Articles by Mike Huxley

Ok, since I have no time to actually write out an entire post about all this stuff (and also, I doubt most of this stuff is worthy of an entire post anyway) here’s a quick update:

• We bought a Wii a few weeks ago. It’s sweet. I rock at tennis and golf, and I’m a fair shot at Bowling, suck at everything else. I also downloaded Super Mario 3 - nostalgia. Looking forward to getting Resident Evil 4 and killing me some Zombies!
• Liam is potty training! I’ve got him to go on the potty twice now (with lots of dry runs in between). He does really well and is very patient, he’s a good student, I like that.
• We’re almost finished with the 3rd season of Lost. There is no explanation convoluted enough to actually conclude this show with any amount of sense. ‘Nuff said.
• Watched Cloverfield last night - it’s chock-full of awesome! One hell of a monster movie. Night Vision + creepy alien + subway tunnels = some rockin’ scare scenes.

That’s it for this weeks update. Come back next week when Mike half-asses another blog post!

Ok, so it’s Wednesday and I still haven’t posted my resolutions for the week, so this isn’t looking good. However, last weeks resolutions went stunningly - having finished all my goals by Friday (that damn laundry slowed me down, else I would have finished it sooner) so I had my whole weekend free.

As to this weeks resolutions: I’m going to cheat and list some things that are done or half-way done. So without further ado, the list, week 2:

1. Plan a damn meal….dammit! Seriously, I’ve been whipping together meals with no fore-thought for like, weeks now, time to get my act together. I’m already working on this one - I have some beans soaking for some chili tomorrow. Just have to do some grocery shopping.
2. Get my bathroom to the point where I can actually take a shower in it. Done. Just finished taking one with Liam, instead of his normal bath. Awesome, I love my new shower. Pictures to come soon.
3. Get a haircut and get a real job Well, get a haircut anyway. Yeah, the guy I get a haircut from always bitches at me cause I wait too long to get my haircut (saves money, and gets me a few weeks of that shaggy….um….Shaggy look. Carleen digs scruffy dudes. Again, this one is pretty much done, I have an appointment tomorrow.

Totally unfair, I know, but this week was an absolute horror for both me and Carleen starting from Sunday night, so I’m gonna cut myself some slack for this week. In more positive news, on sunday me and Carleen went and played tennis for the first time since Savannah while MorMor (Grandma) and MorFar (Grandpa) watched Liam at the park. It was awesome - my body has been telling me to get up off my ass for months now, and I finally listened. It felt great to get back on the courts again - I my serves haven’t deteriorated quite as badly as I thought they would, so that’s a plus.

More posts to come soon, hopefully, I still haven’t told you about our new toy, I will surely get to that within, oh, the month or somewhere thereabouts.

Over at The New Me, Chrissy is blogging her 3 goals for the week, she asked if anyone else wanted to join her and I told her I was game, so here goes (plus it’s a great way for me to get to use the ol tag - yaaaay!):

1. Finish the molding in the bathroom. This bathroom should have been done weeks ago. My continuing struggle with this tiny, tiny room is frustrating, so instead of saying (as was my original intention here) “I’m finishing the bathroom this weekend”, which has been uttered more times than I can count, I will simply break this nearly-finished task into bite-sized chunks. Ten bucks says this “bite-sized chunk” takes me 3 more weeks.
2. Fold all the laundry. This is so prevalent it could become a permanent fixture to this little project. I’m great at doing the laundry, I do it all the time, but I never seem to actually get around to folding it, until our bed becomes a mountain (the qualifications for the label “mountain” are much easier to achieve in Oklahoma) - Liam can sled nearly all year round thanks to my laundry habits.
3. No snacking during Lost. Lost has been my arch-nemesis these past weeks. We’re into season 3 and I’ve gained 10 lbs. True, not all of that can be attributed to Lost, and it’s not like I’m eating nachos and hamburgers or anything, in all honesty, I think I eat very well, but I have two problems: portion control, and activity level. Does fruit count as snacking? Cause Mike likes him some apples and would be glad to chomp on that during Lost as long as apples don’t count as snacks.

That’s it for now, I guess I’ll come back next week with the results and we can see how I did. Good luck to us all!

Thought of a question - figured I’d post it to the ‘tubes. How do you listen to music? Is it background noise? Do you actively listen, doing nothing else? Do you listen to one album at a time, or do you randomize it?

Me? I mix it up, baby - randomized all the time, unless I’ve just bought a new album. And mostly music is background noise while I work on the house, though certain songs require my full attention. A few songs that fit that bill of recent, are Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, Cross-Eyed Mary and Locomotive Breath. I LOVE the flute solo’s (course, why else listen to J.T.?). Tell me about your listening habits.

We took Liam to Woolaroc today. It was a good day.

And yeah, I was there too:

Eeew, sorry for the bad title-pun. I think, however, that I’m allowed some bad humor given that I am on the home stretch in our master bathroom. The tile looks great, and I haven’t even cleaned off the grout haze yet. Grouting the tile took a bit of getting used to, not to mention a few blisters, but I got the hang of it after a while and I’m pretty pleased with the results. I’m completely in love with the tile we chose, and in retrospect, for a little better water protection, maybe I should have made the grout lines a bit narrower, I like the look. In the pics below, the grout is still wet and so it looks darker than it actually is. Dry, it is only slightly darker than the tile itself.

I really can’t stand that all these pictures are blurry, goofy camera….

I’ve been on a steroid called Prednisone since, oh, about Thanksgiving to help cool off my Crohn’s disease which has been wildly out of control since a month or two before that. This is pretty standard stuff for people with Crohn’s. While I’m on it I’m doing ok and it does help keep me under control, problem is, it’s not really a good idea to be on steroids for a long period of time. Let’s not even talk about the side effects (”You’re making me angry; you don’t want to see me when I’m angry…Grrr, Mike Smash!” - kind of hard to imagine me 8 feet tall, green and wearing torn purple shorts, but that’d give you an idea of what it’s like on Prednisone).

Recently, it became time for me to slowly step off Pred, dropping from 40mg to 20mg. The day after I dropped down all my symptoms returned. So at a recent doctors visit, I was given the option of trying another, higher dosage of Prednisone, or stepping up to the big guns - Remicade. I chose to try Remicade. These some powerful drugs. It’s given slowly, via IV over a period of about 2-3 hours (bring a book or two, yo’) and there can be some serious, but rare, side effects. It’s an immunosuppressant, so you sneezers and coughers stay the hell away from me. I have to take one treatment next week, another in 2 weeks and another 6 weeks from now, then after that it’s every 8 weeks. The biggest problem? $8000 PER treatment. I talked to my insurance company to find out how much is covered, basically, after my deductible is met, I’m responsible for $1500 per treatment. Still, that’s harsh. For $8000 THEY should supply ME with reading material. I’ve still got to talk to my doctor to find out how long I need to be on it for, but I gather at least a year. So, you know, if anyone knows a rich, divorced/widowed woman who’s looking to pay for sex, could you send her my way? I’d prefer that to “working the corner”, but dammit, I’ll do what it takes. I just don’t know how good I look in heels…

Yeah Turbo got out of our crap chicken-wire fence - again - this past weekend. So I made an emergency trip (which turned out to be trips) to Lowe’s, spending about $300 dollars on lumbers and supplies to build a real fence. I’d strangle the dog if I didn’t know I’d be strangled in return by Carleen who has this strange attachment to this very neurotic dog. There’s this episode of The Simpson’s where Homer strangles Bart (”Why you little…!”) and then Marge commences to strangle Homer (”Why you big…!”) - yeah, it’d look something like that. Anyway, on with pictures!

There’s a bit of purely aesthetic work left to be done, but it does it does it’s job. I don’t have pictured the other side of the house, but it pretty much looks the same on that side too. I still have to do the back part of our property, but that’ll have to be done later. I’ve got a bathroom finish.

Liam had his first Easter Egg Hunt this Sunday. He surprised us all - I had figured he’d find a few and then get bored. But he really enjoyed himself and found every single egg. Carleen bought some plastic eggs from Wal-Mart and filled them with some Teddy Grahams, so every time he found an egg, he got a treat - that probably helped. Here’s some pics:

So it seems me and Carleen were both bored and we both jumped to the same Mac Program - Photo Booth. This neat little Mac program takes a snapshot of you through the web cam and you can add crazy “fun-house” style effects to what it snaps. Here’s sme of my more successful ones:

Today, I made Butter

Fun stuff.

Carleen has an iPhone which she dutifully takes to bed every night in case she wakes up with a dire need for the latest update on Brittany Spears or with a desperate need to play Pac-Man. This morning I got up before her and started feeding Liam his breakfast. While he was eating I checked my mail and this was what I found:

I’m up. Feel a little qweezy but I’m coming .

I responded:

You’re a dork - sending me emails from bed. I start getting breakfast orders from your iPhone I’m taking it away.

You didn’t ask for it, but you’re getting it anyway. I don’t usually do New Year resolutions, but me and Carleen got talking about what we wanted out of this year, and resolutions just kind of popped in there. So here goes:

1. The first is a sort of joint resolution: We want to be more honest and open with each other. Not that we’re dishonest to each other, it’s just that sometimes we keep things to ourselves that really need to get out in the open.
2. Become a trans fat free household. I’ve weeded out most of the stuff but occasionally some things sneak in (like some bagels and an apple pie, most recently).
3. Eat more vegetables.
4. Find more ways to live “green”.

That’s it for me (so far) Meh. No big goals really, just some nit-picky things. I hope that’s a good thing. I’d like to think that that means I’m happy with who I am and don’t need to change much. Or it could mean I’m just not digging deep enough.

LATER: I missed one very important one: By July of this year, we will have moved or be in the process of moving to NY.

Liam has this semi-creepy way of sneaking up behind the dogs and trying to poke his finger into their butts. I try not to get either of the dogs too excited whenever Liam and them are together, lest I risk needing to yell the phrase “No Butts!” one more time to my son. The other day reached the peak of his obsession, as I’ve seen it. He was chasing Chani around the house, index finger pointed and ready, laughing maniacally in his best evil/devil laugh. I think he’s catching on that if he can get ahold of the tail, he can control it to some extent, and was trying to get at her tail that way. When that didn’t work, he got down on the ground, facing up; he looked like he was inspecting the under-carriage of a car. Now, I’ve had to tell Liam not to sit on the dogs, I really hope I never have to tell the dogs not to sit on Liam.

So here’s my Daemon (from the Golden Compass Website):

Edit: Well screw it the code is screwed up, but here’s my daemon page.

The first time I took it I got a fox, which rocked, but this time I got a Crow, which is pretty cool too. Their descriptions are both very similar. Go ahead and answer the questions about me and see if YOUR answers about me give me the same daemon.

I’ve been teaching Liam sign language for the past few months now, and I wanted to keep a record of the signs he’s learned. Here’s what he knows so far:

• Light
• Fan
• More
• Water
• Eat
• Shoe
• Dog
• Bath

I think that’s all. I proud of him, and myself as well, this is the sort of thing that I would start and then just give up on, and I almost did, but then he just exploded with all these new signs that, after months and months of practice, finally just started popping out of him.

Me and Carleen were talking about Halloween for us as kids and how different it is now. Observe: I’m here, alone, except for Liam, it’s 6:30 as I write this, yet I haven’t had a single trick-or-treater. 10 - 15 years ago, I should have several rings of the doorbell, by at least the younger crowd still out with their parents. It’s probably just as well, we didn’t buy any candy anyway, we never get trick-or-treaters. Also, both the mall and Wal-Mart are having a trick-or-treat night. In a way, it’s kind of sad - a generation of kids with parents so scared of some vague, ethereal boogeyman (read: pedophile), that they’re subjected to trick-or-treating in bright, safe gigantic symbols of American commerce. I understand the fear, I really do, I’m wondering if I won’t fall prey to the same fears as Liam grows older. Isn’t it better to fear the boogeyman that’s not there, than to risk allowing your child to fall prey to the one that is?

Halloween has almost returned back into an “adult” holiday, instead of taking your kids out trick-or-treating, you drop them off at the babysitters while you dress up to go to a Halloween party. Maybe that’s what Hallloween is morphing into, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just out of touch with the trick-or-treat crowd. Maybe it’s just more Bible belt, anti-pagan trash that’s ruining my holiday. What I’m really sad about is how apathetic I’ve become towards the whole holiday. It never crossed my mind until yesterday to even buy candy, and even then I forgot - and it doesn’t even look like it’s made a difference. I just rent my horror movie (actually, I did that yesterday, and I didn’t rent, I bought 28 Weeks Later, awesome, but actually not a very good Halloween horror movie), I’d say eat a butt-load of candy, but thanks to Crohn’s I can’t even do that anymore. So basically I rent a movie and if I get around to it, carve a pumpkin (we actually did that this year, first time in the 5 years we’ve been here.

LATER:

But are any of my above reasons the real reason why we don’t get trick-or-treaters? Are there really less people trick-or-treating than when we were kids? Can I really blame the lackluster turnout on society? Unfortunately, no I cannot. As I was putting Liam down to sleep just now I heard (and saw as I passed the window) many children and parents out making the rounds, all of then blowing right by our house. And then it struck me…we have no porch light.

*sigh*

This video/song has to be spread far and wide:

So a strange, quiet little transformation has been happening with our little boy. Actually, it’s just that: he’s becoming a little boy. The past few weeks have been nightmarish trying to get him to eat anything we spoon fed him. We tried various tactics of distraction, from handing him his own spoon to jingling keys in front of his face. It’s ok, though. I’m a parent, I’m slow and dim-witted. What he’s been trying to tell us is, “Quit this mushy crap I got these damn teeth I wanna bite something!” Our biggest concern, however, has always been vegetables and meat. He’s always spit both vegetables and meat out. Fruit he loves, he’ll eat any amount of fruit you put in front of him; bread, cheese - loves ‘em.

Well, the other day, in a fit of desperation over needing to find something ANYTHING for the poor kid to eat, I whipped him up a veritable smorgasbord of food: a Pluot (it’s the cross between a Plum and an Apricot), bread and butter, chunks of cheese, and tucked away in the corner (just in case) some steamed carrots and broccoli. I offered the bread an cheese first, of course, he loves ‘em, right? He takes a few bites and tosses the rest overboard. The Pluot he went for, but I was running out of food. I grabbed the sorry, sad little bowl of vegetables. I looked down at them, I felt like the island Natives offering up Margaret Thatcher rather than Naomi Watts to King Kong. But lo! The carrots went in the mouth and did not return. Surely, though, the broccoli will be tossed overboard. One bite…in the mouth…an ugly face, oh no!…but wait! *chew, chew*, and a swallow!! Now I can’t put broccoli pieces down fast enough - he’s literally popping them into his mouth as I set them down - I even had Carleen cook another bit so would have enough.

My world is upside down. My son…is a vegetarian.

You’re The Giver!
by Lois Lowry
While you grew up with a sheltered childhood, you’re pretty sure
everyone around you is even more sheltered. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, you were
tapped on the shoulder and transported to the real world. This made you horrified by
your prior upbringing and now you’re tormented by how to reconcile these two lives.
Ultimately, the struggle comes down to that old free will issue. Choose
wisely.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Hurray! Linkdom chaosium coming right up!

First off, if you’re a fan of kick-ass horror movies, check out this link to the new trailer for Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. Download the HD version and you won’t be sorry. I was sorely disappointed in the first Alien vs. Predator. You’ve got cinemas two coolest monster movies battling it out - how can you mess that up? Easily, I guess. This one looks to make up for everything.

Now for a new webcomic I’ve been reading: Questionable Content. My friend Matt (well, ONE of my friends named “Matt”) sent me a link to this comic and at first I didn’t like it, saying “This isn’t funny at all!” Then I realized - it’s not supposed to me funny. It’s more of a story comic. But I will say there have been quite a few funny bits since I really got into it. It’s kind of a romantic comedy comic - with lots of indie rock and vague band name references. It’s a bit…risque for the younger set, but overall it’s pretty harmless.

With all the music references in the Questionable Content, I’ve been checking out some of the band names they mention. Here’s one called Maserati. They play ambient rock, kinda sounds like a little Pink Floyd minus lyrics. Pretty cool stuff.

That’s it for today. Enjoy!

I am, by nature, a “Green”, “Crunchy Granola” kind of person. Although I am a firm meatasaurus, in my house anyway, I am the Eco-Warrior. Much to Carleens annoyance at times - I follow her around, turning off lights, reach around her to turn off the faucet the second a dish is not under the stream of water. Recently, I’ve started recycling, even though Bartlesville has no recycling program (we take our stuff to Tulsa, a 40 minute drive, but Carleen is there once a week for Yoga anyway). I even had a manual reel mower (you know, one of those old fashioned kind) for a while until the crabgrass that grows so profusely in my backyard, beat it into submission. The next car I own will be a Hybrid; I have Compact Fluorescent bulbs in all my lamps; I clean with only vinegar and baking soda; I have a compost pile; the list goes on. But I am nothing, nothing compared to these people. My house is a toxic waste dump compared to them. They are my hero’s. It’s a Low Impact Woodland home, build with oak timbers and walls of hay bails covered in Lime Plaster.

Combine that with the fact that I’m a huge Tolkien fan, with a strange love of Hobbits (of all the Fantasy races out there - I’m probably most like a Hobbit, god I’m such a Geek…), adds up to me with a desperate need to build this Low Impact Home. Check it out:

It was built by myself and my father in law with help from passers by and visiting friends. 4 months after starting we were moved in and cosy. I estimate 1000-1500 man hours and £3000 [about $6000 USD] put in to this point. Not really so much in house buying terms (roughly £60/sq m excluding labour).

Now take a look at some of the main features of the house:

• Stone and mud from diggings used for retaining walls, foundations etc.
• Straw bales in floor, walls and roof for super-insulation and easy building
• Lime plaster on walls is breathable and low energy to manufacture (compared to cement)
• Reclaimed (scrap) wood for floors and fittings
• Anything you could possibly want is in a rubbish pile somewhere (windows, burner, plumbing, wiring…)
• Woodburner for heating - renewable and locally plentiful
• Fridge is cooled by air coming underground through foundations
• Skylight in roof lets in natural feeling light
• Solar panels for lighting, music and computing
• Water by gravity from nearby spring
• Compost toilet
• Roof water collects in pond for garden etc.

The main tools to build it? A chainsaw, hammer and a 1 in. chisel. I want a Hobbit Home. I’d even make a round door, painted yellow.

I posted this over on my Gaming blog, but I thought I’d post it here as well, since I’m trying to get as many people as possible into this game. Check it out:

My personal favorite [new game] is a card game that a friend of mine introduced me to called Killer Bunnies. The box says for 2-8 players, though I don’t see why you couldn’t add more players. The starter pack comes with the Blue and Yellow set of cards, you can also buy booster packs that vary in color. It’s important to purchase the sets in order, since each set of cards builds on the ones previous. The goal of the game is to:

1. Still have a Bunny alive at the end of the game
2. Have in your hand, the “Magic Carrot”

I’ll go through a round of play so you can get an idea what’s going on.

First, you take the small Carrot Card pile, shuffle it, and choose one card, without looking at it. Place it at the bottom of the deck, and put the deck aside. This is the Carrot card that everyone is trying to collect. Obviously, no one knows, during play, which carrot card was chosen, so out of 20 carrot cards, you could have 19 or them and still lose. What’s great about this is it levels the playing field. No one will ever get better than the rest of the group, since the winner is chosen at random. Winning isn’t the idea, the fun is in causing as much trouble for your opponents as you can - winning is just a happy bonus. Case in point: The last session we played I was without a Bunny card for 3/4 of the game (a bunny card is required to do just about anything in the game, so I wasn’t doing very much most of the game) - but I snatched one towards the end and ended up collecting the winning card. Even though I won, the game wasn’t that much fun for me, since I didn’t do much all game.

Now that you’ve chosen the winning carrot, each person takes 7 cards from the deck. You will then choose 2 cards to place down in front of you, one above (not on top of) the other. This is called your “Run” pile. Nearly all cards in the deck must go through the Run pile. On your turn, you flip over your Top Run card and either put it into play (if it’s a Run card or Bunny card), set it off to the side (if it’s a Special or Very Special card), or discard it (if you can’t play it or don’t want to play it). You then move your Bottom run card up to the Top Run card position. Now choose another card from the deck and choose a new card to place down as the new Bottom Run Card. If you put a Bunny through the Run pile, you will place it in what is called the “Bunny Circle”. This is the area in front of you - only Bunny’s may go there (or special cards that give the Bunnies protection). It’s called a circle because all the Bunnies are connected, in that if a weapon attacks adjacent bunnies, it means bunnies, not players, so a weapon could affect more than one person’s bunnies at the same time.

Here’s where the fun begins: in the deck are many and various ways of killing your opponents Bunny’s. Remember, you need to have a Bunny to win the game. You must also have a bunny to attack other players with weapons and also to collect Carrot cards. To collect carrot cards you can do several things: you can buy them with Dolla’s or you can play “Choose a Carrot” cards. These are taken from the special big carrot deck (not the small deck you’ve sat aside). Now, if you are able to put down 3 Bunny’s of either the same color or the same type (Sinister, Timid, Congenial, Gleeful, Lumbering), you may play both Top and Bottom card in the same round. Trust me, this is tough to achieve, not to mention to maintain for very long - as it gives you a hefty advantage over everyone else, so you immediately become a target.

Once all the Carrot cards have been collected, the game is over and you take a look at the card at the bottom of the small carrot deck to see who has the matching big carrot card. That person wins the game. If you want a better picture of what this is all supposed to look like, take a look at this.

It sounds complicated, but you’ll have it down in 15 minutes, easy. It’s also addictive fun, not to mention terribly frustrating, as you build up a strategy and watch as it all comes crashing down. It’s just good, clean, evil, Bunny-Killing fun!

All in all, I think this one is fairly close to the mark. Mouse over the various squares to see what they indicate:

Say Mike, what did you do this weekend?

Me? Oh I only laid a floor in my living room. BAM!

We had a nasty brown carpet (it was even nastier than we thought - the bottom side was beyond gross). The Linoleum was underneath, I laid the new, laminate floor overtop that. I got it down in about 6 hours, but of course then I had to replace all the trim - so that took me into Sunday. I am so sore from putting it down so fast, but it was worth it - this floor would make Bob Villa weep.

You know…it’s incredible how quickly your dreams and aspirations can take a back seat to the every-day routine. You spend so much time thinking about the future - a future that always seems to far away, the horizon seemingly never in view. Not only do your dreams and goals take a back seat - you almost forget you ever had them in first place. And then something happens; you take a giant leap forward and the horizon comes into glaring view and despite all the talk about the future, despite all your planning, you are literally knocked breathless with realization that the future you planned for is actually coming to fruition. It’s frightening and exciting and nerve-wracking all at once.

We just took out a $10,000 loan (using Carl’s money as collateral) for home improvements. We’re getting new windows, a new floor throughout the house, remodeling the bathrooms and replacing the countertop in the kitchen (among other things). We’ve talked about this for so long as the single thing holding us back from moving away from here, and now that this time is here, I’m a bit frightened. Mostly because I’ve never been in this much debt before, and I’m really going to have to bust ass to get everything done that I want done. Once this house is finished Carleen can finally start seriously looking for jobs elsewhere and I can finally start looking into Massage Therapy schools.

I had sort of lost track of Massage Therapy as a future career - it just felt so far away. We’ve been talking about moving away for so long it was starting to feel like a pipe dream. Now that the last few hurdles are in view, I’m a bit apprehensive about making the decision to start classes again. After all, I was so sure that photography was the career for me. Am I choosing Massage Therapy because of the money? Am I choosing just because it happens to be the Career of the Week for me? Once bitten, twice shy, you know? I like the sound of it, I like the idea of having a flexible schedule and Biology was always a strong suit for me, I just can’t help but feel just a small amount of worry.

The end is near, and although the next few months are going to be severely trying - the end result will be worth it. I’m feeling unusually optimistic about the future, so I’m just going to ride that feeling while I can.

I had a beautiful weekend. It was one of those normal weekends that felt like a 3-day weekend. It was that good. It was Carleen’s birthday, so I tried to bust ass as much as possible to make her life just a little bit easier (coulda done better, but didn’t do too bad). On Friday, Carleen’s parents bought us dinner at Jarrett Farm - a cozy little Bed & Breakfast in between Bartlesvill and Tulsa where we had our honeymoon. It was a good time in spite of the Mothra-sized wasp that hovered nearby and an amount of cream/cheeese on all the food that gives new meaning to “lactose intolerant”.

On Saturday our gaming group came over and we played Blockus (I lost big-time - again. I used to rock the house with that one. I’m slipping), Killer Bunnies (despite not being able to play for 3/4 of the game due to lack Bunnies - I did manage to squeak a few in at the end and also collected the winning Carrot - Go Mediocrity!), and we finished the night up with Zombies!!! (this was a serious cut-throat game - I’ve never seen so many vicious Event Card plays.)

I was able to get several sessions of Yoga in this weekend. I now feel all stretchy and bendy, however, I did over-work my shoulders so I’ll hvae to give them a break for the rest of the week. I’ll work on my forward bends since they seem to be giving me a bit of a problem, mostly in that I tend to arch my back too much going into the bend, probably due to my hamstrings not being as stretchy as they need to be.

And to top it all off, me and Carleen and a few friends went to see The Simpson’s Movie - which was all that it could be, the perfect comedy that I’ve been in dire need of for several months now: dumbass humor, witty satire, and of course, Spider-Pig. I think, to top this weekend off, I’ll head to bed early and get a fresh start on the new week and hope my new-found optimism lasts longer than it takes for me to finish this post.

I’m trying once again to get back into Yoga. I’m taking a different approach this time: no set schedules, no set amounts per week. I’m just going to do yoga when I can and when I feel like it. Also, I’m going to start working out of a book Carleen has, called Yoga Mind Body & Spirit. It really goes into detail about Yoga in general, but also the asanas specifically. And that’s what I need right now is not to learn more poses, but to do the poses I know, better. After working with the book this morning, I’ll say, doing Yoga right feels a lot better than doing Yoga wrong.

First off, our site template is all whacky for now while Mitch tries to figure out what’s up with it. Bear with us as we get this taken care of.

Me, Carleen and the library gang went to see The Order of the Phoenix on Friday. I should forward this review by saying that this was my favorite book of the Harry Potter series so far, so I was expecting a lot out of this one. First impression: underwhelming. This is the longest book of the series and yet the movie clocked in at a mere 2 hours 7 minutes. The two previous movies ran over 2 1/2 hours. Bad omen right off the bat. The next bad thing was not the movies fault, but the theatres - no sound for the first couple minutes of the film. I need that Harry Potter Main Theme music to really get me into the movie and without that the experience was a bit flat. On the music: could someone please get John Williams back to score these movies? The music just does nothing for me.

It was nice to see Dan and Rupert with shorter hair - I really hated their previous haircuts. But everyone is really getting comfortable with their roles, all three: Dan, Rupert and Emma were all able to step up to the plate to handle the more “adult” themes of this movie. Where was Hermione in this movie, though? I feel like we hardly got to see her at all. A couple of new faces in this movie, namely Imelda Staunton and Evanna Lynch playing Dolores Umbridge and Luna Lovegood respectively. Both wer fantastic choices for their roles, though my personal favorite new face was Evanna. She simply was Luna.

I know it sounds like a stale complaint from a ravenous fan, but there was just too much left out of this one. It was inevitable, given the length of the book, but at 2 hours, I feel like there was a bit too much *snip* *snip* in the editing room. Much like Goblet of Fire - only worse - there is very little “breathing” room. Slow down, take some time to show us the good stuff.

Pretty much the summation of my feelings toward this movie is: Not Enough.

There have been many times during the Bush Administration which I have felt disgusted at being an American; but never so much as after hearing this news story on NPR. The First Lady visited a school in Mali, Africa this week for a photo-op. In preperation for the visit, the U.S. embassy came to the school and gave it a significant face-lift. The front door, where the photo shoot would take place, was painted. Nothing else was painted, just the front door. Two water fountains were pulled out near the entrance because they weren’t visually appealing. Electrical outlets and a generator were installed in order to power fans to cool Mrs. Bush and the crowd. The trash in the courtyard was picked up, new gravel was laid in the driveway so that Mrs. Bush wouldn’t slip in the mud (only the part of the driveway that Mrs. Bush would see, of course) and bushes and plants were planted.

The photo-shoot came and went - it only took a few hours. The trash from the First Lady’s visit - water bottle lables and donut cartons - was left on the ground. Electrical outlets, generators and fans were yanked out. Would it have been so terrible to, at least, paint the whole building and maybe clean up after themselves?

Ok, I’m tired of dealing with the damn Theme on this blog, it’s time to pick a theme and stick with it. Our current theme keeps jumping back to default on its own, and I’m tired of the crap involved with handling it, it’s frustrating and it takes up too much of my time. So yeah, this is an ultimatum to Carleen: Pick a theme you like, make sure it’s got what we need, and could we PLEASE stick with it (assuming it doesn’t act all wonky like our current one).

This week starts my first full week as a Stay At Home Dad. Whoo Hoo! It’s been great so far, if a bit awkward for me and Carleen - we have, like, time to do stuff together. Liam has been a bit rough over the past few days, not eating so great, only eating certain foods and being generally difficult to put down to sleep. He doesn’t go down with a bottle anymore, he only goes down (for me) with a walk in his stroller. Carleen is able to get him to go down with a little rocking, but she also generally puts him down at night, where I have taken over days. We’re hoping it’s just teething. It’s kind of upsetting to me, since he’s so squirmy and fidgety it’s hard to rock him, that’s something I miss from when he was younger - rocking him to sleep. He doesn’t even like to be in bed with us anymore, he is squirmy, wakes up often and starts crawling around half-asleep, banging his head into the wall. Carleen brought this great book home called Good Nights which discusses co-sleeping with your child(ren); it talks about how great co-sleeping is for children and how it develops this great bond between parent and child and how much better children sleep in bed with mom & dad. And our boy wants nothing to do with it. To be fair, it could just be a phase of independence, maybe when he’s older he’ll be more interested in co-sleeping.

It’s good, in any case, to be away from Central States. My hands haven’t been this clean since I started working there. I don’t think I’m completely acclimated to daytime hours yet, but it should be very soon. I’m a bit overwhelmed at all the various things I can do, now that I’m back on daylight hours. I really want to have a barbeque, I think I may have to set that up soon.

Via Chrissy, I got this link which rates your blog as if it were a movie. Our blog was rated:

Mingle² - Online Dating

Ouch.

Sitting at home in New York as I type this and it’s good to be home. The trip was fine, I went through Dallas/Fort Worth instead of Chicago this time. I like the way Chicago splits up the flight times a bit more evenly, but DFW is a very well designed airport. It’s basically clusters of smaller terminals each connected by a tram. What I think this does is spreads what would be a huge amount of people into managable chuncks, so it doesn’t feel as chaotic as what it might otherwise be.

After getting home we sat outside sipping drinks and chatting. Just the simple act of sitting outside at 4 in the afternoon was pretty mind-blowing to me, this is something you really can’t do in Oklahoma once May comes around. At 6 we headed to Sylvan Beach where several of us celebrated my Uncle Mikes 51st birthday. I was too tired (having only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before) to be much for conversation, but it was just good to be in the presence of my family again. I went to bed with the window open, another thing that doesn’t happen at all in Oklahoma (it’s strange all the little things I miss; another example is all the trees - it struck me this time how many more trees there are around here than Oklahoma).

So the next 2 days aren’t going to be terribly relaxing, I’ve got to get ready for Brian’s wedding and all, but still, no less fun. I’ve got Brian’s bachelor party tonight (put on on by Jamie) which I am looking forward to that. Then sunday is Father’s Day, nothing much planned, but Aunt Kathy is coming out with Hannah - maybe I can get everyone to play Killer Bunnies. Monday mom is taking me out visiting family and then Tuesday morning I plan on just hanging out and relaxing for just a bit longer until I have to head back South. It’s gonna be a good trip.
-M

“Free at last. Free at last. Oh Lord, Free at last!” These words were spoken by me this morning at 7:00 am upon leaving work. After nearly 5 years indentured servitude working at Central States Business Forms, I called it quits. I haven’t formally quit yet, I still have vacation days left, and I’m makingdamn sure I get paid for them. So I’m going on vacation, coming back and quitting. It’s a shitty way to do things I know, but I’m tired, very little is done to show that the management cares squat for the employees and I keep losing my temper more and more and more often out of work as well. It’s time and I really can’t emotionally afford two more weeks there. I feel good about this, with Carleens new salary, it’ll be good to stay at home, awake during the day and watch Liam, not to mention get much more work done on the house.

Also, I leave for New York tomorrow (6 am flight - have to get up at 3 am, ugh). A friend of mine is getting married and I’m the best man. I’m not too sure how I feel about being the Best Man, however. I appreciate being in his wedding and have no problem being part of the wedding party, but since I moved down here we’ve slowly lost contact with each other, not really talking that much. Nothing happened between us, it’s just the normal difficulties of maintaining a friendship long distance. So Best Man just doesn’t seem like my particular role in all of this. Surely there is someone closer to him, who he sees more often than me? This means I have to make a speech. I might have to bring up the fact that I got a D in Public Speaking in college (a required course for Photography, whatever), and see if that can get me out the speech. If not I’m looking up Irish Toasts that might be appropriate and try to memorize it in 3 days.

I’m looking forward to the trip certainly. Jamie, Brian’s (the groom) cousin, is putting on a backyard Bachelors party (thrown together last minute, as he had no idea he was responsible for this). Jamie’s parties always rock. They inevitably involve: fire, music, food and more alcohol than you could possibly drink. Thanks to Mr. Crohn, I’ll only be able to partake in the fire/music combo, but that’s all I need with Jamie & Co. I also look forward to a lot of time spent outdoors (NY: where you can actually enjoy being outside), practicing my Native American Flute. I’ll be gone until Tuesday, so it’ll be a nice long trip, I can’t wait!

-M

Chani caught a young squirrel the other day. It was wounded severely but not quite dead. I had to kill it myself. This was probably one of the worst things I’ve had to do. It really was a mercy killing, but that doesn’t make it feel any better. I’ve never had to do anything like that before and it made me think about a lot of things. It made me think about people that can go out and hunt for sport regularly. I suppose using a gun makes killing something much less personal than standing right over a creature and watching it die, but still, it took a lot courage for me to be able to that and frankly, I’m glad I’m disturbed by it. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t some hippy “Don’t kill animals” statement. Human beings are omnivores, we’re wired that way, take a look at our teeth - we’re built for an all-inclusive diet. I just think we those that hunt would appreciate what they take much more if the kill was much more personal.

I also thought about Liam. I wondered what I would have told him about my actions were he a bit older and would have grasped what was going on. I thought about this a lot, but I really don’t have an answer. How do you tell a young child that taking a creatures life is sometimes more humane than allowing it to live? Since we’re dog owners this is something we may eventually have to deal with, I should really come up with some way to handle that.

While Carleen took Liam out for his bedtime nap (man it’s getting harder and harder to get him to sleep lately, especially when he’s missed his normal naptime), I got dinner ready (s’getti), made some yogurt, and finished up my henna paste. I got into henna earlier last year when Carleen asked for a henna tattoo on her stomach in the last part of her pregnancy. I’ve only done it the once, but this time I bought 100 grams, so I’m hoping to get a bit more practice. Once me and Carleen are all henna’d up I’ll post some pictures. Whoo! Can’t wait.

A while back I made my own didgeridoo out of PVC pipe (see link for instructions). I haven’t played it in a while, but I got it out yesterday, and tooled around with it some more. It’s pretty fun to play, though I’m still working on the circular breathing, which is painfully difficult. Circular breathing allows you to play the “didg” for long periods of time without stopping. Here’s a recording so you can hear what one sounds like. I’d love to get a real one someday, but I would like to get things down with my PVC one first, that way I know I’ll actually use it when I pay the money for it. Between this and my Native American Flute, I’m really starting to like Wind instruments.

Tooling around yesterday while working on something else, I came across this little gem:

I love the reaction of the guy in red about 1:30 in. I can see it on his face, “Dude, hold the phone, they told me this was the ‘Price is Right’, man!”

This weekend I had the delight of going to see what will probably stand as one of the finest horror movies of our generation. I do not speak these words lightly. 28 Weeks Later simply blew me away at every turn. I’m not going to do a full blown review, cause I hate writing that much. But I will say this: the acting? spectacular from all involved; the writing? Poetry; the Plot? heart-wrenching, AND gut-wrenching (now how many movies can claim that. Robert Carlyle plays the main character who we come to love, despise, and feel the utmost pity for. His character was great, and of course, he pulled of the acting marvelously. Imogen Poots and Macintosh Muggleton (I don’t think J.K. Rowlings herself could have written any two more perfect “Harry Potter” names) play his children, well done from both of them. Ms. Poots, I should mention, has the most beautiful eyes I think I have ever seen.

The amazing part of the movie was how much we cared for characters that showed up for only a short period of time in the movie. The writers built these amazingly well-rounded and believable characters and had no compunctions nor hesitation to snuff those characters out. Another thing that impresses me about 28 Weeks Later as well as 28 Days Later, was how the really crappy things that happen aren’t what the infected do to the humans, but what humans do to themselves. You gotta love a “zombie” movie that acts as a window into the human condition, huh? Romero’s another one who does this really well.

Anyway, forget Spider-Man, go see 28 Weeks Later, the helicoper scene is worth the price of admission alone.

Carleen directed me to a sweet little site called last.fm - a music social networking site which allows you to share your musical tastes with those who have similar tastes. You download a little program which syncs up with your favorite music player (iTunes, in our case) and uploads the list of titles that you listen to. After a few days of listening to music, it’ll hook you up with people who listen to similar music as you. The problem in my case, is that I’m not looking for similar music, I’m tired of listening to the same crap I have listened to since college. Once upon a time I was very musically savvy. Now however I’m so out of the loop (and to be honest I don’t mind being out of the loop - most music you’d normally hear today is horrible), that I need the help of a site like this to get “hooked up”.

Man, I couldn’t even get this post finished without Liam waking up. Now you know why you haven’t heard from me too often.

LATER: Ok, I had a few more things I wanted to say before I call this post quits. First off, I wanted to point out that in the comments Chrissy calls me “old”. Granted she has a point, and she highlights something that I wish I wouldn’t do - generalize, especially negatively. Most music today isn’t horrible, let’s face it, I may have been playing drums for 12+ years, but I’m no Neil Pert, so who am I to criticise? A more accurate statement would have been: “Much of the music that I hear of late does not appeal to my aural persuasion.” But I will point out, young lady, that I’m only 4 years your senior

Back to last.fm. I have hit a few bad spots on the site, although they’re not enough to turn me away - yet. The site is a tad slow, actually, awfully slow sometimes. But that probably comes with any social networking site, so that’s hard to blame them. Compared to MySpace last.fm is Speedy Freakin’ Gonzalez. Also, some of the music recommendations are a bit “off”. Certainly, the recommendations are spot on as far as what I’m listening to, however for example they recommended Nirvana (a valid recommendation, based off what I’ve been listening to). Now, when they recommend something, they list a few bands that that band sounds like, so you can get an idea what they sound like. Well they compared Nirvana to Green Day. Huh?! Carleen pointed out that it may be that instead of being based off what the band sounds like, it’s based more off what people who listen to that band also listen to. So in other words, people who listen to Nirvana, also listen to Green Day.

I’m also hoping to get more obscure recommendations, most of what I’ve been recommended so far I’ve heard before, I’m looking for new music, a new sound, not more of the same. That’s a feature I’d like to see, a setting where you can determine what kind of recommendations you get.
Still, I do have to give it a few days, they do say that recommendations get better the more you listen.

My biggest problem is that I’m clueless as to what I really want to listen to. After the Jam band/Grunge era of the 90’s came to a close, I was pretty clueless, musically. I suppose I could go back to soak up a few of those bands I missed out on, like moe, Phish, etc. But I think I’m more interested in World music, especially Scandinavian folk/rock like Garmarna, Gjallarhorn; and Celtic Rock like Celtic Soul (I got a thing for Irish women.). Also, female singers with smoky/jazzy voices - in the vein of Fiona Apple and Tori Amos (speaking of her, I need to pick up her new one…). I just heard Ani DiFranco yesterday, and I may just give her a second listen. Cindy gave me a few tracks each of Belly and Rasputina - the tracks she gave me were great, but when I went a listened to more of their stuff, I really disliked it. I’m also thinking about checking out some Brazilian stuff. Anything with really good drums will get me into it the quickest.

Off to listen…Enjoy stuff!

Carleen mentioned today how she feels bad that she’s “taking over” the blog. I have to admit my presence on this thing is not at a level I would like it to be, but to paraphrase Fiona Apple on this subject: Who wants to write when you’re happy? So I have a tendency to write only when bad things happen - the blog is my Bitchin’ Post.

So how ’bout I lighten up a little and just ramble? Went and saw Spider-Man 3 this weekend. I was sorely disappointed. Too much stuff! The entire Sandman plot was just pointless and unneeded. And it’s really too bad when the best acting in a movie goes to a black glob of CGI goo. I am excepting, of course, Ms. Bryce Dallas Howard. It was wonderful seeing her on screen again - she lit it up. She was, unfortunately, under-used. And let’s not forget to mention the now-famous Bruce Campbell cameo. This time he plays a French waiter - terrific! Is it just me or is Tobey Macguire getting smaller each time he plays Spidey?

I’ve been watching a neat little television show that Cindy burned for me called Spaced. It’s done by the same people who brought you Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. I won’t say that it’s a great show, but on a scale from 1 to Awesome, it comes in at Really Good. It’s got a quirky, very British, sense of humor that I just adore and Simon Pegg is great in any role I see him in.

I’ve recently discovered the Mango as a fruit I love. It seems to me to be a connoisseur’s fruit. Mostly due to the trouble you have to go through to actually enjoy the damn thing. First off, when is it ripe? You have to be perfect in your estimation of when it’s ripe - if you eat it a few days too soon or a few days too late, the taste is off. Now most fruit is far more forgiving than this. Banana’s I can eat at nearly anytime, thought I generally enjoy a touch on the green side, but they’re good before and after that. Apples are great just about any time in their life cycle, oranges, the same way. Mango’s though, have a window of maybe a few days.

Next is getting to the fruit. The skin is thick and difficult to cut. And the shape of the pit is strange, like a flattened football. Not to mention the fact that the fruit is none too enthusiastic about seperating from the pit. And when ripe, mango’s are incredibly juicy and terribly messy. Plus the juice stains something awful - a super bright neon yellow. Oh, I almost forgot that since they are, like most fruit, pulled off the tree before they’re ripe, you have to wait until they’re ripe a process that I’ve seen take a good week and a half, and that’s sitting on the counter in a little basket - this is not a fruit to keep in the fridge.

But, despite all this, when you get one just perfect it’s almost heavenly to eat. Don’t interrupt me when I’m eating a good mango, cause let me tell you - whatever you got, it’s a far second to that mango at that moment. If there’s no blood, then it can wait.

I’ve been reading up on anger issues and, upon reflection, I’m starting to see a pattern to my anger. My anger stems generally from two seperate circumstances: a lack of assertiveness on my part to “fight” (for the lack of a better word) for my rights or needs; and feelings of helplessness when there is nothing I can do to fix a situation.

I tend towards being a person who bends over backwards for other people, I see it as being respectful of other peoples needs and trying to be cooperative. It leaves me open to being a Welcome Mat, on occasion. Which leads me to silent brooding or venting my anger on someone removed from the situation who can do nothing about it. Take an example today, for instance. My friend Brian is getting married in June and I’m his Best Man. I went to a local formal wear shop to get tux measurements. After waiting for several people in front of me to be taken care of, I explained to one of the men what I needed. His response boiled down to, “It’s prom season, we’re terribly busy and you’re just going to have to wait while I man the phones.” At the time I was told this, I was one of two people actually in the store at the time. I told him that we had other things to do and that I’d just come back tomorrow. While in the back of my mind complaining that, I’m in the store now, standard business practices (as I’m used to) are that people in the store get waited on BEFORE taking phone calls. When I left the store I complained to Carleen, who tells me she’d be right back and walks into the store (she’d been waiting in the car with Liam). Well, she gave me the signal and we went back into the store. Where we waited.

I was very proud of my wife at this point - she has always been incredibly assertive in a way that I envy. She’s never been “bitchy” assertive, simply “This is what is right, you aren’t doing it that way and I’m not happy.” We continued waiting until Telephone Guy comes back over asking what we needed. I explained again, and he told me the same thing. Carleen got in an arguement with him, his response was basically, we weren’t buying anything so we could be made to wait indefinitely. Carleen expresses her disproval and we leave the store - I hadn’t said a word. This really upset me, and made me feel ashamed - like I had to go out to the car and call in my wife (a.k.a. “the Big Guns) to get what I wanted.

My second form of anger comes when I’m in a situation that I have no control over. The two events that spawn this anger are working on my machine - I don’t know anything about machines and problems are a complete mystery to me; and Liam. Getting Liam to sleep properly, getting him to feed properly, figuring out what is bothering him. He can’t communicate what is wrong and it frustrates me. These are the types of problems that spawn my more outburst types of anger - generally against inanimate objects - tossing paper or tools, slamming doors, throwing bottles, etc.

Unfortunately I haven’t gotten any further than that in my books, so I don’t know what to do with that information, but it’s a step in the right direction, at least.

On a recent trip to Tulsa me and Carleen took, I picked up a copy of Paul Tukey’s The Organic Lawn Care Manual. This is a tremendous book for someone like me, who just recently spread synthetic fertilizer on the front lawn while the whole time having a, sort of, little tick in the back of my mind telling me how wrong it was, but I lacked the knowledge to do anything different than what my neighbors are doing. In the book Mr. Tukey talks a lot about using compost as fertilizer, aerating the lawn, mowing and watering properly - simple things that have a tremendous impact on the grass and soil without having to resort to chemicals. I’m still working through it, but I’ve learned a lot so far, and it’s got me excited to be working outside on the lawn again. I had pretty much given up hope on our lawn as a lost cause. With two dogs running around in the backyard, I couldn’t lay down synthetic fertilizer for fear of harming them, so I felt I had few or no options. I’ve since learned I was very wrong. The great part is I’ve finally gotten the chance to use all the compost I’ve been hoarding for years. I’m looking forward to kicking my composting into high gear in preperation for next year.

Literally a few mere hours after my parents flew back to New York, the little terd goes and sits up with no help at all.

Hi. My name is Mike (Hi, Mike). I’m Angry. I’ve always had a temper for as long as I can remember. It generally doesn’t extend to people, I can be infinitely patient with other people. Situations and machinery set me off. Today, it was the dishwasher. Several months ago our old dishwasher, after slowly grinding down, doing a worse and worse job, finally called it quits. After a short round handwashing dishes Carleen’s parents helped us out to get a new dishwasher. Today, after I pulled dirty dish after dirty dish out, I simply lost it - cups, silverware, you name it, got tossed and banged around. This of course was not an isolated incident.

Mostly, I get angry at work. Again, a few months ago Maintanence replaced some belts on the machine I work on. The old belts were causing some of our forms to be damaged and marked up. The machine hasn’t run correctly since. After a few months of dealing with this, my patience has finally worn thin. I dread going in to work, which I have never previously done.

Compounded with that, is our house, which is in a constant state of disrepair, while all I seem to have time to handle is doing dishes/laundry and steaming bottles for Carleen. The chores pile up and we both feel over-burdened by all of it. Our dogs, meanwhile, have been completely neglected while we fuss over Liam, so Chani pees on the already significantly stained carpet, while Turbo continues walking on Carleen’s feet - Carleen casts no shadow anymore, Turbo has taken it’s place. I’ve never been more frustrated in being a dog owner in my life. Financial worries loom overhead, since in the near future I’ll be quitting work to take over as Mr. Mom full-time, an occasion which I am both eagerly awaiting and dreading all at once. Add to that my Crohn’s is flairing up now - probably in response to all the stress, which is piling on even more stress, in a lovely little vicious cycle. So I’m finding it difficult to eat what I want, which just upsets me more.

I’m checking some books and videos out from the Library to see if that helps, if not I plan on seeing a psychologist. It’s frustrating to have outside forces so easily push your buttons - I hate the feeling of not being in control of my own emotions. It’s not something I want to teach my children.

Just spent the last hour chipping ice off the roof of our sun-room after I noticed several rather large leaks coming through the ceiling. Have I mentioned in the past, oh, 24 hours how much I hate this house? I can’t wait to be rid of it. Owning a house is not easy, that I have learned, but neither should it be this hard. I still have to fix our shower which is leaking, once again, and it’ll cost me in the neighborhood of $50-$75 to fix it, not to mention an afternoon of cursing and busted fingers. This because our fixtures are so old (”How old are they?!”), they’re so old they don’t even stock the parts anymore, plus they’re Kohler, which apparently is the Cadillac of plumbing, so they’re extra expensive. We’ve already pretty much decided that we’re going to pay a little extra in order to ensure we get a well built, solid house - if that means we have a mortgage, then so be it.

Poor guy, we went in for the 4 month check-up, which included 4 (count ‘em, 4) immunizations. He cried, of course, but I soon got him to settle down (by the way, that’s twice I’ve had to handle “the shots” by myself - I think I need Karma Points or something for that, though the Pediatrician didn’t think so). Carleen had him for the rest of the day and about an hour after I fell asleep, she rushes into the bedroom asking what the doctor told me. Seems the little man had been screaming his head off for the past 15 minutes. I got up and we gave him some Children’s Tylenol and he I rocked him - had him settled pretty soon. Boy he’s got lungs - when he wants to use them (which luckily isn’t too often). He’s off again today, groggy and feverish, but otherwise in good spirits. He weighs 13 lbs, 5oz, and is 24 3/4 inches long.

I told our friend Cindy that parenting means wanting five minutes alone to yourself and upon getting those five minutes, wishing you were with your child. It’s been frustrating the past week or so. He gets tired and you try to put him to sleep and that just pisses him off more - I’ve taken to letting him be - if he wants to sleep, he’ll go to sleep, I’m just shooting my nerves all to Hell trying to get him to sleep. He’s still feeding fussily, but he’s gaining weight really well, so I’m not too worried about that.

We spent Christmas Eve visiting with Carleen’s parents, so we had one of the few opportunities to watch cable television. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I’ll leave the reader to decide (bad, if you want my opinion), but one of the programs we watched was Dateline’s To Catch a Predator. Dateline has joined forces with Perverted-Justice, in an effort to bring online sexual predators to justice. Carleen has told me about this show, but I had never seen it. It’s a really neat show, not to mention catching some serious low-lifes. Here’s the setup if you haven’t seen it: People from Perverted-Justice pose online as under-age teens to lure online predators. They give an address where the predators can meet the “teen”. When the predators show up (from what I saw, usually with beer and condoms), they are greeted at the door by a young looking woman, coached on what to say. After some pleasantries, the host, Chris Hanson enters the room and begins grilling the predators on why they are here - holding in his hand the saved transcripts from the online chats. Hanson allows the men to leave after a short while, however, the police are already on the scene, ready to arrest the men.

Now, I don’t question what this show accomplishes, to be sure, as of the date of last nights program they had caught over 160 online predators. And obviously the way in which they lure the predators is perfectly legal. What got me thinking is the legal system in general, and this concept of luring criminals into illegal behavior. I’m not terribly familiar with the legal system in this respect, so I’m really just consi