I was reading my favorite news site (Fark dot com) this morning and stumbled across a story from The Smoking Gun (who broke the James Frey / Oprah scandal) about a guy in Iowa who was being held in jail for assault and robbery.

Then they showed his mugshot:



And then I'm thinking to myself, what do his parents think? Do they ask him to step out of family photos? What about conferences at his kid's school? How do the teachers respond to that?

And then there's the whole "of course he's a criminal!! Where's a dude with "Fuck You!!" on his forehead gonna work? Chik-fil-a? Blockbuster?

Anyway, this made me laugh so I thought I'd share. I hope he enjoys his time in PMITAP prison. (For those that don't know, that means "Pound Me In The Ass" Prison). Maybe some big fella will knock the fuck you off this guy's face.

Later.

I was working on the laptop of a guy at my office and we were talking during the "work," when he said something like "How many jobs have you had?"

"A lot," I replied.

"I've had a lot too," he said.

I always thought that I'd had a lot of jobs. Then he proceeded to show me a list of all of his jobs. He is a little older than me (maybe five years), but his list of jobs was extensive.

See, since I was 25 years old, I've only had two jobs. But between 13 and 25 years of age, I had jobs o' plenty.

And that got me thinking. How many jobs have I actually had?

And the thing about looking back and trying to remember jobs is that it's similar to trying to recount or remember sexual partners (I assume). A job / person or two always gets overlooked.

Anyway, just to get the ball rolling, I am going to list jobs that I had over the years to the best of my recollection. If at some point I remember more, I will simply copy and paste the old list into a new entry and add the recently recalled job.

Enjoy everybody!

(I am going from most recent to oldest as best I can).

1. Hardwood Lump Charcoal Sales and Distribution
2. Catering
   
3. Computer Systems Consultant
   
4. Network Administrator for world's largest condom manufacturer
5. IT Tech Support rep for worst RF equipment manufacturer in America
6. Customer Service rep for Primerica Life Insurance
7. Telemarketer (for about 30 minutes)
8. Customer Service Manager for phone-based job listings search company
9. customer service rep for 800 and 900 number service provider
10. Bouncer and Waiter for Atlanta sports bar
    
11. Customer Service Rep for Mitsubishi in Irvine, California
12. Customer Service Rep for Toshiba in Irvine, California
13. Bouncer and Waiter for Atlanta sports bar
14. Waiter at Buckhead Mellow Mushroom
15. AP clerk for the IRS in Atlanta
    
16. Stocker for Turtles records and tapes
17. Pizza kitchen and appetizer"chef" at Denaro's Restaurant in Auburn, AL
18. Pizza Delivery guy for Morton's Pizza in Auburn, AL
19. Shift Supervisor / area designer for Pizza Hut Delivery
20. Stock boy at Bargaintown in Opelika, AL
21. Landscaper / shrub planter / pinestraw spreader
    
22. Order taker at Pizza Hut delivery
    
23. Busboy at Fuddruckers in Atlanta
24. Runner / cleanup guy at J.C. Penny's in Atlanta
25. Bagboy at Kroger in Atlanta
26. Dishwasher at Mario's Italian Ristonrante
    
27. Dishwasher at Swenson's Ice Cream in Atlanta

I think that might be it. Actually, I'm fairly certain that's not it at all, but until I hear from someone who hired me or fired me or laughed when they heard about either, this'll be the list.

How about you? How many jobs have YOU had? Can you list them?

There is no fear like the fear of something happening to your child. There simply isn't. I worry every day when I leave the house and I worry every time I put the girls to bed. It's my nature. I'm a worrier. I've always been a worrier.

I'm better about it now than I used to be, but it's still there.

You try not to think about it and you think to yourself in quiet moments that it can't happen to you. You believe that you're a good parent and that you follow all of the instructions and make good decisions and do all the right things. You think and worry and plan and about the future.

Only sometimes all of that is not enough.

Today I found out that my dear friend Lisa and her husband lost their baby last Thursday.

Amelia would have been three months old yesterday.

I don't have all the details at this point. Hell, I have very few details at this point. All I know is that one of the best people I know on this ball of dirt is right now, as we speak, enduring a pain that would leave the vast majority of us completely shut down and unable to function.

Lisa was and is a dear friend who worked hard and is one of the most generous people I know. She worked and put herself thru grad school to become a PA so she could do what she wanted more than anything else in the world to do: help people.

When she told me she was pregnant she was absolutely beside herself. She and Greg were very excited and looked forward to their lives and what the future would hold.

Amelia was born just as I was starting my cardiac deal and the day she was writing to tell me about Amelia's birth, she read my blog and found out what we were dealing with and immediately emailed to see if she could do anything, even though she'd just given birth.

And thru my recovery we talked a few times via email and we both sounded great and happy. Lisa graduated from school with honors AFTER having the baby, a feat that few could ever pull off I would bet.

And then out of the blue, she calls me today, and I cannot even understand her to tell who it is on the phone.

But I heard her next words as clearly as any I've ever heard:

"My baby's gone."


I felt like I'd been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. I still do.

There are no words of comfort for a woman whose lost a child, especially an infant. Her faith is strong and she is a great person whose done the right thing more often than most. Yet here I am having a totally surreal and devestating conversation with her about how her only child is gone.

I feel like I'm tied to my chair. I can't remember the last time I felt this sad for another person.
The combination of sympathy and emptiness I feel for her and her husband Greg is almost a bitter taste in my mouth and I can't make it go away.

I only hope that she can somehow find comfort and peace and in time, can start to live again. I have no idea if I could.

I love you Lisa and I am so sorry for your and Greg's loss.

You know you're doing something right (or wrong) if you're more tired from your weekend than your work week.

Friday we had a bunch of stuff going on and got delayed and distracted and didn't eat dinner until nearly 10:15. I know that's not healthy, but I didn't fill up on crap. Dinner was as good as it gets in my opinion. Care to guess what it was?

Ribeyes cooked on the Big Green Egg and eaten on paper plates. No muss, no fuss, no loading baked potatoes, nothing. Just a couple of guys (me and my brother in law) with a steak on a plate with knife and for in hand. Oh, and more than a few cold beers, which is what made Saturday morning's start so rough.

(That said, I laughed Saturday since what the three of us drank Friday was not an uncommon amount for me alone pre-bypass. Guess I'm getting to be a cheaper and cheaper date now).

Oh, I nearly forgot and how could I considering how exciting it is / was. We got a new car.

I know what you're thinking. "Didn't you just get new cars a year or two ago?"

Yes we did. The Trailblazers were 2004 models and are both two years old right now. The problem was that when we got them, urchin 2.0 wasn't even in the discussion phase, and now that there are two of those things, getting them all in and out of the car with the appropriate accoutraments has gotten difficult, and taking anyone else with us is all but impossible.

Combined with the thought of more extracurricular stuff for Lauren and a family vacation pending, we decided to start sniffing around the (get ready now) minivan market and see what was out there and whether we could swing it or not.

The wife contacted Bill Heard Chevrolet of Buford, site of the purchase of our previous three vehicles, just to see what they had and what they'd cost. It didn't look good.

But she worked and worked and worked and bothered the guy and finally, when it was all said and done, we got to within $15 of our old payment, so we bought a minivan. (Aye carramba. We now own a minivan).

It's actually pretty cool as it doesn't look like a traditional minivan, especially from the front. And the way they are designed now is more like the thought that goes into building boats, maximizing all space for storage or some other purpose. The days of the 3 rows of seating and two cupholders being the whole package are long over.

Here's what we bought:

2006 Chevrolet Uplander

It's really pretty cool. It's got the on-board flip down dvd screen, great stereo, power sliding passenger side door, 3rd row seating so it can accomodate seven passengers, a built-in child seat for Lauren, removable second and third row seating, and much more. Oh, it also came with two infared headsets for listening to horrifyingly annoying children's DVD's so I don't have to hear them. And the guy gave us four sets instead of two, so when the inevitable breaking of a set or two happens, we've got replacements for free just a step away in the basement.

I'm still not thrilled about driving it, but I can already tell you that getting two girls plus their crap and any guests into the car is far far easier than it ever was with the Trailblazer.

Oh, and when we went to dinner Saturday night, we made Uncle Todd watch this year's Auburn-Georgia game on DVD during the trip, and I kept the remote with me so he had to watch it. That was worth it for sure.

(Sorry about that Saturday evening spoiler. Let's get back to the weekend).

Saturday was soccer day for urchin 1.0 which meant a 6:30am pop-in visit from her since that's her new thing. It's fine if we're already up but it blows if you're getting meaningful sleep.

We were up and out and took our nephew with us to soccer and, as usual, had a nice time with all of the other soccer parents. (In case you're wondering, yes we are all huge dorks).

Then it was thru the Chik-fil-a for lunch and back home, followed by a panicked trip to Sam's Club for rack of lamb, sodas, beer, diapers, and paper plates.

they had no beer for me since we're a Bud Select house now and they didn't have the right size diapers for urchin 2.0: The Titanic, but they had everything else.

Deal of the day? 165 Chinette white heavy duty dinner sized paper plates for $12.88 plus tax.

Then it was home for my workout (75 minutes, 4.2 miles covered, and I burned around 700 calories and 80 carbs).

The exciting part of the day was that Mee-mee was coming over to babysit so we could go out to Macaroni Grill with the Thomas' and the Zanettis.

Dinner was awesome. I ate way WAY too much but felt better about it considering I had been dioligent in getting on the treadmill this week and had been maintaining my Hasselhoff-like 210.5 pounds all week long. I figured a few drinks and a self-indulgent dinner wouldn't kill me.

We got home about two seconds after Sophia apparently stopped crying (which sounded like perfect timing to me) and hit the hay around 11pm. Good thing too, because urchin 1.0 was up once, then got up at five freaking thirty Sunday morning.

Why? Because Mee-mee told her we were going to Cracker Barrel with Caca, Wivia, Max and Feff.

That settles it. No one tells her anything until it's the day of the event. When the time comes for us to leave for the beach in May, she's gonna think she's been kidnapped because we're not divulging the destination until she can see the fucking ocean.

We hit the Cracker Barrel at around 8:30 and I was torn. My usual order was the Old Timer's Breakfast:

Old Timer’s Breakfast

Two Eggs cooked to order with Grits, Sawmill Gravy, Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits, real Butter and the best Preserves, Jam n’ Apple Butter (on request) we could find.
~plus~
Fried Apples or Hashbrown Casserole
~and~
Choice of Smoked Sausage Patties, Turkey Sausage Patties or Thick-Sliced Bacon

Grandpa's Country Fried Breakfast:

Grandpa’s Country Fried Breakfast^®

Two Eggs cooked to order with Grits, Sawmill Gravy, Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits, real Butter and the best Preserves, Jam n’ Apple Butter (on request) we could find.
~plus~
Fried Apples or Hashbrown Casserole
~and~
Chicken Fried Chicken or Country Fried Steak

or Uncle Herschel's favorite:

Uncle Herschel’s Favorite^®

Two Eggs cooked to order with Grits, Sawmill Gravy, Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits, real Butter and the best Preserves, Jam n’ Apple Butter (on request) we could find.
~plus~
Fried Apples or Hashbrown Casserole
~and~
(choice of one)

Hickory Smoked Country Ham Grilled Pork Chop
8 oz. Hamburger Steak Farm-Raised Catfish Fillet
(cooked to order)
Sugar Cured Ham Fried Chicken Tenderloin

What to do? What to do? What to do?

And what DID I order, you must be asking yourself? I ordered this:

Oatmeal Breakfast

Served warm with your choice of one of the following toppings, Fried Apples, Pecans, Raisins, Fresh Sliced Bananas or Pure Maple Syrup.
~and~
Choice of Apple Bran Muffin or
Wild Maine Blueberry Muffin

For the record, I got the sliced bananas and the blueberry muffin. I also got to eggbeaters scrambled with cheese. The eggs were surprisingly good, as were the bananas and the muffin. The oatmeal sucked, but it's my fault for not getting cinnamon, but it didn't matter much. They didn't taste bad. They just didn't taste. That's one of the sacrifices you have to make...I guess.

We headed home, and that's when the wife, Mee-mee and Caca decided that it was a good day to take all the kids to the movies to see that nanny movie.

YAY!!!

Whatever was I going to do with three uninterrupted, childless and wifeless hours?

Easy. Clean up and work out, of course. (WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING TO ME?)

I also got word that a neighbor of a friend is selling a Bowflex Pro something (retail $1400) for $100 bucks, and I think I'm getting it. (Like I said before, WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING TO ME?)

The family got home and shortly thereafter the Cashions (Kurt, Bonnie, Amelia and Charlotte seen here) arrived for an afternoon of haircuts, cold beers and a dnner of rack of lamb prepared on the Big Green Egg.

See, it seems that the Cashion clan had never had lamb. No leg, no rack, nothing. We were dumbfounded but committed to introducing them to this delicious meal.

We used our standard marinade (which we use for ribeyes, flank steaks, chicken, or whatever else) which consists of extra virgin olive oil, "fresh" minced garlic, kosher salt and Montreal Steak Seasoning.

Then, on a 500 degree grate, put the racks on and flip them every 2-3 minutes until they are to your liking. Medium rare / medium takes us about 20-25 minutes.

The result? Amazing.

And all the while we're having cold beers and the kids are going nuts out and non-stop.

The Cashions took home their exhausted brood around 7:15 or so and we worked to get a destroyed urchin 1.0 to bed as well as to get urchin 2.0 (who didn't sleep but about 15 minutes all day) to sleep for the night.

Sophia fell out a little before 10:00 and we both did shortly thereafter. Since she'd eaten at 9pm, I expected a 1am-2am wakeup. I got a 4:05am wakeup, which kicked much ass.

And today I got to work expecting to run errands (like getting diapers, formula and gas for my car) only to find out that I'd left my wallet at home. Nice.

I'm exhausted and need to find out if we won the megamillion Friday. Then I won't need my wallet. I'll buy a new one and fill it with all my new jack.

Hope you all had a great weekend. I'm already looking forward to the next one since it's a week closer to the Daytona 500 (which is February 19th).

Shalom everybody...

I had my second follow-up appointment with my cardiologist today. Actually, it wasn't MY cardiologist but rather A cardiologist from the same practice. Tuh-may-toe Tuh-ma-toe if you ask me.

Anyway, I was told initially by my thoracic surgeon that I would have these meetings every month for one year and then I'd have a treadmill stress test every year after that.

Well, this is one of many instances where your thoracic surgeon and your cardiologist may contradict one another.

My blood pressure was 110 over 80 (kickass) and my resting heart rate was 62 bpm, down from a startling 9o bpm just 3 months ago. Apparently this exercise thing is really working out for me.

Speaking of which, I took in a spreadsheet where I track my exercise, calories and carbs burned, etc. and showed it to her. I did so to confirm that it was okay that I was pushing this hard.

She looked at the sheet and said "WOW!!! You're really burning a lot of calories! You are, at this point, free to do whatever you'd like or feel like you can do athletically."

Not bad for a mere 10 weeks after bypass, eh?

She then said that they'd like to put me on Zocor or Lipitor or some drug in the "or" family apparently. These drugs are meant to lower your LDL (bad cholesterol) and increase the amount of HDL (good cholesterol) in your system all while helping to prevent hardening of the arteries.

I asked if there were any side effects, and not the television commercial litigation prevention kind, but the actual kind, and I was told there were none to speak of. However, I found this on a drug website:

· gas, bloating, nausea, stomach upset, heartburn, abdominal pain, constipation, or diarrhea;

Red flag everybody. Turns out that Zocor is in the same family as Lipitor, which I took while in the hospital in addition to Zocor. That event is covered in this blog and more in this blog.

So now I'm torn. I don't want to put myself thru that, but it could have been a by-product of the narcotics that I'm no longer taking as well. We shall see. If you are reading 3am posts that include grunting noises, then you know I've made the wrong decision and that I will be off this Zocor in short order.

So now that I'm free to do "whatever I want to do," the question becomes this:

What do I want to do?

p.s. for those of you that are already somewhat frightened by my entry into the kingdom of exercise, here's another nugget for you to choke on. After my treadmill work last night, I hit the floor and did 10-15 minutes of serious ab work. Like crunches that saw me laying flat with my feet straight up in the air Roger Clemens style. (I saw these on ESPN one night and I figured if they kept Roger in baseball, they could help me).

I also, along with the creative genius of Specialist Cashion (82nd Airborne, Ret.) have come up with a way to make the playing the X-Box portion of my workout exercise as well. See, if I put velcroed wrist weights on while I am holding that controller, I can also do curls, arm extensions, or just carry the extra weight for extra benefit.

I love that my friends are actually helping to validate the fact that a 37 year old needs a video game system to exercise well.

In exchange for this brilliance, Mr. Cashion and family will be dining on rack of lamb Sunday afternoon as they try lamb for the first time. Their life is to be changed forever.

I'll talk to you soon, people. I have to go walk a lap around the office....

PEACE!!!

Since I recently posted photos of me looking like a dork on my new treadmill, I started thinking about what I looked like before, including my time in the hospital.

I'd like to say that there were a bunch of pictures of me before, during and after the operation, but as it turns out, no one in my family thought it was a particularly great photo op. They apparently were too busy being concerned that I might die.

Anyway, I wanted to post the few that I have so you can see how fun it was.

I've also included a couple of photos of my "scars," including an R-rated picture of what I refer to as my goiter and my wife refers to as "ewww...that's just gross." It is (or was since it's 90% gone now) the hematoma at the site where they connected me to the heart-lung machine. It's my left groin. There's no dirty stuff, but it is an adult male groinal region, so I recommend that you take the necessary precautions.

This might spill into two blog entries, but if it does, I'll just copy this intro to both of them so they'll be easily identifiable.

Enjoy everybody...

Since I recently posted photos of me looking like a dork on my new treadmill, I started thinking about what I looked like before, including my time in the hospital.

I'd like to say that there were a bunch of pictures of me before, during and after the operation, but as it turns out, no one in my family thought it was a particularly great photo op. They apparently were too busy being concerned that I might die.

Anyway, I wanted to post the few that I have so you can see how fun it was.

I've also included a couple of photos of my "scars," including an R-rated picture of what I refer to as my goiter and my wife refers to as "ewww...that's just gross." It is (or was since it's 90% gone now) the hematoma at the site where they connected me to the heart-lung machine. It's my left groin. There's no dirty stuff, but it is an adult male groinal region, so I recommend that you take the necessary precautions.

This might spill into two blog entries, but if it does, I'll just copy this intro to both of them so they'll be easily identifiable.

Enjoy everybody...






Here's me in the same ICU but awake. You'll notice the dried bloody area on the right side of my neck. That's where the line went in and straight into my heart for accurate BP readings during the surgery. YIKES!!


Here's me and my dad. I couldn't decide which one to post. One has him smiling and me blurry, and this one has him not smiling as much and me blurry. This was taken right before the Auburn - Georgia game was set to start (I believe). I would soon be asleep thanks to my friend percocet.

And now, one final warning. Don't scroll any further if you don't want to see my groin. It's the next picture. ( I feel like Grover in "There's a monster at the end of this book.") This was taken in late December, so the swelling had gone down some. The day after I got home from the hospital, this "thing" was about half again as big as a roll of quarters and hard as a rock. (Insert your own joke here).


By this time, it was about the size of a roll of nickel thickness wise, but had shortened up a bit. It's still not very attractive, but I'll trade a groin scar for still being alive. Plus, I think I can work the three chest wounds plus the groin into some sort of Fitty Cent hip-hop thug life gang bangin' attack. You know, like I got shot three times in the chest and stabbed in the groin (in the femoral artery no less) by a dude with a butcher knife, but they still couldn't take my ass down.

Word.

Hope you enjoyed my little photo essay. Hopefully I'll remember to start taking some more pictures for the blog to help draw attention away from the fact that I'm an idiot.

Peace out!

I am a reader. I enjoy reading immensely. I seldom if ever go anywhere without the book I am currently reading. If you know me, you know this to be true. Whether it's to work, the grocery store, the butcher, the park or anywhere else, I always have my book.

I used to be a voracious reader. That is until the surgery and "the baby."

Now, I read more at red lights than I do at home or anywhere else. I can't read on the treadmill because I KNOW that I will catch the siderail and get myself hurt, and then everyone will think I'm an even bigger dork than I already am.

Anyway, since my friend the Madsapper is currently doing this on his website, I've decided to review books as I read them and tell you what I think of them. Like I said, there was a time where you'd have gotten a review a week. Now, you may only get one a month. It really depends on the kids.

Right now I'm reading a book I was very much looking forward to called "Sunday Money" by Jeff MacGregor.

Jeff is / was a writer for Sports Illustrated, and in 2002 he and his wife sold their home, bought a 27 foot motorhome / camper and decided to follow the Winston Cup tour for the entire 2002 season (it wasn't yet the Nextel Cup tour).

While there are parts that are entertaining and funny, for the most part, the book was a waste of $24.95 plus tax.

See, in magazines, I think guys write more when less would do to attract attention to themselves and their style. There are way too many cases in this book where the author takes a page to say what one word would have said. Here's a paragraph that's a fine example:

"NASCAR's success may be the story of how far we've all spun past the deep old identifiers, about how millionns of us all over the rolling belly of America are looking for something to do with our Sundays, trying to find grace and sensation at the racetrack, not distraction but definition, then transcendence, in the cars and the drivers and the carnal carnival divine, those long, strange raing weekends at once as fixed and unchanging as the Tridentine mass and as hopped-up with improvised jitterbug mysticism as a Pentacostal prayer meeting, a quarter of a million people all speaking in tongues at once."

Notice anything funny about what you just read?

IT'S ONE FUCKING SENTENCE!!! 103 words and only one period among them.

Once in a while, that's okay. But over and over and over again, it gets to be too much. It gets to be tiring to read 300 pages like that, regardless of what it says.

For those who don't know much about NASCAR, I think this book would be a total waste of time. Hell, for someone that does know alot about NASCAR, this book is pretty much a waste of time with some funny little moments spread throughout it.

I liken it to a movie that uses all the best scenes in the credits, then you find out the movie sucks ass. This book doesn't suck ass, but suck ass should be it's neighbor on the shelf.

I give this book one star on a scale of one to five with five being the best. Actually, I will give it two stars. One for the writing and one for doing what I've always wanted to do, which is follow "The Show" for a year just to see what that'd be like.

Next up in the reading room is going to be Reckless Abandon by Stuart Woods (A Stone Barrington novel that will absolutely start with the line "Elaine's...late..). or one of a few others I've recently gotten from the hardback bargain bins at Walmart or Barnes and Noble, or else a paperback from the rack at Kroger. Either way, there'll be more to come.

But it's not supposed to be either.

Saturday night was date night. Thanks to the kindness of my company and co-workers, the wife and I had a little motivation to go out and eat somewhere nice, and just the two of us.

Since my mother-in-law couldn't make it to babysit, my folks graciously accepted our "offer" to come over and "play with the kids."

Right. Urchin 1.0 had about seven hours of sleep and urchin 2.0 was 7 weeks old. Fun times.

So we spent most of Friday and Saturday trying to figure out where to go. What we found out was, if you wait until Friday night / Saturday to decide what nice restaurant you're gonna eat at, you are going to have SEVERELY limited your choices. Stoney River couldn't seat us until after 9pm, and the same went for Garrison's. Even PF Chang's said it'd be at least 8:30 until we got a table. So it was either Outback Steakhouse or California Dreamings. Since we'd already had Outback before, we decided to try something new and have dinner (not snacks) at California Dreaming.

So we got there about 6:25 and hit the bar. We figured there was no rush, so why not have a couple of cocktails and wait for our table?

Which came available (thanks to the coaster buzzer) at 6:31pm.

We took our time (or so we thought), and got the seafood nachos and brought our beers, and then we finally settled on the fried flounder and the fried crab claws and finished with a nice piece of cheesecake.

We also had some great conversation, which you take for granted a lot when one of you is constantly saying "Lauren...no. Did you not hear me? You'd better....." You get the point.

Anyway, for the first time we really talked alot about what we've been through since Halloween. I mean, we had talked before, but it was more on a surface level. After all, it's not like the wife got to sit at my bedside and dote on me. She had a daughter to take care of and she had to get ready for urchin 2.0 whose arrival was far more iminent than we'd thought.

So we took our time and really enjoyed our dinner and especially the conversation. I don't know how we waited 8 months to go out with urchin 1.0, but this was our 3rd time out with this one, and I'll not refuse a babysitting offer ever from now on.

We talked about everything, but then we finally boiled it down and talked a lot about mortality, fear of death, luck, karma, fate, etc. Ultimately we kind of decided that there had to be more in play than dumb luck and anything like it. There's a reason I got a pass, and we don't know what it is.

But I've decided that I think I want to try going to church.

I'll give those of you that know me fairly well a moment to either get up off the floor courtesy of some smelling salts or to wipe the beverage remnants off of your computer monitors and screens.

Now there are two things you need to know about me if you don't already.

1) Organized religion makes me nervous.
2) Singing in public with strangers makes me very VERY nervous.

That said, there's this. Although I've never been a big believer, I see the benefits of church. It's great for the kids. I think it's healthy for kids to try to get a belief system developed as well as a sense of fear of something bigger judging them for their actions. I don't mean an angry God. I just mean it's good for kids to be held accountable (in their own minds) to something bigger than mom and dad.

Also, I think there's a lot to be gained by going to a church in your area as it relates to being involved in the community. Like them or not, churches do good work. It's funny (in my twisted brain) that the Catholic church does so much good around the world yet can't stop hurting their little parishoners, but I digress...

I'm sure that you (and my parents and my wife's family) are wondering what church or religion we'll pick. After all, I was raised Lutheran and my wife was raised Catholic. In the end there were a couple of things that swung the vote to the side of the folks who confess everything:

1) There are no Lutheran churches near us that I know of and I haven't found any Lutherans (practicing anyway) in our area. I'm sure they're there, but if I don't know them by now, it's their loss.

2) Lutheran and Catholicism are very similar. Lutherans just do less kneeling and more singing. I think drinking is a wash.

3) We know of a good Catholic church that's very nearby that is highly thought of by a number of our friends. Oh, and did I mention that the Catholics offer Saturday afternoon church, leaving your Sundays free for football and the races and such? That's a good marketing point. They oughta work that into their brochures.

So there it is. Over some fried seafood, the wife and I decided to drastically change the course of our lives, at least religiously speaking.

I don't know if this adequately explains why this came up at our house. I can only say that thinking about your own mortality is drastically different than facing your own mortality. It's very easy in the abstract to have a set of beliefs, but when put to the test, they might not hold up as well as you might have thought. Not to get too deep here, but I also think that facing one's own mortality at age 77 would be a good deal easier than facing it at 37, which I did and continue to do.

I only hope if you see us there, you'll keep your eyes on your own hymnal and not worry about what I'm doing. I'm probably reading a book. And not the one that they give you there.

p.s. Robert, you can keep your cakehole shut. No one wants to hear from you. Besides, you're Catholic anyway you heathen bastard.

Oh, I guess I should finish the story.

After making such a potentially life-altering decision, we looked at the clock and realized that it was 7:20pm.

Seven freaking twenty. We had babysitters lined up for the night, and we were finished with our dinner like two Amish teenagers rushing to get home for a milking. And no, that's not a euphamism for anything.

We called the Gwinnett Arena to see if the Gladiators were in town, and we called a few friends, but we ended up...

Going to the mall. For walking shoes. You know, for the treadmill. Of course, you can walk in them anywhere, but I needed new shoes for my exercising, which is walking, ergo walking shoes.

Oh, and we bought some cute shoes for Sophia at Nordstrom's and then some great (but rather expensive) fabric softener. Then it was off to Barnes and Noble for the live Big Head Todd and the Monsters cd and a couple of discount hardbacks. For an avid reader, there is nothing quite like the table that says "former best selling hardbacks at discounted prices," and then finding interesting books for $5.88 and less.

For those of you not familiar with BHTM, you're not alone. But they are the performers of my favorite song whose CD I did not own...until Saturday. You can read about the band here:

Linkage

I also bought a fabulous cd I'd never seen before with five songs from both Cinderella and L.A. Guns. And before you ask, yes...it TOTALLY RULES!!

Then, it was back to the car and home by 9:30pm. Nice job, old people. Maybe next time we'll catch a movie first and THEN eat dinner. Otherwise, we may end up home before dark.

So in summation, we had dinner, decided to change our life's direction spiritually, and then bought some hair-metal cd's. How's that for odd?

I don't do this much, and not nearly as much as I did right after my surgery, but sometimes I look at someone who's a) still alive and b) still walking / waddling around and I think "How on earth did I need bypass surgery at 37 (despite being 'so young and thin' according to my surgeon) and THAT guy/girl just goes thru life shoveling it in and has no worries.

I say this because I'm about to toss out a big BIG caveat:

Unless I'm watching celebrity Fit Club 3 on VH-1.

I don't wish ill on most folks (notice I said most), but I am shocked at the number of people that just say "whatever..." like I did and not worry about their body or their health. Kelly LeBrock saying that she got fat to "stop men from thinking of her as a piece of ass" is plain laughable.

Anyway, the point of this blog wasn't to review or critique the show, which my friend Ethel and I will most assuredly do at one point this season. The point is that comedy writer Bruce "center square that replaced Paul Lynde as the token gay guy on Hollywood Squares" Vilanche is not only still alive despite his being 58 years old and 5'10" and 327 pounds, but his heart was declared "fine" on last night's episode.

My question is simple:

HOW IS THAT FUCKING POSSIBLE?

I know I didn't exercise proper, but I did yard work, played basketball and football with the nephews, etc. Yet I am told I'm "lucky to be alive" while that fatass Vilanche just gets to continue on thinking "well, if my heart's fine, I must be in fine fine shape."

I'm not jealous or envious or anything. I just think these things sometimes.

I hope to have more crap later. Like how the Broncos finally got to see the tru Jake Plummer while the Panthers were trying to keep Steve Smith from killing his entire team and especially his QB while on the sidelines having a hissy fit that would make my 3.75 year old proud.

Later.

Not much to go on today. It's Friday (whew), although when you have kids, every day's the same. They don't sleep in on the weekends, they don't allow you to nurse a hangover for a few hours, and they are almost never quiet.

We're going out to dinner Saturday night for the first time in a while and we can't decide where to go. Do we hit a tried and true place like Outback Steakhouse, or do we try something relatively new like California Dreamings or Aqua Terra? Or maybe it's the gold standard family-owned Italian place around the corner.

I feel like it should be more than a trip to the local Mexican place and then a hand shandy in the parking lot, but I am a bit undecided.

Anyway, that's it for now or until I read or hear something that makes me nuts.

Oh, I was finally down another half a pound today bringing me to 211.5 pounds. I really want to get below 210 soon and see some progress towards 200 pounds. However, I believe that is going to require a new level of dietary discipline.

We'll see what we find out. More later...

Tonight was pretty basic:

70 minutes (including cool down)
73.4 carbs burned
587 calories burned
3.62 miles covered.

Shalom everybody.

So tonight I indulged for the first time since my surgery and just ate a big dinner of (get ready) Cooley's pizza. I ate two thirds of a medium pizza.

And not only do I now feel like shit, but I feel guilty as shit too. At least I did. Now I only feel moderately guilty.

Tonight's workout:

3.535 miles
72.1 carbs burned
575 calories burned

I feel good too. I got my heart rate a little too high so I spent the last 20 minutes trying to ease it down without leaving the fat burning nirvana of 135 bpm.

And now, it's time to watch LOST, catch a shower during the second commercial and hit the rack. Hopefully urchin 2.0 will oblige, unlike last night....

In case you're out of the loop, that stands for Parents Of The Year, and man do we deserve it.

If you've been keeping track, we've been having a little trouble with urchin 2.0 in that she's been crying and inconsolable when we pick her up and she's been restless, fitful and downright upset at night, making sleep for the three of us impossible. She's also not been eating right for her either.

So after a few days of this, the wife decided to take the urchin to the doctor, which happened yesterday.

First of all, our two month old weighs just a tick under 13 pounds. I think urchin 1.0 didn't hit that mark until she was about four or so months old, so I expect this one to be holding her own by about 18 months.

Anyway, the doctor said that her not eating right was the result of her just getting over some sort of bug or ailment.

(Translation: I don't have any freaking idea. I'm a pediatric doctor and myself and the geriatric doctors do more guessing and lying than any other doctors on the planet).

Then she said that she detected a very slight heart murmer in one chamber, which is the same thing my wife was born with, so that didn't surprise or shock anyone.

We were then told why Sophia was crying when we picked her up every time. It seems that in doing so, we were causing her shoulder(s) to slip out of the socket just a bit, effectively causing a mild dislocation. And I say that as the guy that laughs when anyone says "Mild heart attack."

So it was nice to hear that we were causing extreme physical pain to our two month old. You want that. Of course, they say she won't remember it, but I fully expect to be awakened by a heavy bowl or MagLite to the forehead in about two years, and then you'll never be able to convince me that she forgot.

She slept better the two nights prior to last night anyway, so I suspected that she was recovering from something. Last night she got fed around 11pm or so, and then was fitful and restless and noisy until around 1am, and I decided to feed her again, and she took the whole four ounces. She then proceeded to sleep until 5:30am, so I guess she's feeling better.

We'd just prefer that she feel better around 9pm instead of waiting until after midnight.

Hope you're all doing well this morning. Talk to you soon.

Peace out!!

I figure that some of you had to be betting the under on how long it would take for me to stop hitting the treadmill and doing my "road work," such that it is. Well I assure you that today was not the day.

The biggest concern was the little buzzer in my head that reminded me that I'm not supposed to do anything aerobic.

What's aerobic for me, you might ask? Good question. And I had no freaking idea.

I called my dad who walks an hour every morning (unless it's really cold like it was Saturday, and then he cuts it short. The state of Minnesota is hanging it's collective head in shame, Pops).

Anyway, he said that it's 200 minus your age times 85%, but that number seemed awfully low, so we both decided he was wrong.

Except he wasn't.

I got a book with my treadmill about the three heart rate levels that matter:

The fat burning level
The maximum fat burning level
The aerobic level

For my age (two thirds of the way between the 30 and 40 range), the numbers were (roughly):

125 bpm
135 bpm
142 bpm

Since I didn't want to have an "episode" on the treadmill on day two, I decided to be careful and sneak up on the correct heart rate like you would the temperature on your Big Green Egg (LOL).

Oddly enough, I found that I was about dead on last night. It turns out that a six degree incline at 3.2 mph gives me a good steady 135 bpm, so I was safe last night by a smidge and right on the money tonight.

Anyway, tonights effort was an hour and ten minutes including cool down. It was a little tougher than last night, but only because I am still suffering from a good bit of muscle atrophy, and it's especially noticable in the big muscle groups and in the groinal region (hush Ethel).

Anyway, during the rest of my waking day I walked 2.7 miles. Then on the treadmill I hit 3.3 miles, burned 534 calories and 66 carbs. I feel good it actually feels good to do it, although I think I'm most excited about the fact that I basically get one hour and fifteen minutes of uninterrupted X-Box time, which hasn't happened five times in over a year.

Also, the wife joined in and made a jaunty 30-40 minute walk at 3.1 mph, and she's convinced that I was trying to one up her.

No way. That'll happen this summer when I break out the speedo at the pool.

Now I'm thinking I may get up 15 minute earlier than I do now and put 30 minutes in before I shower up for work.

Those of you that know me and have known me for years, read that sentence again. I am actually seriously considering exercising, on PURPOSE, twice a day. Will wonders never cease?

Anyway, it's time for bed. Actually, it's time to watch Molly feed urchin 2.0 and get a little sleep before the 1:30am - 2:30am feeding that I'm responsible for tonight.

Talk to you tomorrow...

I read a story the other day that said that Courtney Love is broke. If you live under a rock or nowhere near a methadone clinic or cable tv systems with the E! network, you might not remember Courtney.

She's the previously pretty attractive widow of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, lead singer of the once popular and successful band Hole and currently the mother (sometimes in absentia) of Francis Bean, the now 12 or so year old child born of their trainwreck of a relationship but bearing a remarkable resemblence to her father.

Anyway, the story I read said that Courtney was broke (and was even trying to sell her shitbag house in San Francisco with no takers) and that she was now putting the Nirvana library up for sale and could make up to 100 million dollars.

I then read on a couple of messageboards about fans that thought former bassist Krist Novoselic and former drummer and now frontman of The Foo Fighters Dave Grohl should "go in and buy it to keep it out of anyone else's hands."

I know the Foo Fighters have been successful, and I know Novaselic is a lobbyist of some sort, but why do people assume that guys in bands can just pull 50 or 100 million dollars out of there assholes? I mean, what if it's tied up in Enron or something?

And another thing, why the fuck is the library of a three-chord band worth 100 million dollars? Have you listened to most of that stuff? It's shit. And it's not like I'm out of touch. In fact, in 1991 when Nirvana's Nevermind dropped, (like that hip hop term?) I was a mostly disenchanted 23 year-old guy who loved rock and grunge. I enjoy some of Nirvana's stuff, but I have never bought into the "one of the greatest/most revolutionary bands ever" or the "Cobain is a genius" bullshit. They were just a flavor du jour that was slapped into an elite category because Kurt found a shotgun in the greenhouse.

Kurt Cobain was a weak, heroin addicted guy who came along when rock and roll was floundering and hair metal was dying. I would contend that if the timing was different, Soundgarden or Alice In Chains or any other of 100 bands could have been in Nirvana's shoes.

But instead, I have to listen to accoustic Nirvana "genius" every 3rd song on "New Rock" stations all the time in addition to hearing the media still spew about Cobaine's greatness over and over and over again.

I believe Dave Grohl is infinitely more talented than Cobain could have ever hoped to be. He plays every instrument in some fashion or another on the Foo Fighters cd's, he's achieved great success with that band without Kurt or Krist, and he seems like a fairly well adjusted and decent guy. He's never seemed caught up in that brooding rock star bullshit that Cobain so conveniently embraced.

And now for Courtney. Whether the library sells for 100 million dollars or just 100 bucks will make no difference. It'll all be blown long before her daughter gets to college age. I also predict that Courtney will overdose when the money's almost gone, leaving Francis Bean a broke orphan who will wonder why two of the most selfish and dysfunctional people on the planet even bothered to get together at all.

I think Courtney and Kurt are proof positive that drugs affect your decision-making and that this story, from beginning to end, should be the movie that kids are forced to watch in junior high school so they can see what will happen.

That said, I hope Paul McCartney pulls a Michael Jackson and buys the library and then sells the songs for tampon commercials or lesbian SUV ads.

That'd rule.

So yesterday, urchin 2.0 was still doing the "don't eat much, cry a bit, be generally unsettled, etc.," and we just can't figure it out.

Then, last night, I hit the treadmill and she laid next to me in the bassinette thingy while I walked for an hour, only crying a couple of times for a couple of minutes total. We went to sleep after I fed her at 10:30p last night, and she didn't get up again until 2:30am, and then not again before my departure at 5:30am. She also ate both of those bottles in their entirety, so I have no idea what to think.

Molly's got her an appointment with the pediatrician today at 9am, so if anything's wrong, hopefully he can tell us what it is. If there's nothing wrong, then I fear we've gone down the same Colic road as urchin 1.0, only a little later with this one.

Stay tuned. I'll keep you posted when I know more...

Well folks, the impossible has happened. I ordered a treadmill. And not to hang my clothes on either. I am committed to my new lifestyle that is to include a better diet and more exercise. Well, to be fair, the change is that it will now include exercise period, where as my old sedentary life did not.

Anyway, we ordered the Pro-Form XP 550s from Sears. Also, after doing much research, we decided to buy the warranty as well, simply because it includes two maintenance visits per year and everything fixed from stem to stern, no questions asked, for five years. That, my friends, is one hell of a warranty.

Anyway, I meant to include a picture of the treadmill and one with me on it, but I couldn't since the wife was cooking chicken and doing everything else it takes to keep this household running whilst I whittle away the time on the treadmill.

I will include some pictures soon though, I promise.

I also found that, with some concentration, I am able to play Madden 2006 on the X-box while walking, and I'm pretty sure I can play World Series of Poker too as well as NASCAR 2006. That kicks total ass.

(I did nearly fall off once playing football, but I concentrated a lot harder after that).

Anyway, here are my results from day 1:

time - 65 minutes (including five minute cool-down)
distance - 3.25 miles
angle - 6.0 degrees
carbs burned - 65
calories burned - 522

I feel great. I hope I sleep great and can get out of bed tomorrow, but I look forward to doing it again tomorrow night, and maybe I'll finally watch the 2005 Auburn-Georgia game on DVD while I'm doing it.

Come back soon now, ya hear?

but this has to be said.

I know that I'm lucky to work where I do. I may not have always said it, and sometimes you get crabby about things, but this is a good company.

And it's filled with great people.

While I was out for my bypass surgery and recovery, I received many emails and phone calls from co-workers checking on us, offering their help, etc., and that in itself amazed me.

But we also got a very generous gift that was collected from my co-workers here and from the distribution center as well that completely floored me and my wife.

I returned to work after the New Year started and everyone was very warm and welcoming to the guy who'd been at home for two months.

Then today we were to have an all-employee lunch (a quarterly thing we do to recognize employment anniversaries, etc).

Only it wasn't for that. It was a welcome back luncheon for me.

Ordinarily our company will have some sort of goodbye luncheon for people that leave, and that is very nice. But to have our president stand up in front of everyone and welcome me back, say how much I was missed and that they were all thinking about me during the time I was out and that they were all thankful that I was okay, well, you could have knocked me over with a blocked Left Anterior Descending artery.

If the guy sitting next to me wasn't joking with me I probably would have cried. (Go ahead and laugh here. I don't really care). I have been completely overwhelmed by the support, generosity and kindness of this company and the people here that I can't adequately find the words to express it. A simple "Thank You" doesn't seem like nearly enough. I wish I could express what the support and well wishes have meant to me and my family. It's meant more than any of them could possibly know.

And to top it off, I got AMEX gift certificates to take my wife out to dinner with, when just letting me come back to work here was generous enough.

All I can say is that I am a changed man. I will be a better person, a better employee, and a better friend to those with whom I work.

Thanks everyone. Thank you.

It's been a rough weekend. Urchin 2.0 had been out of sorts for a couple of days, but it came to a head Saturday night and yesterday (with her screaming off and on and not eating right) from about 2pm Saturday until about 8pm last night. She got fed at 9pm (finally ate the whole bottle) and then didn't get up to eat again until around 3am, which was awesome.

I'm also having trouble with urchin 1.0 obeying me (or anyone) and it's making me insane. I think today's the day we start the "Since you understand me, every time you don't obey me on the first try, you're going to spend time in timeout/sitting on the steps/sitting in the dining room/something.

The good news is that our treadmill should get delivered today, and that means evening workouts that can help burn off a little frustration. I'm looking forward to putting in some old races or football games, listening to my iPod and just wearing that fucking track out.

I violated Clark Howard's number one consumer rule by buying the five year extended warranty on the treadmill. However, after consulting many MANY people, I found that in this case, it was the thing to do.

Under this warranty, they come out twice a year to fully service the unit. Also, if anything (anything at all) breaks or stops working, they will come out and fix it or replace it for five years. Anything. That means from cupholder to motor.

The football games were surprisingly entertaining this weekend. I enjoyed the Steelers game immensely, if only because it looked like Cowher had blown it. At least that was the case right up until the network flashed Vanderjaggoff's "never missed this year at home" stat. Then I knew he was screwed.

And the other funny thing was that, with about 4 minutes to go, my brother in law and nephew walked in and immediately said that this game was too good, and we should be sorry that we were going to screw it up.

See, we've watched some great games at my house this year, and we have screwed the team we actually wanted to win in all cases. We were on the USC-Michigan State game, then the USC-Notre Dame game, then the Division I-AA game with Grand Prairie (I believe) and finally yesterday. It seems like we pick games and they suddenly turn into classics / cock punch games. I've actually grown to look forward to which game / team is going to have it's heart ripped out since we decided to watch them play.

It's now down to 34 days until the Daytona 500, which means it's only 27 days until pole day. I cannot wait for race season to start again.

My friend the madsapper decided to try making pizza on his Big Green Egg this weekend and had great results. He did learn one thing, however.

If you've made burgers / salmon / something else that's strong flavored and / or produces a lot of drippings, you ought to burn the lump load long enough to get that stuff burned off. Otherwise, your pizza is gonna taste like hamburger. : )

I'm sure you'll all be happy to know that I finally got my iPod organized (more or less).

See, the trouble with having over 17,000 songs and over 90GB of music is that, unless you are planning to carry multiple iPods, you have to work at managing the music.

So what I did differently this time as opposed to every other time is this. Before, I would start with the entire 17,000 song library and uncheck what I didn't want. Trouble is, it's always tougher to find what to remove than it is to add things.

This time, I put all the music in a folder called "Stuff I don't want on my iPod." Then, with two explorer windows open, I started dragging the stuff I DID want back into my music folder, artist by artist. And I did that for a while.

Once I got to a point that felt pretty good, I stopped plugged in the old device and let it go.

When I returned, I had 59 point something gig of music and photos. Without checking I'd filled it to within 310mb of capacity.

Oh, and I completed the era Challenge level on Tiger Woods 2006 this weekend, meaning it was time to break out the Madden 2006 that I got for Christmas.

That's about it for now. Stay tuned for more exciting bloggage in the hours and days to come...

Or at least that's what it sounded like at 4 o'clock this morning.

But let me take you back to set the stage...

As you may have read, we've recently had some difficulty in the evening (and the very late evening) with our newest angel Urchin 2.0, and we have been seeking various remedies. We have started using something called Gripe Water, which is very popular everywhere else on the planet but here in the U.S. thanks to the FDA.

Here's some text from a website about Gripe Water:

A traditional European remedy, gripe water contains safe, fast, effective, natural ingredients for relieving colic discomforts. Gripe water has been used by mothers for over a century to provide relief from the discomforts of colic, stomach cramps, hiccups, gas and teething.
The traditional natural remedies Fennel and Ginger are contained in (insert name) Gripe Water. Both have long been shown to be beneficial for easing nausea and pain due to baby stomach gas and other symptoms of colic.

Fennel and Ginger are also effective for the discomforts of infant teething, gas and hiccups.

Relief usually occurs within 5-20 minutes.

Anyway, it's a product that contains (among other things) fennel and ginger and, if bought from the right place, dillweed oil. That (according to some messageboards) is the key.

So it has been helping as of late, especially since we started giving her the correct dosage, which is about twice what we had been giving her.

So the evenings had been getting progressively better this week, and last night thanks to an effort by the wife to keep Sophia awake in the afternoon, it appeared that we were in for a relatively easy night of newborn parenting. I fed her at 10L30ish after the season premier of Lost and then again at about 1:30am or so. She ate the whole bottle, burped quickly and then was back to sleep in no time.

This, my friends, is middle of the night feeding Nirvana.

So I put her down and jump back into bed and get back to sleep.

Until...

I was subconsciously aware of some presence, and then my wife confirmed said presence by saying in a very sleepy voice "what's wrong Lauren?"

I opened my eyes to find urchin 1.0 standing very close to me and repeating this sentence:

"Daddy...there's sumping wrong in my woom."

And up I was, heading down the hall to see what was wrong. I was guessing a beebee (pacifier), a pillow or maybe even Maisy or Piggy or one of the Piglet quadruplets had fallen on the floor and her highness could not find it within herself to pick it up. (That sounds petty, but it's happened before).

When we got to her room, she walked right to her dresser and pointed. I was oblivious.

"What is it baby? Is it the fish?"

She replied "No daddy. The light."

And then I noticed (since it was quite obvious) that the light in her dresser lamp / nightlight was burned out.

If that sounds wierd to you, you should know that we've actually been watching her on her monitor and seen the light burn out and she snapped to as though history's biggest clap of thunder had occurred outside of her window. So this didn't shock me.

I took the shade off, started unscrewing the soft white 25 watt bulb, and then I knocked it over. And the bulb broke into a million pieces all over the dresser and floor.

Fuck.

Now, instead of being the guy who was going to make the quick bulb change and be back in bed before I was really awake, I was the guy who was going to the laundry room to get the Dyson to vacuum up all of the tiny shards of broken glass I've spread in about a 40 square foot area in my daughter's room slap in the middle of the night.

Sigh.

I got the mess cleaned up, changed the bulb, got urchin 1.0 back to bed and headed myself for the rack at about 4:05am, which is only 70 minutes before I normally get up.

Then, at about 5:05am (30 minutes after I actually fell back asleep) it seems that urchin 2.0 is hungry despite having been fed just 90 minutes prior.

I agree to feed her and she takes half a bottle (of course) but does go back to sleep, which was a huge bonus for the wife.

I then said "Screw it," got up, checked on the iPod (which now contains over 17,000 songs in iTunes but since they are about 90GB worth of music, they will require some maintenance), then I played a little Tiger Woods 2006 on the X-box and then hit the shower for work.

So you see, even when we get one urchin under control, trouble comes from the other one, even if it's in the form of something stupid I did.

The good news is that I apparently don't need near the sleep I did prior to the arrival of urchin 1.0 nearly four years ago, so this was a decent night's sleep anyway.


One thing I should mention is that, weather permitting, I am going for my second ride-along at the Richard Petty Driving Experience at Atlanta Motor Speedway a week from Saturday. My friend JBud and I will be taking three hot laps in the passenger seat for half price thanks to my friend Ethel and her holiday coupon code.

Oh, and thanks to the RPDE. I called them on the date the coupon was to expire, left a message since I called 22 minutes after they closed (and it was on New Year's Eve AND a Saturday), asking if they could call me back and possibly honor the coupon.

Not only did someone call me back that Thursday (she spologized for the delay, but stated that she had over 300 voice mails to return from the weekend), but that person also agreed to honor the coupon code not just for me, but for three other rides as well (for my brother in law and his two boys). I'd call that going WAY above and beyond and I plan to send them a letter thanking them for their fine customer service.

Well, that's about it for now. I'm sure I'll have more later, including a possible rant about a private school expelling a student for kissing another student off campus at a non-school event, Marion Berry's most recent cocaine problem, and a fine little cover story at ESPN.com about my alma mater's Megalomaniacal uber-booster, one Mr. Robert "Bobby" Lowder.

Asalamaleka brothers and sisters.

Today, as sort of a test, I'm trying a realtime poker blog from ESPN whilst I eat my chicken caesar salad from Jason's deli.

Why?

I have no idea, but I figure maybe it will give someone a laugh or maybe someone will give me a pointer or two in my poker play, and maybe I'll get better. I've read poker blogs by some people and they can occasionally be entertaining.

The table is a $2,000 buy-in plus 10% to the house. (Remember, this is all play money).

10 man tables with the winnings paid out as %50-%30-%20, so if I win I get $10,000 in play money with which I can buy nothing, but you probably get that.

Table's full, so let's shuffle up and deal.

By the way, my new favorite poker term is the one for when you have Ace-King (suited or not). It's referred to as the Anna Kournikova. Why? Because it looks pretty but it never wins anything.

nice.

First hand: 9-6 off suit.

Fold.

You'll notice that I fold a lot and play quite tight. I've heard numerous pros say that the best table to sit at is the one where everyone is playing way too many hands. That means that too many folks are playing without any cards and are playing for the draw, which is unlikely to come given the odds of what their trying to get (flushes, straights, high pairs, boats, etc).



Second hand: Ks-6h. El flodo.

Hand three: 4s-6d. Care to guess?

4) Kc-5s. dump it.

5) 9h-Kd. Call the blind at $10 but fold the $30 raise. I wanted to see a flop, but I'm not paying too much for it.

This game used to only have $100, $300 and $500 tables. Now, with the big stakes everyone plays the big money tables but they play tight tight tight, just hoping for others to screw up and let them win.

I play tight too, but I've found that you can get thru the middle parts by playing aggressive when you play and stealing what you can. The games get ultra tight at five and four players, then loose again in the top three, since those folks get money.

6) 8h-7s. fold.

7) Ahhhh. There it is. Anna Kournikova. Ac-Kd. I'm in and check the blind. Flop's 7d-10c-6s, it's $80 to me and I'm out. came 2c-6h, and dude turned over pocket 7's for the win, knocking two folks out. Nice.

8) 10c-8d. Fold.

There's actually only six folks left now, which is surprising. I will also try to keep you up to date on flops so you can see what I didn't get. Until it gets later if I'm still in, b/c you only have 10 seconds to bet and the action gets pretty fast then.

9) pocket ladies: Qs-Qd. raised to $20. 10d-Ac-10h. Hmmmm. Call $10 and the turn comes 5c. Calling $225. River's 7s. I think dude's got shit. Called $175 and he had 10c-9c. Fuck.

I've got $545 left and have to play smart(er than that).

10) 3c-qh. fold. Five players left now. I may be able to stay low and watch some others go out betting too aggressively. This strategy works for getting into the money if you get to five or less and the blinds are still cheap.

11) 7d-5s. check. Qs-Jd-6c-5d. Check. Js. Check. I win. Guy next to me was K-9.

12) Fold 6c-2h. nice cards. Flop's 10-k-10-Q-9. Two pair wins.

13) 4d-8h. Care to guess. At least I'm not playing marginal hands. I'm laying down shitty ones, which increase my odds of staying actually.

14) 8s-7s. Call $20. Hoping for a cheap flop. Kc-Kh-5d. I check. Qc and I fold the $570 that came to me.

15) Ah-Jc. Raising to $40. 8c-4s-10c. Raising $100. Win and muck bring $130 back so I'm at $645.

16) 5s-10s. Check. 4d-Ah-5h. Call $20. 3h. Fold to $180. Hand is his.

17) Pocket 5's. Call $10. Flop's 4s-qc-6d. Check. Call $20. 10s. Call $20. 2h comes, lost to a pair of 6's.

18) 8d-9s. Fold. 4-6-4-9-8. Winner doesn't show.

19) Fold 6-3 os. Nice hand again.

20) 9h-5c. Out again. Flop's 5s-2h-Ah. Then 2c, and finally 7h. dude won with 3-4d down.

21) Qc-Kd. Going deep here. Raise to $60. Jx-6x-Ax. Check and call $30. Next is the 10h. YES!! Bet $160. 9x comes. I'm all in with $315. Win $1175 and I'm back in it!!

22) Fold 2h-10s.

23) 10d-5c. Easy choice. One dude's down to $220, so if he'll bow out, I am closer to a finish in the money. and he just won $90.

24) 3d-kd calls $30. 8x-Qx-Ad. Check, then 9c. Check again. Fold at $30. As comes. winner was 7Q suited.

25) pocket deuces. Call $30. Fold at the $90 raise. 5x-kh-10h

26) 4h-9c. Out.

27) Js-3c. Out.

28) 6h-2h. Fold. 2x-5x-qx. 2x. SHIT! Coulda won big. 4d comes.Winner is 8-Aos.

29) qh-jd calls $30. I'm in now. Qs-7s-8c. Raise $300. lost somehow to 2 pair. Thought I had something, but it went too fast. crap.

30) Folded 9-7 os.

31) 9-7h. All in I think. I'm bored now and want to bounce a small stack. 6-a-2s. Check. Fold to the all-in.

32) 9-8os. Fold. 9-4-2-4.

33) 7-6h. Fold. K-qh-9-2h.

34) 8-6 os. Fold.

35) 4-js. all in. No callers. It's mine and I'm back to $530.

36) 6-3 os. Fold.

37) 3c-kd. Fold.

38) qd-2h. Fold.

39) Jd-Ad. All in but slowly. Call $60. Flop's qx-qd-Ac. Raise to $120. 8h next. Raise $120 again. 9d. All in, Dude had a queen, I'm out in fifth.

So, as is the case recently, I play smart for short periods but get impatient and lose short of the money. I've actually finished 4th more times than I can count.

Oh, and don't worry. I'll probably never do this again. (Blog about poker I mean).

What's wrong, dear iPod?
Is your brain full of music?
I will format you.

A friend of mine that I met on teh internets has introduced me to many cool websites. Places like snopes.com, for example, are VERY handy when dealing with emails from well-meaning friends, family and co-workers who nevertheless need to be corrected.

Ethel also convinced me to use Firefox's Mozilla browser (including the amazing tabbed browsing feature) and my browsing life since then has not been the same.

(If you having tried tabbed browsing, the deal is that instead of having four or five Internet Exploder windows open to see four or five sites, you have one instance of Firefox open and have four or five tabs. MUCH easier browsing and switching back and forth, but I digress...)

But one of my favorite things that she's introduced me to is Stumble Upon. This is a cool site for those times where you are just sitting and wondering if there's more cool stuff out there.

Anyway, register yourself at Stumble Upon, install the product, create your profile, then select your areas of interest. Now you're ready to go.

One cool thing is that you can click "I like it!" or "Not-for-me" at any site, and thus recommend or deter friend and other browsers that read your profile from hitting that site.

I won't regale you with all of the areas of interest I selected, but I will show you a random sampling of what comes up when I click on the magical Stumble button.

Here are today's selections:

The Left Hand - Site with cool stuff for the truly oppressed in our population: southpaws.

The Classic Typewriter Page - Just that. A page about old typewriters.

Loren Ipsum - You learn something new every day.

Who is Xenu? - You will also find crazy shit like this which I immediately add to the "Not-for-me" list.

Postmodern Pets - If you've got a pet that has everything and you'd like to be able to answer when asked "What decorating style have you chosen for your Shitpoo?", then this is the site for you.

Film Cliches - Again, self explanatory, but a damned funny site just the same. It doesn't all have to be scientific breakthroughs.

What's Up With Henry Earl? - If you read Fark.com at all, you'll know about Henry Earl. This guy is the Cal Ripken Jr. of public intoxication. Just check out his rap sheet.

Golf Courses Dot Org - They're not all homeruns.

Eric Conveys an Emotion - This is the kind of crap that reminds me how much I love teh internets.

The Hardball Times - It's not what you think. It's about baseball.


Well, I hope this didn't undersell Stumble Upon. Depending on what you select as areas of interest, you will get drastically different (and either more or less entertaining) stuff than I've shown here.

Give it a try. You won't be disappointed.

Did you ever see that movie with Michael Keaton where there's four of him but each copy is a little off and the last one's a complete waste? That's what I think of when I think of the relationship between Michael Vick and his younger brother Marcus.

Michael has made mostly good decisions off the field (the whole Ron Mexico / Herpes thing not withstanding). His younger brother however seems hell bent on proving that he can be the next Leonard Little or Barrett Robbins.

Just a week or so after stomping on another player in what the officials called "the dirtiest game we've ever officiated from VT's standpoint," and just a little more than two years since the first of several run ins with the law including giving alcohol to 14 and 15 year olds (despite being underage himself), speeding, reckless driving, possession of marijuana and other crap, he's now been charged with brandishing a pistol at some teenage boys in a parking lot.

My question is, how fucking stupid is this kid?

He can remember a playbook, but he can't go a week without committing a felony?

I hoping he's the NFL's next Maurice Clarrett and fades into a Charles Shackleford-like oblivion and the next time we hear from him, it's because he's going to pound-you-in-the-ass prison for something.

That would rule.

Ah, it's good to be a fan of a school whose own notoriety in the 80's and early 90's has faded and are now the stewards of good behavior in the conference.

War Eagle everybody.

but I'm not immune to lunacy yet.

Yesterday I started my second full week back at work, and I celebrated it by getting up at 5am and heading to Mayberry (Anderson, SC) for a day of disaster recovery planning, updates, new pc rollouts and other tasks.

The highlight of my day (I guess) was having the fried grouper sammich with fries and slaw from the coach house. It never disappoints, although I was nauseously full afterwards. That meant I was having a peanut butter sammich for dinner, which was fine with me.

I was pretty happy that I didn't get at all tired, even at the point in the afternoon where I was normally tired before surgery. I think I am actually getting fitter too in the process of all of this.

I walked a total of 3.8 miles for work yesterday, so I didn't walk when I got home.

The good news is that we've decided to get a treadmill. All of the hassles of trying to find the time to get out and exercise with two kids and one that's seven weeks old are getting irritating. Plus, if we put it in my office upstairs, we can both use it and it might even help settle urchin 2.0 in the evenings.

Anyway, last night was mom's night out, so I busted it out of Mayberry to get home, but stopped on the way to get an ankle brace for the wife. (More on that later).

I got home about 6:15 last night after a long day and 200 miles in the car, and I was spent. But it was upstairs to change, have a constitutional, and get back down to enjoy what I sell to urchin 1.0 as "Daddy-Daughter night."

Only this would be about the shortest one in history since urchin 2.0 was looking to be fed around 8pm. So that meant a bath for Lauren at a bit after 7pm, dress her and change the urchin and then hit story time hoping that urchin 2.0 didn't melt down, which she did about halfway thru Follow the Monsters.

Now's a good time to explain an awesome phenomenon that happens at my house often. Yesterday, urchin 2.0 slept soundly and was cute and fuzzy all day long. Until the wife started looking for coupons for dinner.

See...it never fails. She can be in a post bottle, post dump coma, and if the wife packs (silently) to leave or if I sit in a chair with food in front of me to eat, regardless of the time or where she is in the house, she starts crying.

Really. Ask my nephew. I told him it was going to happen Sunday afternoon at 2pm when my soup hit the table and my ass hit the chair, and sure enough, it did. The wife was at the Doctor when that happened. (I'll get to it in a minute).

So anyway, Sophia started being agitated and pretty unsettlable around 7:30 and by the time the wife got home, I was about done. By midnight it was beyond irritating and by 1:30am I was done.

See, she gets all wierd and acts hungry so you feed her, but she only takes about an ounce or so, and she does that maybe two or three times in two hours, so then you have no idea when she should actually eat or even be hungry again. It's maddening.

Molly fed her around 1:30am or so and when I left this morning at 5:30am, urchin 2.0 still hadn't stirred, which is a good thing since the wife needed the sleep (and so did I).

It never fails that if I really really really need sleep, she'll have one of "those" days. And it's annoying because it's only happened maybe eight times now out of nearly two months. But man, can she pick the days I'm most vulnerable and punish me like no other.

Now back to the wife at the doctor story.

Saturday, after the post-Christening beer bash was over, we were sort of milling around cleaning and stuff and molly somehow ended up outside with urchin 1.0 in the garage. (It's not relevant, I assure you).

The wife picked up the urchin and was heading inside when she (apparently) misjudged the steps leading into the kitchen, misfired a step or two, fell down on the brick steps and sort of dropped/pushed Lauren up and into the kitchen.

Lauren started crying, so I rushed to her and saw the wife sitting on the ground awkwardly and sort of crying, which is mostly why Lauren was crying, and that kept getting worse. Wife felt bad for making Lauren cry so she cried more, which in turn made Lauren cry more.

Awesome.

However, the wife was worried about her ankle. It was obviously not broken, but it was obviously hurt nonetheless.

I got it iced, elevated and wrapped immediately, and then we discussed the options.

She decided to wait it out and if it was still bad Sunday to see a doctor. It was and she did.

Their hours were noon to 5pm, so at about 12:45 the next day, she heads to the doctor. You know, the one that saved my life, maybe as many as three times.

And she waits.

And waits and waits and waits.

For three hours.

Then, when she's called back and finally sees him, there's a spark of recognition and he says "Molly TMLSB....that's familiar."

And the wife replied "My husband was the bypass guy."

"OHHHH!! That's right. How's he doing?"

Here's another thing that has to be annoying to my wife. She just had a baby and everyone has to ask about me and my deal first.

Everyone.

When she was in recovery for her c-section, every hospital staff member there was talking to me, asking me questions, quizzing me about my deal.

Then at the doctor, the first thing he asks is about me. That has to be getting really annoying.

Anyway he did say that he is still somewhat troubled by my case, wondering and second guessing and asking the "what if I hadn't done what I did despite no indicators suggesting that he needed that and he had died?"

(It must be tough being a doctor some days. They deserve what they make if you ask me. Good or bad, there must be a LOT of introspection).

He then looked at her ankle and said "Now THIS is something I see and treat every day," and he laughed.

Turns out it was a level two ligament sprain on the front of the foot so any movement (like accelerating or braking the car) is most uncomfortable. But I've sort of taught her how to wrap it (the nurse said I had done an excellent job on it Sunday) and I bought her a brace that seems to help. Now she's just in for six months of re-tweaking it before it gets better, if it ever does.

Anyway, that's the story of my Monday (and a little more).

Did you say you wanted to supersize that?

Today is Sophia's Christening. The wife was explaining it to urchin 1.0 yesterday to the point that when I got home and for the rest of the night, Lauren was telling everyone that we "were going to get advertised" or that we "were going to get appetized."

Ah, the joys of a three year old's vocabulary and short attention span.

More later as the festivities move forward....

So, in an effort to keep fresh content out here, I've decided to do my best to get something on here every day. Even if it's nothing more than a little blur or snippet or something meaningless like that. (As if to say the rest of my blog entries are meaningful. Sheesh).

Since getting her four shots on Tuesday morning, nights with urchin 2.0 have been tough. Not 3am tough, but she's been pretty inconsolable and squally from about 6pm until much MUCH later for a few days. That inconsolable period has grown shorter each day and since the pediatrician told us that it could take a few days for her to be right, I'm trying to be patient.

And it's not like it's happening from midnight to 5am. But it's certainly tough to come home at around 5pm and have that business start almost immediately and run until 10pm, 11pm, and even later.

I've told people we have had only about three bad days so far with her, but that number's doubled this week.

The good news is that last night, I finally got her fed and to sleep around 9:15 or 9:30. so the wife and I could more or less enjoy "My Name Is Earl," "The Office," and our first viewing of "E.R." in about three or four years. As the wife said, it's nice to just be awake with only your spouse for an hour or two. Good call, babe.

And once she's asleep for the night, it's pretty smooth sailing. She'll go anywhere between three and four and a half hours between feedings, and she's very good about getting back to sleep, which is nice. I only wish it didn't take up to 30 minutes to burp her.

Sophia's Christening is tomorrow at 11:30am at the church where we were joined in holy matrimony (cough). It was supposed to be at 11am but the church secretary called me one day a few weeks ago and asked if we could move it to help them accomodate a funeral. Of course I said yes. I mean, how would you say no to that? I could see getting hit by a car in the shower immediately afterwards if you did. A kharmic fool I am not.

As I've said, I'm hopeful that we'll get some decent family pictures tomorrow since we'll all be dressed nice and hopefully in a good mood.

See, we're having the first full family get together since probably our wedding in 1992. And by full family I mean her mom, her dad and step-mom. my dad and step-mom and my mom and step-dad.

Now, you'd think that after a combined 50 years had passed since their collective divorces that things would be pretty smooth and easy going by now, but that is simply not the case. There is still tension like you wouldn't believe and I'm simply hoping that everyone puts on their "Fantasy Island" fake smiles and tries to get along for a few hours.

Either that or I hope one of them volunteers to take care of urchin 2.0 for the night, because I'll be busy moving into Ripped City.

This morning I weighed in at 212.5 which is a good thing. The weight loss has stalled a bit right now, but it's stayed where it is (within 2 pounds anyway) for nearly a month, which is a good thing. I continue to eat less and better, which is to say that I probably eat about like a chunky college freshman girl. I still eat some marginal stuff, but I'm trying which counts for something.

I did realize one thing last night at dinner. I have read many nutritional related things recently and when I see things that say "4 ounces of beef" or "six to eight ounces of chicken" I think to myself "who on earth is going to get filled up by THAT?"

Well, I pulled out the trusty kitchen scale last night and realized that I don't think I could eat six to eight ounces of chicken at dinner anymore. At least not with a salad and a side of some sort. I ate about five ounces of chicken last night with about 3 bites rice and a small salad and I was stuffed. This from a guy who as recently as a year ago thought that three full-sized bagels with ham, egg and cheese were one person's breakfast...

I watched the new "Must See TV" lineup on NBC last night, and I have to say I enjoyed it. Will and Grace is always funny, as is My Name Is Earl and on most nights, The Office. The new show Four Kings made me laugh several times, including an out loud while alone in the room laugh when one character referred to Seth Green's character as "Three feet of angry."

The premise for the first show was hideously predictable though. Four friends living in New York on their own when the rich guy's grandma dies and leaves him her kick ass apartment.

(Sound familiar to any other show that used to be on NBC on Thursday nights at 8pm? That's how Monica got HER kickass apartent, in case you didn't know).

Anyway, here's to hoping that Sophia turns the corner and goes back to her relaxed self tonight and that the NFL playoff games are entertaining this weekend. And here's also to hoping that 44 days can go by quickly and we can get race season started again at Daytona.

And one final thought. I can't wait to hear the shitting things people like me will say about Pat Robertson when HE'S in critical condition or at death's door. Of course, since Lucifer himself will be at old Pat's bedside when his moment arrives, I think he'll get his in spades too. (Man of God my ass).

That is all, people. Happy end of my first nearly full week back at work. And don't worry. If something fun happens, I'll be sure to write about it here...

This is the best I can do and since I feel like a shitass for not posting one before now, here it is.


The Christening is Saturday and I suspect we'll get a couple of new photos then. Of course, she'll be seven weeks old by then which really makes us look pretty bad..huh?

Mazaltov everybody.

I have no idea, but I'm going to share it with you anyway.

I went out in the hall to hit the head and noticed a handtruck outside of the men's room. I went in, proceeded to relieve myself, and heard a strange but familiar beeping.

I realized by connecting the dots that the UPS man was in our bathroom taking a dump.

And I snickered.

I have no idea why this struck me funny, but now I'm giggling just telling you. I mean, do you figure that keypad thingy they carry has a "dropping the kids off at the pool" button or maybe he has some button he has to push every so often like on the show LOST, and if he doesn't, he gets canned...I mean, fired?

Just curious.