Big Day

It's been a big day for me.

First, while harvesting pretend crops on a pretend farm for pretend rewards on the ever-popular Facebook game Farmville, I decided that I was never really having any fun and it was more just something to do. Five to ten minutes once or twice a day and you're done.

But why do it when it isn't fun?

So I quit. The rice I planted has not fully grown yet, but it won't be harvested when it does. I'm not playing anymore. We'll see what the repercussions of that are.

Maybe I'll have a little more time to peruse the internet forums

Oh yeah, I'm not so hip to them right now either. I've got nothing against them, it's just that right now it doesn't look like anything really interesting is happening right now.

Though I will say that the Telecaster forum never fails to post some great looking pictures of worn out Teles and I want one pretty bad. Not a worn one (well, maybe a worn one) but a lacquered one and not JUST lacquered on the body but the neck too. Half the fun of showing wear is showing it on the neck. Unfortunately, Fender doesn't offer this except on the really high end guitars (about 17-2,000.00).

Now, there are builders that will build you a Tele to your specs and more and more are popping up every day so when I say that I've been thinking about a sea foam green la cabronita Tele with a single TV Jones Powertron in the bridge, there are people that can do it (for less than a real Fender too).

But I'm not close to getting a new guitar at all. Not at ALL. Oh well. I'm pretty happy with the ones I have. Sometimes I think I should replace the neck on my Tele for one that's a bit more chunky like an old Tele is, but the idea of carrying the whole guitar stock throughout my career is pretty tempting too. Maybe the frets just need leveled out or replaced. I'd be more prone to do that, honestly.

I also had an afternoon to myself and I drove up to Macon to a Mac store there. Not an official Apple Store with a glass front or anything, a small store that had a fairly knowledgeable staff that helped me out and answered my questions. I told them if I were to get the Macbook Pro like I want it would probably be while deployed and they didn't say they could ship it or that if I ordered it from THEM that I wouldn't pay tax.

Though I would like to order from them.

I'd like that very much.

It would be nice to support a small shop like this one and say that there is a market for this kind of stuff.

Perhaps I could email him from the desert and organize a mail-order.

When I went in there was a kid carrying out a 27" imac. His mother/grandmother referred to it as his toy and it blew me away. Here I am, 26, trying to convince my wife that a Mac is what I need to be able to jump into audio recording and hopefully not break a computer like I seem to have a knack for and this 15 year old kid is getting a "toy" from his relatives.

The manager of the store said that a soldier bought a macbook pro, a real expensive one, and also bought a super duper case. One that costs somewhere around 400.00 that has Kevlar and titanium and all that. In Iraq, while carrying the computer in the case a sniper shot two shots. One ripped the guy's leg right off. The other hit the case. The guy lived and brought the case and macbook in to show that the 400.00 was well spent because nothing on the inside was hurt though the outside looks like... well, like it was shot by a sniper.

The afternoon off was a big thing for me. Kim likes to think that me going to work is a break and I don't want one from the family or kids which just isn't true. I think everyone needs a little time to themselves and always try to give Kim that time because she's a little more vocal about needing it. When I told her it would be nice for ME to have a personal day she sat back and said it honestly hadn't occurred to her that I would want one.

Driving back, with the sun coming down from its apex, music up loud and going a bit faster than I should have, I was having a good time.

And I didn't spend a dime. Not even on a book I want to get called Love Is A Mix Tape.

So I got home, took Kim's library books back, took Annie to the park where no less than seven ladybugs landed on my shirt (must be the color), burned the living hell ut of some pork chops in the last grill of the season, and after putting the kids down for their sleep settled in for a good forty minutes of reading God's Middle Finger, a travel book about the Sierra Madre mountain range in Mexico. Very entertaining. Doing coke with cops, being chased by armed gunmen who want to kill you because they're bored, watching fat prostitutes (mucha carne) strut by batting eyelashes because no Mexican girl apparently feels bad about themselves and every one is confident in their looks, all of this makes for some great reading.

So yeah, big day.

Family: Bah!

I think it's interesting, this idea that your family needs to be together, stick togethe rand help eachother through whatever life hands them regardless of how each family member feels about them.

Maybe I have a unique perspective because being raised in the military I rarely saw my family outside of the nuclear capacity and when I did, it was more than likely grandparents and few others.

So I don't exactly have strong ties. I didn't grow up playing with cousins and nephews and nieces. I don't mind that, either.

I don't mind it because when a person who happens to be related to me acts like an ass, I'm not incredibly torn up about severing the tie. I barely know whoever I'm talking to anyway, so what's the big deal? It's not like we have clans anymore where we'll wage war on an opposing house.

But you can't imagine the grief I get from other family members about "not caring," or "turning my back on a member of the family."

Nuts to that. I would much rather judge everyone equally because this whole tied by blood thing is a myth anyway. No one REALLY cares about that, they just pocket it until it's useful to them to manipulate and I need no more people manipulating me.

If someone's an ass, they're an ass and you don't need to be around them. Why let them depress you and drag you down? There is no reason.

Now, I'm not saying family doesn't matter. In my opinion the reason this whole family through and through mentality came to be is because in a good family, their attitudes and love for eachother make you WANT to give them everything you can and stick together and that's fine. That's a good thing. You should do the same with friends.

But if one of your friends was just an awful person, you wouldn't be their friend anymore right? The same rules apply to me and my family. If you're an awful person who's bringing me down, you won't be bringing me down for long.

Post #10

So Adam, my sweet, sweet son who always seems to be happy and smiling and laughing - oh how he laughs when you play patty cake with him - woke at 3:30 in the morning.

THREE THIRTY!

Oh, but I'll survive, don't worry about me. I don't have any coffee, but somehow I'll make it through. At least I don't have to worry about making dinner tonight.

Why?

Because yesterday, with Ida straddling middle Georgia and pelting us with rain and wind (that's gross when you think about it), I took the kids to Publix. Oh, it was GREAT. First off, the rain. Glorious rain. I covered Adam's car seat and carried it and held Annie's hand as we booked it to the store and then into the cart with both of them.

For the record, this leaves very little room for food.

But I was getting so frustrated about not having dinner in the house that I had to do this and I picked up three frozen dinners to tide us over until payday when maybe I can leave a child with Kim and go grocery shopping with a little more real estate in the cart.

It was a nice little trip though. Annie laughed at how she was getting wet and I was just trying to make sure everyone was OK and as dry as possible. It did the kids good to get out too.

So you'll excuse me since I've been up for nine hours already that my blog isn't all that entertaining today. Sorry.

Maybe tomorrow.

Post #9

It seems like I was wrong earlier when I wrote about the Nook, the Kindle and the Sony. Apparently it's only the Kindle that sucks. And by sucks I mean is more forced to get books from Amazon. There are workarounds, but they're still workarounds, while the Nook is open to get books from other sources and the Droid OS is going to help out eventually too.

At least, that's what I've been reading.

I'm pretty excited. I don't get embarrassed when I read books even though I read a little bit of trash, but I was recently thinking of reading the Twilight series purely to see what all the fuss is about. Even Kim devoured it in a little over a day (the first book) and was talking about how it's SO much better than she thought it would be and "oh, Edward..."

I have to know what everyone's so wrapped up about.

And I do NOT want to be caught reading the book with the actors' faces on the cover.

The idea is gross.

But on an ereader no one's the wiser. I could be reading 1776 for all anyone knows!

Post #8

It's like some sort of Disney movie, I swear. On Friday we were in the car somewhere and Kim asked if I would be game for swapping jobs. She would go to work at my job and I would be a stay-at-home Dad. Of course this is impossible to actually do.

Right?

To an extent, I guess. She was mainly asking me to validate her job as a difficult one and it's true, her job is tough. I know this. I knew this before this whole ligament thing. I never for an instant thought her job was cake.

Well, I guess she pulled out a shrunken monkey's paw and made a wish because her back got hurt and now I'm a stay at home dad. But it's like stay at home dad XTREME! Where the usual grocery trip involves Kim taking Annie and me staying home with Adam or her going by herself, I have to go everywhere with both kids.

And we need to get groceries.

It's tough. But it's also mighty COINCIDENTAL that this happened when it did. Me thinks the lady put a curse on me (temporarily). I swear honey, I respect you.

Post #7

Still alive! The 5th Fret dropped out of Nablopomo and so did New Rukian, so that leaves just me. Good thing I wrote that blog about God being a bit of a butt early yesterday.

So where to begin? Kim was in bed all day yesterday which meant I got to take care of the kids. So I did. It was everything I thought it would be, good parts and bad.

I went out to check the mail though, and there was a little boy, probably seven or eight sitting on top of a hill crying in direct view of me, with his back turned to me.

Just sitting there doing the boy cry which is less of a whaaaaa and more of a mmmmmMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMM. Campbell's should sue.

At first I was going to leave him alone. What business is it of mine? But I looked around and no one was coming for him, no one cared. There were people that could see him and they weren't doing anything. So I said nuts to this and went over there and tried to make myself as physically menacing as possible. Not to scare the poor kid, but to let him know that I'm an adult and can probably be trusted. No sense in me going over there to try to make the kid feel better only to have him run away screaming.

I squatted down next to him and asked if he was OK. He was not. He had a red line with spots of blood going down the side of his face. This is the result of another little boy breaking off a tree branch and beating him across the face with it. A little boy that happened to be watching this with his friends and mother. The crying child also said he was pushed into a big pile of dirt by the same little butthole.

I asked if he wanted to go home and he didn't know. Go figure. I convinced him that he needs to have his folks look at his face to put some neosporin or ice on it. I really wanted them to see the face so they can get good and pissed and put that little boy in his place. He was as good as guilty in my book.

I just thought, what if someone brought home Annie or Adam like that. Oh, I'd hand the kid off to Kim in a heartbeat to get fixed up while I went on a little walk. And woe to the kid and parents of that kid when I get to their step.

We walked past the group of oglers and the boy was telling his mom that it was an accident and the mom was eating it up. I wanted to explain that it could not have possibly been an accident. When you're running through bushes and a branch that you pushed through snaps back and hits your friend, that's an accident. But all of the trees/bushes are cut too high for that to happen in this neighborhood AND the mark was vertical not horizontal. That kid was hit.

I dropped the now-calmer child off with his dad who was concerned about what happened and I left to go back home. I had my own kids to tend to. But the little branch user tried to talk to me as I walked by saying it was an accident mister and I controlled myself enough not to look his way. Best not to get too involved. It would have been way too easy to escalate.

Meanwhile Kimmy was really hurt. Really hurt. I had to take her to the ER and then they told her that she had torn a ligament and it would take quite some time to heal but as for now she can't lift anything heavier than a book and I'm in charge of the kids now.

It will be interesting to see how much longer I can keep Nablopomo up.

Post #6

I'll be completely honest here: I think God exists. I do. SOMEONE had to make this place.

But I for one don't like Him. He's kind of a dick. At the very least he makes life "interesting."

For instance, today we were supposed to drive to Macon. We would get breakfast on the way to an exit far past Macon and go to a park, a nature preserve-ish type of place where we would walk and everything would be fine. Kim would get good pictures, the kids would get air.

Except Kim woke up and while getting ready, her back started to hurt and get progressively worse. She swallowed some Aleve and we made our way to the car, her leaning on me quite a bit, both of us thinking if she still hurts by the time we get to 75, we'll turn back, but we didn't make it that far. No, we got breakfast and had to go back. Then I took the kids to Target to get icy hot back pads for Kimmy (and to give her some quiet relaxing time) and when I got back in the car to go home, the brake light came on. The constant DING DING DING DING DING DING came with it. I was annoyed, but no big deal. The brakes did feel squishy. I'll just pull off to a gas station and get some brake fluid.

Bought some break fluid and Adam was crying (howling) when I opened up the car door to pull the hood lever and guess what didn't release?

The hood.

I pushed it down and it seemed to connect, but when I pulled the lever, nothing happened. I couldn't get the damn hood to open up.

So I drove home with the constant DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING in my ears and when I got home and was feeding Adam his bottle as Annie tried to kiss Mommy better, Kim reminded me that a few months ago, something happened with the car and they said that eventually this one thing is going to need to be fixed and I said it's too expensive so we'll wait. Kim thinks it's that and I'm inclined to agree, but why today of all days?

And it's not like we have the extra money to fix the car right now either so it looks like we're going to be a one car family.

Maybe He is just using this little series of... events... to draw us together as a family.

But right now I just think it's messed up.