I will just post whatever comes to me as my fingers fly over the keyboard in the modern day equivalent of Evelyn Woods and her speed reading wizardry, except my wizardry is in typing...and knowing everything.

Lance Armstrong has, short of falling into an abyss or being snipered by angry Frenchmen, locked up his unprecedented 7th consecutive Tour de France. You all know the story, but it's no less amazing today.

10% chance of surviving cancer, returning to riding professionally, then kicking the world's collective bicycling ass for seven years, despite being so loathed by the French that he's frequently spit upon during the race, and organizers have even altered the course to minimize Armstrong's enormous edge in the serious climbing stages.

Yet here he is, the most frequently tested (for drugs) athlete on the planet, defying all odds and setting a record that will never ever be approached again, let alone matched or bettered. (that was one of the ugliest reading paragraphs I've ever written, and I've typed drunk before, so I've made some doozies).

I forgot to tell you all about something that happened this weekend that shocked me to the core. The wife, urchin and I were at The Home Depot on Saturday...

***opinion interruption***

I fucking hate that Home Depot insists on "THE" Home Depot. No. You're Home Depot. I go to Home Depot. I do NOT go to THE Home Depot. It's arrogant and annoying that you do that. But at least you were smart enough to allow for http://www.homedepot.com/ to point to your actual site instead of sending me to some hosting site. Thanks for that little gift, Nardelli.

***I now return you to my story***

We were hunting appliance bulbs for that overhead light that's under the microwave and over the stove (40w / 125v, in case you care). And by the way "THE" Home Depot, you don't carry that bulb. Ever. Which annoys me.

Anyway, Lauren and I were sitting upon and fantasizing about the big John Deere lawn tractors at the front of the store (she was sitting and I was fantasizing, in case you didn't figure that out) and all of a sudden, my gerbil -bladdered 3 year old starts grabbing herself as though she's on fire, hopping one foot to the other and yelling "GO PEE!!! GO PEE!!!"

So, in Mr. Mom fashion, I scoop here up and start running towards the back center of the store where the refrigerators and bathrooms are. I'm running because she usually has about a 15 second buffer before she pees. On the way by my wife (who's still talking with the light bulb professional about what "should be right here") I fling the Urchin travel bag at her feet as I fly by them both.

We get to the head just in time to have the uncomfortable exchange of glances between myself and another male patron using the baffroom. Yes asshole, I brought a girl in here. I don't have a choice, since the last time I went in the ladies room, someone called security.

As we returned to the scene of the drive-by bag flinging, the wife tells me that store personnel were concerned by my behavior (running, carrying child, throwing bag, etc) since they had just had to call the cops on a male patron (I will not say father). What happened, you might ask?

Well, apparently the senior penis-haver was upset with the behavior of his 7-10 year old son, so he punched him in the face, bloodying and possibly breaking his nose. We exited the store in time to see the two squad cars (one for the boy and one for the asshole) as the adult was being cuffed and stuffed and we could hear the boy crying. My wife mentioned that the kid would probably STILL suffer, since any man that would fucking punch a kid in the face in a retail store probably didn't have any qualms about kicking the family around when he got home from the pokie.

I suddenly realized that I was flushed and thought to myself, "I'd be going to jail too right now, because if I'd have witnessed that, I probably would have had to have been pulled off of that low-life shitbag by the staff of THE Home Depot.

I am repeatedly and frequently astounded at adults that are all too willing to beat, maime and kill children in the name of "discipline." In the news every day is some story about some shitass, like the one in Florida last week that was worried that his 3 year old was gay, and in "teaching the 3 year old to box," he killed him. Oh, and the boy was returned to this Father of the Year by Florida's DFACS folks after two years in foster care.

Why was he in foster care?

Oh, at five months old, the child was presented to an ER person with multiple broken bones, burns and fractures.

AT FIVE FUCKING MONTHS OLD!!!

These monsters should not and can not be rehabilitated, much like pedophiles can't be rehabilitated. It's time to stop the mandatory drug sentencing for non-violent offenders to make room for shitbags like the man at Home Depot. Otherwise, they'll have to make room for two people: The next man that punches his kid in front of me and me for beating the shit out of said man.

Now, on to lighter fare. Yesterday's quote of the day:

The urchin had gone across the street with my siser-in-law for God knows what. I figured Lauren'd come back in whore's makeup like she has before when left unattended with her aunt.

Anyway, about 20 minutes later, we all walked over as I was to bring her home for the family's evening meal. She had apparently had some success in the baffroom while I wasn't there. In the kitchen were my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law and one nephew.

As we were about to leave, the urchin took my hand, and with only minimal prompting from me, she looked back and said: "Fanks for helping me drop the deuce, hedder." Man, kids are fun to teach stuff. Oh, and in an effort to continue to lighten the mood, here are some pictures of the urchin that were taken since I last posted any. Enjoy.

She found a tree frog on the Big Green Egg

This is the urchin holding a postcard from our friends the Zanettis, who are vacationing in Italy. Oh, the postcard is covered in penises. Nice.

And these two were taken last weekend when the urchin was sick and was up all night two nights in a row. She was so tired, she fell asleep while climbing up on to the couch. As soon as she got to where she was going to pull herself up to look at me over the cushion, she lost consciousness. How cute.