Kitty or not to Kitty!

I have been going back and forth about getting a cat. After the loss of Cyclone yesterday, the kids have been asking me again if I will get one.

Pros:

o I LOVE CATS!

o Kids love cats!

o Cat would be a nice companion for those all too many empty house evenings when I do not have the kids!

o I REALLY LOVE CATS

Cons:

o Expense - would need to be spayed, de-clawed, and fed, plus vet visits.

o Litter Box! Kids swear they would clean it but the said the same about Cyclone...and the X was more often than not chasing after them to do it and her house stank like dirty litter.

With my back I simply will not be dealing with the litter box chore anymore. Anyway, I keep going back and forth!

Oh my aching back!

I slipped in the shower Tuesday morning narrowly missing pitching right through the glass door (times like this I hate living alone!). I wrenched my back and these past days it has been bothering me worse than it has this past month. Tuesday night I had Scott and Danielle over and the X graciously offered to bring dinner over. She took care of feeding the kids and I, plus cleaning up. I thought that was very sweet of her.

Now, if only I could get a decent nights sleep!

How many planets are in our solar system?

If you answered nine, THINK AGAIN!

Panel declares 12 planets

Fare Thee Well, Cyclone!

Goodbye Cyclone! We'll Miss you!

Sad news greeted me early Wednesday morning AM; an early tearful phone call from the X to tell me that my older son's Guinea Pig Cyclone had died in her arms. The kids were all very sad when they awoke and my older son buried it out by where I had a few years ago buried my younger son's Guinea Pig Chocolate. They had shared the same cage for a year or so. I can't speak for everyone reading this, but, we tend to get very attached to all pets (well, except fish....) and treat and consider them one of the family.

The kids were all very muted yesterday obviously saddened by the loss of their beloved pet. I must gather a few pictures of faithful pets passed and post them here for all pet lovers to enjoy!

I had a good friend ask this morning how anyone could get attached to a Guinea Pig; I explained that the kids often took Cyclone out of her cage and played with her, pet her, held her in their arm and feed her fresh veggies by hand....it's very easy to get attached to any pet (well, except maybe a fish!)

We have always been pet people. I grew up surrounded by a litany of cats over the years, and one year we had a mommy cat who had kittens in the basement of our two family home. We lived on the second floor, and some of my fondest kitten memories are of those kittens! Every day when I would come home from school in the afternoon, every other step or every third step from the ground floor to the second floor would have a kitten on it! I'd stop and pet them, pick them up, delighting in their purring and affection! Pets have always been one of the family in my house. To be loved, cared for, and cherished! When things were going good I would pick up whatever cat we had a play with it; when things were bad I would cry into a cats fur; there were always there for me, and me for them.

Farewell Cyclone, you will be missed!

XPC From Hell (Treat your PC well!)

After I picked up my Daughter from her Grandparents house yesterday (where they were making "the best chocolate chip cookies; might have been if the bottoms had not been a bit burned, but still good) I headed over to the X's where she had been having abysmal PC performance

After 15 minutes from booting you might get some response form the system....might....

She has 768K DSL service.....I clocked her system at about 40K (less than a good dial up modem).

It's an older PC running Windows 2000, but, when I left it was purring like a kitten and seeing an average 1.2 mbps download rate!

Lesson to be learned here; your PC is not passive like a TV......it's like a car, it needs to be taken care of and like a child cleaned up after.

SO! What did these four hours encompass? How was this miracle of improved (vastly, incredibly improved!) performance attained!!??

Briefly there were about 12,000 temporary files (NOT including Internet Explorer temporary files!), about half a gigaybte of Internet Explorer temporary files, about 1000 invalid registry keys, and when I ran a disk fragmentation analysis, the whole thing was blood red with fragmentation. Thousands of fragments. Compound this by the fact that there was very little free space on the system (under 100 megabytes) it was literally in its death throes. This is also compounded by the fact that there is an account the kids can use on her PC.

SO, I killed all the temp files, flushed Internet Explorer caches, repaired the registry and defragmented the disk. Now the system is flying. The system has other issues, such as it will not recognize any CD-ROM drive (even a USB external drive, which made using the CD full of tools I brought useless! I ended up having my son suck the PC onto his USB memory device and moving the files that way), but, if it is good enough for the X to do her work and my daughter to play on Mom's PC, then it was four hours well spent.

As the X was at an appointment around 6PM I gave Christopher money so he could zip off to Quizno's and get their Monday three large subs for a decent .vs. the super-inflated normal price deal.......he took advantage though and also brought them treats. I flagged him on that and mentioned I had not had them bring me anything to save some money and he kind of blew it by buying snacks for everyone, and not to do so without permission in the future.

Anyway, after that I headed home to about 120 work emails and after that watched a couple of Walker Texas Ranger episodes off the DVR before retiring. I did have a nice surpise, my friends Suresh and Indu had sent me a 'care package' from New York, some spicy Indian Snacks and some hot Chili powder! The majority of this bounty shall be saved for my birthday early next month!

Michigan: Target for Terrorists!

Charges have been filed against five men, three from Texas and two from Ohio in a plot involving pre-paid cellular telephones to blow up the Mackinac Bridge in northern Michigan. Bail has been set at $750,000. each.

This was not what I had in mind when I relocated to Michigan!

Click here for the story

Another day at work...and McBride

Ah Sunday! Sunny Day! Blue Sky! I am at work as I was yesterday! Joy!

Hope everyone else is enjoying their weekends! Since I don't have the kids this weekend, being at work is no big deal. Sad eh! :)

At least sitting at my desk I can look at the windows and see the Mustang enjoying the sun! He looks most comfortable!

Been watching a new (new to me anyway) show this past week, McBride, where he is this lawyer who takes on, mostly for free (Yea, I know, lawyers taking on cases for free, it made me laugh too!) cases where the defendant looks guilty as sin. He always wins (at least so far for the five episodes (90 minutes each without commercials) I have seen. It's on Hallmark channel, and it is most excellent.

My best friend growing up had a last name of McBride....have not heard from him in ages and ages!

Priceless

You know the mastercard adds.......the ones that end with some sentimental dribble like "getting to walk your daughter down the aisle.....Priceless!" at the end? Well, I have a more practical one. Being able to feed the kids for $2.49......Priceless! That was the net cost of the kids dinner last night for a jar of pasta sauce for Scott, Danielle, and myself. I had the pasta on hand, and I mixed in the left over peppers and onions from the X's Fajitas birthday leftovers...and Chris had leftover pizza. I had ordered him (NOT Priceless!) pizza Sunday because he was home from camp and I let him have what he wanted. He is maturing; he had wanted prime rib but did not mention he was thinking that until after the pizza had been eaten. Good thing I mentioned back, since I could not afford that for the kids this week. After our priceless dinner last night we watched UHF and some of Weird Al's music videos together. Chris and I also watched a Stargate Atlantis episode.

Tonight, I shall see if I can feed the kids even cheaper! Blah ha ha ha!

T-Minus 29 Days And Counting

Well, 29 days until I turn 50; something I had always envisioned would be a big ta-doo with both sides of the family and friends gathered. Now most of them (my side of the family and the majority of real world friends I have) are 700 miles away! BUT I do get to look forward to even less cash because my life insurance deduction is going to jump significantly on my paycheck when I turn 50. Yay! I already have a large deduction because I provide the kids medical coverage and it's quite a big jump payroll deduction-wise from the single employee medical coverage to family (which is two or more; this means there is no decrease in payments as the kids go off to college and come off my insurance until they are all off). Add that to child support and it's a very hefty portion of my paycheck, and when I have one of these two week periods where I have to live off of $200 while feeding the kids...even with the $100/week easement I get on child support over the summer is it just not enough........I get a bit bitter here....well...maybe more than a bit.

I had a tiring day yesterday; I slept very little Sunday night (I kept dreaming of the X, happy we were still married dreams where she still loved me) and after each one I awoke and had trouble getting back to sleep. Days like this it's hard to embrace the "life sucks" aspect of things. It's like now that my conscience mind has made the effort to go on, my subconscious mind is rebelling. At least last night my dreams were blessedly free from her and I feel somewhat more rested.

I am thinking those dreams of X were possibly caused by watching the Walker Texas Ranger two parter where Alex and Walker get married followed by "The Nanny" where she and Maxwell get married Sunday evening must have hit a chord. When I see that happily ever after crap on TV and realize that some years statistically 50% of first marriages end in divorce....well.....it's kind of sad when you think about it.

Once again I say I hope other married couples I know don't make the same mistakes my X and I did, in other words, if you're dissatisfied or unhappy let your partner know in no uncertain terms. Telling all your friends will do nothing to help your marriage. And of course burying your head in the sand like I did and not noticing your partners dissatisfaction won't help either.

Anyway, back to the fun of the day! I have the kids this week and that always puts a smile on my face.

Fajitas, The X, and my back

Wednesday was the X's Birthday and for her present I promised her Fajitas for dinner. It's amusing, while she may not miss living with me, she certainly DOES miss my cooking! I took a half day and picked up Scott and Danielle at her house, and we headed to mine to pickup rentals which we returned, and then stopped in at Wendy's (right by Family Video); the kids had seen the sign proclaiming a new vanilla Frosty (Wendy's Chocolate Frosty's have long been a favorite frozen treat of me and mine). So, I got them some vanilla Frosty's and fries as they had sandwiches at their mom's already and I had a Bacon Cheeseburger. They loved the new Frosty but I did not; it had that artificial vanilla aftertaste that lower quality vanilla things have (a shame considering how good their chocolate ones are). I was hoping for Dairy Queen vanilla quality! That crisp clean delicious vanilla flavor! SADLY disappointed here!

Anyway, we headed back to my place stopping at Forest Hills foods (where they are, yet again, expanding the store, this time putting a new front on it, to the tune of many loud jack hammers....) where I picked up the ingredients needed for dinner. I had lots of fun creating the marinate (mixture of oil, many spices, and freshly squeezed lime) and butterflying the London Broil I had bought into two long fillets. The meats in the fridge marinating I watched some TV and then began the process of cutting up the onions and peppers. I used tri color (red, orange, and yellow) peppers and these two were set to marinate (minus the lime juice, and ground hot chili added to the peppers), and then headed BACK to the store as I had forgotten the cheese needed for the dinner. I also swung by the X's house (viva la cookware revolution!) and picked up a large frying pan.

As this was all transpiring we watched some TV together and I watched some alone as the kids played downstairs. Scott asked for a sleepover with his friend Taylor this weekend, stating he wanted to do it because Chris would be away at camp still and they could camp out downstairs. I told him he could.

Around 5PM I began sauteing the onions, put them in a separate pot, and then did the peppers. This took about an hour. The X's brother showed up around 6PM and as I was thinking of lighting the grill around 6:15 the X's folks called and they had not left the house yet (we were supposed to eat at 6:30). So, I awaited until around 6:20 to light the grill just as the X showed up. Mom and Dad soon arrived and as I was almost done grilling the beef and chicken a grease fire flared up and in my haste to close the grill I tripped and wrenched my back (still in much pain today!) so I got to enjoy tremendous back and leg pain for the rest of the evening. Anyway, I sliced the beef and chicken and had to thrown them in a frying pan to finish the coking process, and then we all ate. The weather was still quite warm and humid and the house central AC struggled to keep things cool with the additional BTU output of the stove.

Anyway, dinner was finally ready! I had refried beans, three kinds of cheeses, salsa, sour cream, and taco sauce on the side and everyone (except Scott who ate waffles!) really enjoyed the dinner. Afterwards the X's mom snuck out to Forest Hills and picked up a cake and ice cream. The X had also run out to pickup a DVD at her house (she has the Blockbuster version of NetFlix) and we all (except Scott because there were not enough comfortable chairs and he did not want to use a beanbag chair) settled in to watch Madagascar. We took a break around 9:30 when we had cake and ice creak and then finished the movie. Everyone headed at at 10PM, and, other than the back pain it was a most enjoyable evening!

Footnote: Last night I made left over fajitas! YUM! There are enough leftover onions and peppers for a nice egg beaters omelette or two!

Armpit Hair

These past three days here in West Michigan have been the hottest of the year. Ozone and Heat Warning days. People passing out days......Free rides on The Rapids public transportation days.....AC running constantly daze, mercury pushing just under 100 degrees yesterday (99). Scott, Danielle, and I went to the pool and for the first time this season the water was no cooler than the surrounding air! It was like stepping into a spa; it was wet and warm and I wanted to drift off into sleep. Gulping water repeatedly kept waking me up however!

I was even more started around 10PM last night after I realized I had some trash that needed to go out to the curb (where the large can was already for the morning pickup). I was dressed in shorts and sandals, and as I stepped outside, I knew, in that instant, with the total clarity of though that comes with an Epiphany, what an armpit hair must feel like! I was SO much more humid than it had been earlier in the day when we were at the pool, even though it was only 90 degrees now. It was suffocating! I dumped the trash, feel to the floor in the kitchen and began kissing the air conditioning grate on the floor, bablling over and over again "I love you air conditioning!". I wonder what anyone without AC would have done on a day like this! many fans? Live done in their basements finished or not? Check into a hotel??

Blessedly it is supposed to be cooler today (ONLY around 90 though with the same humidity) but a cold front is expected this evening and temps and humidity are supposed to drop over the next few days.

An exercise in Futility?

Well, it's been weeks since I've done a post. I guess I owe that to my new attitude on life. You all know how badly I have felt since the divorce, and how much of a workload I have here at the office, trouble paying bills, etc. Well, none of that has changed. I am still foolishly, hopelessly in love with the X wife, yet I realize she feels nothing for me. The job is incredibly busy and stressful beyond the telling of it! I have hardly any friends. And money, in particular any time I need something beyond paying the bills, the cost is ending up on plastic. The loss of my overtime this past March has totally impacted my lifestyle, we are talking about a 20% decrease in available income. Of course I am still working OT, just not getting paid for it. I just made my mortgage payment, I have about $200 for the next wo weeks, and one of those is a week with the kids who can easily use that much in food alone. I know others have it worse........but right now, as shallow as it may sound, I am concerned about me. Anyway, I'll get by. It's not all bad; I love my kids and time spent with them, I enjoy music, a good movie, and I enjoy the technical aspect of my job.

ANYWAY, the reason I have not been posting too much is I have just been rolling with this and have adopted a "Life sucks, embrace it" policy. While nothing has changed I am dealing with it better, and am refusing to let it bother me. I won't say I'm happy, but, I seem to have climbed out of the depression that I have lived with for the past two years and stayed away from it for several weeks now. I am just refusing to let things bother me as much as they have been. Whistling a happy tune as it were, facing life with a smile, and saying "Thank you sir may I have another!" as things go wrong. While I understand other people have lives too and are busy, if I get no comments from anyone, I wonder if anyone is even reading the blog. This begs the question, why bother?

AGAIN, ANYWAY.....Well, as I did get an IM today from one of the rare Internet pals who communicates with me, mentioning he had not seen any blog updates, I decided to do this post. If you read the blog, and are reading the posts, leave a comment here and I'll make an effort to post more frequently.

Take care, y'all!

The overheating PC - Cured

The last post I did was on 7/10 about the overheating PC from hell. That I can say is cured. A couple of weeks ago, I made a total mess out of my dinning room table, and I removed the parts from the current PC and built them into my new Ultra case. In the case I added two additional 120mm cooling fans, and an excellent CPU cooler. The power supply is also much better, 550 watts instead of the 380 the older case had.

Now, about two weeks into the new case, I can say I am very, very pleased! I originally thought I would have to get a new Pentium 4 CPU, and so far the old chip has been working great! I can even go in and out of standby mode without the graphics being affected and I can then go into a game with 3D acceleration and not have any issues! While I ended up having to charge a little over 200 dollars for the case and extra fans, it is certainly a much more affordable solution than buying a new PC would have been!

It was a fun 3 days project to move everyone from the old case into the new one. The new case is one of these ultra-light aluminum ones, but, you have to be VERY careful with it because it is very flimsy until everything is assembled into the case and it is all screwed together. So, I staggered this starting on a Friday after work and finished it up that Sunday. The dinning room table took me a week to clean off!

Recent Movies and other things

Aeon Flux - Eh! Nowhere near as good as I hoped for and excellent special effects did little to help!
Ultraviolet - Tiny bit better than Aeon, but jerky camera movements and a plot that could have had better cinematography hampered this one!
New Pirates of the Caribbean movie - EXCELLENT!!! LOVED It!
The Fog (remake) - Very good and enjoyable
Shrek 2 (With Scott and Danielle) - This is probably about the 6th time I have seen that, but, we love it!
V - The original Mini-series (Great! Now I need to see if the TV series ever made it to DVD!)
Monster House - New animated flick, very good, Scott, Danielle, and I enjoyed it.

SciFi Channel - Eureka - New Show, love it! Bit campy, but, still great!
Dead like me - Wonderfully different! A totally off the wall view of the Grim Reaper!
STARGATES! Whoo who! SciFi Friday is BACK!

Walker Texas Ranger - Been watching a ton of these in repeat on USA and Hallmark.

Have been enjoying my alternate weeks on and off with the kids. Been doing a lot of pool time. Chris is off to Fine Arts Camp (went last Wednesday, he will return Sunday). Today it will hit upper 90's here and killer humidity. Heat alert warnings have been issued. This will go through Wednesday evening. Joy! Thank goodness for fixed AC!

My brother's new job (they lied and did not tell him what a terrible place it was to work for! Lesson learned get all new employment info in WRITING before accepting a job!) did not come with vacation, so, the kids and I were very sad last week when he and his wife should have been out! We REALLY REALLY miss them and missed the opportunity to see them!

Cooking - With the hot weather I have not been doing much other than the grill, though as part of the X's birthday present (her birthday is tomorrow, I made Spicy Peanut Butter noodles with chicken Saturday night and had her and her brother over (who stayed to watch Stargate Sg-1 Science)). It was funny, Danielle has had this dish many times but Saturday she went with me to do the shopping and was totally grossed out when she saw me pick up coconut milk. "Ewwww, Coconut milk!" she said when she saw me pick it up. I explained that she had this particular dish many times before, but, had never been with me for the shopping or watched me prepare it. She looked skeptical, but, ate and enjoyed it nonetheless! I did grill the chicken outside and slided it and added it to the sauce for about 20 minutes before serving over tossed noodles. It was most enjoyable and now I will have to grill the meat on the gas grill whenever i make this.

The Death!

Well, It happened! After over a month of showing heat related problems my main PC connected to the plasma display finally committed PC suicide today!

I had added an auxiliary cooling fan, which was working well enough, but evidently the power supply was having issues.

I had been playing Quake 4 for about 40 minutes when the smell of burning insulation filled the house AND FLASH! sparks flew from the computer case and it shut off! The power supply inside the case was too hot to touch!

Farewell, my old friend!

I just ordered a new case, heavier duty power supply, CPU cooler, and two 120mm fans for the new case. This should keep me cool and get me back up and running. Of course, with no ready cash, I had to play "Charge!"

Sunday (That's my Not Fun Day)

As I was creating this post this morning before heading off to work, I remembered the Bangles Song that has the line "Sunday....that's my fun day....", and since I am ever so sore and stiff, I figured this was an applicable title!

So, groaning in pain I arose, did two sets of my back exercises, and then for a helping of extra fun I did my usual 25 minute ride on the recumbent exercise bike. After that I decided to do some investigating on my PC which has been crashing every time I play a 3D game for more than a few minutes. This started around Memorial day and has been getting worse. That was the week my AC failed and the Living Room where the PC resides was in the upper 90's. The CPU is overclocked and that day it crashed, and then crashed again. I stepped down the overclocking to normal and it seemed to help, but, now it is doing it every day. I can use it for hours in mail, surfing the web, Word, etc. So, today it was double check all fans are running and that requires removing the PC cover. After doing so and verifying the fans were all working I took the large exhaust fan on the rear of the chassis and positioned it over the CPU, did my morning e-mail, etc. and then played a 3D game for 30 minutes, NO CRASH! I headed off to work and will be trying a longer game session this evening.

Well, it's after work now and after arriving home from work I found a call from Mom from hours earlier inviting me to a picnic at their house with the X, and her other brother and family who are visiting from New Jersey. Oh well! Wish they had called me at work (or my cell) where I mentioned I would be Friday at dinner, a break from work would have been nice today! Anyway, I made a nice salad and watched a bit of TV.

I've done three additional sets of back exercises today and the pain is finaly working out of my back a bit!

Saturday - Chored Stiff

After getting home from work and suffering the bi-monthly Saturday Slump (it's the X's week now, so no kids here) I was bored stiff when I came home. So! Chore time! I had stopped on the way home and done the once monthly having the Mustang washed and realized with my back I have not cleaned the interior (including the windows) in over a year! Looking down on the floor at the assortment of debris and seeing the gunk in the cracks of the dash and such galvanized me into action (Picture a turtle going fast!).

I got the rainbow vacuum unit (uses a water filled compartment instead of a filter and could suck the chrome off a fender if you are not careful!) and cleaned the inside of the car, floors, mats, upholstery. The sound of the rainbow firing up disturbed all kinds of wildlife that had been nesting the debris under the seats! After the base vacuuming I cleaned the windows. THAT was a pane! The back of the Mustang is very cramped and my back and legs do not like to bend that way at all, and with the rear-deck mounted speakers it was very difficult to get the large rear window clean. Increasing my enjoyment of this I had to climb in and out three times because I could only see the 'not really clean' streaks on the inside of the window from the outside of the vehicle!

After the side and front windows were cleaned I attacked the dashboard, all the nooks and crannies, ignoring the building pain in my right leg and lower back and just keeping on. Next I pulled the car back out of the garage and polished the exterior trim that the car wash never does a good job of, particularly the mustang horse and surrounding boarder on the front grill and the mustangs on each side of the car. To make along story short the car looks fantastic!

Now that the car was complete of course it started to rain! I immediately backed the car into the garage nearly running over the rainbow! I got a chammy cloth and wiped it dry.

Now it was time to attack the problem of the ants in the house and the spiders by the front and back doors. To backtrack a bit, I had stopped at Meijer's on the way to the car wash and gotten some of that bug barrier stuff you put around your house since I have been plagued by ant's inside and spiders nesting and spinning webs by the front door and patio sliders in the back. After that I took the rainbow unit and sucked all the cobwebs and stuff that was stuck in them from around the front door (not too hard) and the backdoor sliders (A real pain in the ass...I mean back) because the underhand is about 15 feet high there. This all in all was a fun way to spend 4 hours, and then I took a nice hot shower. After I stumbled from that I was too sore to barely move I made a nutrition shake and sat on the couch with the keyboard. I figured after four hours of chores in the sun the 25 minute e-bike could be skipped today!

I just told a friend in the UK I was IM'ing with I had stiffened up nicely already as I discovered a few minutes ago when I arose to get a no sugar added ice pop out of the freezer. I could barely rise and walk and the pain, reminiscent of what I imagine multiple Klingon pain sticks would feel like, descended on me like a red mist. Oh well! The house looks great, and the Mustang has not looked so resplendent inside since the day I took it home. Well worth the effort and resultant pain. I had done extra sets of my back exercises before the shower and did another set before retiring. Anyway, hence the title of today's post, Chored Stiff. I wonder what tomorrow will feel like!

Friday is Mall Day

Ah, Friday; the end of the week with the kids which I hate beyond the telling of it. The only day of the week at work of half days that I actually left on time! Scott and Danielle and I headed to the mall a bit before noon. We went to the Rivertown Crossing mall which is about 12 miles from here instead of the local mall. The Rivertown mall is larger and has the closest Dairy Queen and I had promised them that the previous day.

We ate at the food court (pizza for Danielle, pasta with marinara sauce fro Scott and they shared some garlic bread sticks, and I had A&W Chili Cheese Dogs with Mustard and Onions, plus a side of Onion rings I shared with Danielle).

Scott was happy as he could get the game they did not have at the local Game Stop we had visited the day before. I also picked up a card for the X's brother's birthday. We walked the entire mall, had our treat at Dairy Queen (Banana Split minus pineapple topping for Scott, and Danielle and I had Oreo Brownie Dreams).

I felt kind of bad as we were leaving because Danielle had wanted a book from the book store (and I had wanted the next book in my Deathlands series) but I had spent my two weeks spending allowance on lunch and Dairy Queen. I explained money was tight and Daddy could not get the book he wanted, but, you know how it is when you are a kid and want something. I felt really bad though.

We headed off to the parking lot (on the way Danielle had wanted to ride the exterior elevator up but we did not) and rode the exterior elevator down. TALK ABOUT YOUR STINKY ELEVATORS! Not since I had been in The Project Apartments years ago in Newark New Jersey have I ever smelled an elevator that bad! There were brown stains on the walls and doors, and, evidenced by them playing too many video games, the comments was "Is that blood?". We exited the malodorous conveyance, boarded the Mustang, and returned home. We went to the pool a bit later.

The X picked us up in her new car at 6:30. No, she is not rolling in dough, she cancelled the lease on her van and got one of these hybrid vehicles. The savings in gas mileage alone should justify this purchase, so long as she keeps driving the same amount of miles for the life of the loan). It was her brothers birthday and the 8 of us including her folks were headed off to dinner at some steak house whose name escapes me. Originally we were told 45 minutes to an hour but the hostess took pity on us and got some people to move so we could get two booths next to each other. I sat with the X's folks and brother and we chatted about crappy jobs, how overworked the X and I are.

This place was such a cow person motif, but, the food was excellent. We finished up and headed out. I had wanted to sit up front in the X's car on the way home so I could continue chatting with her by my 17 year old would not get out of the seat...so...I informed him if he did not move he would regret that decision, and since he still did not move, well, he'll be back at my house in a week. I ended up riding with Mom and Dad and yhey dropped me off home around 9:30. After the usual heavy depression of returning to the empty silent house, I did some homework, watched a bit of TV and headed for bed.

Ranting about divorce (Yet again)

Something I did not need to do last summer is ask the X for what the court system here in Michigan calls an easement, meaning that if I, who am ordered by the court to pay support, have the kids for an extended period (like, a week at a time as I do over the summer every other week), should be able to get a reduction in support for that period to help offset the cost of having the kids. For example, three kids eating three meals and snacks, etc. adds up. Last summer I could afford it, with the loss of my OT earlier this year now I cannot. So, the X filed (twice!) the appropriate forms and...well as of Friday when I got paid....still the money has not started showing up in my paycheck. So, now after paying my mortgage I have less than $200 to make it two weeks until payday, and of course on of those weeks I will have the kids. So, last night I had a nutrition shake (I had the powder already, just add water) and tonight I bought a bag of shredded lettuce and had a lettuce salad with half a bucks worth of corned beef it. Total cost for dinner two dollars....Ranting about divorce....Priceless!

You know, it's funny, when I went for the mandatory sessions you have to attend they spent about 30 minutes treating us like scumbags, telling us the litany of things they would do to us if we ever tried to skip out on support payments. They seemed to delight in it in fact. As if I would ever withold support for my kids! WELL!!! What's my recourse when THEY screw up???

Thursday means Egg Roll

Today after my 'half day' at work (I left the usual hour late), I decided to take the kids out to lunch (had I known the extra money I was expecting in my paycheck from the Michigan Court system was not going to be there, I would not have!). We went to our favorite Chinese restaurant, the First Wok. I had never been there for lunch before and was surprised to find out they have luncheon specials!

Scott had his usual chicken lomein no vegetables, Danielle had sesame chicken, and I had General Tao's chicken. Danielle and I also had soup (egg drop for her, hot and sour for me), and I had an egg roll and she had crab puffs. This all came with the meal and it was about half the price of having dinner there!

We departed and headed up to Reed Lake, which I had passed many times in past years when Danielle was taking dance lessons. I had never been to the small park adjacent to the lake. We parked off to the side and began walking over. In between two crumbling old stone fence posts was a path leading into the woods, we decided to follow this (Danielle noting by the posted warning sign if we turned in any litter bugs we could net $50) but it shortly dead-ended in a boggy area to the side of the lake. We walked back and continued to the park proper. I took pictures as we walked about (many of you reading this got the infamous Duck on the Dock picture, message me if you did not!). It was a smallish park but the kids enjoyed it, sKipping ricks and climbing on the stones near the water. The high point on the way back was a family of ducks with some baby ducklings. Even Scott got into this and I was very happy, since as he is maturing he is losing quite a bit of the innocence he used to have. Anyway, after enjoying the mother duck and ducklings we headed home. Oh! As usual, just click on the picture above to see it full size in its own window.

Using the Noodle

After arriving home from work (I love these half days when I have the kids!) and riding the exercise bike Scott & Danielle wanted me to take them out to lunch. I pointed out I had taken them to the movies yesterday which I really could not afford but they please-please-d me into submission. I did tell them NOT to ask for any food out for the remainder of the week.

We ended going off to Noodles & Company, which none of us had ever been to before. Scott had the usual (no matter where we go that has pasta) Pasta with marinara sauce, Danielle had noodle with Parmesan cheese and butter and I had their INDONESIAN PEANUT SAUTÉ; which is rice noodles sautéed with fiery peanut sauce, broccoli, carrot and napa cabbage. Topped off with bean sprouts, crushed peanut and lime garnish, well, it was awesome! We hit Costco and headed home. They are downstairs playing, while I do work e-mail and blog. We are planning on a trip to the pool later.

Over the Hedge

After arriving home from work Monday around 11:30 I took Scott and Danielle off to see Over the Hedge. This turned out to be far better than I had anticipated. While I expected excellent animation, I did not expect a good plot and the diverse array of voice talent; even William Shatner, who I have soured with lately, was enjoyable.

After the movie we came home, played assorted games, and headed over to the pool for an hour so. One of Scott's friends, Ben met us there, and I verified at lunch today that was no coincidence, as Scott had IM'd him to say we were heading over there.

Chris was home from work when we returned home from the pool and as it was Monday's we did Quizno's as they have the special pricing for three large sandwiches on Mondays.

My son at Work

I had the chance to talk to his direct supervisor Monday evening and am very pleased to report my son Chris is doing awesome on the new (first) job. Working hard to the point of being told to stop and take a break in fact, and on physical work no less. I could not be more pound of him, and am pleased he is doing far better than his Mom and I would have thought! I underestimated him, and have no problem admitting I did so! This will be such a good experience for him. Last evening he ended up coming over here with several friends until after 11, the racket was louder than my surround sound, but I figured he deserved the unwinding time.

This is so cool in one respect, the coming of age and learning one of life's lessons, and sad in another as your realize your first born is now far along on the road to maturity, and leaving the house in a year or so. I never understood the pain and sadness my parents used to talk about in this regard after my brother, followed my myself, moved out of the family home years ago. It was one of the many times they said "It's something you will only understand if you grow up and have children of your own one day.". Well, once again Mom and Dad were correct!

Sunday - Or Fire! Fire!

One thing of mention for Sunday was the large fire I caused on the propane grill! I was making burgers for dinner and got distracted as Chris was playing the Game Cube on the large plasma display. I looked out to see volumes of smoke the likes of which I had never seen and raging flames and meat inside the grill! After waving off the helicopter with the hanging waterbag from the forestry service, a quick cessation of the gas supply helped though the grease in the grease pan of the grill burned for awhile and the burgers and charcoal had a lot in common. Whew!

Saturday

Saturday was the Open House down where the X has her new business. It's like an indoor mall for home improvement. They have her business, a place that does painting, floors, roofs, bathroom fixtures, a building supply place, a handyman place, etc. etc. etc. so she had asked if I would bring the kids down to the open house.

As Chris is now working for him Mom, he was excused from this as he had already been at the Open House on Friday.

We headed out around noon and arrived. Impressive place indeed, as you walk into what appears to be expensive marble floors with a central fireplace and waterfall/pond in the center, you are immediately impressed. Even more so when you discover the floor is really acid etched concrete! It was amazing this one place they had there, the things they could do with concrete from table tops looking better than formica....to..as they put it, pretty much anything you could imagine.

We got the tour from the X, Scott and Danielle and I trying our keys in the door lock to see if we could win a prize (we did not), and then we got a bite of free lunch (pulled pork and snacks; Scott opted for the snacks, he hates pulled pork) and we settled in the X's office and chatted and such.

On Mom's laptop Scott drew one of his cartoons for his Mom and Danielle did a nice landscape. Mom had to keep speaking to the kids as they have one of those big retractable electric awnings in the office and they kept playing with the remote control. Danielle you trying to use the phone and Mom said "You can't dial outside without the SECRET code". "You mean 9?" I replied by reflex, which won me 'the look". I smiled and shrugged, and finally Danielle was told to leave the phone alone. I chatted with the X's partner Jeff for a bit about Chris and how he was doing at the job, we discussed how kids today have it much easier than we did, etc.....I am glad Chris got a job there because I think it will be good for him physcaily and mentally. He'll appreciate what hard work means and come to value a dollar, and develop a good work ethic. It should also encourage him to do better in school so he gets a scholarship!

The X walked me over to the handyman company to see about having someone come out and give me an estimate to install a ceiling fan in the cathedral ceiling of the living room. That is scheduled for 4PM today. They were also having an excellent sale on a ceiling fan with light at the fan/lighting store there, so, if the cost is reasonable for doing the electrical work I can pick up a fan there for $70 with a light and a lifetime warranty on the motor.

We left after about 2 hours (the kids were bored). Scott was hungry so we stopped at Little Ceasers for bread sticks (I gave the bulk of them to the kids) and then we stopped for dessert at a McDonald's that was featuring chocolate dipped cones. Scott wheedled me into getting french fries too and we all headed home.

We did the pool later in the day.

Chris starts work

My son Chris joined the land of the gainfully employed working for his Mom's home improvement company. it's heavy physical work, and after his first day he agreed that getting up and going to work sucks.

I am, very proud of him. He could have taken an easier minimum wage job but chose this instead.

WarGames

I decided Thursday night, the last overnight of the week with the kids, to show them WarGames. I have always loved that movie! When I was the age of the David Lightman, the principal character in the movie, I was very computer literate. I too used to try and get into computer systems, though any system I could break into I immediately e-mailed the system admin how I got in and how to fix it, and then logged off. I never took anything, or looked at any file contents. Like David in the movie I had the old dumb terminal with the acoustic modem you had to put the phone hand set into. I too had a home-brew computer system build into a card cage with no case around it. I stopped all such activity well before I turned 18, but I had a lot of fun, and I like to think that I helped some system administrators save their systems (and possibly their jobs!) from attack.

Anyway, it I have always felt it is an awesome movie, and while Scott did not particularly like it, Chris, who complained at the beginning that it was boring, was soon sucked into the movie and really enjoyed it. Danielle seemed to enjoy it as well. Have you seen the Movie? If you check out the link above, check out the trivia section, which contains some interesting facts.

The House Screams with Silence

I had a great week with the kids, I will see them for half the day a bit later, yet, I am already bummed because they go back to their Mom's house around 6PM. The house will scream with silence after they are gone, I can barely stand the thought of it. This is one of those things that so totally sucks beyond the telling of it! I get mad at myself for not being a better husband and realizing the X was unhappy. I get mad at her for not making an effort to salvage the marriage....I feel so bad for the kids, particularly my little girl...I feel like I have failed them.......oh this stinks...

The Altimate Idiot!

I have done tirades about poor drivers, but this mornings blonde in the silver Altima tops them all. YOU know who you are! Zooming along at 80+ miles an hour, head moving up and down and far to the right as she's brushing her hair! I could not believe it! THEN five minutes later after exiting the highway, she pulls up to a red light and totally turns the rear view mirror so it is pointing at her and continues her grooming experience, totally oblivious to those around her (and now because of the way the mirror is oriented, behind her!). Hello!!!!! Next time leave the house five minutes later and make yourself all pretty at home! So, she is dubbed, the ALTIMATE IDIOT!

Wednesday is Bacon Day!

It's been a great week thus far outside of work. It's my first week with the kids of the summer. I have been working half days, coming in at 6:30AM and scheduled to leave at 10:30 though this week I have not been getting out of work until 11:30AM. Yesterday, in spite of the three hours of e-mail and other work fun from home, was a really nice day. We had incredible weather, sunny and in the 80's.

Scott wanted to go to Gamestop to get a new MegaMan game, so off we went after I was done on the exercise bike with Scott sitting there waiting for me to complete. he is also looking to return/exchange his ds-lite because it has a dead pixel, but, they did not have any new units in. He did get his game though! I had not eaten so we stopped at Wendy's on the way back where, I offered Scott and Danielle a treat since they had eaten PB & J sandwiches. Danielle opted for a Frosty, for his 'treat' Scott had 10 chicken Nuggets. We stopped at Forest Hills on the way home for some needed items.

We headed over to the pool a bit after five and had our longest visit yet, over an hour, and while it was warm and the water great, there were maybe 10 people at the pool. We played tag with some squooshy balls, using three, you had to hit your target with all three. Then Scott and Danielle took turns going off the diving board while I three a ball for them to catch or kick.

Sunday's episode of Iron Chef America had been Battle: bacon, so, for dinner I got a pound of bacon and I wrapped some ball park franks with two strips each of turkey bacon, and on the ones Chris and I were going to have I lightly brushed with the roadhouse spicy sauce before putting them on the grill. Scott opted for waffles as he is not a bacon fan. Danielle, CHris, and I loved the bacon wrapped dogs, they were excellent!We all watched a couple of episodes of The Simpson's together and then the rest of the evening was spent working, playing, watching TV with assorted kids.

Scott's Picture

Wow! Here's a picture my son Scott, age 14, drew this week. He is SO talented with free-hand drawing and flash on the computer! Who can name all the characters? Click on the picture for a larger version of it.

My Friend Suresh

I had a surprising phone call earlier in the week from an old friend back east. I have not talked with him in ages. We chatted about my nightmare job and lackluster life, how his job was doing (he had just passed his CISSP exam. CISSP, or the certified information systems security professional, is one of the toughest IT examinations to pass. Having that certification is most impressive!) We talked about the past, how his lovely wife Indu and their baby girl was doing, and more. I was very happy for him, and yet I must admit, a bit envious too. I imparted my usual post-divorce advice to communicate with his wife and never keep bad feelings to yourself about the relationship instead of sharing them with each other. After all, what good is discussing your problems with a multitude of other people while excluding your spouse and family?

I first met Suresh years ago (around 20+ or so years ago!) when we were both working at the same company back in New Jersey. I was working for the Engineering Computer Facility and he for Management Information Systems. He had a small one room dwelling nearby. We became fast friends. Suresh either loved or was tolerant of my warped sense of humor, indeed, being Indian, my fake Indian accent did not bother him, or, if it did, he left me live and I thank him for that! We both loved Science Fiction and Technology. He turned me on to James Axler's Deathalnd series of books which I still buy and read this day. In fact, I can't pick one up without thinking of him.

The years passed, I remember the weekend I helped him move out of that apartment to go live back in New York. The Engineering Computer Facility, and Management Information Systems merged into one IT department that I ended up managing. Down the road came a very sad day as Suresh left and took a job in New York.

He still worked for me part time, and along with him and my former brother in law (who I still consider a friend and part of my family and hope he feels the same) they became the 'dogs' of the IT department. "Bad Dog!" I would chide if one was late. This usually resulted in a torrent of barking and often when they were around the corner working I could hear periodic boughts of barking and laughter

Suresh would often bring in Indian food his mother had made on the weekends we worked and we would have that for lunch. I think sometimes he did it simply because he knew how much I enjoyed it.

Time continued to march on.....I got married....he got married... we had kids and the kids grew older slowly. Before their first child arrived we met in Florida one year for vacation, one of the best vacations ever! We were so close with them over the years that the kids grew up calling them Uncle Suresh and Aunt Indu, and a better Aunt and Uncle the kids could not have asked for, blood relations or not! And Indu, Danielle still asks when she will see Aunt Indu again...so you know she loves you!

Suresh used to bring me spices from New York, and I remember making batches of spicy popcorn and Christopher would always be saying "Don't forgot the spicy chili powder Uncle Suresh sent!" He would also bring me a spicy snack called chukli, which is crunchy and looks like it was extruded from a play dough set. I love it though the play dough probably has more nutritional value!

Time continued to march on, my company decided to close down the New Jersey Locations, and we moved to Michigan. Suresh came for a quick visit in MI as his business had taken him to Detroit I believe. Suresh and Indu had their first child. Work became hectic, I saddened with the continued pressures and uncertainty, the soon to be X wife became disenchanted with me. The divorce and associated turmoil, particularly for myself and the three kids who were stunned by the X's wanting it....and still life marches on. I got the occasional e-mail from Suresh and Indu; after all they were busy starting their family, I was far away, and his job, like mine had turned so hectic and full of pressure. Sometimes months would go by without a direct mail between us.

Anyway, as I sat talking with him this week, these thoughts and many others flew through my head, and I realized once again how much affection I had for him and his wife, and how glad I was to hear from him and have friends like him. I truly value their friendship; have so few friends in the real world...it is good to be reminded to cherish them. Thanks Pal, for taking the time to give me a call. It made my day! Actually, it made my year! Give the girls a hug from me, and keep in touch when you can. I really miss you guys.

Take care!

The Weekend

Not much to say about the weekend though this post is quite lengthy; Saturday I spent 6 hours on-site at work (in addition to the extra time from home). Saturday night Danielle and Scott slept over, though Danielle was very sad (both because of the missing daddy issues when she is at her Mom's and that Scott had been teasing her. Scott was upset because his Mom talked to him about that; did not even give her a hug when she dropped him off. In spite of that, we had a nice evening. The tree of us watched the weeks episode of the Avatar, and D and I watched assorted other TV for the remainder of the evening including House. I took them to McDonald's Sunday morning and then did a few more hours of work, culminating in much fun cleaning of the gutters. I have one of those (heavy) metal sectional ladders that you can bend in a variety of shapes. I needed a straight up and down ladder, so, after bending it and thwoking myself in the head while folding the sections I finally got it up by the gutters. As I started to climb and hit the halfway point, image my horror and the ladder bent mid-way and I went plummeting towards the house! Other than extra pain in my back I survived the fall, and curse myself for NOT double-checking the latches were in place for that configuration. I rectified that, and began the fun process of by hand removing several inches of goo from the gutters and the top of the downspouts. This fun filled process completed (and another crack on the head with the latter) I headed inside.

Chris showed up around 1PM with his brother as his Mom was having an open house at her house (she put the house on sale last week). He stayed until about 2PM when he had a graduation open house to visit. Danielle and her friend Abby were in town for the Grand Rapids Festival of the arts. Around 4 I rode the exercise bike and then cleaned up. At 5:15 the X, her brother, and Danielle and Abby arrived to pickup Scott and I. We headed to Fire Mountain which is one of the better all you can eat buffets I have been to, and had an enjoyable dinner. Scott was cracking everyone up at the end of dinner by making gumdrop eyes for his hand and making a puppet out of It, soon to be imitated by the girls. Deb's brother commented that his brownie was a bit dry at dessert time; i replied back with, "Well, you mix a bit of coca powder, sawdust, and gorilla glue to hold it all together, that's what you get! In fact, no animals were hurt in the preparation of any of the 'meats' at dinner, and no real mike products were used in the 'ice cream' section of the dessert bar!" He left, and I took the opportunity to stick a steak knife in his brownie. When he returned and looked at it, I announced "He who shall remove the sword form the brownie will be king!"

We headed back, I was dropped off and did some work from home and watched some movies off the DVR, and THOUGHT I was going to bed around midnight when dinner hit with a vengeance and I was up[ until 4AM. I decided at work Monday morning that 2 hours sleep is just not enough!

Friday Night barbecue

Friday the X was coming for dinner. It's always a pleasure to have her, plus I got to keep kids longer. I made three types of grilled chicken, some plain for Scott, some with Jack Danielle's Smokey Honey sauce, and some spicy with Roadhouse Hot and Spicy sauce. I also served baked beans, corn on the cob, pasta salad, and loaded potato salad which tastes a lot like a baked potato. All agreed it was a great dinner. I was stunned by Christopher thanking me and telling me he liked it. It is so rare that the kids will all eat the same food, but, ever rarer when they complement me on the cooking, so, I was quite gratified by the comments all had.

The X, Danielle and I watched an episode of Two and a Half Men off the DVR and then for dessert we had Ice Cream along with the Bananna Bread Danielle had the X had made for Danielle to take to class.

Cool, yet HOT under the collar

Well, as I mentioned on my Memorial Day post the AC had given up the ghost. By Wednesday of last week I had it repaired. I have the maintenance contract with the gas company (all of you remember how many posts I did on the house heating problems this past cold season) but, the odds finally caught up on me. While all the cold weather repairs were covered, the AC was not. The compressor seized up, and of course the compressor is NOT covered. SO to make a long story short I used Service Magic to get bids from contractors in the area and by Wednesday I had working AC and they replaced the whole external unit that contains the compressor and cooling coils and fan. This cost me a bit over $1K, of course money I did not have and had to charge it. Sigh!

Memorial Day Weekend

Read below for my belated tale of Memorial Day weekend, including the tale of terror regarding my experience with yet another service drone!

After leaving work around 11AM on Friday I picked up Danielle and she and I went Grill Shopping. The X had retained custody of our expensive stainless steel grill and after an entire summer last year of no grilled food, I decided to pickup a grill and say Damn to the unscheduled budget interruption! (Of course, it should be noted that this expense of about $220 which I paid cash for, comes back to haunt me later!)

In search of a propane grill we went to Costco, Target, Meijer's, Home Depot, and finished up with Lowes.

Costco had only monster expensive stainless steel units (if it were not for those gasoline savings the membership there would be practically worthless, except for gasoline and impulse buys that is). For example when I bought my digital camera last year they were $50 more for the base camera than what I found at newegg.com AND I got a 1GB memory card too!

Target had only ultra costly or ultra cheap, and not a good selection of either.

Meijer's had a decent selection, but, nothing jumped out as a great deal or a unit I liked.

Home Depot was a bit better, and I actually found a grill I liked, but, try and get someone to help you! Ever walk into Home Depot and you are greeted by a number of people? Then actually try to find one when you want something.

Lowes not only had a great selection, but, had about 8 models in quantity pre-assembled (for no extra charge!)! So, we decided on a model and headed home.

Danielle and I headed down to Grandma's house Saturday morning to fix her PC which would no longer get on the internet via Netzero (who wanted to charge her 2 bucks a minute for tech support!) Geez!! Now I see why Netscape is running those commercials where they are bucking against Netzero and mentioning they do not charge you for tech support. Plus, when I talked to the supervisor at Netzero the accent on this guy was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I hate that! If you are taking calls on a US support number, is it too much to ask that the person picking up can speak English in an understandable manner? I say it is NOT an unreasonable expectation!

Anyway, we had called because according to the error, Less than Zero....uh....I mean Netzero was giving, it was a problem with their network. Since I had exited McAfee's security suite I did not think it was something local until Mom mentioned hitting a block all on a popup......SO some investigation showed that exiting McAfee which warns you that your PC will be unprotected is an exaggeration; since the McAfee personal firewall uses the XP firewall, it does NOT unblock that! It turned out Mom had blocked what I surmise to be the built in commercial portion of Netzero and it refuses to run without that talking to the Internet. I explained to Mom how if she has an update running for Netzero or a program she is using that it is OK to allow the changed program access to the Internet. If she is doing nothing and that happens, deny it. That fixed, and with Danielle and I each picking a trinket from Mom's Yard Sale, we headed home.

I contacted the X whose van I wanted to borrow and Danielle and I headed to Lowes in the Mustang with the X meeting us there to pickup the grill. I got confirmation from the X (she has incredible purchase sense!) that the $40 more grill was a much better deal that the one I had been considering. This was of course after teasing her by asking of the $2000 unit would fit in her van! She concurred, she snagged a salesman (I already had a cart with an empty propane tank and grill utensils) and I paid. I then took my receipt as the service folks had told me to the home and garden section to swap the empty tank for a full one which was an additional free bonus.

Of course when I arrived there which was a considerable distance from where I started, the register drone there knew nothing about this deal

"Look! I have a receipt that shows the tank exchange there! That alone should be enough for you to do the swap" I stated.

Alas, the bit of drool leaking from the corner of the drones mouth and her glazed eyes should have warned me what was coming next

"But....you....have....one...of....our....new...propane.....tanks........" she droned in monotone "this....is....for....a....tank....exchange".

"Yes!" I cried, "And here is the empty tank!"

The flow of drool noticeably increased at this point and, while I did not think it was possible for those eyes to glaze over any more...they did!

"But....this.....is....one...of....our....new ....propane......tanks......." she started.

"I know!" I cried cutting her off mid-drone! "I bought it here! I have a receipt! See!??"

(Of course, shoving the receipt near her face only caused it to become moistened with drool!)

"I.....do.....not....know......how.....to....process....this... you...must.....do.....this.....through......customer....service" she said, nearly slipping in the puddle of drool that had accumulated from her expending so much effort in an attempt to speak in complete sentences.

"They told me to come HERE!" I almost sobbed.

At this point though I was saved.....A Drone Supervisor arrived, and with a quick application of a napkin to wipe some of the drool off the drone, and an encouraging pat on the drones head stated "Sure you do! Just process this as a regular propane exchange. Take he tank and give him a full one"

She did, and I was soon back on my way to where, after all this time, they still had not loaded my grill. I told the X I would speak to someone, so a quick trip to Drone Command (Uh, customer service) caused the dispatching of enough drones to take care fo thsi.

Once we arrived back art my residence, The X's partner Jeff helped me move the grill. Jeff and the X then departed.

The temperature was climbing (high 80's Saturday, mid 90's Sunday and Monday) so around 5PM Danielle, Scott, and myself headed to the association pool and enjoyed a cooling off. We returned home to change and then we headed to Forest Hills food where I picked up meat for burgers and chicken for Scott. I made nice jumbo cheeseburgers for all except Scott who had grilled chicken brushed with olive oil.

I also turned on the AC because at this point it was just too hot to deal with. That got us through the night.

Sunday and Monday were just more of the same, though Sunday Danielle, Scott, and I headed to Costco so I could by bulk burgers and hot dogs (actually reasonably priced for ground sirloin and Ball Park franks...hmmm perhaps I can get some extra millage out of that membership! We also got a package of Brownie bites which the kids love.

We watched TV too, finishing off accumlated episodes of Lost, Dr. Who, Braniacs, and others. I ened up by the end of Monday night having wacthed the reamining four episodes oof Charmed which included the Season FInale.

We hit the pool, and the X showed up as I was grilling so we threw a hot dog on the grill for her. It became evident at this point in time that the central air had breathed it last gasp so I turned it off. Sleeping (trying to sleep) Sunday and Monday night was next to impossible, even with a fan blowing on my bed.

Monday was more of the same with pooling and grilling........and back to work and school Tuesday.

The Iron Chef and Scott's foot and Turkey Bacon with pasta

No! It is not a strange new recipe featuring feet, pasta, and Turkey Bacon! Nor a tale about a new fad for kids who wrap their feet in Turkey Bacon instead of socks and fill their pockets with cooked pasta!!

It was a cool way to mix the two tales herein into an interesting sounding title since the stories themselves are rather dull.

So, last night (yay! Whistles! Applause!) marked the start of my Memorial Day time with the kids. I have them through Monday at 6PM. Last night after Danielle arrived home we headed over to her Mom's to get Scott and their things for the weekend.

Scott, who had gone on the Mackinac Island trip, had stayed home. Evidently (again I am shocked at the difference between should nowadays and School when I was going) the students who had gone and were so over-tired, sore, listless, had been told they could stay home from school on Thursday if they wanted to.

Can't you envision hoards of students, Scott at the forefront leading the charge, yelling "No! No! An extra day off from school! No way! Let us in those hallowed halls of learning! We must attend! WE MUST ATTEND!!!"

Correct, I could not envision it either and so Scott did stay home!

SO, now onto the Turkey Bacon and Pasta part? No! Not yet! What about the foot??

Scott was very listless and tired but was soon ready to go as was his sister, the three of us zipped off to Forest Hills Foods and picked up needed supplies. We went back to my house, and I began dinner creation. Scott and Danielle had opted to have pasta, and Chris Turkey Bacon and Egg sandwiches (on toast). So, I got the pound of Turkey Bacon cooking and the water for the pasta going and then proceeded to feed the three kids and began work on my dinner (The foot??!!??) which was an Egg Beaters omelet with Turkey Bacon and melted Swiss on top.

We ate, I cleaned up, and then Chris, Danielle and I watched the Iron Chef, where the secret ingredient was Big Eye Tuna with each fish weighing in at over 100 pounds. D and I played some cards (go fish and then began watching an episode of Monk and Scott arrived.

YES! Now the Scott's foot part of our story! Scott complained the bandaid he had put on a cut (he took a tumble on a bike ride around the island while on the aforementioned class trip) and had just put a bandaid over the dirty cut. So, not it's all red, oozing, and infected. Scott just wanted another bandaid, Dad had a different plan.

After the obligatory remarks about you have to clean a cut, etc, etc, etc, I got cotton balls and hydrogen peroxide solution and cleaned the cut well, Scott bore the pain and made only strange animal like noises which delighted his sister. Then we let the cut air our for about half an hour, applied neosporin and a large bandage. We then watched another Monk and it was time for bed for the three of us at 11 since I had to work Friday.

Losing One's Cool

Sigh! The humid weather approaches. I ordered a portable window exhaust fan for the house to try and reduce the dependency on AC because the budget is still recovering from the high heating bills of the winter. Plus, as I found out last summer, before the central air at my house can be used this year it is going to need service. Last year it would run continuously barely providing adequate cooling. Though I have no ready cash for repair I have used one of the on-line services where you put in a request for services and they have several companies contact you. I figure a free estimate could not hurt......though I'll have to see what the cost is for any needed repairs.

I wonder if having multiple bids from the same coordinating service will be a good thing! Each company contacted knows that others will be bidding too, so, perhaps that will keep costs within reason.....or.....will it be more like throwing me to the wolves.........

In Search Of..........Food!

I was talking to someone about food this morning. Last night I dined with the kids, the X, and one of her brothers at Applebee's. I had combo fajitas, but, they were nothing to write home about. Good, but certainly not memorable. The ones I make are!

This made me think how Over the past 20 years before marriage, and the divorce the X and I had searched for the perfect:

Bowl of French Onion Soup
Strawberry Daiquiri
Batch of Combo Fajitas
Barbecue Ribs

The first two were located in the same place! The Historic town of Smithville in New Jersey. Masterpieces in fact! French Onion soup with fresh baked bread and sweet onions, and a broth so flavorful the memory of it haunts me still! A layer of cheese so thick and so perfectly browned, the memory brings a tear to my eye! A Daiquiri that was so tart, so tasing of fresh berries, yet with the kick of a mule...well! These have have made most other places versions pale in comparison, though some have come close! I would bet at least on the Daiquiri side, the X may have found a better one. Back when we were growing the family she did not drink alcohol for quite awhile. Now she does, and I have not had any in about three years now. I hate to drink alone and besides these days I am afraid I would get morose and blue, heck, outright depressed! ANYWAY this had nothing to do on the food tale, so, back to it!

The best combo fajitas were found in a small, family owned hole in the wall Mexican restaurant in Old Town (near Orlando) down in Florida that we discovered on our honeymoon. Homemade tortillas and salsa....meat that was seasoned so expertly and fire grilled to perfection....tastes so explosive they lodged themselves in your memory not to ever be dislodged! Yes! A treat never to be forgotten! Alas, after enjoying this place two years in a row, the third trip found it had been turned into a place selling electronic organs. What a sin! You can buy that kind of stuff in hundreds of places.....truly masterfully created food is a rarity! You know what I am talking about! Those rare few meals you have out that you remember for years and years, and find yourself comparing subsequent inferior meals too even those that come close to, but not quite as good as, these previous culinary marvels you have partaken of!

The Best ribs were found down in Florida at a place called "The Firecracker Factory" down in Disney's Shopping Village in Orlando. They even had bottles of the sauce you could take home and often we would buy some, carefully wrapping it to insure it's safe arrival back home, and then would we enjoy it over the summer months. Sadly this ended up being another place we enjoyed for a few years and then was turned into a cowboy bar with.....shudder....I can't say this without getting queasy, fighting down the bile...reaching for that plastic lined paper bag normally found on airplanes....thrusting it over my mouth before it is too late......Line Dancing!

Since the demise of the Fireworks factory the best ribs (and on Monday all you can eat rib night) are now found at a place in New Jersey called "Porky's A Place For Ribs" Sadly, Porky's is too long a drive from Michigan and they have no web site. These ribs are wonderful! Slow cooked for hours and hours, falling off the bone, incredible flavor and not covered in sauce like most place's ribs are to cover the fast 'assembly line' preparation that is usualy used.

OK, who's hungry! I think I may have to make homemade Fajitas over the weekend!

Venting about the Scumbags who control gas prices...again

It's not freaking bad enough that gas prices are at the point they are, but, it's the constant shift of them upwards as we approach the weekend or in this case the holiday weekend. BAM! I'm sorry, but the price of crude oil does not go up every Wednesday, and notice how that when there is the slightest rise in crude prices KABLAM! Like an explosion the price at the pump jumps up almost within minutes of the crude price increase? Let that crude price go down though and it takes days for the price of gas to drop back to the pre-crude increase price!!!!! AAARRRGGGG!!!!!!!

Twelve cents a gallon hike last night, this AM I zipped over to Costco and filled up at their discounted price from yesterday so I saved 25 cents a gallon....but it just REALLY TICKS ME OFF that this is happening, as if I and millions of others have the extra money to line the pockets of Oil Company executives, politicians, OPEC, and others who should not be making such ridiculous profits!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Uncle George

I went to see Danielle's choir this evening and met the X and her folks (Mom and Dad still to me, bless their hearts) and Dad mentioned he had been talking to Uncle George who was worried about me because he had not seen any activity on the blog for awhile.

Thanks for caring Uncle George! Work has just been so crazy I often feel like a wrung out rage after the work day and the kids head over to their Mom's house. This place still feels like a tomb when I am here alone.

Knowing someone cares really made my day!

Chris is so very tired

Scott, my 14 year old is off for his class trip to Mackinac Island this morning. His mom dropped him off back at my house around 9PM last night since I was to have the honor of taking him to school this AM. We watched about an hour of TV together. I picked him up an extra small snack for last night and one for the road and gave him some additional spending $$ to add to what his mom gave him. He got up at 5AM because he had to observe his morning ritual of watching a Futurama episode before breakfast, I was up at 5:15 (YAWN!) after a crappy nights sleep....we were on the road at 5:30 and I dropped him off at School just as the busses were arriving. I'll miss him this evening!

Random Ramblings

Not much to say these days.....work is insane with a major project having its due date slipped 2 months to the left......at home...well......Friday night the kids, the X, and I finished up the last of the mothers day pasta sauce (I had frozen a bag of sauce, meatballs, and pepperoni from the big batch I made on Mother's Day). I made tortellini for everyone except Scott who I made some penne on the side, and Chris (who never eats pasta if he can help it) had some Jimmy Dean breakfast burritos instead (though he did eat Garlic Bread). Prior to the actual eating as the X arrived early, she, Danielle, and I started to watch an older Monk episode we had never seen before (we thought we had seen all the previous episodes) and we finished that up after dinner. Then the five of us watched the hour long series finale of "That 70's Show". After the X and the kids departed I head back to work for hours of fun working on another (not the aforementioned) project.

Saturday I headed into work and spent half the day there, came home did some errands and laundry and by 6PM Scott and Danielle arrived for an extra sleep over. We watched some TV together (An hour long "Fairly Oddparents 'Fairy Idol') and then Scott headed off to Play. D and I watched some additional TV and the kids had an earlier bedtime as they were both tired (Scott having played Laser Tag and having a sleep over the night and following morning).

Sunday I got up, did a couple of hours of work from home, and spent some time with Danielle watching TV (Scott elected to spend the entire morning after he got up playing games). The kids were gone at noon and then it was more work for Chris......the fun never stops! In the evening last night off DVD I watched Star Trek Nemesis (including the special features) and The Fortress. I wish I could afford HD service on my TV, DVD's and the computer look so good, while satellite TV really stinks (though it is better than the old RCA projection TV was). I also called my Dad to see how he is doing, he needs some surgery, but, because of asthma they do not know if he would make it through the operation...so...more tests, more scans, more drugs.........sigh!

This evening if I have the time the story of Plushy will be told along with a picture! Start holding your breath now!

Buz-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z!!!!

That was the Sound of Chris getting his ears lowered today! I took and early lunch and from departure time to time back to the office it took 20 minutes to get a haircut. Got it cut short again which is good for the warmer weather approaching and good for the ease of grooming aspect. Also a bottle of Shampoo seems to last forever with a near buzz-cut! If anyone is curious let me know and I will post a picture.

Gas Prices (and IDIOT drivers)

OK, as I see red and it is now costing over $30 to fill up the small gas tank of the Mustang with regular, I must vent about gas prices here!

I just hate to see the IDIOTS on the road today supporting the insane, should be illegal, ridiculous price of gasoline!

You idiots know who you are! The ones zooming past me in the right lane as I do the speed limit (or a teeny bit above), the ones who slam on the brakes from driving like this because you almost hit that other car in the right lane or did not notice you could not make it through the intersection before the light turned red.

Let's not forget the ones who, from a stop street or a red light push the pedal to the floor and zip off like a jack rabbit on steroids!

Don't you fools know you are playing right into the oil companies hands (and the hands of those sell the crude oil overseas?)

Don't you realize the amount of gas that could be saved by driving the speed limit, and not slaming on the gas pedal from a full stop but using gentle acceleration??

COME ON WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE ALREADY! So long as people continue to use the car for everything and drive like idiots when they could walk in some cases, or drive better and save gas, the people setting the price for a gallon of gas will not see any decrease in demand and will know they can get away with setting whatever prices they want! I have a Mustang for goodness sake and I do NOT drive like that!!

And finally, why is there 60 cents or MORE of taxes for a gallon when sales tax on other items is so much less???

Mother's Day Dinner

For mothers Day I had the X-wife and her parents over for dinner.

Saturday night I made home-made pasta sauce with home-made meatballs. I also added pepperoni and chunks of boneless pork to the sauce which simmered for about five hours (the ONLY way to make a real pot of authentic Italian pasta sauce though you can get away with three if you do not include pepperoni, but the idea is for it to be 'fork tender' when server). I also had fresh basil in the pot along with some other spices.

I made garlic butter for garlic bread which turned out great! Soften a half a pound of butter, and add the pressed garlic from at least 6 buds of garlic. More or less to taste (I used about twice that much). Then add about a quarter teaspoon of dried oregano, the same amount of dried basil and twice as much dried parsley. Add a tablespoon of extra-virgin (I love that term 'extra' virgin) and blend well. Put it back in the original covered container and leave in fridge for 24 hours. This is enough for one monster loaf of bread or two smaller ones.

Sunday Morning I went out after I awoke and get three fresh loaves of Italian bread and right before dinner made two with the garlic butter and one margarine for the X's as Mom can't tolerate garlic. Heck, anyone eating a slice of this bread would be safe from vampires or mosquitoes for a month!

Danielle and I made a tray of double-chocolate brownies and frosted then with whipped chocolate frosting. Danielle then decorated this. This was served (with scoops of double-vanilla ice cream on the side) for dessert.

I made Rigatoni pasta and there was fresh Romano cheese to be grated over the pasta. Everyone loved the meal and their was enough for leftovers. Tonight in fact I will have two folks here who have traveled from the east coast join me for dinner.

O.J. Pulls White Bronco Prank on 'Juiced'

You know, I try not to comment on the world at large, but, I heard this on the radio last week and seeing it again today really ticks me off. How can someone like OJ have a show and do something so tasteless as to glorify the vehicle used by an accused fleeing murderer?

WHAT IDIOTS would watch this on Pay Per View anyway???? This is just freaking ludicrous!!!

Click the following link for the story!

O.J. Pulls White Bronco Prank on 'Juiced'

Happy Mothers Day

To all you Moms out there, a Happy Mothers Day!

Enjoy these pictures from the card my daughter Danielle

made for her Mom.

Water, Water, Everywhere

Any of you who have known me since I moved into my current palatial estate (ha ha ha it's so small in parts I have to go out of the bedroom to change my mind...but it was all I could afford after the divorce) will know the story of the leaking basement steps. To make a long story short here, I moved into this house one September and all was well. The following summer, the steps off the dining room going into the basement began leaking like a sieve! Because the leaks were coming from cracks in the steps, there was nothing you could do to catch the water and since the basement is finished it could not be allowed to cascade unstaunched, to ruin the carpets and walls below!

So, you had to throw many towels onto the stairs and then as they got saturated, wring them into a five gallon bucket, and throw them back down. When the buck filled you had to run and pour that down the sump. With my bad back the last thing I need is repeated bending or prolonged standing on stairs with my feet at different heights.

I had called a number of places, most balked when they heard the type of leak I had though one place did want to (for about 10K!!) dig out the basement steps and repour them.

I finally found a place that injects Bentonite Clay into the soil around the basement at 3-4ft intervals. The Bentonite coats the walls from footing to grade. As the Bentonite absorbs groundwater, it swells up to 15 times it's volume and thickens, creating an impenetrable gelatin membrane, which protects against further water penetration.

So, for about 1.2K they inject this in a L shape outside the area where they suspected the leak was coming from. On one part of the L this involved first drilling through the concrete slab outside. No go; while less was coming in it still leaked. They came back twice and repeated the process. better, but not enough. One day as I was watching the rain on the opposite side of the L I noticed that it was rolling of the roof like a waterfall on the side of the house. I have no gutters but a roof that overhangs the side of the house by a good foot and a half. Anyway, I called them back and as they were retreating the L area, I walked them around to the opposite side of the house and said what about here? Well, they decided to treat that additional area (and did not charge anything which was cool) and when they got to the back part of the side directly opposite the leak, they encountered a surprise. Normally each hole they inject takes about 10 gallons max of the clay solution. That hole took 55 gallons! I theorize that the sheer amount of water coming off that side of the roof (which is adjacent to the garage roof so you get the combined runoff from that too) had undermines the area under that part of the foundation.

I also had a gutter company come out and put gutters on that back side of the house. That was fairly late last summer and while no water had leaked in, I was still not convinced all is well.

Today it has been raining most of the day, and so far. not a drop! Until though we have some of those torrential rainfalls where you see the water running across the lawn because it can't drain quick enough, I will not be totally convinced. However, the Mr. Spock part of me tells me my logic is sound. We shall see! It was nightmarish night when it rained in the middle of the night having to be up fighting the water at 2AM in the morning.

Were it not for all of the pain of the experience, it did kind of look nice the way it gently cascaded down the flight of steps!

The Bermuda Cube

I recently changed locations at work. A cube had opened in the coveted row by the windows with a northern exposure...excellent for seeing outside and the sun never comes directly through the windows. I took a cube that was smaller than my previous one and it is well worth it. Even on a day like today (see post Water, Water, Evety where above this one) being able to see outside reduces stress and helps make crazy moments a bit less crazy. I miss my old cube-mates, but the three guys I am sitting by now who are in my department are a great bunch too. There is also less foot traffic by where I sit now and that is a plus too. It is much quieter which is a big plus.

Anyway on to the Bermuda aspect of this. I started moving into the new cube early last week carrying over a load of stuff from my previous cube (or chucking a load of stuff in the trash; I used this as an exercise to clean house a bit) every time I had a chance. By Wednesday I was ready to move one of my lower class systems I use for monitoring a farm of servers. I did so, and after connecting it up windows began acting strange. Slow, sluggish, and hanging. I finally had to remove the network card from the PC and use the on-board network adapter. Once I did that, it was fine. I was then able to take my lowest end system and move what software and data I needed onto this system so I could dispose of the other.

Thinking nothing odd about the issue with the PC network card by Thursday I was ready to pretty much take up full time occupancy in the cube a couple of days early (it was SO peaceful because my phone had not been moved yet!). I moved my main system and my other two ancillary systems. I powered up my main system, Windows started to load and than BAM a message stating NTLDR could not be found! It was time for me to head home so I sent an email to one of my friends in the Office Automation group asking if he could leave an XP SP2 CD for me so I could continue in the AM.

Arriving Friday morning trying to run XP repair was fruitless, the drive had crashed! A replacement was delivered to me within the hour along with a base image load of the OS. I spent Friday and part of Saturday customizing it for my use, and generally getting settled into my new location whilst getting other work done.

Two computer failures though from a simple move across a distance of now more than 50 yards.....made me wonder....to date though everything else has been fine in my new cube, including the view, but, alas, the phone was connected last Friday!

Best PC Modification EVER

I'm sure you've read and heard about many different modifications for the PC.

Below is my personal favorite!

Two out of three ain't bad!

Hooray! While it is the X's weekend with the kids the younger ones Scott and Danielle asked their Mom if they could sleep over here tonight, and they are here! We will soon be watching around the world in 80 Days (The Jackie Chen remake) and I will be making them chocolate Chip Ice Cream sandwiches with Pereridge Farm chocolate chunk cookies. Chocolate Brownie Ice Cream for Danielle and Vanilla for Scott.

I LOVE extra kid time!

Whatever happened to Jar Jar Binks???

If you've seen all three of the newer Star Wars movies (Episodes 1-3) you've noticed that Jar Jar's involvement goes from an annoying cgi character you'd love to see shot, burned, stampeded, run over, shredded, lowered into lava, etc., to a mere moment of silence in Episode 3. Nothing since!

SO! Whatever did happen to Jar Jar Binks? The picture below tells it all! Click it to see a larger version of the image. (You must, so you can better read what is on the package!)

Your Pain Runs Deep

Distressing medical news earlier this week from two different family fronts has left me thinking of happier days from the past.....days of being a whole family...something I had...and let slip through my fingers like so many grains of sand....lost on the beach forever and indistinguishable and thus meaningless from all the other billions of grains sand around them....nothing to show it was ever part of anything greater.......sigh!

The picture above was taken on our last family vacation in 2004. A trip to Canada a few months after the kids had been told about the divorce (now there's a scene that will never be erased from my memory). We had booked the trip already and had our plane tickets. We were having lunch and Danielle drew the picture shown below, of a happy Mommy and Daddy....she was ever the optimist. Perhaps she is moving on at least! She has not broached the subject of Mommy and Daddy getting back together in awhile; this is good that kids are so resilient....adults often never forget pain and carry it far longer.

I remember the line from Star Trek V spoken by Sybok; "Your pain runs deep". Sybok had the answer...."Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing. "

Yes, I realize most days that many people have it much worse than I, but some days like today I am selfish and think of myself. Human nature I guess.

OK, that's enough! Most people do not want to hear of others problems and pain....though IMHO the world could be a much better place were that not the case.

Monastery of Silence

A co-worker attached the following on their weekly report to management - I got such a laugh I had to share it.

Brother John entered the "Monastery of Silence" and the Abbott said, "Brother, this is a silent monastery; you are welcome here as long as you like, but you may not speak until I direct you to do so."

Brother John lived in the monastery for five years before the Abbott said to him, "Brother John, you have been here five years now; you may speak two words."

Brother John said, "Hard bed."

"I'm sorry to hear that," the Abbot said. "We will get you a better bed."

After another five years, Brother John was called by the Abbott. "You may say another two words, Brother John."

"Cold food," said Brother John, and the Abbott assured him that the food would be better in the future.

On his 15th anniversary at the monastery, the Abbott again call Brother John into his office. "Two words you may say today."

"I quit," said Brother John.

"It is probably best," replied the Abbott, "you've done nothing but complain since you got here."

Howl's Moving Castle

These days with such an age difference with the kids it is harder to find a movie they will all watch. This past weekend I rented Howl's Moving Castle. What a rare treat! An animated feature (style similar to "Spirited Away") about a young girl who is turned old by a spiteful witch and then must seek the age of a young but immature wizard who live in this huge walking house. It was an incredible tale! The animation was stunning! The characters voices were very well done. Everyone loved it and everyone's attention was glued to the screen as we watched. Such a rare family moment! The kids will probably remember I baked chocolate chip cookies .vs. the family gathering nature and shared enjoyment of the movie, but I will hold it in my heart for years to come. You never know though, perhaps they too realized it was one of those rare family times!

In my humble opinion, this is a must see movie!

Kids, gotta love 'em!

Yesterday one of Scott's friends was supposed to come over after school. He was going to walk from his school to our house (about 1.5 miles). Anyway, as I sat riding the exercise bike last night while it was raining outside, the friend called. Evidently he had the good sense (I thought at the time) to ride the bus to his house instead of walking in the rain. I told Scott this when he arrived home and told him to make arrangements to play tomorrow. I got off the bike, and, being somewhat disgusting and in need of a wash, off I went. Scott calls through the door moments thereafter "Friend Name Inserted Here is coming over; he's riding his bike". I basically replied along the lines of are you guys crazy (it's a 10 minute ride by Mustang and we are talking 13 year old kid here on majorly busy roads!) it's pouring rain out! So, after getting cleaned up I told Scott I was concerned that the friend might fall or something, and in the future I did not want him riding up here. "His Mom said it was OK" was the reply, "Well, I am saying NO in the future, I'd rather go and get him" .

Anyway, the friend shows up disheveled, arm, elbow, and finger scraped and bleeding, soaked through (no jacket) to the skin and dirt all over him from where he took a tumble! Anyway, he got cleaned up, bandaged, and borrowed a set of Scott's clothes. I had him call his folks a bit before it was time to go home and they picked him and his bicycle up.

Movies over the weekend

Danielle and I watched two comedies over the past weekend; "Without a paddle" and "National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon #1"; both good movies!

Yes, Patches Knows Kung-Fu

An excellent mood boost for a Monday! (or Any Day!)

Click the Picture for a larger copy