A Moment To Breath

Christmas was great! We continued our tradition of reading T'was the Night Before Christmas with the triplets. This year we gave them hot chocolate in their bottles and I read the the story while they drank and tried to take the book from me. It was cute and probably my favorite highlight of the holiday.

All in all it was a very nice and low key event. My brother Cecil and his wife Sarah came, along with his mother Vera, who I consider to be a second mother to me. Everyone was extremely generous with their gifts to the kids, as they always are. We're very blessed in that regard and I would trade them for anything, I'm just proud and happy they are a part of my life.

Unfortunately there were two blips on the day that made it rough. I forgot to take my ulcer meds for three straight days and as a result the wonderfully tasting pot roast my wife made gave me no end of problems and I had to cut my eating short and let things resettle for a few hours. Then for the third year in a row my youngest sister brought her chaos into my life by calling (actually it was her husband) to ask us for gas money to get home. From my aunt's house. Meva and I toyed with the idea of not even exchanging presents this year because money is so tight, so she was barking up the wrong tree.

Last year this sister almost spent Christmas in jail and Meva and I bought and (for the most part cooked) a complete Christmas dinner for them (I think it was meant to feed about 12-14 people) by buying the turkey, a ham (I think), a bunch of sides, pies and cakes, and a bunch of cookies and fudge. If I'm not mistaken the year before that she didn't have money for Christmas gifts for her kids and was scrambling a few days before Christmas trying to borrow money to get presents.

Even though I know this will be read to my mother (which is fine), I don't think my family realizes how much this type of behavior effects me and gets me down. I love my sister and her kids, but she point blank doesn't live her life respectfully or responsibly and it makes me crazy, angry, and lugubrious. And that is only intensified when I think about her kids. In the end it causes me to be so depressed that I actually physically ache. Unless you suffer from depression, you can't understand exactly how this happens. It of course carried over into today, and if it weren't for my wonderful babies, I would have slept the entire day away.

Not too much else going on that I have much to say about. The always frustratingly fun Best/Worst of lists or the year are all over the place now. Overall I guess I like them, but sometimes it's kind of sad to see just what exactly we've let become important to us.

Again, TV sucks, especially daytime. Without cable, I am stuck with the basic local channels, so all I get are judge shows (they all suck and are redundant) and talk shows. Most of them are also filled with the dregs of humanity, so even the guests aren't interesting. I will share the sad state of my TV affairs to you all so that you can laugh with me (or at me) when I admit that watching Martha Stewart or Rachel Ray are the only shows I watch during the day--- that or the PBS kids shows!! (That Wendy on Bob the Builder is a babe in disguise!).

TV at this time of night (2amish) is equally as bad. Infomercials and Poker After Dark are what you get. I think I'd rather listen to Top 40 radio or Rosie O'Donnell. If it didn't make me so agitated I would just drop to the floor, instantly asleep.

Tomorrow I visit my bone specialist and hopefully I'll be coming home without a cast, but with a splint. Just being able to take it off to bath or let my hand and wrist breath would be wonderful and hopefully I can get back to work.

Can't Sleep, The Penguins Will Win!!

Since Thursday night my wife thinks I may have entered into a manic state due to the fact that I've slept about 8 hours over the last three days and I'm really not too tired or dragging my tail. Usually when I don't get enough sleep the migraines start flying at me at an incredible speed. Thankfully that hasn't happened yet, which is really weird.

I was adjusting my cast today when I heard and felt a nasty pop from the area in my wrist that they did the bone graft on for hand surgery. It hurt quite a bit afterwards and my hand has been more sore than normal as a result, especially in the area I has the pins sticking out of it. Everything just started acting up out of the blue. I hope this isn't a bad sign because I really want to get this cast off and move into a splint. We'll have to see how that goes.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I'm really excited about spending it with the Triplets and giving them a hot chocolate bottle before we put them down with a telling of The Night Before Christmas. Meva and I have done this every year that we've been together and it's now part of our family tradition. Last year we drove home early so that we would be able to get the babies down (the were less than 6 months old then) and we sat on the floor of the nursery in the dark with a flashlight and softly read the story out loud without waking the kids. I know it's corny, but we'll never forget it.

Exterminated

Sometime around the end of October I got slammed with some nasty Malware on my computer through a comment someone posted on my MySpace profile. It was one of those nice ones that pretends it's Windows and tells you that it has detected spyware on your computer and you need to remove it to protect your computer. It is even nice enough to provide you a direct link to a site that sells a spyware removal program ranging anywhere from $25 to $99. The "company" that makes this program is the one that has infected your computer. I think the term that tech people use for this type of Malware is Smitfraud.

Anyways, I got one and I have spent the better part of the last two months with limited computer resources as I tried to isolate the bug and exterminate it. The final piece was a damaging file that hid itself within my firefox browser and took away all my links, distorted my display, and created a leak or something that forced me to manually shut the program off through my Windows Task Manager (pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete). To say I was frustrated and annoyed would be an understatement.

But this morning I got a lead on where to look and after a lot of digging around, I found the file and deleted that sucker. Everything looks to be back in working order and I am a very happy man once again. I hope this means I'll be able to post and resume my normal computer activities.

It's late and I should already be in bed, but I just gad to share this bit of good news!

The Best Plans

I was entering into this Holiday season preparing to pull out all the stops with baking, decorating, and trying to spread joy and peace as far and as often as I could. Honestly, I started doing research and organizing lists of things I wanted to accomplished and everything that I would need to make it so. Of course we all know what happened in October, I had my left had reconstructed after several years of intense pain. With just a week to go, I've got to face the facts and give up. I did the best I could, but my plans were huge and I just couldn't get a break when I needed one. In the end:

• There won't be a super special Christmas card like last year before Christmas for everyone.
• My plans for baking treats to share with everyone have been greatly reduced, possibly to two, maybe three things
• I didn't get the garage organized and as a result couldn't find all of our Christmas stuff that was packed away for the move that never happened.
• I am ashamed of my outdoor decorations. They are just sad.
• My special gift packages that I wanted to give to my loved ones didn't happen, and I really wanted to get those done and distributed.
• I have misplaced my Hardrock, Cocoa, and Joe DVD, and depending on how well you know me, you know this one hurts.
• The interior decorations didn't happen either, at least not to the extent I wanted them.
• My special gift for my wife didn't work out again.
• I haven't gotten pictures of the triplets yet in the snow, with or without snowmen.
• I have always wanted a Christmas train to go around my tree or something significant, and this was going to be the year it happened, but that too was derailed.

On the bright side of things, and yes there is positively a bright side to all this, I now have 53 weeks and one more after Christmas Special to get my act together for next year! I am stoked about that, I really am. I don't care if I have to channel my inner Martha Stewart, bond with our kitchen-aide mixer, and get attacked by the Bumpus' dogs, I will have things planned, organized, and completed next year well in advance.

The cool thing about this year is that I've had the chance to spend time with people that are steadily becoming very good and important friends to Meva and I, and we also were able to meet some fantastic people that are very interesting and fun to be around and who show the potential to become good friends also.

Did I mention I also got to eat some baked brie cheese with cranberry jelly? A law should be passed making that a mandatory part of all meals during this time of the year.

And did I mention my children? They won't get even half of it, but they're going to experience opening presents ) and potentially trying to eat the wrapping paper. But of all the things they won't get or can't yet appreciate, the three kids, Meva, and I will all sit down and read The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve, just as Meva and I have done for the last 7 years. In fact last year Meva and I sat on the floor of the nursery with flashlights at 3am and read it to our 3 sleeping newborns.

I speak only for myself, but that is the spirit of the holiday for me. This simple tradition has become the essence of Christmas for me as I slowly impart it to my children, in the hopes that they do the same with their children. At the risk of sounding morbid, when I die, this will be image I take with me into the beyond.

Seeing New Things

It's now been six weeks with a cast on my hand and I have to admit that is has gotten steadily worse each week. The pain has been a constant (let anyone try a bone graft, two grindings, three fusions, inserting a permanent screw, and adding to pins) and to add to the fun the would has been infected much of the time. Trust me, it's more fun than it sounds!!! LOL

So anyways, I got the pins removed. One of them had sunk low and a good deal of skin grew over it. The doctor had to give me some shots so he could slice up the hand without me feeling it. Being the curious sort, I watched as he literally jammed the needle-nose pliers about 1/4 inch into my hand and pulled out the 2 inch pin. It was really cool to see and very gross.........plus there was blood everywhere. Once he took out those pins I felt extremely nauseous and light headed and needed to lay back down for a few minutes.. But the good news is I should be out of the cast, and probably in a splint, in two weeks time!

Everyone around the house is on the mend and starting to feel better and get back to normal routines, although I'm having trouble sleeping, but that's not really new. But being that it's now 4 am, I think I'm going to his the sack.

Viruses All Around

Virus. It gas come to dominate my life of late. Everyone but Ryan is fighting a stomach virus here, lots of fevers, aches, and vomiting throughout the house with everyone else. That little Ryan is a badass, he just refuses to let stomach viruses get him down. I think I'm going to use him in a fashion similar to coal miners and birds in mine shafts. When Ryan goes do, I'll know that some new strain of the Mutaba or Shanti virus has come.

On top of all this, my computer has come under some nasty attacks of spyware and malware. I think I finally got the whole malware issue solved and fixed after about a month, but now I'm having trouble with Firefox. One of the add-ons I had with it screwed things up and my link toolbar has gone completely blank, my bookmarks are missing, and I have a large gray area at the bottom of the browser that's just doing nothing. I've tried the forum at Mozilla, but so far every suggestion has not worked. I'm getting to the point where I am considering reinstalling XP from scratch. I think I've just got too many problems and I might result to purchasing Norton System works.

My hand is apparently not doing well. The bones haven't fused as well as the doctor wants so I gave to get some bone stimulator to hook up to the hand so that it will assist bone in healing, but after 6 weeks in this cast, I'm still under a great deal of pain that most people would be screaming and crying about, But I don't have that luxury. To make matters worse I see, to have developed a nasty infection in the wound around one of the pins that are still sticking out of my hand. It must be pretty serious because the doctor wants me to travel to Indiana on Monday to get it checked out in case the infection is in the bone, which I'm told is serious. I am so ready for this to be done and over with.

The news has been over-filled with my favorite type of event; a mass murder shooting held in a mall. We got to hear everyone's story and see irrelevant photos that serve nothing but increased program ratings and the the go on and give the dead nutcase the spotlight that he wanted, which I once again predicted would serve as inspiration to the next asshole. Sure enough I hear there was another shooting instance in a different mall somewhere else today. Sometimes I think it's time to begin controlling the free run the media has on content and have the government step in and oversee some of what is reported on. They could be called the CRC, the content relevancy commission and have the power to impose fines and sanctions for violations that are against common sense and promote potentially dangerous threats to the citizens. Yeah, I know it takes away from some of out 1st amendment rights and it's a very conservative stance by me, but the irresponsibility of the media really frosts my ass.

Just thought I'd share!

Gravity Is Working

I found that out the hard way today. I fell off the roof of my house hanging Christmas lights and cleaning out the gutters. Having only one good hand I really had no good reason to be up there, but the lights needed hanging and the weather for the rest of the week didn't look promising, so I had to tackle this today. I lost my grip on things with my bad hand due to the cast slipping, and when I over compensated that was all it took to send me pitching over the top and straight onto my gravel driveway. I fell forward and landed on the back of my head. The only thing I hurt was my ego.

I was initially concerned about getting a concussion and worrying my wife, so I originally said I fell into the bushes, but I figure it does no good to handle this with a lie, so I came clean. It's been about 7 hours now and I've only got some sore, achey back muscles and a slight headache. That's pretty good for an old man.

Despite those follies, I spent the day working around the house until Perrin got sick and then it was all about holding him and making him feel better. I must not have done a good job of it because he threw up all over me and himself, so we both got a nice bath out of it and then he seemed to improve somewhat, but he was running a fever.

Well, it's late and I need to sleep. I just noticed my clock on our TV is about 3 hours off and I have been up way tooooo late.

The Idiot

Yeah, that's what I feel like. Sunday was just one of those days where I just seemed to be in a fog and just kept making mistakes after mistakes.

I left the dome light on in the car, so the batter was dead and I had to jump it with the van. Once that was all done I shut my flashlight in the hood of the van and spent 15 minutes in the biting cold trying to get the damn hood of the van open without any luck, before I remembered that I needed to go back inside the van and pop the hood!! I was so frustrated with myself that I pulled out the rod that keeps the hood of out other vehicle up. I wasn't even paying attention and grabbed it the wrong way and the whole damn thing just came completely out of the frame.

The Bears let me down today, no surprise. The better be the offseason of the offensive line, both in the draft and in free agency, because what they have out there just isn't doing the job. And that doesn't even cover needing safteies and upgrading the wide receviers. There is a lot of work to be done.

I spent mot of the day avoiding the world and processing everything that happened yesterday with the meeting I had with my Dad. It really took a lot out of me and I was spent and exhausted the whole day. I felt listless and useless. Luckily I have the best wife in the world and she worked his behind off today all over the house. It's nice to know I have someone I can rely on. She's truly amazing.

Processing

Although I've been silent around here for the last week, I've been doing everything else that I normally do, except updating this thing. The holidays have certainly claimed more of my time of late, but what's mostly kept me away is my counseling. It still goes well, but it's really hit the first serious crux on my road to getting through all the crap that bothers me.

There's still a part of me that hates the fact that I am in counseling and that I couldn't come through everything on my own. Maybe I'm just too infatuated with the old "tough guy" persona of Hollywood that I was spoon fed as a kid, but sometimes it makes me feel like less of a man. It's really a silly notion, but it's a part of the whole "process" I fight and this week it was more prevalent than usual.

Without going into much detail here, I met with my father today for the first time in almost 4 years. There are a lot of issues that I have with him from childhood to today and I need to find resolution and a way to let go of my anger. I showed up uninvited and unannounced, and I didn't know how things would go. I was prepared to walk away and cut all ties with the man. Instead I got to talking with him and I realized this would not be a one meeting process, it's going to take a few. There were many new issues that came up as a result of this meeting, and processing them will take some time. I expect this week to be a difficult mess, trying to get the house set for Christmas, just dealing with the babies, and working through what happened on Saturday.

I'm going to try and get a few hours sleep before that kids wake up so I have the energy to take hold of the day. If you don't hear from me for a few days, now you know what's going on.

Oh What A Weekend

I'm going to make this initial post short and to the point. We had a good visit at Meva's parent's despite the babies all getting colds and bronchitis. They were really well behaved and they mostly played with their grandparent's toys that they have just for them. Grandma Murial's white blood cell count was low, so she wouldn't get to hold them or even. As sad as it was, at least she got to see them

All around we enjoyed seeing our friends and family, and if the kids would have felt better they might have been less clingy to Meva and I and more willing to play and be held by others.

The trip home normally takes abut 7 hours, but at one point we were at a stand still for over an hour. It took an extra 5 hours, but we finally got home. Everyone is now a sleep and I need to join them. Details and any pictures will come tomorrow. G'night ya all

Crash, Then Burn

Well, it was the power supply that caused the computer to crash. My friend Chris came over today to help me put the new one in as I always assume that I will do the most damage. So Chris came over and we got the new power supply in and as soon as we turned it on, there was a surge of some kind and my video card fried.

When I say the video card was fried, I mean this literally. Chris turned the computer on and I saw a bright light coming from the bottom of the video card and I said to Chris:

"Hey, that's fire."

"Yep, that sure is fire," Chris said.

"Yeah, that can't be good." I said as Chris quickly shut the thing down.

That sucks, but I got a new card that's a bit better and everything seems to be up and running now, so as long as that stays true, I have no complaints. It could have been much worse.

Down

Last night I stepped away from my computer for about a half an hour to tuck my wife in bed for the night and when I came back it had shut itself off and wasn't working. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to come back on. My initial guess is that my power supply went bad. I'm really cautious when it comes to fixing computers myself, so I may not venture too far into trying to swap out the old one with the new one I just bought, but we'll see.

I spent most of the day in bed, feeling like I had the flu. Just overall felt like crap and I was fortunate enough that my wife was here and took charge of the house and the babies for me while I basically did nothing. I tell you, I definitely married out of my league and I got extremely lucky getting her.

Hopefully I'll be back up and running on my computer tomorrow, and the first thing I'm going to be doing is spending time backing up all my files. I've fallen behind on that, so it needs to be done anyway, so that will be a kill suck for sure.

Apparently my Bears looked like crap again today. I think that entire team needs to be overhauled and rebuilt. There is some great talent, but the team is just not very good, especially on the offensive side. The defense has more talent, but they can't seem to stop an important 3rd down, you can run all over them, and their schemes aren't working with the personnel they've got. If it were up to me, I'd start at the offensive line and work out from there, because this team needs it. The best part is that since I was sick, I didn't have to see the debacle

Slipping Away

It's really hard for me to be as honest about my life as I've been in the past few weeks. During this time I've come to discover that I have lead a quite conservative life in more areas than I realized. Sure, my values and politics tend to be liberally moderate with a green tint to them, but I've held many things close to my chest; personal choices, personal opinions; and things I've done in the past.

I'm bringing this up because I want everyone to know and everyone who cares, what's going on with me right now. My reasons for this stance are legion, but I felt they are necessary not just for me, but for anyone who knows me or loves me. Because when it comes right down to it, my perception of myself seems to be in contradiction with some of the ways in which everyone else, save my wife, views me. This is because recently a friend of mine used the word "aggressive" to describe me.

I wasn't offended in any way, but it surprised me, threw me for a loop actually. My personal image and description of myself would never have included that term, if anything it was more contradictory- completely opposite.

For the first time in my life I've entered counseling and I absolutely hate it and yet love it. It makes me angry, frustrated, uncomfortable, and sad but at the same time it challenges me to confront all my lingering fears, issues, and problems that have shaped me and effect me negatively to this day. Wounds that I thought were healed I've realized are not and I'm fighting to address them and the powerful emotions that they release. It is hard and at times overwhelming. Sometimes I don't think I can do it. [Continue and get better]

What does help me get through it is exposing myself to everyone and finding strength in this vulnerability. I need to do it this way to tell my thoughts and feelings, and even my actions so that everyone gets a better understanding of who I am.

Because it's been too long since I've last written, I wanted to share a few things with everyone here before I succumb to my sleeping pills for the night:

• Starting Friday I'll be medicating for Depression, for the last two weeks I've gotten worse each day
• She'll say different, but I've been an asshole to my wife, and she deserves much better than this.
• I cant sleep, and the meds are getting less affective.
• I feel lost, alone, and at times my future seems uncertain and impossible.
• I feel friendless despite great friends, yet I feel like asking "Where are they all?"
• Anyone who thinks I have ever just given them a "reality check" and didn't hold anything back, you need to know that I thought long and hard about I wanted to say, whether or not to say anything at all, or how to deliver my message, and in the end I held back my true thoughts and opinions for your benefit.
  
• Because of my hand, writing has come to a stand still and I feel incomplete, worthless, and empty.
• There are times through out every day when I think of the scars and injuries I've received from my family and they are so over whelming, that I want to lay down on the ground and cry.

It surprises me that I can share this much with you and I admit freely that it scares the living crap out of me to do this. But I think it's a healthy step for me. Anyone who reads this is also a part of this treatment for me, so any thoughts, responses, or even complaints are welcomed. Either leave me a comment or if you' like a more private forum email me here: Chuck's Email

Thanks for listening.

TV

It's very late at night and I'm still up, although I'm trying to cut down how long I sleep because my back had just been killing me. It's a combination of being out of shape, a chronic bad back, and a bad abed. I've noticed when I sleep less than 6 hours I'm ok, but any longer and I risk some major pain. It was so bad to today that I started the morning literally crawling around to where my pain meds were before I could actually stand on my own. Lot's of fun let me tell you.

As a result, I've been listening to the TV and I'm offended and not impressed at all. Some lowlights that caught my attention:

• Angelina Jolie had gun on her shoe at a European movie premier
• A Denver Broncos fan blows 6 car horns every time the Broncos score, and their neighbors aren't happy.
• A former contestant from "Dancing with the Stars" is having a nose job.
• Brittany ran a red light, texted in her car while driving, failed a drug test, and is going to move.
• Apparently the only people who watch TV this late at night need powered wheel-chairs. Presumably so they can change the channel.
• The Pope is coming to the US, as a non-Catholic and Deist, I could care less.
• Attorney Peter Francis Geraci , is the most powerful bankruptcy attorney in the world and he really cares, despite obvious scare tactics, partial truths and lies.
• A Group of Nuts, consisting of air pilots and a former Governor of Arizona gathered in Washington to demand that the Federal government to open a global investigation.

Man, with crap like that on, I can't wait to watch Sesame Street with my kids in a few hours! I really need to get off the grid!!

I'm Trying

What, you might ask, is it that i'm trying to do? I'm trying to find the time to write whenever I can, but my luck has been as consistent as usual and if you know me then ya know that ain't good!!

Oh yeah, did I mention I'm a decrepit old man lately? Normally I still feel like I'm in my early 20's, both mentally and physically, but lately the old body has been taken some nasty hits; I'm still down to just one good hand for about a month more, my ulcer has been flaring a bit lately and making eating a real unpleasant experience, I woke up this morning and needed to take some pain pills because my back went out on me, To top that off, Meva says I have what amounts to a swollen and an infected testicle that is possibly the most unpleasant of all the things that are bothering me. And then there is next week's root canal!!! At this point I'm just waiting for scurvy to set in!

I set up time today to get my cast changed, per the doctor's orders and after Meva busted her butt to get home from work early so I could get this done, I get to the doctor's office and the person who does the casts already left for the day!! Even though I talked to her 3 hours before hand and she assured me she'd be there. Just thinking about this REALLY gets me beyond angry! I will get a hold of this doctor on Monday and I'm going to politely give him an ear-full.

So then, I get back home and find out that I somehow infected my computer with a nasty malware program that was just insanely hitting me with pop-ups. None of my usual tricks worked and it took me almost 6 hours, but I think I may have finally got the little bastard deleted. Now it's gotten me a bit paranoid and I'm going to spend most of Sunday backing up files onto CD's.

But in other news, I had such a good morning today with the triplets. I think they must have taken cooperative pills because they played so nice together and were just laughing with me and I remember wishing the day wouldn't ever end. I'm looking forward to tomorrow because I'm going to be doing some leaf blowing and making giant piles of leaves for the kids to play in and see how well they take to it. I am so looking forward to this.

On another good note, I seemed to have gotten bitten by the holiday bug and I'm already trying to sort out my plans for Christmas. I've always gotten excited about Christmas, but I'm thinking this one could be the best one ever. I'm just about done putting together my lists of treats to bake this year as well as what I want to do with indoor and outdoor decorations, and then there is this year's special holiday photo's with the kids. It almost makes me a bit giddy when I think about it.

Well, I think this is enough time on here for me tonight, I need some sleep.

A Reason To Condescend

Living in one of the worlds largest metropolitan areas often means that we will look down on people who live in more rural areas as being less refined, less cultured, and overall just plain stupid. It's not right, and it's definitely not PC, but it's a bit ingrained in the fabric of the culture in this area. Taken with a grain of salt, I think it's humorous--especially when you realize how easy it is to turn the tables on us "city-folk" and poke fun at our reliance on technology and our ability to to live practically on top of each other and never talk to one another.

But then there are stories like the one below, stories so silly and stupid that you have to laugh. The fact that it happened to a hunter, in Iowa, just adds fuel to the fire for us to condescend. You can check out the direct link to the Google search to find out more if you'd like, but here is the snippet from the local paper:

Dog Steps On Gun, Shoots Man

TAMA, Iowa -- A Tama man was injured when hunting dogs stepped on his gun. Officials with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said James Harris, 37, was pheasant hunting with a group about three miles north of Grinnell when the accident happened.

Officials said the group had shot a bird and when Harris went to retrieve it, he put his gun on the ground and crossed a fence. As he crossed the fence, hunting dogs stepped on his gun causing it to fire.

Harris was shot in the lower left leg.

He was treated at Grinnell Medical Center and later transferred by helicopter to University Hospitals in Iowa City. His condition has not been released.

The investigation is continuing.

That last line kills me----The investigation is continuing!! My only knowledge of police investigation techniques come from watching movies & TV, so I accept my ignorant limitations, but really!! What the hell else is there to investigate? Motive? Whether or not the dog acted alone? Perhaps one of the other hunters or dogs were in on it? Maybe the dog was framed by a pheasant? Hicks!, ya gotta love them.

Clearification

It has recently come to my attention that I may have been unclear to some people about a major development in my life, so I'd like to address that here in a bit more detail and focus solely on that for most of this post, which won't be long by any means. For the last two months, I've entered myself into a counseling program. The purpose of doing this is to help me come to terms with pent up anger that is tied to many unresolved events and issues from my past and present. If you're wondering, and weren't around when I was growing up during my childhood years, they were pretty bad, and downright disturbing at times. This is a trend that has continued into my adult life.

I've always been one to deal with stress and pressures on my own, with my most common tactic being to bottle up what annoys/angers/frustrates me and try to keep the peace. My success had aways been moderate, but enough to get by. In the last few years as stresses increased and family problems went on the rise, I began to lose the precious hold I'd had and my anger came out in large, mean, hurtful ways, each time while fighting with my wife

The first incident happened about 4 years ago now in which I beat down a door in two massive punches. I'm not talking about busting a door open either, since the door was locked into the frame, I took the entire door, frame and all, completely out of the wall; studs, molding, drywall---pretty much everything. The other occurred recently and it was the catalyst the tipped the scales and made me want to seek help. This one was a rather small scale fight between Meva and I that I completely escalated to extreme levels with some horrible comments and demands that I made while uncontrollably angry, but the worst part for me was that it happened in front of the kids. I vowed then and there to do whatever I needed to insure that never happened again. This is what brought in the counseling.

This has been a positive experience that has helped me to make better and healthier choices for myself. This in turn has had a direct effect in my dealings with others. At times it's been a validating experience, but it has also been challenging, frustrating, and exhausting. It's hard, but I intend to see this through.

In other news, my hand has settled down and the pain I feel is in direct relation to how active I must be in my daily life. I'll know more on Thursday (and have some disgusting Frankensteinesque pictures to share) about whether or not the infection has improved or gone away. It still hurts like crazy to type, which is why I have been silent on blogs and emails; at least compared to my norm. When I get the new cast on Thursday they're going try and shape it better so it interferes less with typing, so we'll see then.

No football talk around here for awhile------DAMN BEARS.

The triplets first semi-real Halloween is in two days, I totally can't wait! I am so stoked.

Word of the Day

I stayed away from the news today so that I could calm down a bit, and that's exactly what happened, I cooled down a bit.

If I could assign a one-word name to today, it would most certainly be pain, followed closely by stupidity! I've been bothered by an enormous amount of pain due to my depression---- which really amounts to aches and pains throughout my body. Beyond that my injured hand has been about an 8 (out of 10) today, my back has been sore, and my head was killing me all day from banging it real hard into a cast iron box which resulted in my chipping a tooth and opening it to a nerve.

Yes, that was all on Thursday. Yes, it caused a great deal of pain. But the worst part was that I was alone with my kids, plus little Finn, so I couldn't allow myself to take the pain meds that I have because they make me sleepy and I don't like to be on anything other than my "A" game when the babies are involved.

So, if you were expecting a call from me earlier or were the one I hung up on when you called today and I fumbled with the phone and then accidentally hung it up and erased all my caller IDs, you now know what was going on.

I'm looking for a much more comfortable day tomorrow though, so wish me luck.

Sullen & Eneverated

I really don't watch the news much any more, be it local or national due mostly to the lack of integrity these days and the awful blurring of news and promotion that attempt to slyly shill a commodity to me. I try to get my news from non-TV news sources like newspapers and Internet sites so I can at least stay somewhat in the loop.

Of late though I'm really getting pissed at a certain type of story that continues to make headlines with increasing frequency, and that's school shootings. Every time we show one on TV and go in depth with detailed accounts of victim suffering and the fear and chaos of the entire event all we serve to do is inspire the next one.

The media is preying on the public with these types of stories that identify the shooter and describe them in such detail that anyone watching who is in a remotely similar state or frame of mind can actually become much more encouraged to copy the actions they see because it will give them their chance to be heard, gain notoriety, and a measure of revenge against those people they feel have wronged them.

In essence, they are creating the news and as a society, we are too stupid, too self-absorbed, and too powerless to organize for the common good and denounce these yellow hucksters and ad revenue vampires for their own irresponsibility. There has to be a degree of accountability reserved for every editor, producer, program director, reporter, or news anchor who cover these stories.

It all just makes me sick.

To think that I would rather hear about the latest non-news story about the current celebrity slutlet over this really says something.

Sunday Sunday

I spent most of today taking care of babies. Sarah and Perrin have a stomach flu and they are very clingy and very pukey. Of course my hand hurt like crazy today, but the kids come first so I had to lay off the pain meds so I could focus on them and be attentive to their needs. I'm just glad I didn't have to do this alone, having Meva with me was amazing. Without her, I'm just trying to clap one-handed. (No Pun Intended)

The writing is still difficult with this cast. I thought it would get better after a few days with it, but that hasn't happened. The typing is a bit easier, but as of now it's causing more pain to actually do this. Hopefully I can get a more functional cast on Tuesday when I go for my first follow up visit to the doctor.

This blogs nature has taken a real somber mood of late and I want to fix that. I still feel the need to write about my counseling issues and feelings, but I don't want to do it all here, so I've created a separate blog for that aptly called Head Games. It's not for the faint hearted or easily offended, but you're welcome to check it out if you'd like. I'll add a permanent link to it on the sideboard tomorrow if I have time.

The Bears actually won today! It was an ugly win, but I'll take it because we definitely need it. I'm afraid of what the team will look like next year because I'm sensing a downward trend that will need some rebuilding soon. Is it too early to begin thinking about the draft?

Last night truly sucked. My brother Lou came up to watch the kids so Meva and I could go to a Halloween party. He was less than 20 minutes from the house (it's an almost 2 hour drive for him) when Sarah started vomiting and I called him to cancel. He came anyway and hung out, which was great, but I didn't feel like leaving him with a cranky, pukey, sick Sarah, so I stayed home and Meva went to the party solo. Sounds like it was a good time for all and I'm sorry I missed it, but Sarah wouldn't let me put her down without some major crying. Thanks again to Louie, Ashley, and Mike for coming down for all that and dealing with my loopy ass from all those pain meds.

Speaking of pain meds, all this typing is killing me, or rather it was killing me. It's all kicking in now so I'm going to sign-off here while I can.