White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Totally and completely unmotivated today. I went to bed early and still woke up tired and fatigued. After the 736th time the alarm went off after a snooze, I just shut it off. So, when I did finally get my sorry hide into work, I found the coffee machine in a state of disrepair. Aghast, I was forced to trudge through the early hours without my drug of choice. The withdrawal symptoms made me even more grumpy and curmudgeonly than usual. Now, this was complicated by a few things that happened on the commute into work this morning. My new route that cuts off a few miles by taking local surface roads ran into a bit of a snag. I found myself behind a large dumptruck hauling some sort of sand or gravel for nearly the entire distance. It was not that I was going about 15mph the whole way but every time we had to accelerate from a stop, it would belch out clouds of sickly black sludge and I had to keep my windows in the POS Super Saturn locked up and hermetically sealed for the whole trip! The temperature and humidity is in the 'comfort zone' today and I could not imbibe in the pleasure of having the wind blow through my mane of rolling locks. Then, while stopped at a light, I watched as another large PECO vehicle rolled by and one of the troglodytes riding in the cab took a lung-full of cigarette carcinogenic cruft and threw the butt into traffic. It's not the smoking that annoys me. I fully support their right to do things that endanger their own health, but come on! Clean up after yourself, eh?

Final parting note: pushups. My first week is over. Not too shabby really. This morning, I did the 15/13/10/10/max where max was only 105 today. I blame the weariness of the work week for the drop in performance. Next week, I should do another test before starting so I can set a max to something I have difficulty doing rather than wussing out and sand-bagging like the piker that I am.

Technorati Tags:Pushups | Traffic | Sleep

Labels: Pushups, Slacker, Sleep, Traffic

Whew ... that was a close one! Nearly had my 'Curmudgeon' License revoked for having a sunny disposition and all. It's meeting day so I'll be spending my day fending off 'action items' and on top of that, it's the end of the SCRUM Sprint. We need to meet with the Product Owner and the Customer to have a Retrospective about what we have accomplished over the last four weeks. Quite a lot actually, but since we are merely a bug fix team, we are not adding any new functionality. Just reducing Technical Debt. Not entirely glamorous, but I'm a blood-n-guts sort of guy so it suits me fine. We need only let the interested, or captive, parties know that we are continuing to improve product quality and ensure that future efforts will be boot-strapped by our efforts ... then skedaddle!

Speaking of quality and time, the Mrs fell asleep last night while snuggling with the Twin Tyrants of Turpitude. It is a fore-gone conclusion that they will ask for an innumerable number of things to avoid going to sleep every evening: Story-Time, Hugs-n-Kisses, Drink of Water, and as a last resort - snuggles. Now the Mrs is more than happy to comply when she does not have an evening teleconference with her Subversion Agents in the Pacific Rim Theater, but she must have been extraordinarily tired and thusly, was incapable to remain awake till Ghengis dropped off. Now I'm not above indulging the other with similar privileges, but after a night of TSD I tend to stink of sweat, blood and fear. It sluffs off me like a bank of fog rolling up into valleys from a greater mount of volcanic venting. So, in the early morning hours, the Mrs stumbled into the Master Suite and plopped her semi-somatic form into bed, jolting me from my usual light slumber. It took a bit of time for me to reacquire the sufficient calm to return to the dreams of angst I usually spool through. With that, of course, I had a difficult time getting out of the ever-calming embrace of the Mile-Wide Bed. I was running about 10 minutes late and paid for it on the way to work ... the Reading Railroad crossing was occupied by a rather lengthy freight train. So, it took me 17 minutes to get to work instead of 13 ... part of which was induced by missing the 6am Perfect Harmonic Light Sequence. I had to stop at THREE red lights. There goes my mpg rating!

Speaking of gasoline: This. Interesting, eh? And, with that: This. Given that only 25% of existing farmland is actually being used to produce any type of crops and the acreage we ARE using is producing more than ever, all this nonsense about food shortages seems like fear mongering to me. Can you guess what country produces the most rice? How about corn?

Technorati Tags:Gas | Food | Karate | Children | Sleep | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Food, Gas, Sleep, Tang So Doo

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday ... the time of feasting and unabashed lusty behavior is over. Missed it, durn it all. Where is the Mrs again? No matter, I got my ashes and picked up my lenten burden. Not much really, I did not give up meat but I did surrender bacon and cheese. Oh my ... bacon. I can still taste it ... must be some stuck in my teeth.

I managed to get a bit of sleep last night between the dripping of the toilet tank and the fire engines screaming past the manor at all hours of the night. Of course, 0600 came much too early and proceeded to become history much too quickly. The hounds proceeded serenade me with their whines and moans as a subterfuge to be let out. They did not want to relieve themselves of excessive body waste, they wanted to chase one of the local feral cats about the yard. Katie, in her robust vigor, ran off after the feline ... transgressing the well known rules of not leaving the yard and NOT crossing the road. She paused on the other side, knowing that in her flight of fancy, she had crossed not only the rule of law, but the demarcation of 'potential whoop-ass'. I called her out and gave her such a stern lecture that she nearly peed herself before I let her go do what was expected. Sulking and guilty stares were all she had left for me. Durned hounds, I'm going to have to tweak her programming regarding the pursuit subroutines. Outside of that, the kids were good for me; ate all their lunch, did homework, tried new forms in karate, ate their dinners, finished their breakfast, complained slightly about abbreviated tv time. Usual stuff. I'm so proud (and thankful to God) of them.

Technorati Tags:Hounds | Mr Mom | Karate | Children | Sleep | Lent

Labels: Children, Hounds, Karate, Lent, Mr Mom, Sleep

A little sleep this morning ... not enough though. In addition to that, I'll be accepting additional responsibility at the Manor for a bit. The Mischievous Mrs is going to be out of town for a few days. She'll be busy negotiating peace between the have's and have-not's ... barter good will for preferred partner status. The usual stuff. In the mean time, everything here will go to hell in a hand basket over the next few days. Its a big bed to fill by myself, don't you know. As a parting gift, she let the hounds out to poo ... which means I'll have to make sure they build mountain ranges every morning or I'll have a nasty surprise waiting for me when I return to the Manor in the evenings. Ludicrous, I know, but the facts in the field have proven me correct every time. If I make them wait till the afternoon, I won't be standing in the cold watching frost form on my forearm hair before the sun rises over the back-50.

Technorati Tags:Poop | Sleep

Labels: Poop, Sleep

Yeah ... gettin' none of that. I'm not sure what is going on but my sleep patterns are all haywire. I just lay there next to the angelic Mrs, listening to her gentle breathing till 0130 in the morning. Note: Never accuse someone of snoring who could very well plaster a pillow to your face in the dead of night. I'm not sure if my ineffectual attempts at slumber are a result of my angsty attitude about work, depression due to seasonal light disorder (6 more weeks!?), turning 40 or God knows what else. Sometimes, I cannot turn off my brain and no amount of wine or calming bio-feedback seems to help. I'm exhausted from TSD so it's not surplus energy. Gha. Something has got to break before I do ... might be time to go pharma, but I would rather not.

Technorati Tags:Sleep | Work | Karate

Labels: Banalities Work, Sleep, Tang So Doo

Okay, I had some issues earlier today ... mostly because of the power problems in the Manor last night. When the Mrs came by to pick up the Tyrants after their session was finished, she complained that we had a power outage and now the central AI system in the Manor would not come online. By the time I got home, she had determined that the problem was with the circuit breaker on the main power grid panel and reset it. When I did a cursory inspection, I also found a lighting fixture that had a bulb burn out in a most fantastic way. Replacing it, I figured that there was some sort of power surge due to the cold. Probably a transformer blew or someone did something foolish. Might explain why the Mrs saw 2 emergency vehicles on the way home and I saw a few in the development on the other side of the feeder street that runs beyond the Haupertonian Empire territories. The arcanum of what they were doing will probably never be known to me ... I've never seen a published police report from the local constabulary. Here is were things get interesting though. Sometime between 0100 when I crawled into bed and 0700 the next morning, we had another extended outage. We are obdurate people when it comes to the cold so the lack of electric only musses up all the damned clocks. Except for my 'nuclear' one ... but it does not have an alarm. It does have a weather sensor that Jake loves to check every morning. Tells him if it is sunny or not. Reports that data to everyone he sees in the morning. Watch out Hurricane Schwartz (one look and you think: Less Nessman)! So, instead of the alarm going off at 0600 ... my eyes creak open at 0700 and I think ... odd, there is light coming from outside! I roll over and see the clock complaining about 0330 ... no, unless Philadelphia is burning, this is not right. Two options run through my mind 1)DUCK AND COVER or 2) The clock is wrong. Being the optimistic fellow I am, I assume that number 2 is more likely. And indeed, after jostling the Mrs awake, we find that we are running an hour behind. The external Manor lighting is still on and the Atomic Clock is accurately stating what I already believe. Nice to get that extra hour of sleep ... not so nice to rush about and try to recover it. Stupid PECO.

Technorati Tags:Power | Karate | Children | Electric | Sleep

Labels: Children, Electric, Karate, Power, Sleep

I have a few things to whine about from the past few days. Some that I can do nothing about, and some that I have a direct impact on. Of course, I will not deal with them other than complaining mostly due to my superior ability to whine. And speaking of whining ... last night at the pool, we were treated to the constant screaming of a toddler being water-boarded. Well, not really. There was the swim instructor, a single child, and the father constantly pushing the horrified boy into the pool to induce him to try to learn to swim. I'm not sure, but I think that the child was not ready to be put in that situation. I'm almost certain that the father was told that he would have to get involved with the child's upbringing and give mom a break. Not so good though. 45 minutes straight - wailing at volume setting 11. Egads.

Speaking of wet, the traffic has been rather disappointing due to the slick conditions. Rain is the culprit here, not snow or ice. There is enough salt laid down that if we did get anything resembling winter weather, we should not have a problem. So much salt. So expensive. None the less, there have been at least two major accidents over as many days on the limited stretch of road I travel. What is with these people!? Nuts with cars I tell ya ... Almond Joy on a roll. I was going to complain that the wood I recently chopped was too wet to burn. Ya know, I should have known better. Now I'm going to have to take all of it out of the brackets and put it outside. And then replace it with the seasoned wood. Gha ... I can be such a noob sometimes. Oh, and on a tagent, the word of the year as determined by Merriam-Webster is "w00t" .... sigh. Thusly, another step in the decline of western culture.

Work has been a real bear over the last few days. First thing when I got in on Tuesday, I was associated with an issue that I had not clue about ... because the name of the responsible party who was SUPPOSED to get the email had the same first name. So, due to a typo (Brazil anyone? Buttle ... Tuttle), I was appointed as the owner. Then, around noon, I return to my sensory deprivation/isolation chamber to find an ominous sticky pad note. I call the number and POW! I get tagged with an Internal Affairs type task. Select 100 (really!) different bugs found in the system, find out who is responsible, why it happened and how to avoid it in the future. Nothing says 'I hate you' to a developer like picking at the open sore of poorly tested or written code. This is going to make me a pariah in the group fairly quickly if I do not handle this delicately. A lot of the upper management are focusing on the effort as well (Hammer for review, reason for small bonus). Do I need to tell you that I did not sleep well last night? Oh, and my back still hurts.

Technorati Tags:Work | Swimming | Wood | Children | Back Pain | Parenting | Sleep

Labels: Back Pain, Banalities Work, Children, Parenting, Sleep, Swimming, Wood

Well, I'm going to be quite busy over the next few weeks, so please don't shoot me if I miss commenting on my regular blog reads or skip a few posts ... like I did yesterday. I was a bit laid up you see. I thought it would be a FANTASTIC idea on Sunday afternoon to chop up all that wood that I, as a mendicant lumberjack, pulled out of Gus's yard the previous weekend. So, chop-chop-chop I go and rip-tear-shred go the muscles in my back. The next morning, I could barely get out of bed to shut off the alarm clock. I had to slither out like some sort of spineless slink and whimpered the entire time. I let the Sympathetic Mrs know that I would not be moving that morning and slept from 0730 till 1730 straight! I really needed that, since I have been going into a 'spoon deficit' situation for weeks now. But enough of my surly simpering, what did happen this weekend?

Friday night was a hoot. Alexis decided to rat out her brother to a Mom in the pool changing room. She let this stranger know that Jacob was a player and had a lot of girl friends. Interesting in so much that she is not the type of girl to talk to strangers. I think it was the opportunity to take a swipe at her sibling that compelled her. I need to pay more attention to that since it seems she is developing the 'mean little girl' attribute a bit earlier than expected. Not as noticable as Jake's 'spastic little boy' act, and certainly not as cute. Rapprochement is forthcoming.

Saturday was mostly a wash. The weather was nice, which was a a nice turn of events since we were going to spend two hours driving up to Parsippany and another two on the way back. My artifice in finding a route that was only 65 miles instead of 115 was not as fortuitous as initially thought. The 'short' route took just as long and consumed as much gasoline as the longer, less direct route. In fact, we were treated to a Trademark Jersey traffic construct called the 'CIRCLE' as well as various jug-handles and convoluted left vs right exit ramps. On the upside, there were no traffic accidents (although, the police were as omnipresent as the traffic devices) and the return trip to the Manor was uneventful as it could have been. I was concerned in the first steps of the trip back when we headed down an access road that went from rough to unpaved and then finally to weed-grown. I was having visions of a chain-saw wielding mad-man, but then realized I was in North Jersey and I was the closest being to that description. Soon enough, the Observant Mrs spotted the signs for the on-ramp and we were under-way. On the downside, the children were rather impossible from the moment we arrived till the moment we strapped them into their restraining seats. Not enough exercise, most likely.

Sunday: well, I've already told you the results of that expedition in faulty perspicacity (heh, even I had to look that word up). To start the day, we had Sunday School of course. A new girl, Sam, came in to assist with what ended up being a VERY BUSY morning. As a matter of course, Jake made sure to assault her with hugs at every available opportunity. Shortly after class, I zipped off to the Local Low Price Gas Station (and car wash; they always ask but I'm afraid the POS Super Saturn would melt) to transfer Alexis to the Family Tank V2.0. This is so the Mrs and Alexis can go to the Nutcracker ballet at the Bryn Athen Playhouse. Jake, who found out about this was reasonably upset. Next time, according to him, Alexis would go see a movie with me and he would go to the Ballet with the Mrs. He was the only one comfortable with that arrangement. He can barely sit still through the movie and would only do so after I acquiesced to giving him a full sized package of twizzlers and a promise of McDonalds afterwards. We saw 'Bee Movie'. Horrible. Honestly, just bad. He seemed to enjoy it, but I think it was the twizzlers.

Technorati Tags:Back Pain | Banalities | Sunday School | Fatigue | Injury | Lumberjack | Mundane | Sunday School | Slacker | Sleep | Traffic | Turnpike | Weekend Wood

Labels: Back Pain, Banalities, Fatigue, Injury, Lumberjack, Mundane, Slacker, Sleep, Sunday School, Traffic, Turnpike, Weekend, Wood

It has taken me more than a bit of effort to get this out. I've not been sleeping all to well of late and that is really putting a crimp in my usual loquacious writing persona. Indeed, my mercurial writing has slowed to a clumpy mass of semi-viscous sludge ... much like how I feel. So as for my absence from commenting on all your blogs, I'm so sorry. I'll get around to it. The plague has laid me low. The up side to all this is that I did not register much discomfort during the TSD test last Saturday. The Tyrants did well, for the most part. Attila had her usual 'stage fright/prima-donna melt down' act for 15 minutes before the test started. Ghengis was as excited as a little boy could possibly get. In the end, they both earned their promotion to Green Belt and spent the next three days bragging about it. It came to a point where I had to expound on the idea that no matter how good you are, there is someone out there better than you who will kick your lilly-white ass up around your ears. Alexis chimed in that that it seemed to her the arse-woopin' job belonged to Daddy. Not this weekend. After getting fully overrun by the nasty bug the Tyrants had infected me, the events really started to drag me down. It was all made better by greasy, cheesy pizza after the test. Ghaa ... talk about heart-burn. I spent the rest of Saturday napping, doing laundry and fixing the airflow fans on the wood-burning stove. Yes, we have yet to turn on the heat and rely primarily on the stove. So what if I have to use an ice auger to drill a hole in the ice formed over the toilet bowl! Since we spent a whopping $100USD on utilities last month, we would hope to continue that revenue retention behavior instead of using a shovel to throw our income into the fire as we gesticulate madly at the Oil Speculators.

Sunday: Yep, day of hypocritical rest. Took the Tyrants to Sunday-school ... got trapped in the bass-ackwards parking lot till nearly every single car but the 4 blocking me in had left. Then, after gnawing on their tires, we sped back to the Manor where I proceeded to pull down the tomato cages and strip off the greenies that were not frozen in the last hard frost. Oddly enough, the carrots all seem to be doing quite nicely still. Resilient buggers. Then, while the Mrs ran off to resupply our larder, I got down to the business of fixing the lawnmower drive belt, putting slices in the karate wood so the Tyrants can break them easier and then fixing the splitting maul that had a muffed-up handle. Trying to split rounds of wood with the handle instead of the head tends to do that. So, I have the handle cut loose, but I need to clear out the eye. Can't just drill it out since there are metal chits in it. So, with a ball-peen hammer, I go to town trying to force the remainder of the handle out. Everything was going quite well until I mistook my fleshy hand for the tempered steel of an axe. It did not give off that signature ring of steel on steel, but rather, the squishy/crunchy sound of bone and sinew being ground together by unforgiving force. The sharp pain soon gave way to an unabated ache ... but no apparent damage. It was the bone between the wrist and first knuckle of the thumb that took on the laws of physics ... and lost. So, I did what any rational man would do ... jump up and down while bleating out profanities and cradling the throbbing appendage to my crotch. You know, because that always helps. The cursing part, that is. And then, I took a nap ... only to wake up hours later when the pain and swelling in my hand were too much to let me remain sleeping. A few ibuprofen and some quality time with the family, all was right with the world. It's now two days later. Managed to get my flu shot on Monday morning, but said nothing of my illness since I know it is not the flu. Just another upper respiratory nuisance. Let me tell ya, my hand still hurts more than the shot, but I'm certain it is not a fracture, just a bone bruise. Next time, I'll just throw the damn axe head in the fireplace and burn it out.

Oh, and gasoline here in Pennsyltucky is nearing 3$/us gallon. And the newly elected politicians are talking about adding a NEW road use tax so they can fix the bridges that they let go to rot when they appropriated the funds allocated to that to ... build more roads and bridges. Dumb-asses.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Weekend | Karate | Children | Injury

Labels: Banalities, Children, Church, Flu Shot, Gas, Home Improvements, Illness, Injury, Karate, Sleep, Tang So Doo, Weekend

So, it got cold last night, really cold. I mean it was so cold that my nipples got hard enough to cut concrete! I really should sleep with some sort of clothing on. Now that I've damaged your fragile psyche with that atrocious visual (everyone thinks in pictures, right?), let me tell you why a simple dip into the 40's makes a difference to a molasses blooded northern'r like myself. You see, the Mrs is a Manhattan girl and the Tyrants are half-n-half. A bit of cream and a bit of lutefisk. So, as it turns out, my son looks mostly like me and got a bit of the Mrs's genetics with his eye shape. I'm finding out that he did not get his tolerance of cold from me. Last night, I sacked out fairly early and actually fell asleep. Of course, sometime in the wee hours of the morning (he had to go wee, thus the phrase?) he got up and tunneled into the Mile Wide Bed. He starts out by snuggling with the Mrs and engaging in his most affectionate act so as to get her to let him stay. She is the gate-keeper ... the bouncer. After he has ingratiated himself with her, he will slowly work his way over to my thin slice of acreage and start siphoning off as much heat as possible from my overactive metabolism. Of course, he will stir a bit and reflexively beat the bejeepers out of my internal organs. Must be some sort of hex the Mrs cast on him so that I can share her experience of carrying him (and sis) for 9+ months. So, my hopes of a solid night's sleep was rended asunder. This series of events has had two distinct impacts on me ... one is that I have become more interested in getting the heat distribution fans installed/fixed for the wood burning stove. Priority on now that the ambient temperature in the Manor is now akin to a cryogenic preservation tube. The other epiphany, is that I am sick. The Murphy Factor hit me hard regarding the Flu Shot Fiasco this past Monday. A few days later and I'll be getting my shot ... I have a TSD test this Saturday ... OF COURSE I'll catch some nasty little genetically engineered virus from the Tyrants. Of course, since my body chemistry is out of whack, I'm trying to plow through a class 2 migraine as well. OF COURSE, that calls for brain-chemistry altering medication ... and we all know what that means ... 'DA FOG'. Present in body, but not quite all the way in mind.

Certainly, everything was trucking along fine but that butter-fly wing batting on Monday is now winding up it's Saffir-Simpson Scale 5 hurricane power. In the good-news column (as lengthy as it is) his morning, when I stepped on the scale, I found that I'm holding steady at 185 lb. Not too bad, considering that I threw myself on the candy-bucket to save the kids from the evil sugar monster. Now, all I have to do is survive the holiday season (Grams is an exclellent cookie/peanut brittle source, Gramps is going to possibly make that date roll I eat too much of) and perhaps avoid another round of mutated virus ... tall order, eh?

Technorati Tags:Bed | Sleep |Illness |Flu Shot |Home Improvements | Karate | Children | Migraine | Winter | Weight

Labels: Bed, Children, Flu Shot, Home Improvements, Illness, Karate, Migraine, Sleep, Tang So Doo, TGIF, Weight, Winter

So, not much to talk about today ... sliding into third base Thursday here. I made it to the Adult TSD class last night, in spite of my massively bruised 'chopping hand'. As I gaze down upon the mutilated appendage dancing over the keyboard, I marvel at the fact that it does not hurt more. Red, white and blue ... well, purple-ish blue. Hopefully, my dedication to not doing what I did to it in the first place will ameliorate the situation before the test on Saturday. Of course, I'm an unabashed recidivist when it comes to matters of personal safety. I'll have to redress that matter before it catches me in the shorts.

Speaking of shorts, last night SUCKED for sleep. I laid awake till nearly 2am ... just unable to nod off. Not sure why, but I am certainly tired enough now. It's been going on all week. I'm going to have to ask the Mrs for a 'night off' where I can just come home and go to bed ... or something like that. This nonsense will certainly impede any progress I hope to make this weekend with various chores and activities about the Manor. And no, I will REFUSE to take medication for this. Perhaps a supplement, but I do not need another raft of pills in my life.

Technorati Tags:Karate | Sleep | Children

Labels: Back Pain, Bed, Children, Injury, Karate, Migraine, Sleep, Tang So Doo

Not much ... it's Friday after all. I try to make sure that this final day of forced labor is as quiet as possible with the exception of dodge ball. And yes, there will be swimming too. Speaking of swimming, Mrs Gwen stopped by the pool yesterday. She was concerned that she had not seen us for so long. She is awfully attached to the Tyrants. They seem to have that peculiar ability to attract adoptive grandparents. On that topic, we had another attack of 'How cute and devilish can I be' from the Haupertonian Scion. Jake invaded our bed again last night, but had the good sense to climb in from the foot of the bed instead of over my head. He let me get some sleep and siphoned heat off of the Mrs instead. Vampires have to let their prey (stock?) recuperate between feedings, you know.

And now, for the progeny of the title for this post. I found this at Varifrank and could only think 'about time'. Like flying cars, zap pistols and faster than light space ships ... it is a 'taste' of the future. Yes, bacon salt. Not only does it make food DAMN GOOD, it will protect your from islamist terrorists! I'm going to talk to the Mrs about quitting my job and becoming a QA Specialist in charge of the bacon salt production line. Oh, and they have a blog too! Boy, wouldn't this stuff make and awesome Christmas present. Eh? EH?

Technorati Tags:Work | Swimming | Karate | Children | Bacon Salt

Labels: Bed, Children, Dodge Ball, Meat, Sleep, Spam, Tang So Doo, TGIF

The word for this week is bravado. Yes: for the customer who INSISTED that the problem was not with their network, but rather, our software. In the end, finding that their network WAS the issue, had the bravado to blame us for not finding THEIR problem sooner. For the Network guy who had the bravado to say that they have so much more training and experience in the field so our conclusion must be wrong since we are not network engineers. And to the 'Customer Advocate' who insisted we work through the night ... twice ... since we needed to identify and fix our problem for the customer who was uncooperative and abrasive. And for my boss, who told them to back off and let us get some rest. That last one was incredibly brave in the face of increasingly stentorian clamors for a solution we could not provide. In the end, when definitive proof was given that our software was working and their network was hosing up the works, the recidivist behavior of the customer almost broke my back. I'm eagerly anticipating the postmortem of the case on Monday. Since it is work, I can say nothing more.

Around all this work nonsense, there were a few moments where I spent time with my family. Such as Monday at Noon when the Day-Care professionals called me to let me know my Lovely Daughter had thrown up ... twice ... at lunch and I need to come get here ASAP. Of course, moments later I was paged back to work and had to bring in an ill youngling till the Mrs could stop by and pick her up. Well, that was a whole giant pile of fun, mind you. Nothing like having to juggle a cantankerous customer and a brittle child at the same time. Alexis got her mothers digestive system: "Made entirely of lace and tissue paper". I was AWOL for the next couple of days and what sleep I did get (45 min on Monday, 4 on Tuesday) was riddled with twisted and disturbing dreams. The stress backed up a bit and wreaked havoc with the REM cycle. So much over flow that it invaded Attila's dream in some sort of twisted Jungian Common Unconscious. She tumbled into our bed on Thursday morning wailing of bad dreams where she could not find Grandpa or anyone else. Her worst fear is being alone. I think she gets that from me ... I'm a fairly social animal. She is EXTREMELY interested in being attended to and prefers the comfort of what she knows over the expeditions into the dark regions of the undiscovered. My, she is an old fart at the ripe old age of 5.

Technorati Tags:Work | Sleep | Children | Dreams

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Dreams, Sleep

Ok ... I slacked off yesterday. Sue me. Work has been conspicuously oppressive of late. I find a solution, it's rejected by one party. Find another solution, another party finds it in violation of their paradigm. Left hand, meet right hand. Gha. So, today, I'm spending my time with CBT courses so I can regain a feeling of accomplishment this week. Minor as it may be.

Speaking of minors ... without the kids about, things are just not the same. A counterbalance in my life is missing ... and I'm engaging in some particularly egregious behaviors. Staying up late, not getting enough exercise (well, no swimming or child TSD), eating all the wrong stuff(candy,snacks,BAD!). Who needs a parent when you need to care for a child! So, other than just being a general ruffian, I did manage to get a couple of things done right. I got a really good hair cut and I ordered sparring equipment for the Tyrants. Yes, they will start sparring now. I'm going to enjoy them going at each other instead of me. Usually, when they have a problem I ask them to solve it between each other. We have a phrase in the Haupertonian Manor: "If Daddy needs to solve the problem, NOBODY is going to be happy." Fight over a toy? Toy is removed. TV show dispute, turn off tv. You know, I'm not trying to be mean or disingenuous when I ask them to solve their own problems, I just want them to understand that they have it within them to resolve conflicts and take responsibility for themselves when the need arises. Leaving the problem to be resolved to someone else ('Someone should do something about that' or 'The government should do ....') tends to result in the same situation as what I present. Now, if they think they can solve the problem by pummeling each other (or someone else) into submission, I would like them to learn the consequences of that choice ... without a trip to the emergency room (or court of law). The next few months are going to be interesting.

Technorati Tags:Karate | Children | Family | Parenting

Labels: Banalities, Children, Family, Parenting, Sleep, Tang So Doo

Busy weekend ... well, not really. In actuality, a lot of nothing was done. Oddly, it was more exhausting than if I had actually done something productive. Saturday was primarily spent by me waffling about in bed somewhere between a lucid state and the bizarre dreamland I love to inhabit. The Grandparents were down so the Tyrants had little interest in me. Rustle up some bacon/eggs/toast for a family breakfast. Do a bit of laundry ... bumble about the manor and then go down into the chilled cellar to fill up a cooler with beer (IPA, Victory Lager, Victory V12, Chimay, Mikes Hard Lemonade ) for a party with the Butler/Seliga Clan at 1600 hours. It was SWELTERING hot the whole time. As sure as the sun rises in the east, the pool was somewhere near freezing though. So, the Tyrants were in and out of the pool like flying fish while the adults tried to sooth their beleaguered, senses by sloshing alcohol down their gullets in a feeble attempt to either numb the screaming senses or add a natural cooling agent to the system. Not a bad night all in all though. The party was for one of the extended family who is a Philly police officer and he had his partner and a few of his work friends there. He has made it his (jokingly) intention to make sure he has the opportunity to arrest everyone in his family at some point. Great guy though. Just got a dog, a Doberman. Named him 'Thor'. Go figure.

Sunday, ugh. Too much beer. Just a bit sluggish getting up so we went to the 1000 mass instead of the 0830. Since we were on the later side of the morning, we went out to the Warminister Diner for breakfast. By far, one of the best diners we have visited. They staff did not have the effrontery to deign our order too big to serve all at once so there was very little room on the table top. It was a rather good meal but we had some problems with the Tyrants and their eating habits. Alexis, once she got her waffles, did not want them. Jake was fidgety and had problems consuming his bacon and flap-jacks. They were still a bit tired from the previous night and were a bit gummed up (given that they primarily consumed chips, dip and cheese). Their digestive system is used to more ... 'healthy' food. Jake frequently requests chicken or pasta instead of junk food. Well, that is, when he is NOT insisting we buy a brick-oven pizzeria to sate his appetite for pizza at every meal. Later that day, the Grandparents packed up their belongings and we strapped the Tyrants into the back of their troop transport. You see, they were going to 'host' the Twin Tyrants of Turpitude for a week. Genghis and Attila treated this with great gravitas and spent most of the day inquiring if everything was ready to go. They had great interest in escaping the Manor for a quieter, gentler time at the FOB. I cannot imagine their spirits being any higher once they were trundled up and slowly cruised off into the horizon. Then ... silence.

We missed the children greatly. Sure, there was no early morning battle to get everything ready and no harrowing rush at the end of the day to start the extra-curricular activities. We got up a bit later and still made it to work (Well, I did. The Lovely Mrs took some time off from work.) early. Plugged through the day and took a 15 minute trip to get back to the manor. We went off to deal with some financial fallout from the Annual Budget Considerations and then enjoyed a wonderful early 11th anniversary dinner at Savona. It was distinguished by the lack of our little heartbeats making sure we were aware of their blessed presence. Sure, I talk glowingly of them when I'm hundreds of miles away ...

Technorati Tags:Anniversary | Weekend | Family | Party | Summer

Labels: Beer, Children, Family, Grandparents, Sleep, Summer, Weather, Weekend

My week days can be so banal. Wake up to obscure music on clock radio, hit snooze, wake, snooze (repeat several times). Finally realize that it's morning and bumble off to let the cybernetic hell hounds out. Cart away mountains of poo and then feed the prancing ninnies more fodder for their dirty-work the next morn. Realize *I* need to use the bathroom and look at the visage of death warmed over in the mirror. I need to put a picture over the mirrors in the bathroom. The indurate face staring back at me reminds myself that I should be CELEBRATING a new day, no accepting the indignity of being startled from some quickly forgotten gossamer dream. Little context, lesser substance, zero confluence.

After wrapping up my morning constitutional, either I go trundle the Tyrants up and get them to start breakfast, or I let the Mrs handle that variably dangerous task and involve myself with getting their breakfast and lunch ready ... along with my own daily vittles. Raiding the larder, I try to make sure they get something different every morning of the week. Invariably, it has to be something they can eat in our guest bed in front of the TiVo-TV w/o making a tremendous mess. So no liquids. Yeah, that means no eggs either. If I were not so lazy, I would get up an hour earlier and make them a good Minnesota Breakfast. You know, 12 eggs, bacon, toast, kolachies, steak, coffee, slice of apple pie in a bowl of cream ... standard 'bit of breakfast'. As it stands, we already spend over $500USD on food alone per month. So frugality (scrooge!) and sleep (sloth) prevail. That, and it prevents them from invading the bathroom while the Mrs or I are trying to take the all important "morning wake-up shower". Without that, neither of us could be described as anything close to amicable. I've bitten heads off for less. If you do not recall, at the beginning of the summer, the old water boiler krumped on us over Memorial Day Weekend. Yeah, I was a bit of a grumpy gus, but the Mrs damn near laid waste to the population surrounding the Haupertonian Manor for 'Breathing too loud, JUST STOP BREATHING!'.

Hmmm, where was I. My train of thought got derailed ... fatalities. Yes, anyways ... feed the kids, prep breakfast, shower, shave and brush teeth. I've been using the master bath (tiny thing it is) to get back into the old ways and I've noticed that the pressure is much reduced. I think the filter is clogged so we may have to call our plumber to do something about it. I would do this myself, but I have seen what it takes to replace the filter and I would rather Johnas do this. I would certainly break the damn thing and need to call him anyways ... might as well cut to the chase. Another thing about the shower ... I've decided it is my duty to try to use up all those 'single application' packets of shampoo, soap and tooth-paste that we have accumulated over the years. My coworkers are noticing too. My hair looks more 'perky' and lustrous apparently. The usual treatment of lye and burning acids to wash my body/hair have given me split ends and dulled the color. Gee, fashion plate metrosexual that I am, you think I would have avoided that! PTTTHHHH! So, every body is fed and groomed ... Pack up the 100 metric tons of crap I need to lug about every day in the POS SuperSaturn and off I go. Throw the Tyrants out of the airlock with chutes on as I rocket past the ReEducation Camp and spend my 15 minutes getting to work trying to find a song on the radio that does not make me vomit. Do this 5 days a week, you tend not to notice the little nuances every day. I must be getting old because I find this ... comforting.

Work for 8 hrs, flee the building. Snatch tyrants, go swimming for an hour, get pummeled by the lollipop guild for an hour at TDS, then spend another hour and a half getting pummeled by the Black-Belt-Brigade. Home, read bed-time story, get drinks for kids, kisses, eat dinner, kisses for Mrs, prep for next day (i.e. get out one of the 5 identical outfits I wear to work [black denim, black socks, tighty-whities{TMI?}, grey t-shirt]), last blogosphere scan; pass out. Where should I fit in the introspection? The unexamined life is not worth living ...

Shove it Socrates.

Technorati Tags:Shower | Swimming | Karate | Children | Plumbing

Labels: Banalities, Bed, Children, Home Improvements, Karate, Mundane, Sleep, Swimming, Tang So Doo, Traffic

Last night, since I was not getting my rear-end trounced at TSD practice, I spent some time setting up the beds for the Tyrannical Twins. Yes, we do not have the bed frame supports yet, so I was content to just set the mattress and box springs on the floor and disassemble the toddler beds. Much of the furniture had to be removed from the room as well, but that would have to be done anyways. Getting the porters lined up and busy lugging away the tons of granite pyramid blocks now instead of a later date when I did not have all this surplus time would be what some call 'proactive'. When the Tyrants surveyed their new full sized sleeping arrangements, they were satisfied that it was adequate for the barbarian royalty. Well into the night, my
diaphanous slumber was left undisturbed. Only the whisking of the ceiling fan and the drum of crickets outside could be heard. Neither of them woke in the middle of the night to use the toilet either. This anomaly continued till well into the morning when I had to pry them out of the beds with explosives and heavy construction equipment. This my have been a fortuitous expenditure for the Mrs and I. She, of course, was dealing with the indescribable comfort of sleeping in the Iron Maiden ... it was like being in the middle of the Pampas ... not a soul to disturb her.

Technorati Tags:Bed | Swimming | Karate | Children | Sleep

Labels: Bed, Children, Sleep