White Lightning Axiom: Redux

To start with, PT just busted me up something fierce This past Friday. I was in no mood to do anything after that so I was fortunate in that we had company down and the Tyrants were willing to pass up swimming and Dodge Ball Friday to go and harass our guests. While I did house chores, the rest of the horde went off to do a bit of bowling at the local Brunswick Zone. Better them than me, of course. I've been laying low from TSD for the last few days hoping the issue with my chest would resolve to a tolerable level of pain if I just let it be for a bit. Seems to have worked. I'm within operating tolerances now so as to be capable of working off that 1000lb of red meat I've yorked down since last Friday. And there is this, a short piece from the Mrs this past Friday:

Jake was too comfortable this morning and wasn't too happy with me waking him up this morning. He was complaining that his dream wasn't over yet. I asked him what he was dreaming about and he said with a smile on his face "Looney Tunes" so I asked which character and he replied "The one that shoots". I told him that when he goes to sleep tonight that he can finish his dream.

That's my boy! I'm hoping he would not pick Yosemite Sam or Elmer J Fudd though.

The actual weekend was fairly busy. It started out with a birthday party at Elmwood Zoo in the morning. You may have noted that I have had low expectations of the zoo, ever since I noted this in my previous literary attempts last year. The zoo is pretty much a set of pens that were put up and anything that happened to be in the area was made to be the population. Porcupines, fox, and such. Lots of listless goats, ponies are available for e-coli incubation. The rest of the day was of a much higher caliber. We took a little hike out to the hinterlands of Pennsyltucky ... somewhere near Centralia ... to a wondrous (but extraordinarily difficult to find) place called Knobles. It is essentially the hive for carnies. A bazillion little rides that you barter for entertainment by providing little slips of paper with notations of '20 cents' or '2 dollars'. So, you get into the park for free and only pay to go on the rides. Perfect for adults who, like the Mrs, retch at the thought of turning around too fast to look behind oneself. Provided you have some vertigo lovers in the group for the shorter children, it can be a rather entertaining outing for all. I was particularly interested in the 'Hot Dog' ride. Yes, the eateries scattered about the park who would lure in patrons with a zen for high fat and super-saturated sugar beverages were never more than three steps away. I do believe I managed to hit all of them except the 'Rib Station'. Yeah, not enough time or stomach capacity. Did I mention I gained a few pounds over the weekend? Oh, and it is perfectly fine if you bring your pets. I noted quite a few dogs of every shape and size, but not too many cats. Lots of NASCAR fans, and a significantly high ratio of skin to tattoo prevalence. After wandering about whilst I ruminated upon a bottomless bag of kettle-corn, we finally exhausted our booklet of 'ride-money' and implored our Tyrants to allow us to depart. It's a 2.5 hour trip out there and for some bizarre reason, it took nearly the same amount of time to get back! Arriving at the gateway to the Domain in which the Haupertonian Empire is geographically located, we, the party of hungry little ones and adults of exhausted extremes, decided to lunch upon the fare available at the local all night diner. Heart-burn city. I had some steak and eggs with a side of bacon and some pizza fries. A few more calories than I really needed at that time of the evening, but hey, it's a vacation and I'll pay my dues later ... right? Now, of course, I'm paying for my decision to kick the can down the road and it is a heavy price to pay. But I am vehement in my dedication to shed this obstinately persistent lardage. Really! Sunday, you know, the day of rest, I conducted myself to do absolutely nothing about this 'dedication' and attended a KOC event in KOP regarding my 4th Degree in the Knighthood. So, now I am a 'Sir Knight'. I can say no more other than there was A LOT of free beer and snacks. It was nearly for naught since I managed to pick up the sheet from last year's ceremony and drove to the wrong place. The Valley Forge Convention center was about 3 miles away from the event location this year and my 'double guess jeopardy swag' allocated an extra 15 minutes for such a mishap. I called the mrs and she gave me a general direction, the whole commute was finished before we disconnected. BIG THANX TO THE MRS on that save. The whole day was pretty much shot.

Monday, I got things done on what is supposed to be an Armed Forces day of memorial. (Side note: Thanx to all the guys and gals out there from the Revolutionary war [in our back yard no less!] up through our deployments today) Changed the oil, filters and topped off the fluids in the POS Supersaturn SL1 ... Attila watched me and was AMAZED that Daddy could do mechanic work. Especially when I drove the car up on the ramp: "Daddy is so COOL!". I should have had the Mrs record that particular display of parental celebration, I may not hear anything like that when she gets to those nasty teen years. I did get the lawn mowed, some weeds pulled, the remaining mulch spread, grass seed planted and a bit of bamboo transplanted from the easement (where our municipal groundskeepers mowed it down) to more appropriate locations along the back-50 boundaries. Oh, and the Mrs returned the Wii that she had bought ... going to make an equitable exchange with Big Little Bro for his unused unit. I wonder if he would like a couple of Mammoth sized cyber-hounds in exchange.

Oh, and that recent dip in oil prices. Interesting, no? The price of oil goes down and what happens to gasoline prices? They go up. You think it may be that we still have a problem with speculators? W are burning less gasoline now (demand down) and oil supplies are going up so that whole semester in Macro Economics tells me that something is not quite right here.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Weekend | Karate | Children | KOC | Knoebels | Bowling | Swimming

Labels: Bowling, Children, Knoebels, KOC, Swimming, TSD, Weekend

I'm completely spent from the load of disparate chores and events I pursued over the past few days. Friday night's halcyon hours of light supping and TiVo viewing were all too soon replaced with Saturday morning's scurrying and panicked preparation for the dreaded TSD test. The Twins were necessarily kept calm so as to not arouse Attila's Stage Fright nor Ghengis's penchant for light-speed hyperactivity and subsequent flubbing of forms. As things would have it, they did just fine and were rewarded handsomely for their efforts by the Mrs. Transformers (Brawl) for Ghengis and anatomically correct dolls for Attila to promptly strip and waterboard. Now, I also passed my test but I was not feeling all too well. The night before, I had that particularly uncomfortable itch in the back of my throat that was the portend to a cold. Indeed, the following morning my nasal passages had been blockaded by the Snot Revolution and my uvula was a bright red beacon of swollen rage. Yeah, I had a bit of a rough go of it, but I managed to drag through and then we went off to the default pizza party after the last of the 1000 pushups had all but become a distant memory.

The pizza party was fine and we had a relaxed time ... well, in between admonishing the Twins for not eating enough. Right from there, we departed to the Family Friend Seliga's home for a First Communion Party that lasted well into the evening hours. Mostly, it was because of the Flyers game. (WOOT! Great Game!) Just as the last drops of perseverance were being squeezed from my once bottomless reservoir, the mrs got a call from one of her co-workers who ... carries a support beeper. Apparently, one of their servers went down and the first round of beepers did not respond. So, we were stuck for a bit while the Mrs 'dialed in' to survey the battle field. Not too long though, she just commanded her minions to storm the server room and commit an IPL on the offending machine. Like HAL 9000 singing his final rendition, it went down into that long dark night and we were off. Back to the manor to put the Tyrants right to bed. They had been going full tilt all day long and were now in the process of turning the humidity directly into energy via fusion process. I could not keep up since my genetic blueprint did not include such wondrous organs. Durned Retro-virus, all picky about what pluripotent cells it will work with. Sheesh.

Sunday was a mess. I ended up sicker than ever and still had things to do. Now that Sunday School is over, I can assist with other endavours ... such as assisting with the KOC program to collect donations for Mentally Disabled Children. At the 0700 mass. I did the early mass since most of the older crew cannot make it at that hour and get all set up. I also helped out with the beginning of the 0830, which was greatly appreciated. When all you manage is a buck or two from each parishioner, it takes a bit of smooth talking and flattery to fill that bucket! I was their eye candy and I could also open the heavy metal doors! Heh ... and I wonder where my son get's it from. After the third collection, I stopped off at the local grocery store to buy the Mrs some roses and the Tyrants some donuts. I also had to pick up some salves and medical potions for myself. Gha, I'm such a wreck. Arriving home, the Twins were in the guest room in their jammies, watching the TiVo and the Mrs was blissfully snoozing away in the Master Suite. Who am I to buck the system? I shed my Sunday Finest (work day clothing with a nice sweatshirt) and slipped in between the sheets. Nice! Hours later, I was up again, puttering about the Haupertonian Lands and mowing the lawn while the Twins re-enacted the 100 year's war in the sand-pit. Not too bad of a Sunday, but I did not get the cooking done for the week and did laundry instead. Just 6 loads, but still, it had to be tended to. As for the rest of the day, I spent the twilight hours trying to be and erudite consumer of blog postings that I had been neglecting since Friday. Too much though. Monday morning, I got up a bit late and arrived at work at 0635. I'll need to do better next day (not!) but since the ENTIRE DAY was either preparing for meetings or attending 6 hours of meetings, I missed very little.

Technorati Tags:Weekend | Illness | Karate | Children | KOC

Labels: Chores, Church, Illness, KOC, Tang So Doo, Weekend

Yeah, normally would include some inappropriate image but I have lost use of the pc I typically abuse at work. Many, MANY interesting things have occured since I last took the time to update you all. I'm not going into detail but here are some higlights:

1) NYC with the tyrants to see Minister Brother In Law get 'installed'.
2)Work PC Bites the dust ... train wreck in slow motion.
3) Chop wood ... a lot.
4) Clean up dog dip, see #3 for reference on volume/quantity questions.
5) Do Laundry - again, #3
6) Defrost deep freeze cryo unit,found Mastidon prototype in back.
7) Get busted up in TSD, prepping for test on the 2nd.
8) Attend a birthday party for 6yr old. Visceral nightmare.
9) KOC 3rd Degree function.
10) Fretting over not getting to blog to you wonderful folk.

I'm a fairly predictable fellow, eh? One cute (?) story of late: I was picking up Jake (Genghis) the other day and one of the little boys in his class ran up to me and started blathering to me about something. From what I could discern before one of the intimidated teachers ran over and shuttled him away was that Jake had fed him a knuckle sandwich and gave him a fat lip. So, being the inquisitive type, I broached the subject with Jake and got a confirmation of the incident. Indeed, Jake had given him a hay-maker and when queried for an impetus, he noted that the target was 'annoying him'. Ok, it's nice to know that he is now capable of defending himself and this could have been a case of 'just come-uppance', but I had to let him know that it is not generally a good thing to try to resolve issues like this with fisticuffs. You know, the more flies with honey than vinegar approach. Now, who wants more flies about is beyond me (see: UN), but whatever. (non-pc off note: go Jake!) One of the mothers passed us in the hall and started to laugh making a comment about having to do that every week. Yikes! I've enrolled my children into a training camp for future thugs. I'm just waiting for them to shake me down for their first 10% of the cut.

Technorati Tags:Karate | Children | KOC | Wood | Chores | NYC

Labels: Children, Chores, Family, Karate, KOC, NYC, Tang So Doo, Wood