Oh - and one more thing.

Today I realized that I am indeed a terrible, terrible "know-it-all."

I'm sorry - I'll stop.

And I have to apologize to a kid at work. We had a urinal that needed unstopping and he refused to glove up and do it himself, even though it's his job. For the rest of the night I called him "princess" and told him that after he swept the theater, then he could go to the ball. I also told him I hoped he found his glass slipper, too.

I'll tell him "I'm sorry" tomorrow. I guess I can be a little mean when I'm mad.

For Wednesday....

I'm just about ready to shave my head bald again. So far my wife has managed to persuade me to keep the top part, but the sides & back are down to the skin. It already feels colder, but the rest of my scalp wants in on the coolness as well, and she can't hold out forever. Odds are the first really hot day I have to spend running eight projectors in a poorly ventilated booth will be the day I break.

We reached a compromise on the new gun vs. honeymoon issue; I can buy whatever I want after I have the honeymoon fund paid up and locked down down in cash. I'm fine with that. I've gotten the easy parts nailed down already - getting the gun nailed down was a lot simpler than getting the honeymoon trip all planned, but I'm bound and determined to make our honeymoon damn near perfect, which means scheduling it when it's best for us to take the trip and get the most bang for our buck. So that's settled. Oh - and the gun is this.


(It's the one on the lower right-hand corner)

Code Name Diamond is grounded for the week - she got busted telling a fib about finishing her homework. She said she did it so she wouldn't get in trouble. Geez, man - did she learn that from me? Not only can I think of a few times when I've white-lied in front of her (and those are the ones I can remember; odds are I did it countless times that I don't specifically recall), I can very clearly remember being told that this would happen, and that she would have learned it from me. I guess they were right, if that's indeed where she picked it up. My dad always said that your kids learn a lot more than what you intended to teach them. I hope she didn't get that from me, but let's face it - where did she see it first? She learned it somewhere, right? Or is that (lying) just a normal part of being a kid? Either way, I'm sure there's some vindication out there somewhere.

I remember I used to lie to keep myself out of trouble pretty regularly; in my mind it was easier than being truthful and honest and either hurting somebody else's feelings or disappointing them, but of course in reality all you're really doing is undermining the relationship that you're trying to sustain, despite how hard you try or how good your intentions may be or how much you love the other person. But it sure has a painful set of consequences, and I hope that maybe I can spare my (our) daughter some of those by doing my best to teach her right from wrong on this one. We've already had some pretty serious come-to-Jesus talks on this; I'm hoping that something starts to click in her little head earlier than it did mine. Your 30's is a poor time to figure out that lying isn't worth it. I'm hoping she opts to learn it the easier way than to finally reach the conclusions after the consequences of lying have become so unbearable that you have to change your ways, and by the it's usually too late anyway. going through recovery will generally knock the lying out of you, especially the lying you do to yourself. The one person that you generally can't fool - not forever, anyway - is yourself.

Aside from that. not much else is going on, other than the cats are becoming more and more interested in the shower when we're in it, and we finally got one person we owed over $900 to all paid off. That is a big relief for everybody involved.

Anyway, that's it for tonight.

434

Blogging & Music (Tuesday)

So do you guys listen to music when you write? I do every so often. I used to listen to REM & Finoa Apple when I was feeling dow, it seemed to put me in the right frame of mind. Tonight I'm listening to "Malaguena Salerosa" from the Kill Bill soundtrack. It's one of my favorite songs. It makes me want to play my trumpet, fight in a bar, dance with passion, kill zombies, blow up a building, race a car through the streets of Mexico, have sex with my wife and deliver a baby all at the same time.

I hope that wasn't too much information. Listen to the song, though, and you'll understand.

Tonight I had a few things I wanted to write about, so I'll just start.

last night I was taking a shower and somehow in the middle of it I thought "If we can stay married for five years then I think we'll have a chance at making it." The fact that that thought crossed my mind bummed me out, especially since I can't quite pin down how I got there. For those of you who don't already know, my first wife left about 6 months before our five year anniversary, so I guess I have hang-up with making it through the first five years of marriage successfully. I know that my first marriage was wildly different than my sedonc; that I'm different than I was then, my ex-wife is much different than she was then, Toni's different than my first wife, and it's both unfair and illogical to even try to compare to two - I get that. But somehow we tend to do that anyway, don't we?

Then I started remembering all the painful times in my first marriage, all the hurt, the anxiety, the silent hostility, the unforgivness, the abandonment, the fighting, the sadness, the isolation, the addiction, every failure I ever had, how much I missed out on, all the things I could have done better, how I let her down, how I let my daughter down....all the stuff that you do your best to let go and put down - but we never forget where we put it; not really. We know right where can find it, we know where we can go and look at it, watch it, and see if it's grown. We can stand back and remember every crevice, every bend and curve, every place and every surface. All those memories, fears, hurts, disappointments and sadness can come right back; all it takes is us looking at them - we don't even have to pick them up. We don't have to carry them; all we have to do is remember what it felt like then, and we remember, and that's just one set of failures; just one relationship. I have more than that one, too, and I can take a trip to that particular set of hurts if I try hard enough, too. I think that's just our broken human nature; to visit our hurts from time to time. I think we grow attached to them in some strange way, and it's our tendency to want to nurture and care for them a little bit, perhaps we don't forget all of it, because somewhere in the middle of that pile of hurts there's a tiny diamond of joy, of happiness, of peace, of love, that we don't want to let go of.......so we don't. I think we carry that around with us forever, in one way or another.

I still have my selfish streak; tonight I totally put my own wants in front of my wife's. I wanted to get another gun before we took our honeymoon. It's stupid, I know, but it's where I was. I still have the tendency to want what I want when I want it. I hope I'm not the only one that's like that sometimes. And this, one the day when she got up early, made me breakfast, dropped me off, brought me lunch at work, picked me up, and then cooked dinner, too. I ought to be a better husband than that, man. The gun can wait - my wife deserves the best honeymoon I can give her; especially after all the nonsense she puts up with from me, including my baring 99.99% of my private life 5-6 times a week on the internet. She's.....she takes the words away from me. I don't think I have them.

Anyway, that's it for tonight, all.

433

I caused a leak at work

I was cleaning the upstairs bathroom at work (I could have had an usher do it but it was easier to just do it myself) and I evidently used a little too much water because they got a bit of a leak downstairs. Totally worth it, though - that bathroom is much cleaner and a lot more pleasant.

The media sure is worked up about the swine flu thing. When si America turn into such a bunch of pansies? Personally, I don't care. I'm not going to Mexico, and apparently it doesn't kill you, so I'm not going to concern myself with this whatsoever. I'm also willing to go hog hunting again but I don't plan on licking one.

LIKE THIS KID!@!!!!!!


We saw Gran Torino last night at the dollar movies, which was pretty good. Oooo - and I found new new shorts for seven dollars and new pants for five dollars. I like the clearance rack the best so far. We also got Slurpees, and not at the movie theater, where it's $4.25 for a large one. That's like three large ones at 7-11.

I want to talk about something good our church is doing. On Sunday, the church gave each family a $50 bill - to give to somebody else; to bless somebody else in Christ's name. There are a few basic rules with it, but we're looking forward to telling about how we used that money to bless somebody else's life. We're going through a series called saying "Yes" to God. An important part of the story of the Good Samaritan is the point at which the Samaritan actually crosses the street and does something, and I think our goal (as a church) is to start stepping out and put our faith into action. I really like being a a part of that.

If I keep writing I'm going to end up talking about how excited I am to go eat a big meat sandwich in Grapevine, but I think that's scraping the bottom of the barrel. If I come up with something worthwhile I'll get back on, but otherwise I'm done writing for tonight. I'm hoping my blogs haven't gotten too boring - my life is a bit devoid of drama at the moment and I don't have a lot to say all the time anymore. That's not a dare for God to make my life chaotic or anything, but I think I used to have more compelling (or at least interesting) things to write about.

Maybe I ought to beat up a drunk at work if one comes in. So far the closest we've come is a stoned guy asking if were were hiring. I said he'd have to check back later in the month. I should have told him to come back on April 20th.

Hah - nothing like a nice drug reference to wrap up. I'm stopping there. It's a low benchmark, but I won't get any funnier than that tonight.

432

Friday & Saturday in the technical sense

I. Weird Dream About Stealing A Car

On Friday night I had a dream so bothersome that I haven't been able to get it out of my head for the last 16 hours or so. I dreamed that I stole the car of an ex's significant other. Oddly enough, I haven't spoken to the ex in several months and I've never even met the guy face-to-face and I really don't have anything against him personally. It wasn't even what he drives, either. In the dream I stole the car because I was mad at him for "getting the girl", which was made even more bizarre by the fact that in the dream I was married, and I even talked my wife into going with me. Anyway, after driving his car around around a college and around a lake for a while I began to realize what I had done and how wrong it was and how much worse off my wife and kid are going to be and so I parked the car at the sheriff's office and turned myself in, where I felt really, really bad. Later on in the dream I met up with the guy and the ex (who had a hurt - but healing - leg for some reason) and not only were they together, they were quite happy and the guy was pretty nice about it. He wouldn't press charges if I could help him get people into his day camp, which I agreed to do. When I woke up I was still very firmly convinced I was going to jail, though, and it took me a good 30 minutes to convince myself that it was just a dream and none of it ever happened. I still feel that same sense of wrongdoing I felt when I first woke up, and I'm having a hard time shaking it.

II. Guilt over Money

A friend of mine once told me that his dad said that if you owed anybody any money, anytime you spent any money on yourself you were stealing from that person. Damn - that has stuck with me in a terrible, terrible way, so much that if I buy food, tithe or take my wife out on a date I have to fight those feelings of guilt and try really hard to convince myself that I'm not stealing from the folks I owe money to. On an intellectual level I know how hard I'm working to get out of debt, and I know it's going to take a while, and I know that God knows that I'm working at it - we both are - but man, is it ever hard to shake that guilty feeling. Part of me thinks those are the words of somebody that's never been in massive, crushing debt before, especially when it's not entirely that person's (my) fault, and doesn't know how hard it is to dig oneself out of it - but it's still really hard to feel OK about trying to eke out a tiny bit of pleasure & relaxation out of your life (which you need from time to time) with those words echoing in your head. And I can usually tell the difference between guilt and conviction - but oftentimes it's still hard for me to discern which is which, especially when there's a bit of gray area involved. I don't have an answer for that one, man.

III. Somebody Else's New Job?

There's a kid at work who's just a bad employee. Poor attitude, lackadaisical work ethic, multiple write-ups, etc. For the past week I've been pretty hot to get her canned - I hate to admit that, but I have been. I'm able to rationalize it 100%, even objectively. But tonight, after yet another fiasco at work, I found myself asking myself why she's such a terrible employee, and I figured it's because, at the end of the day, she hates this job. I get that - I've been there...lots of times. So, while I was at work tonight, I asked her what her dream job would be, and she said "riding the dolphins at Sea World!" After that, she went on and on about how she loves animals and loves to go snorkeling and diving and all that kind of stuff. Later still, I asked her, one on one, if that was her passion, then why was she wasting her time, talent and energy sweeping up trash at the dollar movies? And then I asked her if she'd ever thought about applying at a pet store or a diving shop, and her little eyes lit up. I'm going to try to connect her with a guy that I know who works at a pet store, and I'm going to see if I can't help that girl find something she'll like a bit more. The way I figure, that's a win/win situation, and as much as she's been a source of aggravation for me these past few weeks, I hate to see her miserable and working at a job she hates when she might be happier doing something that's closer to her passion than being an usher.

Anyway, that's it for me today, other than Toni and I looked a motorcycles today, and she's (we've) decided on a "metric" bike, which is another term for crotch-rocket. And I forgot to do all the closing reports at work, but I did everything else. We'll see if I get in trouble for that or not. Hmph. And now it's 3:07 AM on Sunday, and I'm going to bed.

431

really short

I just worked a 15 day at the theater. It was supposed to be 9. I have to admit - if I'm going to be working those kind of hours, I'd rather be making a little bit more money. Also, "New in Town" is a cute movie.

I am tired, and I think I'm going to go to bed. Right now.

429

My brain has a leak

So I come up with at least one blog-worthy thing a day, but I tend to forget it if I don't write it down, so you guys get whatever's on my brain by the time I sit down. It's not quite fair, I know, but it's what happens when I don't carry around a notepad. I carry around enough crap as it.

So we took our daughter to the movies and let her see the stuff behind the scenes, where she got to look out the projector window and start the movie. She had a blast, though we missed a real dinner because we ate too much popcorn, Icee, Skittles and cokes. She's off grounding, which means we can do a lot more fun things as a family. And I actually have a steady income, even if it is a small one, and we might get to do some of the stuff we've always said we would this year.

We're still trying to iron out some of the details on getting a motorcycle. Cost, make, etc. So far, we do know it'll be blue.

Oh - last night I responded to an alarm call at my job - I'm on ADT's contact list to respond as a key holder, so I grabbed my shotgun and met the cops up there. Three hours later we got back home - no intruder, and the cops were really cool. I'm sending the chief an attaboy letter for 'em. It was fun to get to do something like that again. We slept in today - it was great.

Toni and I are trying to (get Kent to) plan a girls vs. boys hunting trip, where we're going to see if our wives can out-shoot us boys in the hog-hunting department. I blame Kent's wife for starting this - she's a vicious (and prolific) serial squirrel killer with over 10 confirmed kills, and I think it has (perhaps quite justifiably?) gone to her head, taking my beloved Toni with her. I'm gonna have to take Toni to the gun range pretty soon and let her shoot the Springfield M1903. (She said she wants the biggest gun I have, and that's it.) Personally, I just think it'd be a hoot for us to go hunting with our wives, even if nobody actually gets on the scoreboard. It'll be fun to watch 'em when the first hogs come withing earshot - they're noisy, man.

OK - that's enough for tonight. I'm going to bed, as I've run out of stuff to say. Nothing deep or profound. Today's just one of those days where you really have nothing insightful to contribute, other than I did read on Brent's blog about fear of abandonment; I can honestly say I've harbored a deep-set fear of the same thing; it's been a profoundly destructive force in 99% of the relationships I've ever had, especially by causing me to act in ways that actually push the other person away, which was the complete opposite effect my actions were intended to accomplish; my intent was always to try to do everything I could to prevent the other person from leaving, even resorting to manipulative behavior in an effort to try to sustain the relationship. Not saying (by any means) that Brent ever did anything similar, simply that I can relate to a lot of the things that he posted. And I tweeze all the hair from my ears on a nightly basis. I think I've said all of this before, though.

428.

It Comes Around

Today I repent every bit of whining I've ever done at work about petty stuff. Now when I hear it I think "you kids are soft." I tend to forget the minor inconveniences (whether real or imagined) are all they know, are likely the worst things they've encountered thus far, and don't have the life experience to know better. It still wears me out, though. I just want to look at them and yell "WAAAAAHHH". And the sad thing is I know I was just as bad, if not worse, then them when I was that age, so there's that, too.

My lovely wife got me some new socks today - they're made to combat the StinkFeet. I'l update you guys on Thursday night how it's going, 'cause I'm off tomorrow and plan to spend the day basking in my Chuck Taylors.

So we're finally getting some movies I want to see - "Gran Torino" and "Taken", two films I actually want to see.

AND......

Since we're down to one car, Toni and I are planning on getting a motorcycle. We think it'll be a better option than a second car as it'll have a much lower initial investment and much less operating cost, and we generally drive less than 10 miles from home 99% of the time. I used to ride and Toni's a fast learner. As soon as we can get the cash together I think we'll be picking one up and enrolling in a cycle safety course together. I can hear Bri getting ready to introduce us to the riding world from here. We're looking at sport bikes. I may even wait to get my M4 until we get a bike, which is saying something.

Anyway, I'm tired now. See you guys tomorrow.

427

The Downside of Business Professional

So - here's what's been up.

Code Name Diamond is officially off super-grounded status, which she earned by:

A) Failing an assignment because she refused to stop talking
B) Getting caught coloring on the school building (with chalk) - by the principal
C) Getting a teacher's note sent home, saying she didn't and "forgetting" about it until Sunday night....

....all in one week. She spent the weekend vacuuming, washing windows, cleaning her room, and bagging tests. I think the gravity of being grounded hit her on Sunday when she couldn't go play with the kiddos next door. It's simultaneously sad and funny watching your kid vacuum and sniffle sadly at the same time, but I think she learned her lesson. I hope so, anyway. We're running out of ways to punish her short of spanking. We're taking her to the theater on Wednesday to see a movie, and she's going to get to see all the projectors and behind-the-scenes stuff before the movie, and afterwards she'll get to actually fire up the projector and start a movie. It ought to be fun. It's always better when your kid behaves and gets to do the fun stuff.

I went hunting with Kent and his buddy Robert north of Denton. We heard several hogs but a very thick fog rolled in after a few hours and obscured our view further than 15 yards or so. We had fun anyway. I think I giggled the entire night - they're both funny guys and they had some great stories. I think I learned more about hunting in those few hours than I did in the past several years. I'm gonna try to drag Bri along next time, too. I want to see him blast a hog with that .444 Marlin at night - it'll be like the Nazi's shooting flak over Berlin in 1943. I brought my AK but I didn't use it until we tried (halfheartedly) to call some coyotes. I ended up carrying my Springfield M1903 after I was informed that the hogs could reach up to 400 lbs, and I didn't want to leave anything to chance - it's effective up to 1000 yards. If you're staring at a 300 lb boar, it's nice to be carring a rifle that has that kind of punch. I need to make another trip to the gun range in a few weeks and sight 'em all in again, plus I want to try some 12-gauge slugs as well, and I need to see where the ghost rings sights line up on my shotgun past 25 yards. But I digress....

Today I was work and was training an employee when I lost track of time and forgot to start two movies, which I had to start late after opening up the projection window and telling everybody in the audience what had happened. They seemed forgiving and slightly entertained by my embarrassment. Apparently it happens to everybody at least once, but it was pretty mortifying. My boss was bemused, but I don't think I'll be letting that happen again.

Speaking of work, I've noticed something rather unpleasant recently.

Most of you guys know I generally wear flip-flops or my Converse All-Stars - both of which breathe very well. I've gotten rather spoiled over the last seven or so years in the footwear department, and it's had to come to an end wit the new gig. I'm wearing a pair of black leather dress shoes to accompany my required coat and tie. However, I've discovered that leather dress shoes don't breathe, man, and by the time my feet have spent six to eight hours running around in a pair of black polyester dress socks they're quite appalling when I get home. This is a new experience for me. I have dubbed the phenomenon The StinkFeet. My wife was the first to discover this awful transformation, which I can only assume haunts all of us business professional guys out there whose feet spend their days in dressy prisons. It makes me miss my old, faithful (not to mention well-ventilated) canvas sneakers. I love those shoes more than ever.

OK - I'm going to wrap it up and watch a movie with my wife and got to bed at a reasonable hour.

426

scary hogs must die

I'm gonna blog while I'm still reasonably articulate. I can't foresee it lasting a lot longer. I suppose that's good because I don't really have a lot to say.

I am going to go hunting tomorrow night with Kent; we're going after feral hogs north of Denton. I've been twice before (both times went quite poorly) and I'm looking forward to redeeming myself and the experience. They're nuisance animals and are destroying several agricultural fields in the area, so we were asked to help thin the herd. I'll be bringing my heavy rifle and my AK in case there's any coyotes that need to be culled as well. I'm also bringing a heavy-bladed machete, my tomahawk and a .45 pistol for backup, because hogs will hunt you back, especially when wounded. And they have these, too:



Still, though - it'll be a fun little micro-vacation for one night, even if there's a small chance of being gouged by a boar.

The new job is going well; and so is the "old" job. I'm (OK...we're) doing almost nothing but working every minute of every day. We'll have a nice few days of rest coming up where I'll only be working one regular job, so that'll be nice. I hate to see that kind of workload go on for too long - your marriage takes a bit of a beating from it, I think, not to mention us as individuals. We're both completely exhausted. Toni has done a super incredible job of running the company while I'm away from the office, and even seems to have gotten us back in good graces with our third-largest client, which was a minor miracle.

I was gonna write about how I'm not losing any weight or how there's a girl at work that looks a bit like one of my ex's and I've decided to just avoid her to be on the safe side or how our daughter is super-grounded for the weekend or about the seeds I'm gonna plant or about how the cats had to stay inside because of the rain so they spent the day pummeling each other, but I'm too pooped to give any of this more than a short mention. I'm gonna shower and crash.

You guys have a cat and come back on Monday - I'll have rested by then.



423

todya or tonight - whichever - I hate being right.

Here's my last 24 hours and my next 24 hoirs

Tuesday; work at theater from 12-6, work till 4 am
Wednesday: I have the dat off from the theater; work until 5 AM
Thursday: Get up at 11, work from 1-10 pm; eat burger, worjk until 4 am
Friday: work At theaer from 11-8, go home & I'm not sure what elsse after that.
saturday: daughter weekend, but she's super-grounded so we don't have a lot we can do excepot work, whgich she'l do. I may go get to go kill some feral hogs Sat night, but I can't think that far ahreasd.

wife exhausted to breaking point; I also have to cal and scream at my HOA and my mortgage company (while at work at the theater, apparently) because they're dragging hteir feet on the short sale and may force it to foreclosure even thay are getting more money on the contract they theyv'e approvedc becasue they're either lazy or imcompetent. Asshats, man.

And I'm too bushed to run spellcheck so ther ya go. I hope theres

these are at least a bit entertaining for you guys.

422, though. Stil OK there!

This may be a sparse week for blogging, guys. I (we) have over 10K more tests to make this week and we're running low on time, so something's gotta give, and odds are it's going to be my morning 60-minute Internet ritual I have instead of coffee. Working another full-time job cuts into your free time, ya know? I'm only monkeying around with this now because my lovely bride is in the shower and I have a minute. I haven't returned a single e-mail since Thursday, I don't think.

Recovery-wise I'm doing well, though we completely missed church today because I insisted on making drug test kits because we're so behind. I think we put in at least a nine-hour day today. Poor Toni's exhausted, and I am, too. We oughta be - it's pushing 4 AM. In theory she has aerobics in about four hours, but there's absolutely no way in hell I could go, so I certainly don't expect her to go. I hope she doesn't feel to guilty about skipping a day. I don't have to be at work until noon, so I'm slightly better off. My schedule varies throughout the week (12-6 or 3-11 or 11-7 thereabouts), but the latest I ever have to stay is midnight, which seems early after coming home at 4 AM from the bar.

I am gonna call my recovery brothers tomorrow. I didn't want to bug 'em on Easter, and I've been fine for quite a while. Nothing new to report, which I'm delighted about. I'm also continuing to forget things, too, which is nice. I was trying to calculate how long it has taken me to "get over" people in the past and it was pretty different with everybody, and that's an incredibly subjective thing to try to classify, too. I think you have some permanent memories with everybody that you never, ever shake your entire life, but I think with enough hard work, faith and healing a lot of the things you don't really want to remember for whatever reason eventually become like a dream you can't quite remember anymore. I have some experience with that already - I hope it continues.

OK - my baby's out of the shower, and I don't want to keep her up any longer than necessary.

Oh - and Dad's birthday was Saturday. He's 104 and thinks he's 25. Ha - he's only 73, but I'm not lying about the 25 part. He still shoots like (and had the blood pressure of) a 25-year old, and if he makes it to 104 I won't be the least bit surprised. We love you, Dad. Happy (late) birthday!

'night, guys.

418, cause I'm counting for Monday.

No hint of domestic violence in this title

I just worked my first full day at the theater. It was fun, and I'm learning a lot on what it takes to run a movie theater from the management perspective. It takes a lot of paperwork; having to account for every dollar and making sure your crew has the stuff they need to do their job and then making sure they're doing it. I can already tell we have a few really hardworking people up there. I don't particularly like not knowing everything. I'm used to knowing 99% of what's going on at my (our) little company, and though I don't mind starting anew in a field where I have virtually no experience, I'll like it a lot more in a few weeks when I have a better grasp of what's going on, and again when I have it wired enough to start to making improvements where they're needed - that's when I feel like I'm doing something. I like that part. The time went by pretty quickly, and I feel pretty confident it'll go by even faster when I'm doing more. Plus it helps that I made - in two days - what I'd have made in three night working at the bar, and I haven't had to do any of the unpleasant stuff working at a bar entails. And I got to eat some free popcorn, which I dig.

I've decided I still want an M4 tactical rifle. I'm gonna have to work on that. I'd sure like to get my hands on one before they ban 'em (and you know they will), but the massive surge in gun sales nationwide has driven the price up a bit. And when I say "a bit" I mean about another 40%. I can't fault 'em, but I sure don't like it. Watching the shows on the Military Channel; like "Top Sniper" just makes it worse, but I still want one.

Oscar has been interesting the past few days. Yesterday I was sitting inside and I heard a squirrel chattering wildly in the back yard. As I got to the screen door, I saw Oscar drop about eight feet from a large limb on of the big oaks outside and trot sheepishly (and quickly) to the screen door on the back porch. He seemed to be trying to get away more than anything. Tonight he's clinging to me like a tick and he won't allow me more than about a minute to go undisturbed. It's simultaneously cute and annoying. And I don't know how the spines of cats work exactly, but it sure seems like they're a lot more flexible than I ever could be.

I mean, look at this. His backbone is made of string or something.

I'm gonna miss CR tomorrow night because I'm working until 8. I'm gonna have to figure out what I'm going to do about that; I do know that I'm going to have to start calling my accountability brothers and my sponsor more often if I'm not going to be seeing them weekly. I'm not concerned about falling off the wagon -BUT- I know that's how it starts, and I'm not willing to let that kind of thing sneak on in and gain a foothold because I was lackadaisical about my recovery and quit walking the steps or let myself be isolated. I'm going to try to make three calls before I go to work at the theater in the morning. I give you guys carte blanche to make sure I did it. Respond here, e-mail, call me - whatever you guys wanna do if you want to help hold me accountable.

Anyway, I think that's it. I was going to try to make about 2000 tests tonight, but I think instead we're just gonna go to bed & get up early and get it done before I go in in the morning. Toni's ready to call it a night, so I will, too.

See yo

>Oscar, get off!

See you guys tomorrow.

414

The wife's down for another 17 minutes

Ah - we never have enough time to do all the things we want, huh? I've been listening to brass & scream trumpet almost nonstop for two days and I'm antsy to play. Problem is it's nearly ten at night and the wifey is trying to nap, so that's out. I figure I'll knock todays's blog out while the genius that is King of the Hill is on. Tonight's episode is the one where Bobby gets dumped by the vegetarian girl. It's glorious.

When Toni wakes up we have 3,000 tests to make. I already made about 1500 today, and that'll put us at halfway. I'm gonna try to ship this bad boy next week and the following two big ones the week after, which means some biog cash ought to start rolling in pretty soon after that, and none too soon.

So today we spent some of our evening working on Code Name Diamond's bike-riding skills. I did a little skateboarding on the side, but I'm not as good as I used to be. The balance is still there, but I'm about 80 lbs heavier and not nearly as flexible, so I'm unwilling to try about 90% of my old tricks. Anyway, she's getting a LOT better. For a short while she was doing this thing where she screamed when she rode, but she gave that up today, which is a teeny bit unfortunate because it was really funny to watch and we were hoping to get it on film. Instead we just shot video of her improvements biking, which makes me pretty proud. She made the observation that "Whatever you're looking at, that's where you'll go", but the best part was when she said "You know what? Just because it's hard doesn't mean I'm giving up."

Sometimes your kid can assuage your "Am I doing a good job as parent?" anxiety better than anything else.

I think that's about one of the best things you can hear from your kiddo, if you ask me. Anyway, here's the video we shot today. Forgive the wind - it was blowing pretty hard. She's just about got it, I think, and after a few more practices we're going to ride to the pond and feed the ducks. She's going to love that, and we're going to love taking her.



On a totally unrealted note, I was gonna fuss about another TV commercial where a guy runs on what appears to be milk, but I saw another one that made me forget that one. See, there's this line of deodorants and body sprays for boys (and I use that word intentionally) called AXE. Basically, all the ads sell is the notion that AXE will gt you laid. I can't say it any more plain than that because that's basically all there is. I hate those ads, and I think I only know one guy that uses AXE that's not a total....well, nothing nice. Anyway, yesterday I saw a commercial that makes fun of AXE and their (predominately 12-19 year old male) demographic, making the point that adult men desire a vastly different set of criteria from whatever skin-care products they might use. As I've had a long-standing (if wildly unreasonable) grudge against AXE (and by extension, those who use it) I loved it. If you guys wanna see it lemme know and I'll post the link. It's great.

Oh - my wife's up. Time to get back to work :-)

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Fun

I had GREAT time at work today. I really like my new job already. I'll be picking up at least three entirely new sets of skills, and that means I get to learn a lot in the next several weeks. I was a little dissapointed when I had to leave today, but it's OK because I go back on Thursday. Also - my daughter thinks my new job is cool. Bonus.

That's all for today, though, because I still have just over 15,000 tests to make and I need to work on that, too, before I go to bed.

413, yo.

Monday in Advance

This pic has nothing to do with anything, other than it's kind of funny and makes me glad I don't have anything to do with horses. And it impresses me even more that Toni trained those things for 20 years.

I'm a'writin' on Sunday night so I can use my Monday for work. This was indeed a fine weekend, despite brushing my teeth too hard and gouging myself in the mouth twice. I have to remember that I'm actually only brushing my teeth and not scraping off paint. Oh - and I ought to start my new gig this week; I'm waiting to hear from 'em, hopefully on Monday. But I digress.....

Saturday we spent over an hour with our daughter working on bike riding - she's doing great. She didn't fall once, and she's gotten over the fear part, which is the biggest thing. We used a combination of threats, encouragement & a LOT of praise, but she's getting a lot better every time. It's makes you proud as a parent and makes you think you're doing something right when your kid accomplishes something like that. It's a milestone, bike riding. I also want to point out I couldn't have done it without Toni - she has insights I don't have and can never obtain. She has that girl-brain that's completely foreign to me that enables her to relate to our daughter in ways I just can't, and it's beyond wonderful to have her around. Our daughter and I are both so blessed to have her around. I don't tell her that enough.

We spent Saturday night at my buddy Kent's house with his wife Cindy and their kiddo, Code Name Uma. Uma is 12 and had a blast playing with our daughter, setting up booby traps for us grown-ups to walk into. They fed us and let us hang out with 'em until waaaay too late - we didn't leave until 2 AM. Time got completely away from us - it does that when you're having that kind of fun.

Sunday we all slept late - real late. Like until 1 PM. We ate a huge breakfast of bacon & eggs (mostly bacon) and played a searching game where we took turns hiding and searching for 13 Littlest Pet Shop animals concealed around the house. We even had our daughter home on time, despite raceway traffic. It's NASCAR time at TMS, and for the first time in five years I'm nowhere near it. It's nice, though I miss seeing the people that comprise the crowd.

We spent Sunday night watching "Blackballed - The Bobby Dukes Story" which I'm sure HoneyB and Nate have seen. Hilarious. Then I think I made my wife mad by not really thinking about her as much as myself, for which I'm sorry. I think she's forgiven me, but I'm still gonna shave tonight to keep myself in her good graces. I'm a kind and loving man when I'm not being a schmuck.

Then I blogged.
Then I put a period at the end of this sentence.
Then I took a shower because I had the funknasty.
Then I went to bed.
Then I slept.
Then I got up and worked all day and didn't piss off my wife once.

Check me out - I'm psychic, too.

412, as I'm gonna have a good day tomorrow.

too good not to post

I think this might be the most evil cat ever.

You guys have a good weekend - I'm wrapping up my workday & going to bed. We have a lot to do this weekend, and it's 2:06 AM.

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Cereal Dismay

So tonight we went to WalMart to get groceries. I've been trying pretty hard to eat better, and I started looking at the cereal to see how much nutrition was in 'em.

Know what? They're all pretty much the same. And Cookie Crisp has less calories than Frosted Shredded Wheat. I was devastated. I spent the next ten minutes dejectedly wandering up and down the cereal aisle trying to recover, and trying to juggle taste and nutrition. I ended up with Honey Nut Cheerios. I don't know how I feel about that anymore.

We're working on a few projects. We're working on planning a vacation. Maybe we can take two - it's be fun to take our daughter someplace this summer. Anyplace. Now that I have another full-time job we might could pull that off. Truth be told, I'm regarding the new job as a very time-consuming supplemental job as I make substantially more at our little company per hour, but I'm still taking it very seriously and I'm going to give it my all while I'm there. We were talking today about how nice having that new job will be during the summer slump. It looks like I can start early next week, which means I'll get one more free weekend with my wife and kiddo.

Oscar has become very, very clingy lately. He's crying to be picked up, trying to climb me like a tree, sit in my lap or on my shoulder, or tripping my by wrapping himself around my feet like a tripwire in 'Nam. I try to acknowledge and affirm him regularly, but lately he's been getting under my skin from time to time. He's lucky I like him so much. The other cats are generating no drama whatsoever, other than Scrappy backing up all three of the orange gatos onto the back porch. Bunny remains unchanged, though well-attended to.

While I'm yammering on, there's three commercials on TV that need to cease immediately.

#1) Pizza Hut's one large pizza for $5.99, while quite effective, is annoying as all hell. I'm about ready to stab that guy.

#2) Quizno's new slim steak sandwich commercial is creepy. The oven wants the Quizno's employee to have sex with it. Admit it - that's what the oven is asking for. Ovens are not for sex - even I know that.

#3) The new Cotton Patch commercial is inappropriately dramatic.

Thus endeth my commercial rant.

We're hoping to have lunch with Chuck tomorrow, and I'm glad I went on that Lubbock trip with Nate and Brando a few years back - we're having fun remembering.

OK - that's it.

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I just couldn't lump this in with the other entry.

Happy Birthday, Chuck! I love you, man, and I'm proud of you. Big 4's and beans!

Have a cat :-)

You ladies got the short end of the stick on this one

- OR -

My brother once peed in front of a State Trooper.

We somehow got on this discussion on another message board I frequent, but I figured that now's a great time to tell this story, as I just finished an excellent, fine H. Upmann cigar (an authentic Cuban - did I mention that?) my dad procured for me, and I'm feeling slightly buzzed and also relieved that this one didn't turn on me and cause me to vomit in the back yard like the Cohiba did.

And this, ladies and gentleman, brings me to my story. But first, let me elaborate a bit on guys in general, or at least the guys I hang out with.

We guys are generally relegated to urinating within a particularly strict set of confines, especially us married guys. We normally either have to pee sitting down, or lift the lid to keep ourselves out of trouble. Proper. Civilized. Sanitary.

But, as most guys will attest, there's something a little special about getting to rebel and piss like a man. I'm sure it taps into some primal territory-marking thing, but when you can just whip it out and let it fly outside of the normal porcelain prison there's something inherently masculine and appealing about that, especially if you can inject an element of humor into it and make it somehow memorable. Pooping can be a similar experience, but this is a peeing story so I'm not going to go into that here.

Now I don't expect you ladies to understand one whit, and not just because you womenfolk lack the ability or the necessary plumbing or anatomical accouterments to facilitate the mimicry of such performances. As much as I hate to make such an exclusionary statement, odds are you ladies just aren't going to "get" it. For that, I'm sorry, and you gals are officially off the hook for any enjoyment of the rest of this story. We don't "get" cucumber sandwiches served on doilies with tea, so maybe we're even there.

Now, on road trips, guys generally hate stopping for any reason other than death. For this reason, I've filled many a Gatorade bottle while on road trips, but it certainly doesn't end there. I have personally peed in the back yard of every house I've ever lived in, doubly so for homes I've actually bought. I've stood side-by side with my dearest friends and peed in the backyard of their houses in a moment of bonding. I've peed in the woods. I've peed on the side of many of our Texas highways, most often westbound Hwy 114 between here and Lubbock and eastbound Hwy 6 between Waco and Texas A&M. I've peed off the third story balcony of our last apartment building, and I've managed to pee, with great hilarity, out of two of the second story windows of my last house in Justin. Take that, HOA.

Now, I must admit that many, many men have me beat in the cool department, especially the men in our military. I've never peed off of a tank while it rolls across the desert, or off the deck of a warship or aircraft carrier. I've never peed in space either, which might be the ultimate urination experience. But, all of that aside, here's the story.

One late summer afternoon, my brother Brandon, my buddy Nate and I were enroute to Lubbock from our home in Flower Mound. There are many scenic stretches of road in which the beauty of West Texas can be experienced firsthand, where you can see the sun set over the Llano Estacado, look at the beautiful Texas wildflower dotting the countryside, stop and eat in quaint townships filled with colorful festivities and dear, friendly people, and see firsthand some of the native Texas wildlife, including deer, roadrunners, and the ubiquitous coyote. You can also find many areas where you can clearly see the earth's layers of rock where the roadways have cut deep into the landscape, and it was at one of these places that our story takes place.

After nearly five hours of driving, we were nearly at our destination. The sun was setting, and it was a warm evening under a lovely blue sky almost entirely devoid of clouds. As we began to approach our destination, we observed a rest area located immediately to our right, just beyond several signs warning us that there was a large population of either javelina or feral hogs nearby. As we slowed the car, we noticed a picnic table atop an area rise that rose perhaps 30 feet, overlooking the highway. From this vantage point, one could see where the road had cut into the side of the rise, revealing several layers of rock and giving an overall spectacular view of not only the rolling plains but of the lovely orange hues of the setting sun.

Nate and I, either out of modesty, haste, or failure to appreciate grandiose majesty of nature, chose to relieve ourselves near a tree a few yards from where our car (the fabled red Dodge Neon) was parked. Brandon, on the other hand, out of a desire to more fully appreciate the scenery around him, or perhaps just pure showmanship, chose to mount the rise at its peak, unzip, and relieve himself over the 30-foot drop above the highway. While his most intimate parts were shrouded from view by an adequate distance from the passing vehicles, his performance left nothing to the imagination, and his firm, determined stance proudly announced his activity.

It was at this point that an unknown trooper from the Texas Department of Public Safety happened to drive down that very stretch of highway, directly in front of my brother, who stood frozen in time for all to see.

Obviously, we had no clue this trooper was behind us; in fact, they had to have been a few miles back to have arrived at our location at that particular instant. Nonetheless - there he (or she) was.

Now, for those of you ladies unfamiliar with the mechanics contained therein, it can often be quite difficult to abruptly cease this endeavor, especially once one has committed oneself to the project and has passed the point of no return. Regardless, my brother, facing a a somewhat terrible decision, realized that was was indeed too late to avoid detection, and simply opted to continue the task at hand and finish what he had started. It was a momentous decision of bravery, followed by a shining moment of panache. As the black and white DPS Interceptor began to slow, my brother, every so slowly, raised his right hand and engaged the Trooper in a friendly wave. The brake lights flashed only briefly, and the trooper continued westbound down Hwy 114. We'll never know if they waved back.

Anyway, to this day, my brother holds a special place in my Manly Peeing Hall of Fame. Nate and I watched in fascination, then horror, then awe as he finished and returned down the ridge, knowing that we had indeed seen something manly and very special, never to be forgotten.

Brandon - I salute you.

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