Naked in Front of the Computer

Did you ever have one of those days where Karma walks up to you, smiles daintily and delivers a front snap kick to your groin?  I have a tendency to believe that the universe constantly seeks to find an equilibrium, that there is a balance, like the Force, that everything eventually comes to no net gain or loss.  When something good happens, something equally bad must take place to restore that balance. 

My weekend was awesome, kicked off with the Faith No More concert and then a great, fun-filled Fourth of July.   We started off our Independence Day with our neighbors’ annual breakfast picnic.  We then headed to the pool for a few hours of relaxation.  We ate a quick dinner at home and packed up for the parade.  We snagged good seats under a tree and the kids got a place right on the curb.  We stopped by home to drop my wife and daughter off and the boys and I went to the fireworks.

We found a great spot to watch the fireworks last year, the parking lot and sports fields of the middle school.  It is only a few blocks from the house and offers a perfect view of the show.  I planned to arrive early to secure the same position this year.  We were in luck and got to park the truck so we could sit in the back and the fireworks would be right in front of us.

The kids ran around in the field with flashlights and sparklers and then hopped into the bed of the truck as soon as the show started.  As soon as the show ended, we were about to fold up the chairs and head home, but the field in front of us exploded into light and sound.  Someone had prepared their own fireworks display right at the edge of the field.  About 800 feet in front of us, someone had set up several mortars, Roman candles, and rockets.  The display was almost as good as the one the town put on and lasted almost 30 minutes.  They even had a grand finale prepared.  Someone had taken a lot of time and money to put everything together.  The boys were amazed, they had never been that close to the fireworks before.  The secondary show elicited an even greater round of cheers and applause than “real” display.

We spent Monday lounging around the house, recovering from our long weekend.  Overall the weekend was a great success.  But the universe wasn’t pleased.  All of that good has to be offset by something bad, right?  Monday night, as the kids prepared for bed, everyone was commenting on how hot it was upstairs.  This is normal for our house, the upstairs is always hotter than the rest of the house, so we didn’t think anything of it. 

After everyone was asleep, I snuck downstairs to the basement and caught up on a few things.  By the time I was finished reading through the 100 emails I had gotten over the weekend, I was dripping with sweat.  The basement is always five to ten degrees colder than the rest of the house and I knew something was wrong.  I stopped by the thermostat on the way upstairs to bed and saw that while it was set to 77, the temperature in the living room was 88.  I could hear the blower running in the basement, but the air coming out of the vents wasn’t any cooler than the ambient air.  I ventured outside with a flashlight to examine the outside unit.  The fan was not running and I caught the smell of the magic blue smoke which meant something electrical was cooking.  I informed my wife that the A/C was dead and we started opening windows to attempt to reduce the temperature.  It didn’t help much. 

I spent the majority of today rushing around calling local companies and giving them the grand tour of heating and air conditioning system.  The current system is over 14 years old and has been patched and repaired several times since we have lived here.  During the last repair, which was only about 6 months ago, we were told it didn’t have much time left in it.  The options were to attempt to fix it again or replace the entire thing.  With a repair, there were no guarantees that it would last, especially with how hot it has been the past few days and the stress of running all day and night.  So we decided to replace it.  The first guy said he could have a new unit installed in two to three weeks with a lofty price tag.  Hmmm, umm, no.  My wife got a recommendation from a friend and that guy arrived an hour later.  He gave me the same prognosis, but offered to replace it by Thursday!  I am still waiting on his official quote which I should have tomorrow morning, but his ballpark estimate was much lower than the first guy.

While I was not on the phone or walking people around the house, I was searching for all of the pieces to a portable A/C unit that my father-in-law had given us a few years ago.  This little wheeled unit could be put in any room and had a flexible exhaust pipe that could attached to and vented out a window.  I found all of the pieces except for one, the piece that secured the exhaust hose to the window.  I scoured the entire house, literally top to bottom.  I was searched the attics (house and garage), the basement, every closet, every cabinet.  I did this at least three times before admitting defeat.  I was heading out to the garage to attempt to fabricate something when I decided I would try looking for it one more time.  I eventually found the piece hidden under a stack of remnant carpet pieces, a solar powered water fountain, a space heater, two rifles, and a set of grapevine reindeer all stuffed under the basement steps.

So what’s the big deal?  Millions of people around the world don’t have the luxury of central air conditioning.  Why am I such a wuss?  Well, I think my wife and I could deal with it, not happily, but we could deal.  I know the boys would be fine, they don’t seem to mind the heat at all.  But we are worried about the baby and the dog.  One year olds don’t have the ability to regulate their temperatures as well as adults and she is used to be in air conditioning all day long.  The dog is 11, weighs 90 pounds and is covered in a thick coat of hair. He did not enjoy today at all.  He paced around all day trying to find a cool spot to lay down.  Even when I had the portable A/C unit set up and running in the bedroom, he didn’t want to lay up there.  I took a cold wet towel and rubbed down his belly and under his armpits(?) a few times, which he seemed to enjoy.

On top of all of this, the boys had their annual doctor’s checkup, summer camp, Taekwondo, and I had a PTA budget meeting from 6 PM until 8:30 PM.  So I am sitting here exhausted and sweating in front of the computer.  Of course I am not naked, this office chair is leather and I don’t think that would be comfortable at all.

King For A Day

And Fan for a lifetime.  Saturday was my big night in Philadelphia, I got to see Faith No More for the first time in over a decade.  The show was PHENOMENAL!  It was everything I had hoped for and more.  We had good seats, we could see and hear everything perfectly.  Mike Patton was the same as always, his vocal range never ceases to impress me.  He was able to do amazing covers of Peaches and Herb’s “Reunited” and the Jackson Five’s “Ben” and still growl the likes of “Caffeine” and “Surprise! You’re Dead!”.  The musical highlight of the night for me was my favorite, “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies.” 

The music wasn’t the only thing I came to see.  Patton, as usual, is just as fun to watch as he is to listen to.  Patton promised that he would “slow dance” with one of the fans before the night was over.  He delivered during “Ben”, when he singled out an extra large fan in the front row and climbed onto his shoulders.  He had the guy carry him throughout the entire song across the front of the stage while he sang. 

Patton didn’t stop there.  During “Just a Man,” he jumped onto one of the rope ladders leading up to the stage lights and proceeded to climb his way to the top.  Judging by the way two stage hands ran across the stage, this was not a planned event.  Patton shoved the mic into his mouth as he climbed and still continued to sing.  He finished from the top of the ladder and after noticing that there was nowhere else to go, said “Kinda got myself into trouble, didn’t I?”  The rest of the band just stared up at him and played “Edge of the World” in striptease fashion as he climbed back down.

The band came out for an encore of three songs, ending with “Digging the Grave.”  It was sad when it was over.  I may never again get to see them perform together again.

I learned a few technical details from the show.  The first is that neither the Flip Mino nor the Motorola Droid are good for long distance video.  The second is that I suck as a camera man.  It didn’t matter, I got to see it live.  Here are a couple of my crappy videos from the show:

You can see the rest of my videos here.  Or if you want to see better ones, you can check out the New Faith No More blog.

Thanks to Mark for coming with me!  I am anxious to see how your iPhone videos turned out.

Take This Bottle

Today, I had my first alcoholic drink in over six months.  In fact, I had two!  And the first came only five minutes past noon!  After the past several weeks/months, I felt like I needed a little something extra during lunch today, to ease the pain.  I don’t think it improved my work load any or will make me work any faster, but it sure felt nice and cold going down.  Today was one of those rare occasions when I actually got to leave the house and have lunch with adults.  I met a few of my fellow work-from-home coworkers at a local restaurant.  We try to meet at least once per month, but it always ends up being once every two or three months.  I arrived before everyone else and got to sit in a quiet room off the main dining room waiting for everyone to arrive.  There was no one else in the room, there were no TVs on, no computers, no email or instant messages, and no kids.  I felt it was only appropriate to celebrate this blessed moment of silence with a cold beer.

I decided to quit drinking when I was 19 years old.  I can assure you while I was still two years under the legal drinking age, I had many gallons under my belt at that point, and they was just what I could remember.  I did not quit entirely, but just stopped doing the “binge” drinking that was very prevalent with my peers.  At the time, I understood the effects of alcohol and when I drank, I drank with one purpose in mind, to get drunk.  I never saw a point in drinking to be sociable, or for the taste, or for any other reason than to get to that point where my mind stopped functioning coherently and go completely past it.  I had fun, I got in trouble, had more fun.  But by age 19, I decided that I didn’t like the “me” that I became when I drank too much.  I didn’t like not having control over what I did or said (I have a big mouth when I am sober, and it gets even bigger and louder when I have had a few).  I also noticed a big flaw in my head that would allow me to quickly become addicted to this type of thing.  So I quit.

Over the next 16 years, I have had times when I wanted to celebrate and allowed myself to cut loose.  But after those occasions, I went back to my “Coca-Cola drinking, sit on the sidelines and watch the other drunk fools” lifestyle.  About once or twice a year, I will have a beer or two, but I don’t allow myself anymore than that.  I don’t condemn anyone that drinks (only when it does harm or can potentially harm someone else), it doesn’t bother me when other people drink around me.  I am not trying to preach or get up on a soapbox.  It can be fine for other people, I just know it is not for me. 

In fact, I like being the only sober person at a party, you won’t believe the crazy shit I have talked people into doing, portraying the little devil on their shoulder.  I once talked a friend of mine into letting me draw a version of the da Vinci’s Last Supper on his back in permanent Sharpie marker.  When I was finished, it went from shoulder to shoulder, from the hairline on his neck to his waistline.  Don’t ask me why the Last Supper, I think it had something to do with the conversation at the time.  But I can tell you the next morning he was really pissed, but also impressed by my artistic rendering using only red, black and green markers.

So on this extended holiday weekend, drink responsibly and have a great weekend.  I doubt I will post anything tomorrow, since I will be in Philly for the Faith No More concert.  But I will try to have some pics and possibly some video for you when I return.  Sunday, we will head out to the annual Independence Day Parade and Fireworks. 

The Power of the Written Word

Yesterday I opened my big mouth and wrote an impassioned plea to Turkey Hill to bring back a certain flavor of ice cream.  I would like to report today that the execs over at Turkey Hill read my post, wept with compassion and immediately called their dairy managers to switch all production over to making Double Dunker.  Unfortunately, I cannot report that.  What I can say is that I need to do a little research before I open my yap. 

Whoever runs the @TurkeyHillDairy Twitter account replied to me and told me to look out for Double Dunker coming out this month and sent me a link to their 2010 limited edition schedule.  I consider myself to be fairly web-savvy, and I thought that I had been all over their site and I swear that never saw that calendar.  A little while after their Twitter reply, a Turkey Hiller (I don’t know if they really call themselves that), Alice, commented on my post and informed me that Double Dunker is also part of their Stuff’d product line!  I was feeling really dumb at this point.  How could this have slipped right under my nose?  I swear that I checked this out before too. 

Now that I have been proven wrong, I have a new quest, to find the elusive Double Dunker in the store.  I did the grocery shopping today, hoping to find it waiting for me in the ice cream aisle, but, alas, it is not there yet.  Only constant vigilance will prevail.  As soon as I find it, it will be mine, all mine. 

Thank you to everyone from Turkey Hill for replying and helping me see the light at the end of the tunnel.

As I write this, the birthday sleep-over party is winding down.  I think they really enjoyed the Lunesta Pizza.  I am a little upset that I didn’t get to wear my new riot gear.

6 Days until FNM at the Mann!

An Open Letter To Turkey Hill

It has been a year since we first tasted Double Dunker.  It has been a year since we first experienced this wonder of frozen confections.  By the time we realized that this was the best ice cream ever created, it was gone.  Only six quarts and they disappeared so quickly.  We love your other flavors, Peaches ‘N Cream, Black Raspberry, Choco Mint Chip, Cookies ‘N Cream and so many others.  But no other ice cream even comes close to Double Dunker.  It feels like every spoonful of another ice cream is dishonoring the memory of Double Dunker, an act of unfaithfulness to our love for your chocolate cookie swirl and your creamy mocha goodness.  Eating ice cream is supposed to be a joyous occasion, but you have spoiled our taste buds.  You have left them wanting for something they can never again have.  We will continue to eat your other ice creams and drink your iced teas, but please, we implore you, Turkey Hill, to bring this back to us, bring back Double Dunker.  Fill this empty hole beneath our hearts once again.  Give our taste buds something to live for.

Ok, enough with the silliness.  In all honesty, Double Dunker is the best ice cream I have ever eaten, I think my wife and kids would agree as well.  I don’t even like mocha ice cream, but this was an exception.  It tasted like dunking a chocolate chip and Oreo cookie into a cup of coffee at the same time (hence the name).  They got the flavor exactly right.  I understood that it was a “limited edition”, but had I known that it would be gone so quickly, I would have stockpiled more.  We actually drove from our home in Maryland up through Lancaster and Chester Counties, PA, stopping at every Turkey Hill convenience store along the way to see if they had any left.  Of course, that wasn’t the purpose of the trip, but since we were there, we might as well stop and check. 

I grew up in Pennsylvania and had the benefit of living close to a Turkey Hill Minit Market.  I stopped in every morning before work to pick up a half gallon of their iced tea when I worked at the golf course.  I was extremely happy when a Redners Market opened up close to our home in Maryland and I saw that they carried Turkey Hill ice cream and iced tea.  I had actually forgotten how much I enjoyed their iced tea.  Their Green Tea Mango is my current favorite.

Help me support our cause to bring Double Dunker back.  Tweet “@TurkeyHillDairy – please bring back Double Dunker” or contact Turkey Hill on their contact page.  If you do, please be polite, I don’t want them to get pissed at me and never bring it back.

Twenty-five = Eight + One

Today is a big day for our household.  Yes, that’s right, it is six months until Christmas.  And yes, it is only eight days away from me seeing Faith No More at the Mann in Philly.  And yes, it marks one year since that child molester died of an overdose, may he rot in hell and his music be banned from the airwaves.  But more important than all of those things, it’s the birthday of two of my kids.  We don’t have twins, but we do have two kids born on the same day, seven years apart.  My oldest son turns eight and my daughter celebrates her first birthday.

We didn’t plan it this way, it just happened.  In fact, we really didn’t want it to happen that way at all.  It was the one day that we didn’t want our little girl arrive, but she chose that day to come anyway.  But it figures our child in utero would listen to us just as well as the two on the outside. 

The birth of each of our children was an exciting time.  For our first child, I was working in Delaware, about 42 miles from home when my wife called to inform me that her water broke.  I quickly packed up my gear and said a hasty goodbye to my coworkers as I sped out the door.  I think I made it from my office to the driveway of the house in just under 45 minutes.  I don’t remember any of the drive home, probably because it flew by in a blur.  I got my wife loaded into the car and headed to the hospital.  I don’t think she was nearly as nervous as I was.  She seemed calm and collected.  She was in labor a long time and didn’t deliver until 12:12 AM ET on 06/25/2002.  The nurse was complaining because she had all of the paperwork written up for him to be born on 06/24.

Our second son decided to come when I was at work, too.  I don’t think I made it home as fast this time because my wife was only being sent to the hospital for evaluation.  The nurse hooked all of the monitors up as soon as we arrived at the hospital and left us alone for about 30 minutes.  She came back in to check up on us and asked my wife if she knew she was having contractions.  My wife said that she thought she was but they seemed small.  He arrived a few hours after that, right in the middle of the Friends final episode.

Our little girl decided to sneak in.  I had just gotten done working for the evening, and sat down to play a little Call Of Duty: World at War with a friend and my wife appeared at the top of the basement steps.  “My water just broke.”  It was 12:14 AM ET.  We woke up the kids and wished my son a happy birthday.  We told him he was getting a very special gift, his baby sister decided she wanted to come on his birthday.  I was talking my time making sure everything was ready to go, making all of the phone calls, etc. but my wife was in a panic.  This was really different from the previous two, she wanted to be at the hospital as soon as possible, she was afraid she was going to deliver in the minivan on the way there.  So I popped on my racing hat, and was pulling a little under 100 MPH in our minivan on the highway.  I also got to go through some red lights.  I wasn’t going to do it, but my wife said “Just go already!”  I just nodded, looked both ways and floored it.  Our daughter arrived at 6:54 AM ET, about 6 hours after stepping into the hospital.

This weekend, we are having our first sleep-over birthday party.  If you don’t hear from me after this, it is because I will be recovering in a padded room in the nearest mental institution.  I already have a few nice ones picked out and I am downloading the admissions paperwork now.  It shouldn’t be that bad, we are only having three other boys here.  We will keep them locked safely away in the basement watching movies and playing games.  The nitrous tanks are filled and ready to be vented in if things get too rowdy.  My wife and I also have matching His and Her riot gear picked out if we have to invade the basement for any reason.

Domino Mutha…

It has been a week since my boys started their summer vacations.  The plan was to have them spend the first two weeks at home with me before they started their summer camp.  There isn’t an issue with being home with me while I work, they are fairly self-sufficient, i.e. they can get their own water or juice boxes, use the bathroom by themselves (I say nothing about aim), they can even feed themselves (if it is some sugary junk food).  I can get the same amount of work done with them here, I just have to answer an unending stream of questions and respond to an equally unending stream of complaints.  My theory is that if I can regularly give them something to occupy their minds and hands, they will be content.  And if I schedule my day right, I can actually spend some time with them and do some interesting activities.  My goal in choosing activities is threefold, do something educational, tire them out and not spend any money doing it.  My kids will suck a wallet dry in a matter of minutes if you give into their whims.

On Monday, I took the afternoon off and took the kids to Annie’s Playground (no this is not a strip club).  This is a playground built to honor a young girl who died in Baltimore after being hit by drunk driver.  It is one of the largest playgrounds in the country (according to the plaque at the entrance).  The place is enormous, I tried to get a good picture to show how large it is, but I could only get about 1/2 of it in any shot that I took.  It is a really safe environment for kids to play and offers them a wide variety of things to do.  There numerous tunnels, rope ladders, monkey bars, shaky bridges, swings and slides.  The entire ground level is covered in rubber mulch made from shredded tires.  The boys and I decided to play hide and seek first and within five minutes, I busted my knee open trying to crawl through a tunnel.  Obviously they designed it for children’s safety, not big oafish adults.  We spent about an hour there before deciding it was too hot and headed out to find something else to do.

After finding nothing around town that didn’t cost money to do, we headed back home.  As the kids rested, I checked a few things for work and noticed a cool math trick in my Google Reader from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

I spent about an hour teaching this to my 7 YO.  They don’t make kids memorize times tables anymore, so this might be a handy trick (pun intended) for him until he has them memorized.  The 6 YO sat and watched what we were doing but wasn’t really interested in trying it.  They really didn’t cover multiplication in kindergarten, so the concept was advanced for him.  Like the cartoon suggested, I imagined what it would be like to have twenty fingers (or just include my feet) and the concept worked the same way.  You just have to remember that it is now vigesimal (base 20) and not decimal (base 10).

Latter that night, we were searching through the game cabinet for something to do and I saw a box of dominos and coaxed them into learning how to play.  My 6YO complained at first because he already knew how to play dominos.  “You just stand them up in a row and knock them over.”  I explained that there were other ways to play and then explained the rules.  He finally agreed to play.  I was cheating in the beginning to let my 6 YO win, because I didn’t want him to loose interest too quickly.  He quickly became very good and I didn’t have to handicap myself.  The few hands that I won, I was tempted to pull little Doughboy action, but I figured that they should wait before teaching that part of the game.

This morning, my 7 YO stumbled upon something very cool.  He was searching on Google (with my supervision) for Lego animation videos and found hundreds of YouTube videos instructing you how to build different things with Lego pieces.  Both boys spent hours rooting through our box of Lego pieces to build various different guns and ships.  I love when they work together and build things.  They both stared intently at the monitor as other kids explained what pieces they would need and how to assemble everything.  Considering how closely they followed the directions (which is very different from when I speak to them), I thought of posting my own series of videos for them on topics like “How to pee without drenching the seat”, “Just throwing trash at the can does not equal throwing something away”, “Showering in Four Simple Steps: Get Naked, Bathe, Dry and Re-dress” and “Shut the hell up: The story of Daddy’s Nap Time.”  I could even do stop motion animation with Lego minifigs.

The boys also started Taekwondo last week and at tonight’s lesson, I started recording the session.  We can use this to practice on the days that they don’t have class.  MY 6 YO needs to work on stretching and my 7 YO needs work on his forms.

My next activity for them is card games.  Card games, much like dominos, will help them with counting and patterns and also help in developing some strategy.  I think I will begin with some basics like Blackjack and move into more complex games later.  I can’t wait to teach them Skat, it has been years since I played and it has always been one of my favorite card games.