Month: November 2008

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Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States

In just a few years, I will be neither young, nor hip

Old pantsThere comes a time in every man’s life when, either by his own acknowledgment or by the subtle musings of his spouse, he realizes that perhaps it’s time to refresh the old wardrobe. This is not an easy thing for men, for we often labor under the belief that while our bodies may have changed over the years, styles have not.

I came to this conclusion while ironing some pants the other day for work. I had just flipped them over and was pressing the crap out of the iron in a vain attempt at trying to press out a previous crease. You know what I’m talking about…it’s nearly impossible to crease your pants in the same place every time. Anyway, I noticed that each of the “old creases” was now a permanently shiny line in the fabric that was quite visible to the naked eye.

Oh, this will just not do. I mean, I’m not the most fashion-wise man on the block, but I’ve always prided myself on dressing fairly well and I do buy new clothes from time to time. Still, I wasn’t quite sure how this had happened. I thought I was more diligent than this.

Getting a tad apprehensive, I went into my closet and with a critical eye, looked over my options and realized, “Hmmm, this isn’t good.” Not only were my slacks in bad shape, but there were very few nice button-downs left. Mostly, I had golf shirts and jeans.

See, in my industry–high tech and IT stuff–the peons don’t get dressed up. Oh, people like myself are a fashionable step above the guys who write the code and design the products, but still; we don’t meet with customers and on any given day, nobody cares whether we have on jeans or slacks. So, the only times I really get dressed up are for church, Christmas parties, weddings, and the like.

As CareerMom and I were deciding where to go and what to do for our big 9th Anniversary night out, I mentioned my needing new clothes. You should have seen her eyes light up; which got me to wondering how much worse was the situation than even I suspected?

After dinner at a really nice sushi/seafood/steak restaurant called “Goldfish“, we walked over to the mall heading towards Macy’s. As we neared the entrance, CareerMom asked, “Have you ever tried on any pants from Banana Republic?”

I started to guffaw something about metrosexuals but then caught myself and instead said, “Nope, wanna look?”

The excitement on her face said it all, so inside we went.

Now, I generally avoid trendy clothing stores like Banana Republic and Gap, because A) I think they are way overpriced, B) They are geared towards men much…um…leaner and less muscled than I and C) Because they tend to sell flat front pants and I’m a “pleat” kinda guy. I’ve seen too many overweight fellas trying to pull off the flat front pant look and it’s just not pretty. Not that I’m overweight, but I’m no Ryan Reynolds (did you see his physique in Blade 3?) so I didn’t wanna be that guy.

Anyway, CareerMom pulled out several pants for me to try on and I must admit, despite the flatness of the front of the pant and all, with a nice button-down, I looked pretty good. And because she was so excited and liked the way it looked, I “let” her buy me a pair.

And then I went over to Macy’s and bought some with pleats. Hey, what can I say?

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Dad Blogs Family

So smile a while, and give your face a rest…

black hole Did you know that the Lord is going to send a great famine across the U.S. and we’re all going to suffer like something out of an Egyptian plague?

Well, we are according to an e-mail my mom forwarded to me that was purportedly written by a well-respected Christian evangelist. (wait for it…)

This sounded pretty awful, and my first thought was, “Quick, run to the grocery store and start hoarding milk, water and toilet paper!”  A message like this makes one especially sensitive in light of the recent elections and the way many of us feel about our president-elect. But I’ve been around the Internet block for a while and know that a lot of these e-mail are nothing more than bunk. Oh, many of them have a grain of truth, but that’s about it.

Let me introduce you to a spammer’s worst enemy, Snopes.com.

Thanks to Snopes, I was able to determine that the famine this person spoke about was in the context of a seminar she was giving, using the Egyptian plagues as a reference. So, grain of truth, blown completely out of proportion into a complete fabrication…and people like my mom bought it, hook, line and sinker.

And then sent it to everyone she knew.

I’m not sure which I hate worse; getting these e-mail from her all the time, or having to tell her that once again, she’s over-reacting and that God isn’t about to strike us all dead. I love her, but good Lord, couldja verify these things before passing them on?

I could go a couple of different ways with this:

  • Does God get involved anymore?

OR

  • Some of the more interesting spam family have sent me

But, it’s my Anniversary today (our 9th) and I suspect that I should instead, hurry up and get my work done for the day so I can give my wonderful bride the attention she deserves.

So, have a wonderful day and keep an eye out towards the sky in case they get the Hadron Collider operational again ahead of schedule and open up that black hole that’s going to swallow the earth!

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Dad Blogs DIY Family Fatherhood

Just because they showed up to collect the money, is no guarantee that they’ll show up to do the work… and if they do… I can’t pay for it!

Since I know that many of you are awaiting with baited breath (what would that smell like? Baited Breath?) to hear what will become of my backyard, I thought I’d update you.

If you remember, last time I blogged about my slowly eroding backyard, I was in turmoil over the thought of spending gadzooks of cash on a retaining wall and/or loads of plant material. But you’ll be happy to know that I made a decision.

Taking the advice of three “experts” on erosion, I have decided to forego the retaining wall (at least for now) and in the words of my Civil Engineer, we’re instead going to just, “Plant the shit out of it.”

Pardon the language.

The first contractor my Engineer recommended, apparently wasn’t hungry enough in this economy to give me a good deal. In fact, he didn’t even show up with a tape measure, and instead used the old, “I’m just gonna step off the length here and guesstimate” method of measuring. Which, I’m all for unless we’re talking about a great deal of money riding on the actual size of the project, which we are. He also didn’t include in his estimate, any additional dirt to fix the low spots, or bobcat work, or erosion mat, or anything like the second guy did. I may need someone to come do the work for me, but I’m not an idiot. I know what needs to be done.

The second guy came, with a TAPE MEASURE (Haaaallellujah!) and did actual measurements and then provided me with an estimate that, while still expensive, was not a whole lot more than I could have done it for by myself. AND, he could start today, which tells me that he is hungry and clearly not terribly busy right now.

Contractor #1 – Ill-prepared and playing me for a sucker

Contractor #2 – Well prepared and giving me a more than fair price

“When can you start?”

But, my backyard can be broken into three sections. The right side, I’ve already landscaped and put in some steps leading down so that I, and the kids, can access the creek and bamboo farm at the bottom without busting our crowns in a tumble:

hillside landscaping 1

See those elephant ear plants there? They are freakin’ HUGE! Each leaf is about the size of a beach ball. It does like it some hillside!

The opposite side of the yard, is the left side and it is really steep. There is also enough dirt left over there that I’m not so much worried about “fixing” it as I am about just keeping it from getting worse. So, this weekend I went around and scarfed up some great deals on some Maple trees and planted five of them on the hillside, along with two nice River Birch sets that I got from a local nursery. I also extended the cheapo-deluxe corrugated drain pipe so that it doesn’t deposit all the water on the middle of the slope (brilliant! those original builders!)

hillside landscaping 3

I also got some fairly cheap wire and some wooden stakes and made little aprons for the front of the tree so that I can mulch around them without it running down the hill.

It was hard work doing all this on the hill, but I’m happy with the way it turned out and I think it’s going to be really nice when the trees grow in, in a few years.

This just leaves the 80 foot long section in the middle, which my contractor is hopefully gonna fix for me:

IMG_2498

So, let’s just hope now that my contractor actually starts today and that we don’t have a “Money Pit” situation on our hands, “Yeah, I’m gonna need another check before I can do any more work…”

Categories
Dad Blogs Family

Thank the Lord I have an understanding boss-man

CareerMom called and told me that she was going to have to make a day trip on Tuesday, which is of course, election day. Unlike millions of my fellow Americans, I had previously decided to skip the early voting and just vote on Tuesday and pray the lines weren’t too long. However, this new revelation prompted me to get up fairly early on Friday morning and vote, since I figured if the lines were long and she was out of town, there was a very real possibility that I wouldn’t get a chance to vote if the line ran late into the evening when I needed to pick the boys up.

And, my friends, NOT VOTING, is not an option this election cycle.

There was only one early voting precinct even close to me, so I hopped in the truck and got over there, only to be greeted with a full parking lot and a line about 300 feet long outside the door of the “Recreation Center”; a place that I had never been in. But I quickly found a parking spot and with optimism in my veins, I stood in line for about 45 minutes just to get in the door.

As soon as I got in, I thought to myself, “Well, that wasn’t too bad.”

Little did I know, that the Recreation Center is really two large gymnasiums connected in the middle by this little foyer where I now stood. And the voting line was being funneled first through one gymnasium and then into another like some kinda Disney Land ride where you wait and wait and just when you get excited because you finally got in the building, you realize that it was all a setup and that you still have to make your way through a maze of back and forth steel cattle corridors. Here’s how it was set up to vote:

voting line

Here’s me standing in line in the first gymnasium: Georgia voting line

This is me in the very first part of the line as it came in the door and as I realized just what I was in for.

All told, I spent almost four hours–FOUR HOURS–in line to cast my ballot. But, it wasn’t all bad though. I met some pretty nice people, and saw some pretty strange ones.

A lady came in and hollered that you couldn’t wear any candidate clothing, so everyone with a McCain or Obama shirt had to either take it off or turn it inside out. I’m pretty sure I saw some gang colors on display, but apparently the First Amendment protects that, but not your supporting your candidate at the polls (yes, I know about the 150′ rule).

Anyway, when I finally did make it into the other gymnasium, I was shocked by what I found. Whereas the other gym was jam-packed with people, this other side was barely in use. There were only twenty voting booths set up in the whole daggum thing!

Georgia voting fiasco

I’ve since heard that the lady who runs our elections is under fire for the complete lack of preparation, and in truth, after nearly two weeks of this, they should have brought in more voting booths.

I mean, I’ll all about patriotism and suchly, but standing up in line for four hours to push a button is a tad on the ridiculous side.

But I voted and that’s really all that counts. Hope your Tuesday is better than my Friday!

I voted