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.

Changes Coming Soon

I've decided to host a separate blog to address comic books and my path towards writing them. From time to time there will be some cross over between the two blogs here, but the main purpose of the new Comic Book Observatory is to have a separate outlet for my personal life and ideas that are outside of comics. I will of course be providing links to each blog.

What this change holds for Desultory Views is both cosmetic and aesthic. I'll be altering the links available here by getting rid of the comic book ones and adding in other links to sites I find helpful, insightful, and entertaining. I am also hoping that having them both separate will allow me to be more focused on what I want to write here and on the other blog. Too often I struggled with what to write and how to balance my comics ideas and opinions with everything else. I was uncomfortable with the amalgamation and I think this will be easier for me despite what may look like extra work. We'll see.

Moving Slowly

The march to the holidays and Christmas specifically is slowly marching on. With the triplets being young and a major undertaking to bring anywhere, we've decided to not go anywhere this year and instead have opened our home to friends and family.

It looked like we were just going to have our close friends here for dinner, with my family having Christmas at my youngest sister's house, but in true trailer-trash fashion, she finds a way to jeopardize everything and gets thrown in jail for almost two weeks because of fighting with my mother and niece and having three outstanding warrants for her arrest. To top it off her husband just lost his job for reasons I am not clear on and they don't have money for themselves for Christmas (or presents for their kids) or even rent and food. Merry Christmas huh?

My sister has things like this happen to her all the time. She refuses to do the right thing and instead lives solely for the pursuit of her desires and pleasures to the detriment of her kids and husband. Drugs, alcohol, and material gain are all placed adoringly ahead of the important basics of shelter, food, and health for her and her kids. In the past my wife and I have opened our home to them and bought them a van, gotten them jobs, kept their family together, and put them on the path to living a smart and secure life; but they have thrown it all away again and I no longer the ability to assist them even if I wanted to. My biggest task will be to try and resist feeling guilt or pity when the inevitable happens.

In more pleasant areas, the kids have just been great. For sure they have their moments of crying, whining, and being all-around cranky, but they're babies and teething and that's to be expected. Each day I get to spend with them I can almost feel the bond between us growing stronger and stronger. I might just be imagining things, but I think I see them each being a bit more calm and happy when I am holding them or near them. The crying seems less, the smiles seem greater, and they are always focused on my voice and my image to see what is happening. It's like getting hit in the gut with sledgehammer--it that strong and overpowering---except it's a joyous rapture.

Today also marked the first major excursion I've ever taken with the babies. I had to make a stop at work today to drop something off, so I loaded up the kids and we all went out. They are too big to use the smaller strollers, so I packed the big triplet stroller and they got to meet some of my co-workers. They were a big hit and everyone was wonderfully nice to the four of us. Thankfully the kids were all in great moods and they put on quite a show of smiles, coos, and giggles for everyone to see. Perrin was exceptionally happy when I picked him up to show him off. It just makes for a great experience.

Energy Siphon

It seems that the days are all starting to smash together into an almost unrecognizable blob. Every day I wake up and wish for just 30 minutes of quiet, uninterrupted time to myself so that I can write something, even if it's just a few sentences at a time, but it doesn't come. It doesn't come with any kind of consistency at least. As the days progress I fear that I am going to go to bed one day soon and when I wake up I'll be 75.

The triplets are really starting to demand my attention with greater frequency these days. I don't mind, but it sure does add to the above feeling I've been having of late. The biggest thing with them is that they are teething, so they go from periods of joy, to crankiness, to absolute hunger! It's funny, exhausting, and enriching at the same time, but it sure as hell keeps me away from writing. I have to keep telling myself that it will get better soon and that eventually I'll begin to have time to write. Hopefully that happens very soon.

The Chicago area seems to be a hot bed of idiots lately. Within the past few days there have been three separate incidents of violence and death. One guy from out of state opened up fire on police officers in a high school parking lot (after hours) after being pulled over for a traffic concern; a disenfranchised inventor killed three lawyers over a dispute involving a patent for a toilet for trucks; and another man was arrested attempting to buy grenades to blow up a shopping mall. It's just totally bizarre. I guess it interests me because I frequently feel frustrated and overwhelmed, but I've never even come close to thinking about doing a stunt like these. When I think about all the mental anguish, pain, and insanity that must be going through those guys minds to do those things, it makes me appreciate the sanity and security that I have in my life, regardless of my opportunities to write.

On the plus side, I did recently get a chance to write a review of a comic book. Over a month ago I joined a website called Silver Bullet Comics to write reviews. With everything I have going on, it took time for me to get to this, but I eventually did and I just submitted that first review the other day. I'm still waiting for it to be posted, but I am excited to have gotten one done and to at least have accomplished something. Hopefully I can get back into a groove and start doing this on a more regular basis, especially once the holidays have passed.

I've also been doing some thinking about blogs and websites and I think I am going to go back to trying to write two separate blogs and bring back the Comic Book Observatory in some for or another. I just don't feel comfortable mixing comics with everything else here. Comics are such a passionate and specific area for me that I feel comfortable that I can easily provide material for a separate blog. I do want to give it a better look than it previously had, so it may be about a week or so as I play around with a template or layout. I'll let everyone know once I get that done. For now, that's all I've got.

The Holidays Part 1

Well, the first of the holidays have come and went and life has now officially become more hectic, more surreal, and more silly. It's just the nature of things and as much as I hear people complain about it, (myself included) I really do enjoy it.

We had a rather small gathering here at our place this year, just my wife's parents and her youngest sister. We had a great time together and my wife made a wonderful turkey that was the most juicy and delicious bird I have ever had. She put a nice thick apricot glaze on it and injected a butter marinade under the skin. This bird was so moist that when I was carving it kept breaking apart. That's just a good bird right there.

The Thanksgiving weekend wasn't much of a holiday for me though. Working retail really sucks when you're part of a service economy and instead of shopping or hanging with my family, I was working on Black Friday. It wasn't totally bad, as I made close to $800 that day, which is always nice! But I would have rather made that on another day and had time to spend with family. I also ended up not working on either Saturday or Sunday though; Saturday because of baby shower that I wanted to attend, and on Sunday I had an accident that really wiped me out.

I was in my bedroom and I was getting ready to leave and walk out the bedroom door when I got distracted. Not paying attention, I went to exit very quickly and I walked straight into my door!! Now, I'm not talking about walking into a closed door, I'm talking about walking into the small, solid side of an open door. I walked head on into it and just smashed my head and face against the edge so hard that I am surprised I didn't break it. (If you know me personally you know exactly what I mean here). It hurt quite a bit and I have a nicely injured face and forehead and some rather sensitive and nasty lumps on the top of my head. I've had some nasty headaches since then and it hurts tremendously when I bend down. Ouch!

With all that excitement I am a bit behind on getting my Christmas decorations up, but that ok as I expect to have that completed almost entirely tomorrow. I don't do anything fancy yet, but I do want to make it nice. We are supposed to have snow at the end of the week, so I'd like to get this done quickly before the cold and snow appear. We'll see how far I get, but the weather isn't cooperating as it is pouring outside now while we speak. Looks like I'll have to burn the remaining leaves the hard way.

Once again it's late and I really should get some sleep before the kids get up in the morning, they got up at 5am this morning. I will try and post again real soon.

Almost A Month

I haven't gone this long without writing on my own volition, it's hasn't been a month, but it feels like it's been forever.

The blogs aren't the only places I haven't been writing, I haven't written a single thing other than a few grocery lists. God, I feel like a slug.

I'm trying real hard to get things ready for the holidays. We've got my wife's parents and her little sister coming in for the weekend. It's going to be nice to see them, but it's also going to be depressing as hell. Sometimes I wonder what thje purpose of having family and friends are for if you can't get together and celebrate the holidays at the very least. I suppose that's one of those depressing little facts we learn about all too late after becoming adults.

I don't really have too much here to say at the moment, I wanted to write something down before any remaining talen and skill I had imploded. I need to get my mind sharpen as all the TV I've started to watch concerns me; perhaps my mind has dulled?

Despite that, I'm still really enjoying three shows out on TV now; Jericho, Heroes, and The Office. It should go without saying that if I don't enjoy a show I probably won't be watching it, but I do galnce at other shows, it's just that these stand out. Well, these and some of the survival shows from the discover channel, which I freely admit to being addicted to.

It's now 2:30am and I think my son Perrin has finally relaxed and is sound asleep, so I am going to join him so that I can have the energy to take care of the kids tomorrow.