iPod Nano

I’ve thought about getting an MP3 player for a while, but didn’t want to cough up money for one.  Yeah, I wanted one for free.  Well I ended up picking up a $20 MP3 player at CVS.  What a deal.  It was a pain in the butt and took me 3 hours to figure out how to get a song on it.  I’ve used it a couple times and it’s sat ever since.

Last week we had a contest at Rent-A-Center and my store got 10 deliveries first.  That yielded us a prize of an iPod Nano.  It was determined that drawing names out of a hat would be the best option and the guys had me draw the name.  (I was certain the guy whose idea it was put his name in 6 times so he would win.)  I drew after stirring the names around – it was my name!  (Then I thought he put my name on it 6 times!)  So any respectable store manager would have passed the prize on to his employees, not me!  (They give away Xbox 360’s, stereo systems, etc, but I’ve never won more than a $10 gift card to Walmart in the 4 years I’ve been with the company.)

So I’m working on loading up songs into this gizmo and went to my CD collection to find that I now own 2 CD’s.  I’m not sure where they all went…probably Goodwill.  Now I have no music for my iPod.  So I went to podcasting.  I bet I’m now the biggest subscriber of free podcasts on iTunes.  I just watched 30 minutes of podcasts (including a Dora podcast I put on there for the kids.  Lame I know, but I’m a dad…and a good one at that!)

I can’t believe how great the sound is and how good the picture is.  The pixels are so small I can’t see them.  I love this thing.  It’s a lot more fun than Facebook!  Ha!  I’m going to watch podcast reruns.  Cya!

Boys Day Out (Part 2)

Boys will be boys…I guess. 

After Walking With Dinosaurs, Ethan and I went to Home Depot’s 30-50% off sale and walked out with only two purchases.  I was disappointed because I can usually fill a few carts on a Lowe’s clearance sale.

We decided to catch dinner at McD and split a 20pc nugget meal.  The plan was drive-thru but that PlayLand caught his attention and since it was boys day out, I thought it would be okay.  Our deal usually is eat your dinner, then play.  He was doing a great job eating until he saw that a boy had a different arrangement with his mom.  Ethan said to me, “Hey dad, I have an idea.  What if I go down the slide and come get a bite every time?”  Hence, the other kids’s arrangement.  I said that was fine once he got 4 nuggets down.

First time down the slide he said, “Dad, that boy’s a little rowdy.”  I told Ethan to pass him by and have fun since I couldn’t hear any commotion.  After about eight or ten trips in and out, I yelled to the top that he had two more slides and then we were on our way.  That news was met with an “Okay dad!” and down he came.  He raced back up again for his last slide and I heard him talking to the rowdy boy.  I looked up and saw the kid hit Ethan’s head with his fist.  At that time I yelled “Hey!  Stop it!  No Hitting!  Ethan come down!”  Which he promptly did.

I couldn’t see if Ethan hit the boy first, if Ethan antogized him, or what led to the punch.  Ethan told me that he didn’t know what happened that the boy hit him “…because he didn’t tell me why he hit me.”  I couldn’t get anything out of him.  But I didn’t see or hear anything leading up to that.

Ethan came out of the slide and came right over.  The other kid came down the slide and stayed just inside for a few moments before coming out.  The kid’s mom was casual and didn’t even ask her kid if everything was okay in there when he finally made his way over to her.

I almost left McDonald’s without saying anything to her.  But I went back inside, told her what I saw and what Ethan did/did not say, and left it with a FYI.  She didn’t seem suprised and tried to get her kid to apologize, but he wouldn’t, so she did for him.

Thoughts were racing through my head, because I didn’t know if my son was an instigator or not.  He wrestles with his cousins and friends which is usually fine.  Every once in a while things get carried away, but I wasn’t sure what happened.  I didn’t want Ethan to be punished unfairly because he did tell me after the first slide that there was a rowdy boy in there.  But at the same time he didn’t shed any light on what provoked the situation.

Before I started the truck to leave I told him I wanted to have a “Man Talk” with him about what men do in the situation.  These are the ground rules:

1. If someone hits you, you can hit them back if you need to protect yourself.
2. Never throw the first punch.
3. Don’t do (or say) anything to make someone want to hit you.
4. If you see someone being rowdy, maybe it’s best to stay away.

I think these are fair.  My neighbor told me that the school system has different rules.  Someone needs to hit you three times in Huntington County School System before it’s okay for you to hit them back.  I guess “Dad’s Rules” are a little different, because I have a one strike policy.

Boys Day Out (Part 1)

Ethan really likes dinosaurs.  I know some kids LOVE dinosaurs, but Ethan just really likes them.  Today after church we gave him the option of going with me on an extra long motorcycle ride (a coveted option) or going to see dinosaurs.  He picked the dinosaurs.

We drove up to the Collesium and the $28 tickets were sold out so we went for the next best thing…$45 tickets.  I must have looked shocked at the ”next best price” because the lady ended up selling them to me for $34/ea.  (We could see the rafters just fine from where we were at.)  

So Ethan loved it.  At first he was on my lap asking if the dinosaurs were real.  I had to spend several minutes reassuring him that I took him there to have fun, not to get eaten.  Since we were late and walked to our seats in the dark I don’t think he realized that there were several thousand other people in the arena with the dinosaurs and us.

The show was well done.  Ethan’s favorite part was when they hyped up the intro for the T-Rex and it was a baby T-Rex that came out.  Mama T-Rex made her appearance shortly thereafter to save the baby.  As the host was describing mama and she let out a thundering roar, baby echoed with a thundering squeak.  All of the kids in the arena laughed enough that they had it worked into the show three times. 

At intermission we cheated and went up towards the bathroom instead of down and ended up using the bathroom intended for box seating ticket holders.  Nice can.  Lots of paper towels and toilet paper in every stall.  The collesium did do a good job with that expansion/addition. 

Ethan loved the show.  I had a good time watching him watch the show (and I also enjoyed the show).  And I’m especially proud of the fact that we got out of Collesium without buying any novelties!

9 Years!

Nine years…that’s how long I’ve been married.  I asked Angie to marry me and she said yes.  I expected it, but there’s always that chance I’d be the guy whose girl runs out of the room crying when he does the big public proposal (and if there was going to be a guy like that it would be me!).  So I was thrilled.  The hottest girl I’ve ever dated said yes!  What excites me the most is that she hasn’t changed.  I’ve started getting a gut and hair in wierd places just like my dad (sorry dad – I don’t think you’ll be online looking for my blog, but if you are…sorry), but Angie stayed the same.  We’ve (she’s) had two kids and she’s still a skinny babe.  We went to California on vacation in April and she was the hottest chick there!  No kidding!

Aside from having a hot wife, I’m still married to my best friend.  Angie supports me in whatever I choose to do and often chooses to do what I’m doing.  We’ve enjoyed fixing up houses together and going on lots of walks.  Now the boys do these things with us.  I don’t think it’s as much about what we’re doing as much as it is doing it together.

She supports me by keeping up the house, fixing the food, doing the laundry and cleaning.  She’s the CEO of our house.  There’s times when things get busy and I’m not understanding of why it’s 8:30P and she doesn’t have dinner plans for me yet, but when I walk in and the kids are running around screaming…I understand. (I might be hungry, but I understand.)  My kids have so much energy that I’ve taken Ethan(5) out for a run around the block before bed just to get him out of breath (it quiets the house and he’ll sit down for two minutes).  Sometimes I wonder why more isn’t done, but once I get home I wonder how so much got done.

Angie will drop what she’s doing to take care of my needs:  make a phone call, send an email, bid on ebay…often with kids wrestling (then crying) in the background.  She’s a terriffic mother and a wonderful wife.  Most of all she’s my best friend…and hot.  Yeah baby!  Thanks for 9 years!

Pic of the Day – 5/27/08

Ever feel like you just need to sprawl out?  We’ve got bunk beds for the boys, but Angie fell off the top bunk as a kid and broke her collar bone – she doesn’t want that happening to the boys.  In the meantime they like sleeping together in this full size bed.  Every once in a while we have to get them separated because they start kicking each other in the head trying to get comfy.  This was becoming one of those nights.

We’re screwed!

I liked Glenn Beck who said it best (and I’m paraphrasing)… Do you remember in middle school when we played dodgeball?  The team captains would pick teams and there would always be the three kids at the end who weren’t really too good and nobody cared which team they ended up on?  That’s kind of where we’re at with the presidential election right now.  One of these three is going to be the President…we’re screwed.  I’m more motivated to respond now like everyone else did during Y2K.  (Fabulous y2k story:  When everyone was upstairs counting down the new year I was hiding in the basement and killed the breaker…the whole house went dark…panic ensued for 30 seconds until Angie realized I was missing…great stuff!)  Right now I want to buy a 1000 tank to store fuel in, I want to buy canned meat and I think I should be investing in gold which I plan on burrying in my backyard.  (Did I spell burrying right?)  Yeah, we’re toast.  The democrats don’t care and the republicans don’t either.  I’m thinking about going libertarian but that doesn’t do anything but aid the Perot effect.  (Wasn’t that the guy’s name?  Ross Perot?  Where the republicans voted for Ross and Bill got the nomination?  … I dunno.)  It would be the same as voting Democrat which is worse than McCain. 

Facebook Friends

I’m just going to throw a shoutout to all of the Facebook people who said they wanted to be my friend…I don’t really know how to talk to you on Facebook so to all of you…Whazup?  Yeah, I figured out the little IM thing at the bottom.  I don’t know why I’d use the email thing at the top (I already have email – you already got it, otherwise it’s somewhere in facebook…).  I don’t really get the wall-to-wall thing.  I really don’t understand poking (which I managed to figure out how to gripe about that on the wall-to-wall deal and Brian decided it would be fun to see how many people would poke me.  Thanks for that.  Do I get points?)  Yeah, so I wanted to say HI since I can’t figure out how to do that on Facebook.  Now that I’ve got a blog (I know it’s 2008, but I’ve been busy!) I’ll let you know what’s happening with the fam sometime soon.  And stop asking who I paid to marry me!!!  She did it with her own freewill and she’s HOT…grillin’ hot!

Songza.

Thanks CJ.  I really like this website.  For this reason I’m hooking my computer up to the SRS in the front room.  Love it!  I was pretty stoked when a buddy at work turned a couple of these songs into ringtones for me.  Here’s a few from my playlist… She’s a Hottie!  Firecracker  I’m Still A Guy  I know it’s country.  Haven’t you seen my truck?  Fullsize chevy with an American flag across the back windshield with some hood rims and oversized tires and just a little body rust.  Yeah, that’s me!

 

The tech thing.

I’ve got to admit that I’m aging.  I starting sending a few text messages last fall.  I now enjoy being able to have that one line conversation with someone without having to actually talk to someone, but I HATE my Razr and I HATE hitting the button four times to get the letter S on my screen or how many times do I have to hit 1 to get a 0.  I need a new phone with a qwerty.

I got on Facebook this weekend.  A group of us decided this would be the best place to meet since f2f was going to be difficult to schedule.  So in three days I get 78 emails from facebook everytime someone wants to be my friend.  That’s great.  i got friends.  I could care less because I can’t figure out how to talk with anybody!

I called by brother-in-law tonight because I have someone who wanted to be my friend that was his friend and I didn’t know who they were.  Fine.  (Facebook feels like a jr high dance.)  I still don’t know who you are, but I think it’s wonderful you want to be my friend.  Send me $5 and I’ll let you in my secret club.

I must admit, I get lost every time I go to Glenbrook mall (that’s why I like JP).  That’s what facebook feels like.  I know it shouldn’t be difficult, but I feel like I’m walking in circles and can’t find the information desk.  Aarugh!  (Whatever.)

So it took me an hour to find a place to blog because the two people who’s blogs I like I couldn’t figure out where they blog at or if they got their own???  I dunno.  So I google “good blog easy to use” and came here.  Glad you found me.

I guess at age 30 I’m now old because I like answering machines and voice mail better than the internet this week.  If I had a webcam I’m sure you’d see the look of disgust on my face as I spit past the monitor.  I don’t know why this thing doesn’t work right.  Hopefully my blog goes better.  Enjoy!