White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Another lame post due to my poor time management skills. It's not even that I do not have the time, I just make bad (incorrect) choices about what to do with it. SOooo, here I sit, pulling my hair over the crashing stock market, moaning about going back on the support rotation next week, and kvetching over my well tuned daily schedule being blown to bits because of the kids mid-term tests. We are skipping all activities except piano so that they can study for these remarkably BRUTAL examinations. It gets me all cranky and such when I don't get my swimming/tsd fix on a daily basis. We have still gone to piano lessons and I had the tiger cub den meeting on Wednesday night ... but it's just not the same, you know.

Technorati Tags:Stock Market | Swimming | Karate | Children | School | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Karate, School, Stock Market, Swimming

I'll have to make this quick as I am trying to wrap up 100 disparate tasks and still keep my sanity. This is going to be one of those awful 'status only' type posts to let you know that I still persevere to breath air. The Ever Lovely Mrs had a birthday this past weekend ... just a few hours short of having a leap-year birthdate. That would have been entirely too entertaining, but alas, she is still only a few years younger than the wizened old fart who she calls here husband. Additionally, the Parental Units made one of their Monthly trips to ensure that the Tyrants would treat them fairly after the Great Apocalyptic Reckoning. Oddly enough, in a bizarre convergence of events, an old college friend (Mandy) stopped by on her way from California. Atilla was busy at her girl scout-brownie-daisy Juliet Low World Thinking Day what-dat-and-chew event, so it was up to me to entertain while the Mrs was detained as glorified limo driver. Fortunately, the Super Grandma was about to do most of the heavy lifting (like making snacks ... I'm only good at making them disappear) so we were not too shamed by our lack of preparation. Sunday came and went, only to leave us with a pile of snow and some sub-freezing temperatures. I had the foresight to go out and chop a month's worth of firewood and then lug it into the manor so we had some source of BTUs for the next week. That wood burns quickly when you are trying to keep your digits from snapping off. We were fortunate in that one of our more friendly neighbors had come back from a trip to warmer climes and needed a technical resource to help him out with a malfunctioning snow-blower. I gave him a few tips on how to get it to turn over (it had been sitting for 2 years, the ignition chamber was dry and the plug was corroded) and in a fit of gratitude, he cleared our mile long drive for us. That kept me inside for and extra 2.5 hours. We were going to do a few other things, but nearly every place we went, the doors were locked. The more important places were open, of course: TSD, Dentist, Piano. Of course, the studio ended up closing on Tuesday because the electric furnace failed and the ambient air temperature dropped to somewhere between 'Brrrr' and 'colder than a plumbers wrench in February'.

School Mid-Terms ... they are BRUTAL. Attila won the spelling bee the other day, so I'm not worried about her performance in the upcoming tests, but Ghengis finds very little use for all them high-falutin' fancy words and there is nothing he cannot say without a good round-house to the solar-plexus or ridge-hand to the temple. Trying to explain the difference of 'their' and 'there' to a 6 year old is a Sisyphean labor when you learned it by wrote. Lord, have mercy on his little heart because he will be crushed if he does not perform well.

Technorati Tags:Snow | Swimming | Karate | Children | Winter | School | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Karate, School, Snow, Swimming, Winter

This was supposed to go out yesterday, but it was just too much of a poopy day. Wednesday was, as some of you know, Ash Wednesday. I celebrated my faith at lunch and only got one 'You have dirt on your head' comment. It was an awkward moment for everyone on the team as I tried to explain that it was a religious artifact, but alas, the details were lost on her. The Tyrants were somehow herded into a mass as well, but their ashes were long gone before I picked them up. It was gym day after all and it was warm enough for them to be outside. Of course, the ashes would have been wiped away when we went swimming anyways.

Not much else but me going to both TSD classes this week. So far, I think I've only missed Tuesday Adult TSD. This has only increased my exhaustion. Duh. This week is coming to a close quickly and an ominous beast awaits me me in the darkest avenue of this journey ... support beeper duty. Gha. A week of fear and loathing. I can't wait!

Technorati Tags:Work | Swimming | Karate | Children | Ash Wednesday

Labels: Ash Wednesday, Banalities Work, Children, Karate, Swimming

BOYS BATHROOM DUTY AGAIN! Yep, another swim meet and another round in the boys locker room, spending my time naming the cockroaches ... and then stomping on them. Yeah, it was that entertaining. There were a few moments where I had the opportunity to tell the twerps to get out if they are not using the crapper. It's a locker room, not a playground! To make it worse, I left my thermos of coffee in the 'loner car of poor idling' so I was pretty much up the creek, without a paddle, and a full bore migraine waterfall raging. After I was finished with my stint in purgatory, we went to a pizza party for the swim team which was more of the same except the kids were not running about screaming in their birthday suits ... nope, they were mostly dressed. The only saving grace was that I was able to pour two pints of lager down my gullet at $5.50 in 90 seconds flat. Oh, did I ever need that to dull my finger-nail scraping on whiteboard nerves.

Speaking of nerves ... the SuperSaturn POS just cost me another $1K+ in repairs for the inspection. It needs new struts, 1 wheel, new front disks, trans bolt, re-attach bumper, a leak in radiator (which will be ignored) among a plethora of faults. We have 2 more years (give or take) on the Family Tank v2.0 then we can get a replacement car for me. The damn thing is draining my dry.

Technorati Tags:Swimming | Car | Children | Weekend

Labels: Car, Children, Swimming, Weekend

Since it was Girl Scout Daisy brownie night, I was tasked with escorting Ghengis to the superfluous practice for swimming. You got to show up at the practice or you don't get to swim, eh? Anyways, in a giant cinder block bunker full of water, you can pretty much expect that I would find NO wifi, let alone an unencrypted source to hijack. So be it. TSD class, we had the usual rigmarole with a few exceptions: First, Attila had to leave early. Every other Thursday ... its an accepted event now. The unanticipated event was that one of the newer students, a rather young boy, was much too involved with the activities that he was not going to ask to leave the mat so that he could relieve himself. So, what to do, what to do. Well, certainly, just have a BM right there in your tightie-whities and soldier forth! Except he had not counted on the load bearing capacity to be exceeded by quite so much mass. A bit escaped and was swiftly trampled into a wafer thin sheen spanning about a 3 meter radius that encompased the realm of his form footprint. Once the 'crime' had been observed and dutifully reported by the other students (read: everyone shouting "Eeeewwwwww!"), I swiftly whisked him off the floor to the boy's room and we provided him with a plastic bag and a change of uniform. He still carried a persistent odor about, but we impressed upon the other students that we shall not speak of it. Everyone has an off day, a little compassion will work off some bad karma. That little adventure gobbled up 15 minutes of my time, but actually gave me something to blather about. Tomorrow: Pinewood Derby of Dooooom trumps DodgeBall TSD.

Technorati Tags:Poop | Swimming | Karate | Children | Dodge Ball | Scouts

Labels: Children, Dodge Ball, Karate, Poop, Scouts, Swimming

I was a mixed bag this weekend. Only a few exceptional events, but I'll mix them in with the rest of the tripe so you'll have to shake them out. You know, like searching through that box of cereal to find the toy inside or dredging through the peanut-butter to see if there are really 1.5 flies per jar. Nope, those are raisins ... of course. So, Friday the Cubs and I went to the Radio station for an hour and gobbled up pizza after wards. They had a good time storming and occupying the broadcast center, and even more so antagonizing the tour director. Of course, this just got my Twin Tyrants all ramped up for Dodge Ball Friday. Glad they can take out their frustrations on each-other without having them come back to me with complaints of 'he said/she said'. Nope, just unmitigated violence and revenge. Next day: nothing. Just slouched about the Manor but I did manage to fill the SuperSaturn POS with 10 gallons of NJ gasoline. I give the Mrs a set of 5gal canisters and she buys two weeks worth of fuel for me at 10-15 cents off per gallon while she tanks up. In exchange, I top off the fluids in the Family Tank v2.0 and toss in some fuel conditioner to boot. She completes me: I service her vehicle and light her fire; she gives me gas. Speaking of gas and fires .... this may be of interest to some of you (and it was for me since my obsessive compulsive ranting about gas prices). Sunday is the usual: Church, Sunday School, Bring in firewood, Prep meals for the week. The Mrs actually made the PB&J sandwiches for them this time ... and cut off ALL the crusts. Ghengis will not be pleased, he likes the crusts. Odd child. So all of Sunday was just in preperation for the work week. No big shocker there, except that the Tyrants had President's day off on Monday so I'd be sitting it out with them.

And along comes Monday, I cook, I clean, I entertain. Since is it a semi-national holiday, the swim-team practice is called off: School closed = no pool access. Fine. After my domestic duties conclude, we go through the regular 'swim at club/tsd at studio' routine. Everything is domestic bliss till some time after O'Dark-Thirty. Jake saunters into the master bedroom where the Mrs is settling into the mile-wide bed for a little shut-eye. He makes himself comfortable and then proceeds to produce about 200 metric liters of semi-digested, fully masticated vomit. How in the world!? He ate his dinner at 1500 hours and now he has issue? He must have been fermenting that batch of bile and 100 molar hydro-sulfuric acid for quite some time. So, the Mrs and I manage hose down and mop up ... he felt better but we needed some serious air-freshener to detoxify the master suite. The next morning, he was chipper as can be but I was still down a pillow. You know you are getting too soft when you need two pillows to sleep right.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Illness

Labels: Gas, Illness, Swimming, Tang So Doo, Weekend

I'm all kinds of pissed off about gasoline prices right now. They are flirting with $2/gal here in Pennsyltucky and the world oil trade is now slumping at $35.09. Given the image I provided and the knowledge that there are 42 gallons/bbl ... after refining and by-product extraction you get about 19.5 gallons of gasoline. So, if you GAVE AWAY all the byproduct, you could reasonably see gasoline costing $1.80/g. Here is an interesting chart you can play with. Either way, what I guess we are seeing is the bi-annual fuel mix switch over with a little bit of price-fixing thrown in under the covers. Given that gasoline costs now roughly the same as it did 30 years ago, I should take that big bag of whining and shove it.

On to more 'mundane' soliloquies ... the Tyrants and I hammered through the daily schedule with few hiccups. All's well that end's well I suppose. They were oddly compliant and were even interested in snuggling with each other last night. I don't mind letting them sleep in the same bed; it's easier for me to transport them to the Perpetually Snuggly Mrs's snuggle-fest nest in the morning. Given the absurdly affectionate nature of Ghengis (It's a ruse, I can tell), I was unhappy to hear about some issues he was having with a select number of his classmates. Apparently, two of them; Joby and Chrispin (yep, names changed) had ganged up, and were trying to swing him about by his coat. His pleas for them to stop were unheeded and that made him cry. Dad programming snapped in and I started planning my assault at that moment. Slow breaths, push down monster within .... and now for the wisdom. I asked if he had talked to the teacher about it and he confirmed that she put an end to it and insisted that the two cowardly infraction-bent delinquents apologize for their misdeeds. Given that, I do not believe this will be the last of this so I went over our process flow chart. First, insist that the cease the assault. Second, if they choose to continue, inform an authority figure (Not the UN) and implore them to put an end to the situation. If the intervention is insufficient to repel the barbarians, you must be able to defend yourself. I let him know that if he get's to step three and proceeds to lay them out like a slab of meat-locker back-bacon, I will have his back and support him all the way. I know the father of at least one child and he knows me. Nice thing about private school, it's a privileged, not a right. But you still hold a bit of sway since you are forking over the Payola every month or so.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | School | Bully

Labels: Bully, Children, Gas, Karate, School, Swimming

Here I sit at the piano class waiting room. Listening to the melodic plunking of little fingers over the faux ivory ... and the periodic admonishments of the instructor to my little Imp, Ghengis. He is getting into trouble again, so it's probably time for another lecture. While I stew over my parental duties, I tried to hijack a wireless signal, to no avail. Must be the higher humidity in the air. I did get a hint ... just a wiff of a bit of a signal, only to have it melt away like foie gras on a steaming slab of porterhouse steak. Mmmm, steak. But I digress. I could titillate you with mundane tales of my work day. Where I sit with the team as we try to figure out just what in the world we plan on doing in the next sprint. Ah, yes, the scent of failure is in the air. We are probably just going to work on some left-over cruft from the last sprint cycle. The last team just DUMPED it and said they were 'done'. Not so much, really. So be it.

I've been working with the kids on finishing their dinner in a timely manner. It would be much easier if I could sit with them while they eat, but time is short and I have a heap of chore to grind through before we head off each afternoon. This is a beast of my own creation and I'm going to have to be creative (or persistent) to overcome it. Speaking of persistence, this is a TSD week. I'll be in the Child and Adult classes every day except Friday when we have a tour at WRDV with the cubs. We'll do pizza after wards before heading over to the 'Dodge Ball Session', but I'll not stay for the adult class after 1900 hours as I will be doing my bi-monthly work poker cameo ... just to bolster that coworker relationship thing. Anything to make sure I'm held in the highest esteem when the axe falls on the work-force.

Finally, can SOMEONE tell me why oil prices are staying at $40/bbl but gas prices are nearly at $2/gal? Are the refineries cutting back on production? CRAP! I just looked and the price is now at $38/bbl. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Scouts | Piano | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Gas, Karate, Piano, Scouts, Swimming

Playing catch-up again here. It was quite a busy weekend and I did not get half of what I wanted done in the time that I had allotted to myself. The grand ball of delicate maneuvers started on Friday Night. After wrapping up the kids TSD class with the usual Battle Royall Dodge Ball Melee, I scuttled on back to the Haupertonian manor to prepare for the next week. Since I knew I would be occupied with peripheral tasks, I chose to make as much of the meals we would be consuming and bundle them up in nice little packages for each day. Provincial Chicken with Herbs and Garlic ... along with 6 bacon wrapped cheddar wursts. The Mrs loves bacon-baked chicken. I sprinkle a cup of rice along the bottom of the 18 inch skillet befor putting it in the oven for 90 minutes and the rice soaks up all the goodness. Yeah, I'm not supposed to be eating that sort of stuff, so that's why I canceled my Cardiologists Appointment. I also prepped 10 hard boiled eggs and started defrosting the lobster and little smokeys that the Tyrants like to snack on between activities. It's all a labor of love. The love of food is the most genuine love of all. That's a pithy quote that I cannot find an attribution for. Maybe I just made it up but I find it hard to believe that I am the initiator of something that ... Confucian. And, of course, there are a couple of other dishes ... mundane stuff like mac-n-cheese or spags-n-balls that I had to plow under. I tend to be happiest when I'm in the kitchen.

Saturday was HORRENDOUS! We had four/five events set up. The first thing in the morning, we had to drag the Tumultuous Twins out of their warm and snuggly lairs so we could get some nutrition in their bellies and get off to the TSD Studio in time for their test. They had other ideas. In mortal combat, I did manage to stuff enough of their breakfast between their gritted teeth between crushing blows to my ribs and skull that they would be able to make it through the test without depleting their energy reserves. This, however, resulted in my total lack of time to feed my own gullet. They did well in the test, for the most part. Attila, for the first time, broke her board in the first kick, outperforming the rest of the red belt testers. This will put them on track for being Cho Dan Bo in May ... which will get them set up for being a Junior Black Belt at this time next year. But let us not count our chicks before they hatch. Right now, we will just need to learn their third weapon form (another staff form) and then get their previous forms cleaned up. Thinking about it ... just ... wow. They'll be seven which gives them a few years till they are out of the Manor. Now my test, good grief! To start off, I was not in my peak performance health. Then, my usual bent is to go all out which tends to leave me in an exhausted state nearly half way through my 'performance art'. The sparring is towards the end and I just SUCK OUT when I get to that point. I always have some fantastic ideas about what I'm going to do and how I'm going to 'Shock and Awe' my audience, but in the end I just stand there and throw single kicks or punches while getting pummeled by my opponent. (Insert long and depressed sigh here)

After I slithered out of the test as a slithering mass of pulsating pain, we stopped off for a bite of pizza with the rest of the available crew and celebrated our ability to put on a strong face in spite of the various wounds leaking precious body fluids. From there, it was on to a Swim Meet where, again, I had bathroom guard duty. It was steaming hot in there but I was required to stand fast and for good reason. The janitor had a peculiar predilection of creeping in the back door every so often and slum around in the bathroom stalls. Creepy. I did get to see their performance on the Mrs's laptop after she uploaded the video and pictures she took. That's her thing, I sit in the locker room and embrace the aroma of teen-age angst while she sits amongst throngs of semi-detached family members and chews through several packs of rechargeable batteries. Fair trade, I think.

Since this is Scout Week, we had a special mass at church for the cubs to attend. We all sat in the front row and periodically throughout the service, Father K would make mention of it. Really quite sweet actually. Both Attila and Ghengis were there in the front row along with the rest of the Horde. Since this was done at the 10am Family mass, I had to let the gals at the Sunday school go on without me. I hope they managed. After that, the Mrs took our little girl scout (Daisy, Brownie?) off to manage a cookie-pimping table at the local grocery store while I took my mini-me off to the movie theater. While Ghengis and I were slouching through a rather expensive matinee showing of 'Dog Hotel', the minions of cookie crook managed to offload 100 boxes of tasty diabetic failure. She has personally sold over 70 boxes now. At 3.50/box, they are doing a brisk business! We had a bit of time before the gals were done, so after the expensive movie, we took the Cybernetic Mammoths out and gave them a thorough scrub-down. They were beginning to get that particularly interesting smell that can only be described as "moldy sweat sock full of Doritos". Yeah ... they need to get out more but they are seriously 'indoor dogs'. Thor balks at any inclement weather outings. Big Sissy.

The rest of my time was allocated to showing Eldest Son how to do his next staff form and compelling him to keep on trying to ride his bike. He's getting a bit to big for it so I can see an Upgrade in the near future for him. He has the 'going straight really fast' down pat and the 'panicked emergency brake' ... the turning part is the stich right now. Other than that, the Mrs and I did a bunch of prep for the week. Clothes, swim gear, TSD props, lunches, etc... Same work, every week. Life is superb ... elegant ... and splendid (Ghengis's new word).

Crud, forgot to whine about gasoline prices. WTF! Why are they at nearly $2/g when the oil price is sticking to $40/bbl!? Damn crooks!

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Weekend | Scouts

Labels: Children, Gas, Karate, Scouts, Swimming, Weekend

Hrmmm, spent the day struggling with a SNMP issue at work only to find out that someone created the issue thinking that they were checking in a configuration file for Solaris instead of SUSE linux. Major oops, since we were only deploying this to linux hosts. Heh. That's what I'm reduced to at work these days, spotting other people's missteps.

And now on to the important stuff: the perquisite benefits of being a middle-age, middle-class dad. Grab the Tyrants and stuff them full of dinner while they bang on the piano and do their 100 pages of math and spelling homework. Quickly laing waste to the tasks at hand, we grab a couple containers of 'Little Smokey Cheese Wursts' (not bacon wrapped, sorry) and head off to the drowning pool were we simulate the storming of Normandy. The Old Ladies flee in fear as the Tyrants plow into their hastily formed defenses. It was almost funny to see the looks on their faces as they skimmed over the surface of the water like pink little patrol boats sans torpedoes. Wrap that up and skip the hot tub; it was closed due to too much sloughed flesh in the intake valves. Yetch. Quick change into the TSD clothes with a second (dry) set of swimming clothing on underneath - they each get a hard boiled egg and we hit the Karate Studio. Flash forward about an hour, we have just finished sparring so the class is over. The Ever Patient Mrs glides in the door and they all run off to Swim Team Practice for 2 hours; Genghis with his Lobster Chunks, Attila with her Mandarin Orange Slices, and both with a stick of string cheese. A few hours later, I limp out of the studio after getting rolled fairly throughly and meet up with the rest of the Haupertonian Household where a roaring fire and loyal Cybernetic Mastodons bay longingly at the beginnings of a light flurry of snow coming down. Of course, that snow is quite efficient at making those mountains of dog deposits in the back 50 look more like a pristine range of Matterhorn look-alikes than what they really are: Frozen Turd Bombs. Can you believe that (aside from the nasty cold I'm battling) this is an optimal day for me?

Technorati Tags:Illness | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Piano, Swimming, Tang So Doo

Going lazy again today. The kids were home all day yesterday, driving the Mrs up the wall. We skipped swimming and TSD so that they could go out in the slush and play with the Cybernetic Mastodons. What a mess. Nothing like being chilled to the bone and getting a snoot full of 'Wet Dog Cologne' while trying to make a slush-man. Then, getting smacked in the back of the head with a partially frozen slush-ball. Sweet. The whole matter makes no sense though. The roads were not all that bad and it would not be a great effort to get the Tyrants to their Higher Education Facility. Today, they have an open house that I will be attending ... in the same classrooms where I teach Sunday School every week. There will be no great surprise, but to support the moral and emotional well-being of my offspring, I'll be there.

Other mundane news: I got a haircut yesterday. It was getting a bit long so I stopped by my favorite barbershop over by the Airbase and got shorn. Those old Italian guys really can do a top notch job with a 'flat top' cut. What else ... hmmm, selling girl scout cookies for Attila and doing well with that. Moving a box or two every day. Oh, and I tried to set up a bunch of network components for the Mrs. She got four 1tb networks disks and when I tried to hook them up to a hub, they were unresponsive. I plugged one into the wireless router's hard-line ports and it sprang to life. I'm guessing that the lousy 8 port 10mb hub is just not going to work for this application. I'll probably surrender and get a 24 port 100mb switch. Home networking can be such a challenge sometimes.

Technorati Tags:Networking | Swimming | Karate | Children | School

Labels: Children, Karate, Networking, School, Sunday School, Swimming

Word of the day: Turgid

Not much else. Standard day in the manor. No piano yesterday though. The instructor is on vacation at Disney World. Good for her, because this ice storm is making a real mess about here. Thought we might have a 2hr delay ... but that did not happen. Called the hot-line at 0545 sharp and the cancellation notice was already up. So, I lit the fire in the wood-stove and got my big old rear on the road. Took twice as long as it should have to get to work, but that was expected. The POS Super Saturn (of Doooom) handled ok, which is more than I can say for some of those high performance AWD beasts.

I'm not sure if TSD is going to be open tonight, but we'll give it a go. Have to make sure the Tyrants are sufficiently tired every night before they go into their meditation chambers!

Technorati Tags:Ice Storm | Swimming | Karate | Children | School

Labels: Children, Ice Storm, Karate, School, Swimming

Here I am in the boys locker room, doing the 'Security Duty' for the Swim Meet. Basically, my primary task is supposed to be making sure that no kids get molested or harassed while they are here. Secondary is the prevention of vandalism or injury from horseplay. So, sergeant at arms is probably the best classification. I've pulled this honor for the last two meets, mostly because I'm one of the few who took the training. I needed it for the work I do with the children in Sunday School and Cub Scouts as well so I'm in high demand for this sort of thing. Most of the time I just sit here in the swampy heat waiting, watching, and giving stern looks of disapproval when one of the boys do regular boy-type stuff. No harm comes of it since it never goes to far. Story of my life: Sheepdog.

Friday night was ok. Kids ate their lunch so they were entitled to 5 minutes in the hot tub provided they did their piano practice, finish their homework and eat all of their dinner (of course, busing their dishes afterwards as well). They fulfilled the requirements so they got some bubbly time. On the way to the pool, they get a treat in the POS Super Saturn of 6 little smokeys of the 'cheddar wurst' variety. They just love 'em. Gobble them down and we get going on our laps. Three laps each of breast stroke, back, crawl and butterfly. They get some pointers and then we play for the rest of the hour. It's can be a pretty good time, mostly. If either of them have had a rough day, it can be a real bear. From there, we have a 10 minute drive to TSD practice where they eat a hard boiled egg on the way. A little death-ninja training mixed in with a bazillion pushups/situps (they cheat horribly on these) will get them a bit tuckered out. On Mondays and Thursdays, they'll go from the karate studio to another 1.5 hours of swim practice where they mostly goof around. That's fine by me ... the Tyrants already got enough 'coaching' (read: drill-sergeant admonishment) for the day. The Ever Beautiful Mrs picks them up for that activity most of the time. If she has her own late-night engagements, I'll take over. Every other week is Girl scouts so she'll take Attila to that and I'll escort Genghis to the practice. On the way, they'll get either crab/lobster chunks (Jakers) or Mandarin orange slices (Alexis) and a packet of string cheese to tide them over. On the way home from that, it's a treat of a 100% fruit drink and a packet of sugar wafers. So riddle me this: why have they not gained a pound in
a year!? Must be the Asian influence.

The Grandparents made a trip down and occupied the Tyrant for a bit while the Mrs and I got some much-needed sleep this morning. Of course, since I failed to get my coffee at 0600, I started the day off with a good old withdrawal headache. Since then, I've been sucking down the brown elixir of alertness like it's going out of style. In between, Gramps and I worked on the pine-wood derby cars for the Tyrants and restocked the firewood brackets. I've got about 1 more month's worth of firewood stacked up next to the manor walls and 2 weeks inside the 'stove' room. I think we'll do ok for the rest of the winter. It's been colder than an Alaskan plumber's wrench in January around here of late. Gotta talk to Mr Gore about that ... Need some of that new-fangled global warming! Tomorrow, I've got to get the family to the 8am mass so I'll have time to do some brunch with them after I finish up with Sunday School. Weekends ... ever since we started the family some 6.5 years ago, my free time has been anything but! If I can slice out a few hours tomorrow, I'm going to try to clean some of the refuse out of the flower beds and put a few bulbs into the ground. It may be to cold though, I wish I had finished that nonsense in the Fall. If it's too onerous out there I'll just spend the time cleaning inside and prepping the meals for the week. That's a lot of sandwiches you know.

Technorati Tags:Weekend | Swimming | Karate | Children

Labels: Children, Karate, Swimming, Weekend

So here I am at the Log College Middle School swimming pool, waiting for the kids swim practice to begin. Toasty as all get out! It would be nice I suppose if I were not sitting here in a sopping wet do-bock (Korean spelling mangled). So, it's the perfect time to sit down with the laptop, find ZERO wi-fi signal (not even an encrypted one, and just pound out a rough doc.

It's been some time since I've had a chance to fill ya'll in on the going's on around the Haupertonian Manor. There has been illnesses and broken digits. The illness has been distributed among the clan with equality and the snapped tendons, digits and such have been reserved for my enjoyment. My pinky toe looks like a bloated purple grub at the moment. That should be a wonderful when I go through my black-belt pre-test in a couple weeks. Oh yessss .... I'll be gimping it up in prime form! The Tyrants will be going for their second stripe on their red belts so they are only 6 months behind me at this point. Tough little buggers, they are. The force is strong with these ones! Their midi-chlorian count is off the charts!! (Geeky Star Wars Ref here)

Let's see ... a synopsis of all the other mish-mash that makes my blessed life so durned interesting ... Christmas was off the charts ... we had everyone down at the manor this year and the 100 foot tall tree looked FANTASTIC. The piano/keyboard lessons are going well and they are really shaping up to be a couple of Mozarts. I tried to keep up with their lesson plans, but my wretched fingers are too well trained to be at home on the computer keyboard. Alas, no late life shift for me to take up a lounge act with the Tyrants and the Mrs as a sultry swooner. Hmmm ... massive layoffs at work that somehow spared me but left me with an excessively truncated list of available victims for the support phone duty. Not good for me, but I'll still get paid. No bonuses, no raises, not 401k matching ... but I never had that before so I'm not too sore about loosing those perks. Like I said, I'm not picking up shell casings in a war-zone to sell back to some dubious buyer so I really am in a pretty good place.

Oh, and for Christmas, Hero Dad and Super Mom bought the Mrs and I a new kitchenette set and a new Refrigerator. The table and chairs are really nice and sit very high so I don't wreck my back leaning over the Tyrant's homework. The fridge is VERY quiet and having the freezer on the bottom is so nice. I could never find anything because it was stored at a level that would require me to have eyeballs in my knee-caps. Now, I can pretty much locate that frozen pleisaur roast that I made last week with no difficulty. I moved the old fridge to the garage where it now serves as a back-up for milk, eggs, broccoli and beer. Happy-happy!

Oh, and how about those gas prices! Jeeze, what a roller coaster ride.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Piano | Christmas

Labels: Beer, Blogging, Children, Christmas, Grandparents, Health, Support Phone, Swimming, Tang So Doo, Winter

Ugh. Work. Not much to say but the troglodyte mindset of some as they claw their way through their career is less than palatable to the neutral observer. The narrow minded and puerile actions that pass for fiduciary responsibility boggles the mind. Alas, my gripe is shaded by the fact that I have been on hiatus in a simpler, more joyous world of late. Once more into the breach, dear friends; work is such an ugly thing. Kids are fine ... missing the halcyon days of vacation as much as me. They continue to ask for the privileges that they were afforded then (pizza/tacos/ice cream on demand, staying up late, no manual labor, etc...) and alas, to their dismay, they are refuted. Ghengis, much to his discontent, is starting to learn about 'rewards' and why you are not given the carrot before the stick.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Swimming, Tang So Doo

More meetings (about 6 hours worth) chowdered my day yesterday. It was an atypical day in that sense, mind you. I had a significant number of tasks that just did not get done outside of my blogging to boot. Urk. Even worse, our team has the temerity to do it again today ... and tomorrow ... and tomorrow - Creeps in this petty pace from day to day. I am not being any manner of a hyperbole when I state that the end/beginning of each 'sprint' cycle is nothing but back-to-back infomercials arranged by the Agile patrician that stalk the halls here, trying to ensure their continued power. No matter, my 'non-work' life is rich and robust enough to counter my meeting surfeit. There is the swimming ... where Miss Gwen and Ghengis's favorite young lady, Miss Steph have been seen. TSD is starting to get better. The Tyrants had nearly forgotten everything after a week hiatus. In 30 days, we have another test and this time they will be getting their Red Belts and black Dobok uniforms. Little Ninjas, on the prowl.

Spending a lot of time in the evening preparing for the birthday-bash this Friday. Week long spoilage of the Tyrants of Turpitude. I made 20 hamburger patties (special recipe), sliced up 5 racks of ribs and wrapped them in foil with the 'special sauce'. Laid out all the peripheral accouterments and sliced up the meat for the skewers. Now we just need to look into the cabbage in the garden to see if it is ready for Grams Super Special Cole-Slaw that the Mrs loves so much. Just so you all know, the Mrs is a major gear in this well oiled machinery. I may be the spring, but without her ... I'm just a tightly wound kook. Tonight, we'll slice up the cheese into chunks for the platter (durn, need tooth-picks) and maybe pull the cabbage out. Oh, so much to do. I could show you the list but it already is two pages long!

Technorati Tags:Birthday | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Birthday, Children, Swimming, Tang So Doo

Not a lot to add to the Haupertonian Chronicles today. Although, I usually do not post on Friday. Given that; standard fare, yesterday presented. Although, the TSD adult class was a real hum-dinger. Almost everyone in the class was as sweaty as I typically am. Even the Circle Sparring was invigorating. At the end of class, one of the participants, Sgt Awesome, announced that she would be riding in the MS-150 and is looking for donations. I immediately pulled out $20 and demanded that the rest of the crowd 'Man up!'. I gave her some tips and thanked her. She, of course, noted that although it would be warm, it could not be any worse than her tour of duty in Afghanistan.

More cheap meme cruft:

Welcome to the new 2008 edition of getting to know your family and friends. Here is what you are supposed to do, and try not to be lame and spoil the fun. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then [send this to a bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person who sent it to you] post it. Some of you may get this several times; that means you have lots of friends. Have fun and be truthful!

1. What is your occupation right now? I write software so you can watch cable television.
2. What color are your socks right now? Black as my soul
3. What are you listening to right now? 100 code monkeys rattling away on the keyboards
4. What was the last thing that you ate? Oatmeal ... damn cholesterol
5. Can you drive a stick shift? Not without grinding gears
6. Last person you spoke to on the phone? My Scrum Team
7. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Certainly!
8. How old are you today? 1,274,869,412 seconds old give or take
9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? Curling
10. What is your favorite drink? The Ultimate Long Island Ice Tea in the Disney Contemporary Resort Bar ... 3rd floor.
11. Have you ever dyed your hair? Sun bleach only.
12. Favorite food? Easier to say I do not like raw swiss cheese, avocados and olives
13. What is the last movie you watched? Kung-Foo Panda
14. Favorite day of the year? Every day I wake up next to the Mrs
15. How do you vent anger? Vicious Lawn Work
16. What was your favorite toy as a child? The Mississippi
17. What is your favorite season? Spring
18. Cherries or Blueberries? Certainly!
19. Do you want your friends to e-mail(blog) you back? Is there any doubt that I am an extrovert?
20. Who is the most likely to respond? Everybody wants to be a cat! (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?)
21. Who is least likely to respond? Friggen Dick Nixon ... he is such a ... well.
22. Living arrangements? Domestic Warrior, Working Dad, Leader of the Horde. The Manor needs me to fill all the roles.
23. When was the last time you cried? I'm a bit of a pansy, but I read this story. If it does not move you, you are already dead inside.
24. What is on the floor of your closet? New Toys for the Children.
25. Who is the friend you have had the longest {that you are sending to}? The Mrs.
26. What did you do last night? Swim with kid, TSD with kids, Snuggle with Kids ... trend?
27. What are you most afraid of? I fear what I may do if someone got between my family and myself.
28. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? HAMBURGER!!!! 9lb, please.
29. Favorite dog breed? Labs: Big, dumb, happy, loyal Labs.
30. Favorite day of the week? Sunday
32. Diamonds or pearls? Bleck ... I'm more of a Carbon Steel sort of guy.
33. What is your favorite flower? Morning Glory.

Technorati Tags:Meme | Swimming | Karate | Children | Multiple Sclerosis

Labels: Children, meme, Multiple Sclerosis, Swimming, TSD

Ok ... preoccupied today with work. Go figure. Yesterday I went out to lunch again (gasp!) ... and proceeded to burn 8$ on a sushi buffet. I think I got my money's worth, but I may have accidentally eaten one of the chop-sticks. Other than that, I just received another set of medical forms to fill out for more voluntary torture. You know, I try to stay in the network of doctors and such that are associated with the Mega-Hospital here and they just don't seem to be able to share this data. Stupid HIPAA making my writing hand cramp up and all. But whining is what I do best, you know. Some real top-shelf grousing here, cheap! Hmmm, what else ... oh, the Tyrants and I did some firefly hunting ... they were quite enthusiastic about it ... even though they are now allowed to exercise their 2nd amendment rights, they chose to use nets instead of the suppressive firepower of heavy weaponry. Tend not to catch much in the way of bugs when you start to bring out the napalm, oddly enough. Hrm, yes. TSD; good. Ghengis had to do a bazillion pushups though. Swimming; equally good except for me having to explain to Attila why she cannot wear a bikini even though the sufficiently robust young lady who was in the pool was wearing one. No, the facility rules say otherwise hon ... and I'm making some extra rules to boot.

Now, the meme for the day. Got this from Deb-Deb who got it from Liz:

1. Post 3 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else on your friends list has done.
2. See if anybody else responds with "I've done that."
3. Have your friends cut & paste this into their journal to see what scandalous unique things they've done in their life.

1. Held my twin newborns in the delivery room and told the Mrs that they are just as beautiful as her.
2. Stood on an expanse of land that is the family farm and could see no-one as far as the horizon. Really, truly, alone.
3. Was told by a doctor that I would most likely be in a wheel chair within 10 years. That was 12 years ago. I'm going to be testing for my black-belt in Tang So Doo early next year.

Sure it's not extraordinary, but hey, it's my story.

Technorati Tags:Meme | Swimming | Karate | Children | Medical Care

Labels: Children, Medical Care, meme, Swimming, TSD

At the moment, every little thing is copacetic at the Haupertonian Manor. Oddly enough, work has been rather mundane as well. Not so much that my experience was any different than normal or that much less painful, but the delta was significant enough to make me perceive that it was normal and hum-drum. The lack of various senior officers and potentates sending one countermand after another till my email inbox was at repletion, I do believe, was most likely the impetus for that deviation from the norm. Instead, I spent my time at a miniature golf outing and then promptly attended a group luncheon at a restaurant with wretched service. The food was palatable but the waitress was counting on her natural beauty to make up for her general lack of skill in customer satisfaction. In the end, she was savvy enough to write herself in for a 20% tip which we promptly downgraded to 15%. I suppose if she had not been so audacious, she would not have benefited from our obvious largess. I do believe that standard tipping starts at 15% for acceptable service ... we did not get exactly what we ordered. The hostess was alerted to this but we most likely will not be returning.

As for the children, the tyrants are getting back into the swing of things. Swimming was as swimming does. They have new swim shoes and are happy with them ... they like throwing 'wet balls' about in the pool so they are starting to learn about treading water. It's kinda like life training, you know. TSD was as good for them as it ws for me. They were a bit off their game, but that is to be expected. We did some exercises involving a jump, combat roll and a flying side-kick that the little one's really got into. Oh, and as for their day-time activities, they were promoted to the 'Big Kids Room', meaning that it's the last stop before they are paroled as "Reformed Citizens". Of course, this means no naps which works for me. Oddly enough, they have been eating their meals entirely and I do not need to admonish them for squishing their sandwiches into a glutinous mass of bread and byproduct in the plastic baggies. No tremulous lower lips to distract me from having fun with them. It's nice to take a break from 'Mean Daddy' mode every so often. They are nearing the days of 1st grade at the local parochial school ... I'll be saving that particularly sociopathic personality for the teachers and administrators.

The garden; doing quite well. All the leaf lettuce and spinach have been ripped out by the roots except for one forlorn row of buttercrunch. At the end of June, I'll need to till that row under and replant for the bumper crop. Tomatoes are on the vine now, but the peas are destined for a fate similar to the lettuce. Broccoli is producing diminishing returns, but the cabbage is almost the size of my head now. Potatoes are ok, but need to be tended to. Beans are coming up quite nicely. Onions are the size of baseballs. Beats, golf-ball mimicry. And then there are the summer squash and zucchini ... ahh yes. Much grilling is planned for those bad-boys! My cornocopia of produce is overflowing.

Technorati Tags:Garden | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Gardening, Swimming, TSD

I've been a bit busy of late and my blogging has had to suffer for it. A flagging desire to engage in word-smithing is not the primary issue here, just a symptom. I had planned to be a bit more verbose today, but the nature of the 'end of month' planning is chewing up my schedule something fierce. Old news is new news don't you know. I'll just dredge up some of my old complaints: End of sprint cycle coming up and along with it, a litany of meetings and impulse/ad-hoc status updates. The swimming and TSD with the children is back on track. After a week off with the Grandparents, they are utterly and totally spoiled. Forgot half of their forms and could not stay standing for more than a micro-second without fiddling. I expected this. Of course, we will have a repeat of this after the 'Week of Birthday Celebration' that is planned for the 4th of July. We have a lot of planning going into that week so I hope the Tyrants appreciate it. Just the 5th will be a logistical challenge in itself. I mean, how do you slow roast a Steak-osaurus Rex!?

Bad news ... I am taking a motorcycle safety course and the final test just happens to fall on the same day as the next TSD test; August 2nd. Oh, woe is me for I shall have to take an 'In Class' test which is essentially Master Smith spending all his energy on trying to break me down. Now the test itself is no less difficult than the effort I usually put into the class every night mind you. It will just be the probability that I'll get my tush whooped something fierce during the test. What I'm doing to save a few gallons of gasoline ... I'm considering the unintended consequences now. I hear you do not need a Class M license for a motor scooter. I would surely look manly on that, no?

And because I forgot to include links: I submit thoughts on health:viatmin-D and flossing.

Technorati Tags:Dentist | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Dentist, Karate, Swimming