precious few people that want to talk to me these days.

A Powerful Week

Wow, where do you start? The world sure seems to be a little less sane than it was a week ago. The Virginia Tech tragedy is something that I think is going to have a very profound affect on the social and political fabric here for many years to come. The actual event is eventually going to go to the wayside, but the fallout is what we as a country will be dealing with for years.

I don't think anyone needs to be convinced that what Cho Seung-Hui did was wrong or that there were plenty of warning signs that should have prevented this from ever coming to the explosive conclusion we saw on Monday. That's all pretty cut and dry and we can learn from this tragedy. What's more is that we had damn sure better learn from it, because it's going to happen again and it's going to happen on a grander scale.

The media coverage of this event absolutely sickens me to no end. In my opinion there is absolutely no way that Cho's video should have been released to the public in any manner whatsoever. Any website, agency, or broadcasting company that has shown this should be held responsible for the next set of killings that are sure to be inspired from their negligence. By putting his video on the air or the internet they have shown the next killer that their message will also be heard; all they have to do is kill a bunch of people.

Where is the integrity and responsibility to make sure that we don't inspire or promote this behavior to the people out there that are in need of help and someone to listen to, but aren't getting it for whatever reason. This goes beyond the realm of journalism, this is a problem for all people in this society. The people who run NBC and it's news division had the opportunity to be responsible and elect not to broadcast Cho's sick and hateful message to the world, but for the obvious reasons they chose to ignore the needs of this nation, the feelings of the accussed's family, and the suffering of the victims families and they played the video, released his writings, and played it over and over again. This is humanity at one of its lowest forms.

STUPID SITE OF THE WEEK

To this end Ihave no choice but to award NBC News with this week's Stupid Site of the Week award. Unlike previous weeks, I won't be including a link to the site to showcase it's stupidity. In fact, I hope that no one visits their website. I for one won't be doing that again. I think it's important for me to take a stand against this kind of behavior and it's probably a good idea for me to boycott NBC News in all it's forms. If I truly feel upset and sicken by their actions, then there is no way I can support them by viewing any of their programs or transmissions. Maybe this will become something of a passion for me, I don't know yet, but at the very least I will chose not to participate in their type of irresponsible behavior.

What a week!

I think I've mentioned here before that we are going to be selling our house soon and moving into a bigger place in a rural area to save money. We've only bought a house before, so selling our current house is definitely a learning experience.......and it's exhausting.

If you didn't know this, they recommend that you pack up as much unnecessary stuff from around your house that you can. Basically getting rid of anything that you don't use on a regular basis so as to make your home look bigger and uncluttered. It's really a brilliant idea, but that's not a good thing for someone like me.

Being part nerd, I've acquired a large amount of crap over the years and it's all been forced into a small 8' x 10' room that was my office, but has since become the guest room now that the babies are here. Just getting that room cleared out was ridiculous. I've left about a third of what was in there and all of my comics, but I still took out 20 some boxes of books, games, and collectibles that I had in that room and the closet. What's bad is that I purposely left behind about 5-7 more boxes of books so that the room wouldn't look obviously empty. The saddest part is that I still have another 15 boxes of books in the garage!! I am a sage without a library!

So anyways, I've spent the entire week trying to get that room packed because I need to get it into storage. We rented one of those portable units that come to your house for you to fill at your leisure, and we had to get it filled and ready to leave today so that we could accept the delivery of top soil and driveway gravel that I have coming tomorrow. All week long my wife and I worked together to pack things up and move them into the unit.

To our surprise we actually filled the 8' x 16' unit with everything we planned on and even a bit more, now it will all be ready to be delivered to our new home when we choose it and are ready to move it. This is where the story turns very annoying and angry for me.

To make this short, the guy who came to pick the unit up trashed my yard next to the driveway and almost knocked the thing over and into my house! I don't know what the guys problem was or why he had such difficulties , but he trashed my yard by digging up the lawn with his tires trying to get the unit and he never even said a word of remorse or apology to me before he left in a huff! Lucky for me I had my camera to take video and pictures of the whole incident. The ironic part of all this is that my brother is coming over tomorrow to help me spruce up the yard for the sale............and that included getting the lawn ready. We had a big job before, but now it's even larger! I can't wait to see exactly what they are going to offer me, because the damage is substantial in my opinion, which is what these photos are supposed to prove.

Now, on to my Stupid Site of the Week

Stupid Site of the Week: Journey Lyrics

This is from a site called SeekLyrics, which catalogues the song lyrics of popular, and less than popular artists. There are plenty of other sites out there just like this, and since I really don't care much for music I don't go to them much at all. The reason I chose the Journey pages for this site is because one, Journey sucks, and two, the songs are all messed up. It's a pet peeve of mine to hear someone incorrectly name a song because they think all songs are named after a phrase in the chorus (which many are) or the opening lines of the song. An example would be someone incorrectly calling Elvis Presley's song "In The Ghetto," His Momma Cried, which I have seen and heard done. The same thing exists on the Journey page with the song "Don't Stop Believin" which has an entry under the correct song title, but it's also listed as "Small Town Girl." Not only is it embarrassingly inaccurate for the website, the lyrics are also wrong! Someone should be editing the content, especially since in this case the lyrics are available on the CD!

Hectic Week

The week has been busy. The kids are growing and taking more time during the day and the wife and I of course have a huge amount of work that we're trying to complete to get the house ready for sale. It's been busy enough that I haven't even had a chance to pick up the writing I've been neglecting. Hopefully that will change after Easter.

My hand is still bothering me and I finally went and saw a specialist, which only took three years. It seems that over the course of the last few years I've broken my hand a couple of times. I really didn't know it and I can't say I can recall any specific time when my hand bothered me to the point I thought it was broken. The result of it not being treated over the years has caused it not to heal properly and the joint beneath my thumb that connects my hand to my wrist is arthritic and I have some bone on bone rubbing going on. Nasty and uncomfortable for sure. He's suggested I wear something called a Spica Splint on my hand for a few weeks and if that doesn't work then it's time for surgery, which would be fusing the bones in that joint together. I'm looking forward to that for sure.

I didn't have much time to devote to picking out a winner for this week's Stupid Site of the Week, but one thing I couldn't shake was American Idol. I know that there are a lot of fans of this show out there, and if I offend you, know that's not my intention. But in my opinion American Idol is a symbol of many of the things that are wrong, selfish, and broken in our society and Television in general.

I'll preface this by saying that I don't have much of any respect for the music industry today. That's probably a separate rant in and of itself, but this show is the epitome of of why this is wrong. Talent is talked about and given lipservice, but it's not valued. Appearance, beauty, and popularity are valued and placed above real talent. What's more is that it encourages those who know that they obviously lack any type of skill or musical ability to demean and debase themself for the chance to look like an ass on TV so that they can have less than 5 minutes of fame. Unless you're so bad (Willian Hung), in which case we will worship you in a way that is a subconscious insult that shows how cruel we are, hiding behind euphamistic worshipping and the all important monetary love as we buy any merchandise that is produced from it.

What makes me even more upset about American Idol is the amount of coverage it gets from the rest of the media and everyone in this country. Talkshows, newspapers, magazines, websites, and news broadcsts devote portions, sometimes ridiculously large portions, to the events and drama that is produced. It's inane, unimportant, and gives nothing back unconditionally. Can I say it any better, it's a blight on societies soul and it will damn us all!

This Week's Winner!!

I'm not really reaching very far and wide for this week's winner. I thought I would play it safe and in some ways this is really a no-brainer. As a proponent of the 1st Amendment I don't have a problem with this site and I am happy that it has the right to exist, but it's receiving this week's award for reasons that aren't the norm. Well, let's get started.


Stupid Website of the Week White Pride TV

Is it sad that the KKK has a site that streams is twisted brand of religiously disguised hate and xenophobia? Of course it is. The content that comes from this weekly talk show is exactly what you would expect. If you can stomach it watch the latest episode where the two hosts deride lesbians who want to march in St. Patrick's Day parades. What I find most disturbing is that they "cut-away" from their show to present two very sweet and innocent looking young teen girls singing songs in support of the KKK and their beliefs.

I could have just chose the entire KKK website, but where is the fun in that? That's as much of a no-brainer as saying Rosie O'Donnell is butch. What made this extra stupid to me is the production quality of the whole thing.

It's obviously a propaganda and recruitment tool, yet the sound and picture quality are so poor that it reminds of of watching 9" TV's back in the 1970's when there was only an antennae hook up for it. I had trouble understanding the people sometimes (despite the mushmouth) and the entire production reminded me of badly produced cable access shows.

Give it a try if you want to, just for curiosity's sake to see what they are using to try and lure in more people to their hate-cause. If for nothing else, it's worth a sad little laugh.

I've Had Time To Think

My wife is one smart cookie! I freely admit that she is much smarter than I am, and she had a ball last week with my Stupid Website of the Week. She spent quite a bit more time on Jon Swift's blog and Conservapedia than I did and I am ashamed to admit that she pointed out things I shouldn't have missed. Specifically that Jon Swift is a satirical name paying homage to Jonathon Swift, the Irish satirist who wrote Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal. Considering I have a history degree, I must now hang my head in shame for having missed that one! I am now convinced that this blog should be the this week's stupid site, but I am vain so I won't do that!

There's not a whole lot going on around here. I have a giant portable storage unit in my driveway that my wife and I are working on filling up with excess things to make moving and selling our house easier. Surprise, surprise that most of the things we are putting in there are baby-related or books!

Meva celebrated her birthday on Monday. Her parents came to visit for the weekend, which was very nice and we all took the kids out for dinner on Saturday for her. I treated her to a nice Buffet dinner of Indian food Monday night. I made sure to get her eggplant Bharta, Naan, Samosas, and a Mango Lassi! She was very happy and ate almost everything on her own over the next few days........which is exactly what I did that for.

I didn't get to enter that comic book contest I was working on. While I am still excited about doing my story, I don't quite think my artist was. That's ok, but it's frustrating to say the least. Now I'm going to have to start that process again all over and do this from scratch on my own. Once it's done, it will all be worth it!

I've got an appointment scheduled tomorrow to see a hand specialist for this nagging injury I've had in my thumb for over two years now. I've had something like 10 cortisone shots over the last 6 months and it hasn't improved, hopefully this doctor will find out what's wrong and be able to fix it without surgery. I'll keep you posted.

Dumb or Ignorant......You Decide

Recently a friend of mine named Tom started a discussion on his blog about nonsense in our society, you can check it out here. One of the cool things about his post is that it shows how if you look, with very little effort, you can find all kinds of dumb or ignorance. It is with this in mind that I have decided (at least until I no longer have the time) to spotlight something stupid, or ignorant, or just plain dumb, once a week.

My introductory week is being brought to everyone by the wonderful mind that is my wife! She mentioned this site to me and it got me to checking it out and in that process I discovered and even more idiotic site, so I'm going to double dip this week. It's equally enjoyable because the two sites share the same blind ignorance........or at least a great amount of it.

Meva was telling me about a site that is similar to Wikipedia, which for those who aren't aware, is a free Internet encyclopedia. The unique quality of this site is that much of it allows for readers to edit or add to the articles and entries that are found within. Taken lightly, it's a fun site to explore, but I personally wouldn't recommend anyone take the information found there as fact before verifying it through other sources. Apparently it gets knocked for it's highly liberal views. I wasn't aware they were liberally biased, but then again I don't rely on it solely for my information and my natural skepticism precludes me from accepting anything at face value, so I almost automatically filter out bias when I notice it in my search for facts or truth. That being said, I'm sure it's there.

In this country, once something is labeled "liberal" it is often attacked by our friends, The Conservatives. Obviously threatened by the potentially devastating power and influence that is the liberal spewing might of the all-invasive force of Wikipedia, we are now treated with Conservapedia!!

Conservapedia promotes itself as one of the worlds largest and most reliable online educational sources without all the liberal and anti-Christian bias of Wikipedia and other online sources. Which in plan liberal speak means:

"We embrace religious fundamentalism in the face of scientific facts, while promoting a limited world view that only recognizes other cultures, religions, and peoples as subservient and viewable as a labor source to exploit for labor that we don't want to preform ourselves, but are more than willing to under pay for......and without benefits because if you were a true Christian your God would take care of you, or at least provide you with some kind of health insurance, which he has never said we need to do!"

Obviously that is a quote I am attributing to myself.

While checking out that site, I had the joy of doing a few searches about Conservapedia and I came across this page, a blog by someone named Jon Swift. He calls himself a "reasonable conservative," which to me is almost an oxymoron like Free Lunch, No Strings Attached, or Republican Compassion. I think his site is pretty up front, but I do believe he has a sense of humor.......or at least I'm pulling for it because if he doesn't, then this blog is even more scary! I say this because after reading his post on Conservapedia, he freely admits to its superiority over Wikipedia, yet doesn't even know what it's about (HINT---He attributes it to Wiccan). He also says that since the media is biased, he gets his news from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and, the best part---Jay Leno Monologues!! There is so much wrong with that statement I don't even have the time to stop laughing and write about it!!

Maybe I'm wrong for including them here, but check them out and judge for yourself!

Ouch!

The water leak is all fixed and not a leak in sight, which is great news. At the risk of complaining too much, things have been moving along rather crappy!! I went from some leaky pipes and home repairs to horribly strong migraines, to a serious flaring up of an old hand injury, to back pain that almost makes me cry. LOL, a week into being 38 and I might actually be falling apart.

So, I try and deal with the pain as best as I could but it's not working and then I go and put my back completely out of sorts to the extent that I am having trouble picking up my children. I wish I had a great story about injuring my back saving a busload of puppies and nuns from "The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight, " but I don't. Simply put, I couldn't resist my wife's beauty and allure and in a moment of intimacy I injured my back.

So anyways, it's pretty messed up and not even vicodin is helping me with the pain and my wife gets me introduced to something called Norco. It's much stronger and very effective. The only problem is that it clouds my mind and makes me pretty dopey ............................... kinda like being drunk. That's a real trip for me since I gave up drinking over 5 years ago.

My wife finds this to be very entertaining for the first few hours as I am rambling and stammering while trying to explain such complex concepts like: Where are the goldfish crackers? Fast forward about 5 hours and I still haven't found the crackers (although I ate them 2 hours ago) and she's as frustrated as I am.

Anyways, that's pretty much been my week here. I'm not even going to get into the wild ass dreams I've had but if Sharon O'Connell is reading this by chance, I miss you kiddo and I wish we talked more often. I also bought an adult-sized onesie for my friend Tom's birthday put an Irish curse on it after sending a photo shopped picture of my son and godzilla to him that I now refer to as Ryzilla.

I'm tired, dopey, and tired. I'll type more when I can make sense and the keys on my keyboard stop moving so much.

Grab A Bucket

That phrase encompassed my early morning yesterday. As I was getting ready for work and taking a shower, I heard a hissing sound in the bathroom. After checking things out, my wife and I discovered that we had a leak inside the wall behind the shower. After tearing into the wall, we discovered one of the compression fittings had cracked. Luckily my brother Cecil came over and together it took us about 2 hours and we had it fixed. The insides of the walls were soaked, so I'm going to need to let that thing stay opened for about a week to dry out and prevent mold buildup. Afterwards it will be a little bit of drywall repair and the installation of an access panel back there for any future problems.

I received some very tragic news from one of my friends last night, and while I won't talk about the specifics or who it is, I am very concerned for him and what he's going through at the moment. I thought about his situation all night and I just want him to know again that I got his back should there be anything that I can do for him.

Work is entering it's slow period. As the weather turns nicer, people's focus shift from the inside of their houses to the outside and the furniture business slows down. I just had a very hefty check this past week (four figures), which is great for a part time job, but it's going to get more lean here from this point out. What makes matters worse is that I did have to miss yesterday with my plumbing issues and we supposedly had a new guy start that is a total snake I'm told. Rumor is that he's stealing customers from other salespeople on his first day in the floor. I sure hope that he doesn't do that to me once I get back this weekend because I have a long track record of not putting up with that type of thing and I can be quite..........persuasive in getting my point across.

Other than that, there's not too much else going on right now, which isn't a bad thing.

You Move 16 Tons...

And What Do You Get??

Well, the song says you get another day older and deeper in debt. I suppose that with the way this society is increasingly running on credit that the song is more true today than ever before. Yes, today is my birthday, I am 38 years old and I've never felt older in my life......wait....that's not true, I feel even older right now...........and still older now........you get my meaning!

Anyways, it's been a rough few days around here lately. The triplets are still in "cold" mode. The fevers are gone, but they've been replaced with runny noses, congestion, and coughing. All being said, they are in great moods..........until I get the aspirator out and clean their respective noses.....not a fun time at all! This entire turn of events with them has left me run down and exhausted on levels I've not known before.

Along with the lack of sleep has come some of my well-known migraine headaches. If you don't know, these things just suck. They take away my vision (for about 20 minutes), give me a nasty headache, and I'm often left with muscle aches and nausea. It's definitely not something I wish for those I care about. But, those have been with me in one form or another for the past three or four days.

Let's see, anything else happening? I've got a big get-together this weekend with my step family. The old man has been in bad health for years, and I think he has finally become scared to the point that he doesn't think he will be around come Christmas. He's been forever wanting us to come down every weekend and often uses lame reasons to get us down there. Since my step brother Louie and I share the same birthday and year (he's the baby...........4 hours younger) the old man has decided we need to all come down and celebrate our birthdays. So we are going to go and drag the babies on a car ride for a total of 5 hours. If we didn't love the guy so much, we wouldn't even do it. It should be a great time for everyone......I just hope the babies aren't too sick to make it.

Saturday I went to my buddy Chris' 30th birthday party. His girlfriend hosted it at a local place called Dave and Busters, which is a large place similar to Bennigans, except it has pool tables, a bar, and a bunch of video games. I had a great time seeing many of my friends again, but I ended the night on a bit of a funny and sour note----I injured myself playing a video game. This time it was some virtual boxing game. I was really winded after going 9 rounds and 3 matches(to be honest, there isn't much of a rest time between rounds or matches) and the next day my arms were sore from all the punches I had thrown! The game is great in that you can't just sit there and Punch and still win.......you have to duck and bob and weave from side to side. It's quite a bit of work, but I got to admit I enjoyed it and I want to play again. Now that I'm 38, I don't have too many more matches left in me!!

As for me today? I'm doing nothing special at all.......I'm just staying home with my wife and kids. I figure I'll do a butt load of chores and stuff around the house and then treat myself to reading comics tonight! That's the best part of having your birthday on a Wednesday....Birthday Comics!!

Out With The Old

Reluctently I have made the switch to the new blogger. I didn't want to, but when I tried to sign on yesterday I wasn't given a choice, so the switch was made. I haven't even attempted to check out the new features, but I am sure I will venture out that way soon.

There isn't too much happening aroudn here of late. The babies are fine and life is moving pretty much in the direction it should. Our house is getting real close to being ready to put on the market so that we can sell it and move. I'm excited and frustrated about that. Excited to move to a new house that I should like much more than this one, which I never really cared for, and fristrated because I know how much I hate packing and moving and unpacking.......which should be twice as fun with triplets in tow!

My brother Louie really seems to have come to a corssroads in his life and may actually be ready to take charge and do what he's always wanted to do, own his own business. He's looking at purchasing a carryout pizza place in the town near him. I think he'll be awesome at this and he should make some good money doing it. He and I have been bouncing ideas back and forth because I did a lot of research into starting a business prior to the triplets being born when I was prepared to open a comic book store. Louie's been right on with sound planning and decisions and I'm confident he's going to do well and be very successful.

I've got some news I am going to be sharing about my writing in the next few days as the details all get hammered out. It's pretty big news for me, so head on over to the Comic Book Observatory to find out what's happening.

For now that's it, the babies are sleeping and I am going to join them in their fantastic idea!

More Snow & What's Happening

Well, the snow is definitely on its way out. I can actually see the grass poking up in both the front and back yards and the gravel is present in the driveway. They say the temp is going to be near the balmy 50's this weekend with some rain, so I expect that by Sunday almost everything will be gone. Although I will miss the snow, I am not sad to see it go this time; we got so much snow and ice that our gutters became clogged and bogged down from all the weight and subsequently lowered my soffit about an 1/8 of an inch.......which was just enough to interfere with my back door and now it doesn't open without a hand pushing up on the soffit. ***Sigh*** It figures this would happen as we're trying to sell the house.

Round 2 of the stomach flu has kicked off in our home in full force. While the kids aren't really puking too much, they are exhibiting "potty" problems and running fevers, Sarah had a 101.4 fever this afternoon. This equals lots of crying, diaper changing, and holding of babies, which in turn leaves me with very little time to do much else.......even the chores are backing up.

The two photos here are from last week's blizzard. Later that night at about 2am I went and shoveled the final couple of inches that it left. Against the contrast of the dark sky the entire block looked very surreal. The first photo is from the front of our house. I have a little ceramic black bear that I keep in front of the sidewalk for good luck. He sits next to the rain spout and looks out at the driveway and the street. I just thought it was a cool picture of him with just his head sticking over the snow, still keeping watch. The next one is of our house taken from the same spot I took the picture from in the day. It was snowing so heavily I couldn't get a shot without getting some of the fat snowflakes in the picture too.

Well, neither the wife and I are feeling well and we really should get some sleep so we can deal with whatever the babies throw at us tomorrow.

A Blizzard of Activity

Seems like things have been pretty snowy as of late around the country. We didn't get 12 feet of snow like some places already have, but we do have some. I for one enjoy the snow and the change of seasons we get here in the Midwest, it makes you appreciate the Spring and Summer even more.

Well, we've definitely got a blizzard out here. I think we've gotten almost 6 inches already today. It's a very light and powdery snow that is easily blown......mostly into my driveway and front walk it seems! Today I had almost 2 foot drifts in my driveway between my house and my neighbor's house, but next to nothing by the street. Still, I think it's fun and I actually enjoy shoveling the snow, it's a good exercise for a dead Winters day and something about digging yourself out of all that snow is refreshing to me.

My buddy Cary and I were talking via email last week and he's given me the necessary nudge and push to get my writing more active. To that end I am finishing up a story so that I can put together a team of talent to enter in the Small Press Idol contest over at Dimestore Publications. I'm going to save any type of big discussions about this whole event for my other blog, The Comic Book Observatory. You can check there for my info and thoughts about it since it relates directly to comic books.

The big photo up at the top wasn't taken last night, but it was taken at 2:00 in the afternoon in front of my house. I took it when I went to get the mail. It's my street looking east. It's funny looking at the picture and seeing how dark and overcast it is outside. The next picture is from the top of my driveway. It's a footprint I made 5 minutes earlier on my way to the mailbox. After I snapped a few pictures my batteries went dead so I ran in the house to get more and when I came back my footprint was half filled in!! That's some nasty wind.

This next photo is of my driveway. The drift on the left is natural and one I haven't touch, the one on the right against the house is from a path I shoveled out about 4 hours ago. It's already filling back in and the drift on the left is getting bigger. I normally wouldn't even be concerned, but I want to have a path to get my garbage cans through tomorrow for garbage day. The last photo is just of my house from my mailbox across the street. Like I said, it's 2PM in the afternoon and it looks like it's almost dark out! I was playing around with some effects on it and when I switched the picture to grayscale for a black and white effect, it looked almost identical because it's so oppressively gray and overcast outside.

Anyways, that's the fun I've been having today with the weather. Luckily we don't have it as bad as some other places, but it's still fun nonetheless.

A Few Quick Words

There's been a bunch of things happening since I last posted. Life sure doesn't seem to slow down at all, if anything it's picking up speed. I've gotten a bit personal of late here but I'm returning to some more public items today.

Well, my beloved Chicago Bears embarrassed me in the Super Bowl. Not to take anything away from the Colts, but I just don't think the Bears played at their best for whatever reason. I don't care how they do it, but they really need to upgrade both the offensive and defensive lines----and quarterback. Whether it's Rex or someone else, the QB needs to do more. And while I'm at it, I wouldn't mind seeing Ron Turner go either. He's better than John Shoop was, but just not good enough. The worst part is that I really think that going into the 2007 season the New Orleans Saints are going to be the team to beat!

A sad life also came to an end today. Anna Nicole Smith was found dead in her hotel room at a casino, in Florida I believe. Most people have an opinion of her based on her life being paraded through the public, but regardless of what you think of her and the life she lived, I think you have to recognize that for whatever reason she was a pretty sad woman who was in pain. I don't know if it was all of her own making, but the past 12 months were pretty tragic with her son dying and now herself. The sad thing is she leaves a 6 month old daughter behind practically an orphan.

I forget if I mentioned it here, but my wife and I have decided that we need a major overhaul of our expenses due to the fiasco of our contractor screwing us over, downsizing to one income, and the added expenses of having triplets. To this end we are going to sell our house and move to a much more rural area where we can get a bigger house for almost half the cost of what our current house is worth. This little move will do the following: 1. Wipe out our second mortgage completely, 2. Pay off a huge amount of our credit card debt, and 3. Lower our monthly expenses by $1000 or more per month.

We don't plan on this next house being the house we retire in, but it's going to be an important transitional house that will allow us to get our finances under control and ready to meet the demands of the future. We would like to be able to move sooner than later, but I don't see our current house being ready to put on the market until March 1st at the earliest, although I wouldn't be surprised if it took a bit longer. We paid for a home inspection to see what are house looked like from the eyes of a potential buyer so that we could get those things fixed ahead of time. We are almost halfway to what we need completed and then it will be selling time. Once we're ready, we will then start looking more seriously.

I've been fighting a cold and I really need more sleep than I've been getting, so I should probably turn in. Hopefully I'll have more real soon.

Clarifications & Intent (Or, Am I The Devil)

It was a little over a year ago that I started taking my writing seriously. Right around that time was when I decided to start this blog. For better or worse, Desultory Views has become a part of me and I enjoy sharing that part with everyone else. I thought that in the process, everyone understood what this was and why I did it. I was wrong, and I think I need to restate exactly what this blog is about and what you'll find here.

Yesterday I got a call from my mother. She was very upset with me about something I wrote in a previous post. She wasn't so much upset with my views in the post, but rather the fact that I shared them here on the Internet. She asked me to take them down, to which I said I wasn't going to do that. Here's why:

This blog is an outlet for me. It gives me the chance to express myself creatively and passionately on any topic I choose. By writing on here I am able to reflect and internalize my thoughts and feelings in a way that allows me to understand the world around me in a more comprehensive manner and to deal with any problems, obstacles, or stress that enters into my life. In simple terms, it's a healing and growing exercise for me.

As a result of this there are going to be times when my raw emotions and honest views come out for everyone to see. It could be extreme political and moral views, or personal dirty laundry from myself or even my family. If something involves me or effects me, I may write about it here. I also may not. There is no hard or fast rule as to what or how I choose something, each thing I write about is unique in it's own right and I am affected differently. My intention has never been to embarrass someone (other than good natured ribbing and scoundrelship amongst friends) so if I write about you and you're embarrassed about it, try not to do things that you'll regret or be embarrassed about later on.

As for the incident in question that happened yesterday, I thought about it more last night after I got off the phone with my mother and I stand by my decision not to remove or edit my previous post. To be clear on what happened, someone had read the post and either thought it was out of line, or thought my mother should know about it, and called her. This person not only told her about the post, but read it to her verbatim and on my mother's request has printed it out and sent it to my mother via the mail. That's right, my mother isn't even the one who discovered this! She didn't want to tell me who it was who told her, and that's fine really. I would like to know but it's not that important. I'm not even mad at that person, I'm actually trepiditiously excited that my writing was able to provoke a response of this nature. Granted, I'd rather it have been a more positive response, but what I wrote obviously touched someone else and that's really what all writers look for when someone reads their work.

Now, as far as this whole ordeal goes, I completely understand my mother's position and I respect her for talking to me about it, but I don't think this situation is of a sensitive enough nature to require me to censor my writing. As embarrassing as my mother finds the entire post out there for others to read, I am embarrassed by the actions and events that prompted me to mention it in the first place.

I guess the part that hurts the most is the lack of understanding from my family and that's what has prompted me to write such a post. I should have expected this from my mother; we've never been close and despite my attempts to share my views and passions in life with her I've never felt that she's really interested. This is obvious as recently as yesterday. During the entire conversation with my mother, there was never an attempt to consider my position or reasons, I was wrong from the onset. She never solicitated my reasons, I did this in defense of myself. The thing to note was that no matter how patient, or how polite I tried to be in explaining myself she kept cutting me off at every turn disrespecting me by ignoring what I had to say.

I know I didn't behave in the most respectful manner, at one point telling her to "Shut Up" and I'm not proud of that, but I at least listened and considered what she had to say. I guess my point in all of this is that even after 37 years my feelings are still not as important as hers. I'm not a fool, I know this is going to get back to her-- at the very least through the same channels as the last time. I'm still ok with this. I'm not trying to hurt her, but the way she acted and the way she continues to treat me hurts me and this is how I deal with it. I know I can't change her or even the way she interacts or thinks of me but at the very least I can channel my feelings into something productive.

Miami Bound

No, I'm not going to Miami. I wish I was, because my Chicago Bears are going to be there in two weeks for Super Bowl XLI!! I can't even convey how wonderful this is. Many people say that they don't deserve to even be there, and the prognosticators in Vegas already have them as 7 point underdogs and they may all be right, but I'm still stoked about this.

There is definitely a euphoria building around this event, with stories and coverage really being over board and dominating the local airwaves. It really is like a strange soap opera. We've got a convict, a civil rights milestone, a theme song, and some truly bizarre supporters. And yes somewhere in all of this they will manage to actually play a game. The photo to the left is the most bizarre story I have heard in support of a team in a long long time. Now don't get me wrong, I think that if I was in this woman's position I wouldn't be above this type of a tactic to get see my beloved Bears in the Superbowl. I actually think it takes some guts to even get on TV and talk about this. Chances are that some one or company will pony up the cash for this as it's too good of a PR opportunity to pass up. At the very least it will make for one hell of a story to tell the kid years later!

It's been an intense couple of days around the house as my son Perrin has had some real painful bowel movements of late and he's been cranky to say the least. Luckily we have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I'm hoping that he'll be able to figure out how to end this for the little guy, he's been through enough already in his short life. As a result of Perrin's condition I've not had much free time this week. It's pretty much been doing chores around the house and comforting him. No writing at all.

On a nice note I ran into a friend while at the grocery store today. I hadn't seen here in probably 6 years or so, and we had some catching up to do. It was funny because she saw my cart had nursery water and she immediately asked about having kids. Having triplets though still allows me to get a surprise out of people. I was supposed to just go right to the store and get some water and then come back quickly, but seeing her made my 30 minute trip take 90 minutes instead. Lucky thing for me that Meva is such a great woman, because I know there are many wives out there that wouldn't be so understanding about a situation like this. The funny thing is that back when my friend and I worked together and were closer, I am surprised we never got together! Meva knows all of that and still she isn't threatened or worried, which just goes to show what a catch I have and reinforce the strength of our marriage and love. (OK, sappy stuff is over now)

I haven't had a chance to go over the President's State of the Union address yet, but I'm hoping to be able to do that tomorrow after I come home with the kids from the doctor. I'm sure I'll find it fascinating and entertaining.

Passing

I just found out today that Art Buchwald passed away today. I'm not going to pretend that I was a great and avid fan of his, but I did respect the volume of work that he completed in over 50 years of writing. He was well known for a sharp satirical wit. Just reading a small amount about him at Wikipedia tells you about the incredible, and at times wild, life he lead. He lied about his age to fight in WWII, interviewed Elvis Presley in Paris, won a Pulitzer Prize, and successfully sued Paramount over the rights to the script for the Eddie Murphy movie Coming to America. I think it's important that when men like him pass on that we reflect about exactly how amazing our lives can be.

In other amazing news today, a 9 yr old boy ran away from home. That doesn't sound too spectacular until you read about his trip. In the space of about two days, this kid stole a car and lead police on a high-speed chase, was released back into his mother's custody, and then proceeded to runaway the next day and hop on a flight from Seattle to Phoenix and then again from Phoenix to Dallas. He was finally stopped at Dallas trying to board another flight to San Antonio to see his grandfather. That's just insane. If you're wondering, he didn't buy any tickets, he just bluffed his way onto two Southwest Airlines flights. Pretty sad.

Home Is Where........?

The title really says it all. While I will always look kindly on this last year and a half for having brought me my three children, it's been a very rough stretch that I am not at all sorry to see go. Financially speaking, it's not been kind in any way. We really got hosed by the contractor who was supposed to put on our addition, then my wife was laid off for six weeks following the birth of the kids, and we then went down to one full-time income. To say the least, our finances are stretched.

The only real way we can salvage this situation is to sell our house. This will allow us to pay off our second mortgage and about 70-80% of our credit card debts. We are currently looking at houses in more rural areas that will actually increase of living space and cost much less per month on our mortgage. It sure sucks, but we at least have this option and flexibility available to us so that we can get back on solid ground.

In other areas I think I've finally wound down from the holidays and I'm ready to get back to a more consistent pattern of life. What this means for me is a return to working out, a chance to read casually, write more frequently, and begin the long process of culling out items I no longer use or want and in the process make some extra cash.

An interesting twist on the whole Barak Obama presidential campaign today. Instead of letting his intentions of forming an exploratory committee to examine a run for the Presidency, he released a video on YouTube. I don't know who his campaign people are, but that was very savvy. In that one move alone he's thrown down the gauntlet in my mind that he's going to be the "modern" candidate who can appeal to the younger voters as well as the established voting class. Without taking a stance, I find that type of gamemenship to be fascinating and fun to watch. It's like a great chess match and this was one hell of an opening move.

Ringing in the New Year....Bathroom Style!

The titles a bit misleading. I had a great New Year's and didn't even have to drink, so no hugging that porcelain alter for me. The title has to do with other bathroom activities.

My son Perrin brought back a stomach virus from his grandparents and he has passed it on to just about everyone here in the house. My son Ryan is the last hold out. Without getting too graphic, for awhile I thought I had something akin to dysentery. I had cramps, a fever, and some serious bouts of fatigue; all of which lead to me becoming dehydrated and getting headaches and some uncomfortable muscle cramps. Meva even took off time from work when it hit her. I can only imagine what the babies have gone through because they also have projectile vomit with their symptoms. Yeah, the Kennedy house has been a real fun place to be over this last week for sure!

Beyond that, so many things have been happening lately I don't think I can accurately talk about them here in any real detail. That aside, I still can't believe that when the time came to put the hammer down on Saddam, it came down fast and relatively peaceful.....at least as far as I heard......I only heard there were protests in India of all places, but whatever.

The playoffs are here in football. For some reason I am totally not pysched at all. Maybe it's because my Bears look like the weakest 13-3 team I can ever remember seeing, or maybe it's just that I can't find the time to get into it now that my hands are full. For sure, I'll still watch it, but it's just not exciting me like it used to.

As you can tell I haven't gotten around to changing the layout of this blog yet. I've been trying to just keep up with some semi-frequent postings when I get the chance, but now that the holidays are passed I'm hoping to have more time to do this.