Well Heck, I won.

It’s a big deal too, Trisha is one of the coolest bloggers out there. She’s a great mom, has good taste in shoes, and makes me laugh all the time. What more can you ask for?

As for me, not a whole heck of a lot. Both of my little one’s parent-teacher conferences went well. Despite the non-traditional situation they are in, the lack of consistency from one parent to the next and very different parenting techniques, they seem to be doing okay.

My STBE wife decided that she needs a job. If a co-worker hadn’t been passing by at the time, they wouldn’t have had the chance to douse me with water and help me up from the floor so I could continue the phone conversation with my wife. Luckily they did, so I was able to hear her say the words, “I need to get a job.” I’m feeling faint again just… writing… about… it….



Fej

It's about a Blankey, so don't read this if you're a guy.

My youngest daughter lucked out tonight.

A couple weeks ago she was invited to a slumber party at a hotel. At first I hesitated but having met the parents before and after talking to them it sounded like a great idea. They had a suite, hot tub, and an indoor pool. They really had a lot of fun.

However, she lost her “blankey”. This particular blankey is of some significance to her because it was my baby blanket from many years ago. My mother passed it on to her a few years back and the two have been inseparable ever since. She didn’t make it back home with her blanket though. At first we thought it was with her mom since she picked her up from the party. After a few days she confirmed she did not have it. I called the hotel and after being transferred to housekeeping and then on to an English speaking individual, she confirmed that they had not found a ragged Raggedy “Andy” blanket. I figured it was lost for good.

As I was doing my weekly cleaning of my vehicle, I came across a piece of paper with a lot of various writing on it. No surprise in my car but I read a couple of the comments prior to tossing it and they went something like this:

“Bye bye blankey, I’ll miss you.”

“I love you blankey, I guess I’ll never see you again.”

"I'll miss you forever... Etc., etc."

Man. I didn’t miss my old blanket until then. So, I decided to call the parents who put on the slumber party and left a message asking if they had seen it. That was on Saturday and she called back tonight to say that they had found it at the bottom of one of the sleeping bags the girls had used.

What a lucky little girl. If you think her little paper comments were sad, you should have heard her just before bed for the last two weeks... She isn’t taking that stupid thing anywhere from here on out, it stays home.

Fej

Boxers, Blogger, and a long Weekend

My son loves his boxers, particularly the green pair. I’ve had to literally pull them off of him to get them washed. He is also starting to use “yo” and “snizzle” and “homie”, uh hello? Not working for me. I so absolutely hate that sort of dialect (very loosely termed as such), I will lose it on his little six-year-old butt if he continues to use it around me. I think he is aware of my keen dislike of that sort of lingo and wisely can refrain for the most part while in my presence. It’s when he doesn’t realize I’m there that he gets busted. I really need to be with my kids during school, all day, everyday... I’m sure they would just love that.

I’ve actually tried multiple times to comment on my own site, not to mention several other places I visit often but no luck. Blogger is determined to frustrate me and drive me to complain despite the fact that it’s a free service. I’m reading folks, just involuntarily silent.

Weekends without kids must be way longer than when they are with me. A normal weekend blazes by like some sort of supersonic test rocket. A three-day weekend like we just had, will normally delay just long enough to make me comment on how fast that extra day disappeared. Last weekend however, crawled by. I’m not complaining, I had some good personal time and had a chance to accomplish several tasks. (The living room is already trashed again but I swear it was clean before the kids showed up Saturday.) Not having the kids for just over 24 hours was quite the experience. It also made me reflect that it has been just over a year since I’ve traveled for work. All in all, that makes for a pretty good year.

Fej

Yup, but what about Training Wheeles?

It was a nice spring day here. No dealing with socks despite having to pick up my STBE and take her and my grandfather along to my parent’s for and Easter brunch. All went well and we had a good time. We hid and found eggs over and over to the point where it was too much.

I watched The Incredibles again tonight and we all enjoyed it again, a very good movie. Except that our family is missing a Mrs. Incredible and while I’ve often desired to toss my vehicle into the street, I’m sadly unable to do so.

We all went for a bike ride this afternoon and while successful as it was, I need to release two not just one child from the clutches of training wheels this year. It must be done...


Fej

Movie Weekend

I watched three movies within a 24-hour period. That must be some sort of record for me. I watched Nixon, The Pianist, and The Incredibles. My favorite was The Incredibles of course, but I have wanted to watch Nixon for a long time also. Very interesting.

It took me well over 24 hours to get over the fact that I didn’t have my kids for that amount of time and that I needed to use this time to be just a bit effective. After my last indoor soccer game of the season today, I finally got myself in gear and accomplished a few things. I cleaned a lot. Vehicle, house, under the couch cushions (I’ll spare you the horror) and I finished the night off with a major sock party. While many lonely individuals were reunited again with long lost mates, there must have been just as many sad and singles left over at the end of the night. Lost soles without the perfect partner, lots of close matches, but none just quite right. Kind of like me... OKAY, that’s enough sap for this blog, I was talking about stupid, white, cotton, kids socks that are impossible to keep together.

Happy Easter everyone!

Fej

Wild Fun for Me

Tomorrow is not only payday but also tax-return-day and cash-my-jury-duty-check-day. My bank will probably call to see if there have been some fraudulent deposits to my account. My jury duty check was a joke, all $12.88 of it. I just about flipped when I saw it. It turns out upon further reading of the statement that it was just for my first day of orientation. Over two months later and I get one check for about 2.5 hours. The government is soooo slow.

I’m off work tomorrow and I might even get the chance to have the afternoon off from kids also. Their mom is supposed to pick them up tomorrow afternoon. I have big plans, let me tell you! I will get gas and stuff from Costco, I need a haircut, and if I really feel wild I might actually pay off a bill or two with my tax return. Wild man.

As it turns out, my cousin was in a lot of danger initially and it could have been a lot worse if he hadn’t gone to the doctor when he did. He’ll be okay all things considered but his lifestyle change might take some adjusting to. Thanks for the advice and information, I hope to go visit soon and I’ll pass on what I can.

Fej

Type I, Old Job, and Lucid Dreams

Well as everyone who commented and as I found out, Diabetes I is sudden, unexpected and really has nothing to do with heredity or behavior. This makes sense as no one in our family has diabetes and my cousin is an avid runner, snowboarder, and outdoor enthusiast. The scariest part is that we are so alike and he got this disease. What’s to say I couldn’t?

Nothing I suppose. I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing and hope the best for my cousin. From what I’ve read it’s a manageable disease so long as you keep on top of it.

I’ve been moved back to my old department at work. It was a smart move on their part, as I was not being fully utilized in my current position. In my new job I get to re-explore stuff I was doing 6 years ago. A lot has changed but it’s still nothing really new. I haven’t lost all hope on my new job but I now realize more than ever that I need to move on. Anywhere but here.

Some of my readers might remember this but it's something that just came up again. I was bored silly at work and came across another article about Lucid Dreaming. I appear to be quite proficient at it most of the time but I also realized the my oldest daughter might be as well. It must be every morning that she starts in on me with a full blow-by-blow description of her dreams the night before.

As we all know most dreams are only interesting and meaningful to the person who has them, but that doesn’t stop her from telling me every odd detail. Well, as it turns out, the ability to recall one’s dreams is often a precursor to being able to become lucid. If you didn’t click on the link, basically a lucid dream is where you realize at some point that you are dreaming, but instead of waking up, you begin to direct or even control the dreams outcome. It’s cool stuff, thought I’d share it again.

Fej

I like this picture.

New Stuff

I still haven’t had any calls about the job so I gave my potential boss a call today just to remind him I still breathe and want the job. He was nice enough and we talked for a little bit but there could be a little bad news. Apparently there has been a re-organization there and that has caused some unexpected delays. I didn’t feel as warm and fuzzy as I wanted after the call. He did assure me that he would let me know as soon as he could. I had a lot of time today to think though, and I don’t believe I’d be nearly as devastated as I originally had thought if I don’t get the job. I still want it but I’ll survive either way.

I completely forgot that I have this Friday off. I love it when that happens. I should have my tax return by then, not that it matters. It’s long since been spent.

My mom called tonight to tell me that a first cousin of mine was hospitalized and diagnosed with Diabetes I today. WTF? He is the same age as me, we’ve both been exceptionally athletic our whole lives and wham out of nowhere he gets this? Excuse my ignorance about this disease but I thought it was largely hereditary? And set in much later in life? I’m off to Google it and learn a bit more...

Fej

Ramblings

I need some time to myself. I’m thinking at least a week. Maybe longer...

Why do some people just like to hear the sound of their own voice? Isn’t it at least mildly important to have some point behind what you are saying? While they do this also, I’m not talking about my kids here.

What is a commitment? Is it a revocable agreement to a request initially said ‘yes’ to, like say the night before? Not the definition I'm familiar with.

I’m rambling, a bit frustrated, like I said I could use some time...

Ha!!! Like that’s going to happen.

Has it been 3-4 weeks yet?


Fej

Picky Kids

After spending most of the morning resembling a slug on a log, I managed to pull myself together. We picked up my youngest party girl from her birthday party turned sleepover and then headed off to Target. My son has decided that he needs boxers instead of briefs to be cool. I didn’t even make that decision until the 11th grade! So does that make him cooler than me?

The kids braved my soccer game this afternoon so I felt like doing something a little more family-ish for dinner. I decided against going out to eat as we do all the time. We ended up having fondue, which was absolutely great. My kids were dismissing the idea all the way home but I instituted a new rule that prevented them from saying they didn’t like it: “If you can’t spell it, you can’t complain about it, especially if you’ve never had it before.”

I dusted off my parent’s old fondue pot and fired it up. It really was good and while other than meat and one vegetable we had a great meal despite the lack of variety. A long meal, fondue takes quite awhile but we haven’t all sat at the table like we did tonight in way too long. They even helped clean up... that is just scary.

Fej

Poker Party and Such

Last night was cool. First I had a few drinks with a friend from work and then after working out arrangements for my kids I went to a poker party. The last time I met up with these friends the night went a little differently. I was informed of a few more details of what went on that night, hee hee. Boy was I drunk. Anyhow, this time things went fine, I still lost but we had a lot of fun.

My youngest daughter had another birthday to go to today so I took her over there. She ended up staying the night as I figured she would. The other two and I are not doing much of anything, and that is nice too. I plan on relaxing and enjoying my Saturday evening, I hope everyone else has a nice weekend too.

Fej

Zip, Nada, Nothin

I got nothing to talk about tonight. I always say that... it’s never true.

Have you ever seen someone get knocked out before? I hadn’t until last Tuesday. I forgot to it before but one of our team members accidentally kicked the ball into the stands. As the referee so astutely described it, “You have only one fan and you knock her out?”

Yup. It was a 10:00 PM game so we didn’t exactly expect a crowd but one of the guys’ wives showed up. Every thing happened so fast, the ball hit her just to the side of her face (luckily) and she slowly kind of leaned back, closed her eyes and then went unconscious. We then all get the “uh, what do we do now?” sort of look and quickly approach. She comes around in just a few seconds but had no idea what had happened. Wild.

Well, the race is officially on now. My co-worker had his phone and face to face interviews already and things went well. I have this nagging feeling that he will get to leave first. His interview also went well and the lucky bastard knows this because he could hear his future bosses talking about him afterwards from a window in HR. What kind of luck is that? That would be good luck.

I did receive a very nice and encouraging reply to my email from my would-be boss. He mentioned how much he enjoyed talking to me and that I left a very good impression on everyone I talked to. 3-4 weeks, what a bunch of hooey.

Fej

Snow Cat

Snow Day!!!

What an odd storm for us. This is considered the desert but it’s relatively high altitude at 5500 ft, so occasionally we get real winter weather. It ended up snowing all last night and through much of the morning. I must have had 8 inches of snow in certain areas of my backyard. School was cancelled and the kids were outside romping over the beautiful white landscape by 7:30 AM. On a normal day, I’m literally still pulling them from their beds at that time. I even went out and played around with them for some time too. How you pack the snow is key to a good snowball... poor kids didn’t have a chance.

Towards noon I began to realize that the roads were fine and I should probably get to work. My wife had called the night before and insisted I bring them over early. I finally called her around 1:00 PM and asked if she was ready for the kids. I dropped them off and went to work.

This is their night to stay with mom, so I had the house to myself. Between the store, taxes, a conference call with Asia, and another stupid 10:00 PM indoor soccer game, I haven’t had much time to relax. By the way, when the other team doesn’t speak English, it’s usually a good indicator of just how badly you are going to lose.

Fej

Flip-Flops, Snow, and Me.

Another morning of running late and just barely getting my oldest to school on time. I allow the younger two to bring their clothes for the day along with them since we have so much time to kill before they can be dropped off. It had rained the night before and it was a little chilly but not too bad. My younger daughter picked a bunch of inappropriate things to wear as usual and we eventually compromised. I should however have been a bit more specific when I asked if she had her shoes.

On Saturday, it hit 75 degrees Fahrenheit and was just great. I cleaned my car, weeded, and de-dog pooped my backyard. Monday afternoon, I had (well it might not have been absolutely necessary) to use 4-wheel drive to get out of the parking lot at work. It had already snowed about 4 inches and as I write it’s still snowing. So there is my daughter wearing flip-flops at school today.

I just have this nagging feeling that Child Services and I will be speaking intimately one day...

There was a snowball fight in my backyard at about 8:30 PM this evening and my psycho snow cat is way happy and soaking wet. You should see this feline, she is black, doesn’t mind the rain and absolutely loves snow. I’ll try to get a few pictures or her “hiding” in the snow tomorrow morning.

The local authorities have already declared a two hour delay tomorrow morning, I wouldn’t mind a bit if they close the schools altogether. It would be the first time in probably six years so we are far overdue.

Fej

Cars, Dumb People Who Drive Them, Kids and TV

Have you ever noticed that the number of stupid people driving around you is directly proportional to how late you are? Today was an exception though. Not only was there a lot of stupid drivers in my path while I was late but afterwards when I wasn’t late there were even more stupid drivers than before. Maybe there was some sort of convention in town? Obviously, I wasn’t invited...

How do you spell stress? S-T-R-E-S-S? Nope, wrong. You must not have K-I-D-S. That would be the correct spelling for stress. Then you have me, three kids, lots of stress but what do I always do? Ask for more stress or more kids in this case. I volunteered to take my niece and nephew this afternoon. So, five children and myself first destroyed a McDonalds play land and then we finished the near complete destruction of my own home. I swear my kids alone must have been on the trampoline for easily eight hours between Saturday and Sunday.

What did I do this afternoon? Oddly enough, I sat down and watched some TV. Of course I decide to do this with five children running wild in and around my home, and of course the History Channel has some earth shattering show on that I simply can’t pull myself away from. I probably caught about half of it even though I sat through the whole show.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. The amount of time you spend cleaning your car, especially the exterior, is indirectly proportional to how likely that the weather forecast is actually correct.


Fej

The Weekend, Finally.

Boy Howdy, did I have a great Friday night! Out partying? Woman 18 + at my place not related to me? Just having the opportunity to go out and drink irresponsibly? Nope, none of those. Tonight I tackled the little one’s room, yes the one where you actually take your life into your own hands just by entering.

I not only entered, but stayed, cleaned, moved, tossed out, and ended up with a rearranged dirty room. It was enough to scare the little critters into grabbing the important stuff and shoving it under their bed. I will examine what was saved from the pile tomorrow and make sure that all of it is of approved material. We will definitely need to remove a good chunk of it. Permanently.

I left work early today to pick up my kids. It wasn’t like we were doing anything anyway. I learned that my wife has a new “friend” from my kids on the way home today. He lives just down the street from me I found out. My kids said they know exactly where, they’ll show me next time we drive by. We’ll drive by tomorrow...

He lives in my neighborhood so I already know he’s not rich, but maybe he’s a sucker, and likes to be suffer at the expense of a needy woman. I can only hope.

Fej

Nothing New

Since the trial, my interview suspense and now my post-interview suspense, I think my blog has gone to crap. My mind is so preoccupied with everything else I find so little else to talk about here. My days were slow before the interview because I was so worried what the job was about. Now I know, and even though things look really good I’m still completely worthless because I’ll have to wait a couple weeks before I know if I get the job for sure.

I still dream about the dang trial only now they are all mixed up with various scenarios with me working at this new job. The trial was a big deal I guess. I took it very seriously. The job is too. This place has a 1% turnover rate and they want an engineer with a poly-sci degree to work for them. Weirdo’s. I can’t move for the next 12 years (my STBE wife will not likely move and that’s when my youngest turns 18) so I need a stable career here with good income for some time to come.

Anyhoo, there I go again. Sorry folks but this is what’s on my mind. Maybe I’ll go find a quiz or something to post instead.

Fej

Bunk Beds are for TWO! Not one...

Has it been a couple weeks yet? No? Just barely one day huh? Waiting to find out if I got the job is going to be worse torture than waiting for the interview or worrying about rescheduling because of jury duty.

Anyhow life goes on, ready or not...

My oldest daughter is absolutely tormenting me with one of her most ridiculous ideas yet. I can’t believe that she thinks I should go for this and yet she is dumbfounded that I can’t see it her way. We have completely outgrown this house. When we moved in, we had an extra room, just one kid no big deal. Now we are packed to the walls with the other two kids sharing a room. It’s not that big in the first place. The little ones have a bunk bed to maximize floor space so that they can completely cover that space with even more crap.

My oldest has decided that she should have the bunk bed. No, she doesn’t plan on allowing her brother or sister sleep on whichever bed is empty, she just wants the whole thing. She figures I can just go buy another bed since two beds in their room will take up even less floor space than one bunk bed. Uh, no.

I laughed her off the first night she made mention of this plan. Now, into the third day of various wild proposals that will either cost me money, leave a child without a bed, or require me attaching 4x4 posts to her bed raising it to the level of a bunk bed and she won’t back down. My admiration for her persistence is quickly morphing into annoyance.

There is plenty of other stuff going on too, but a growing pile of laundry is going to take precedence tonight.

Fej

The Interview

Whew! It went really well.

I don’t believe I said anything terribly stupid the whole day. They feel I’m qualified for the job, they didn’t really ask me if I agreed. I got the impression that they were trying to sell me the job. It didn’t feel like I was applying, it felt like they were recruiting.

I do feel like I’m qualified although I didn’t have a full picture of what I’d be doing until later in the day, I was a little worried initially. This is definitely a high tech place. The benefits are fabulous and while he could only give me a ballpark figure, it sounds like it should be at least what I’m making now, maybe even more.

It could be a while before I know anything, but the guy I could be working for practically insisted that I call him for any questions I might have. I now have to scour the Internet for some really smart sounding question so I can call him soon. It’s kind of hard to type also since I’ve been floating around the house the whole evening.

Thanks for everyone’s words of encouragement, of course I’ll keep everyone informed of what happens.

Fej

The Night Before.

First off, thanks to everyone wishing me luck on tomorrow’s interview. I’m feeling pretty good right about now, not nervous but definitely anxious. It’s an all day interview starting at 6:45 tomorrow morning when I meet my two potential new bosses for breakfast. From there, they drive me on to the grounds and proceed to interview with eight others throughout the day. I guess I’ll get lunch too so that makes it pretty much all worth it there.

I tried on my suit again just to see if I could get the tie right and the knot held up well in my closet this last month and a half. I thought it looked all right, it’s just that stupid top button on my shirt. I had a heck of a time getting that dang thing buttoned. I know it’s not my neck. I’ve got all my paperwork ready and the only thing I forgot to grab was a few newer business cards. The only real problem is that I’m far from tired and I know I’m not going to sleep well at all tonight. Oh well, I wouldn’t want to set any kind of precedence by looking well rested or anything.



What happened to when they just asked, “Can you get a ride to work everyday?”

Me: “Uh, probably.”

Store Manager: “You ever work a cash register before?”

Me: “Uh, nope.”

Those were the days...


Fej

Not Much, Just My Weekend.

Another weekend has flown by. I hate wishing time away, we are lucky to be around to complain about how crappy our day was, and others aren’t so lucky.

I’ve been wishing time away for Tuesday of course. I’ve built this interview up so much with myself and everyone else, I hope it goes well. I’m not that worried really, I think I’m qualified, I interview well for the most part and it’s a plus that they waited nearly two months now since the original invitation was sent. If I don’t get this job it will be far from the end of the world, but from how I see things now, it sure seems like the right path.

My outdoor soccer season has started once again and we played this morning despite the pouring rain we had the night before. It was nice to be out in an open field compared to the confines of indoor soccer. I booted the ball excessively high on more than one occasion just because I could. It turns out that two of the women on my team knew the victim from my murder trial. They had gone to school with her and had a lot of questions about the trial. I had a lot of questions for them too but we didn’t have much time.



Fej

Rainy Saturday

It’s raining pretty hard here. We have had close to our full year’s worth of rain already in just three months. Good stuff but kind of weird for us desert folks.

I tried to find “The Gods Must be Crazy” tonight at a video store for the kids and I. I haven’t seen that movie in probably 20 years and I got this wild hair that maybe my kids would like to see it. It was nowhere to be found. I grabbed “Home on the Range” instead which was indeed a pretty good cartoon. It had been so long since I had been to Blockbuster that I had to open a new account... sad.

I’m just sitting here now, listening to the rain. My kids are getting along suspiciously well. I’m scared to intervene. I’m glad and all, it’s just such a rare occurrence.

Fej

The Race is On

This story fits appropriately in that I have my interview on Tuesday. My coworker that I’ve worked closest with for the last several years just got a call today from an employer he applied for last week. He will have a telephone interview next week and very likely will get the job eventually.

For those of you who haven’t heard this joke before, here it is:

Two hikers are deep in the forest. From a distance one of them notices an angry grizzly bear coming down the hill right towards them. Both of them being seasoned outdoorsman they realize what is next. One of the hikers drops right there and begins swapping his hiking boots for a pair of running shoes. The other asks in amazement, “What are you doing?! You know damn well you can’t out run a grizzly bear!”

The hiker changing his shoes only looks up briefly as he finishes with the laces from the other shoe, “I only have to out run you...”

I’m the one putting on my running shoes. Neither of us wants to be the last one from the laser group left behind.

Fej

Gymnastics and Appropriate Underwear

My solitaire game was just getting somewhat predictable and then I finally have something to do again at work. If you were wondering, predictable means I should never play for real money. I managed to pull myself away from the news and did get some work done today. I wasn’t happy about it though.

I never thought it was possible to progress to a point like this in a job. Especially at a place where I worked so hard for so many years. I may be slacker numero uno now, but this is a recent change. I was “Mr. I’ll do anything and no, don’t worry about paying me for what I do, I’ll do it anyway” for years and years. Hmm. I may have given away my point already.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I have learned so much over the years and I do make pretty good money now. I don’t work for a company that spends a lot of time worrying about their employees. They don’t necessarily treat us poorly but... you’d have to work there I suppose, it’s a long story.

The sad but somewhat “I hope they learn their lesson” part of it is that I’m not the only one interviewing with every intention of leaving the company just a soon as possible. Our skeleton crew could become skull and crossbones only because there are several more of us at this stage. If those that I know of and myself were to all leave the company within a short period of time, it wouldn’t necessarily shut anything down within the company, but it would shake things up quite a bit.

A few quotes from my son who quickly grounded me after work and made me realize what’s really important, while at my daughter’s gymnastics class:

“My sister’s underwear is showing Dad!” At the top of his lungs.

“Her underwear is too big Dad!” Same volume, I’m pretending I’m not “Dad”.

“That other girl’s underwear is too big too Dad!” Again, really loud, I start to chuckle.

“She should wear my shorts Dad.” Everyone on the bleachers is laughing.

“No Dad, she should wear my boxers!” He finally realizes he has an audience and it goes sour from here, but thanks son.

Fej

Yes it's hailing/snowing, yes it was cold outside, and yes... those are my kids in grandma and grandpa's "pool".