Recently in Parenting/Family Category

So the girls are officially on spring break for the next nine days, including the wife. Unfortunately I will only have one of those days off :(

I think they are planning on going to the Atlanta Zoo tomorrow and then Sunday they are driving back down to Hilton Head to spend a few days with our friend Niqui before she moves. I wish that I could go down but I am unfortunately going to be stuck at work all week. As a matter of fact I am going to have to work doubles on Sunday and Thursday. I'm not particularly looking forward to that. I hate working doubles but unfortunately sometimes this business calls for it. My profits haven't been all they could be and I need to make sure I have plenty of money when it comes time to go to Disney, and that's the money I am making now.

...I was looking at the local wally world when I was picking up some supplies for work on Wednesday and I came across a pair of skate shoes. Pete was dying for a pair of these toward the end of the school year last year and I almost got them but I don't know if she wants them anymore. I think I will wait. Don't really want to spend any money right now as it is.

I think I will surf the web for a while and then shower. I want to hit the sack at a decent time tonight. We are doing a benefit

I feel as if someone beat me all over with a padded stick. No bruises or anything, just a dull ache.

I was already sore before I ever made it to the gym this afternoon, but I did go for my second trip there. I used several of the weight machines and ended up on the elliptical for awhile to stretch out the leg muscles a bit. I managed to get there at 2:30 today and it was much less crowded than yesterday evening, so that was nice. I am going to try and start going daily, at least three or four times a week. It really just depends on what is going on.

Yesterday I felt like I was going to blow chunks when I got finished. I guess there is all sorts of nasty crap stored up in my fat and muscles that doesn't belong there that's moving around now. Next thing you know I'm going to have to start eating healthy. Fuck that. Maybe later.

Of course as soon as I drove out of the parking lot of the gym I lit up. Last smoke. I had a couple in my car from the other day and what the hell do you need more after a good workout than a hot cup of coffee and a Winston? I've been home for a while now and don't have the slightest urge to go smoke though. That last one as I was driving home wasn't too good. Tasted like dogshit actually.

I have a bit of web surfing to do and then I have to go pick the girls up. I would have gotten them on the way home but today is chorus and I don't think it finishes until 4:30 anyway. Besides, Pete and RePete get angry when I pick them up too early from late stay. The really enjoy hanging out there with their friends.

Damn. Now that was a good nap.

I hadn't planned on sleeping but it just turned out that way.

The wife and girls went to church for supper tonight. Now before you say it, "Gawrsh, they let the Miles household into church!", the girls particularly enjoy it. The wife isn't exactly church-going and I would rather have my toenails ripped out of my feet with a pair of pliers than have to sit through a sermon. Except for all that God clap-trap and preaching church is OK I guess. I always felt that it was a good place for the kids and the social environment. Unless you go to one of those snake handling places, I guess.

I used to attend church as a kid with my great aunt. Speaking of whom, I don't remember if I have posted this or not but it's me at around 3 and my great aunt.

I see that I must have posted it before, it was already on my server.

Anyway, her health isn't too great. She's eightiy something, has diabetes, glaucoma, heart problems, has broken her hip at least once, is pretty much blind because of the glaucoma and is in generally piss poor health. I really need to drive in to Atlanta and see her soon but I hate too because she has changed so much mentally over the last couple of years. Not for the good either. I actually get two days off next week for the first time since before I went to Nassau in the middle of February, perhaps I will make the trek to Atlanta then.

While Atlanta is on my mind, the Georgia Renaissance Festival is happening soon. The last couple of years we have made it an annual thing and year before last we left the kids with babysitters and had a freaking blast. This past year even Zonker met us down there. Normally I end up going toward the last weekend but this year I am off the weekend of April 12th and 13th. As it stands now I am planning on being at the renaissance festival with beer in hand on Saturday the 12th. If you have a compelling reason why I should change it to Sunday, let me know as I am flexible. It would be pretty cool to get a couple of bloggers down there. This year they have the Royal Lipizan Stallions show and that's supposed to be pretty cool. Photo opps abound!

I thought I had some photos from last years ren fest up on Flickr but apparently not. I have solved that world issue and here are some of the photos from last years jaunt to south of Atlanta. Mind you, some of the pictures were on my phone. I may get around to sending them to flickr one of these days.

Updated - oops, I just pasted the photo link, forgot all about that img src crap...

I told him nobody should drink two at a time, but do you think anyone fucking listens to me? Oh, hell no!

Something I just am not getting enough of.

I have probably posted more today than I have the entire week. It's funny how that ends up working out. I had actually planned on coming home yesterday and spending the majority of the day on the computer but I was at work until about midnight Tuesday and then my half day yesterday turned into me not getting home until 2pm. I was pretty whipped so I worked outside in the yard, knowing that if I came inside I would fall asleep.

Today I have pretty much taken it easy. I managed to get about nine hours of sleep last night, which was much needed but it sure doesn't feel like it fixed my sleep deficit. Maybe in a couple of weeks I can take more than one day off. One can hope...

Pete has a concert tonight for the chorus. I am checking her out of school early this afternoon because they have to be there by three p.m. in order to start practicing. Why they don't just stick the kids on a bus is beyond me. Anyway, we don't have to be there until 6 or 6:30 so I will come home and throw something in the oven that we can eat before we go see them. If it's charged up I may take our video camera as well.

On another note, I hate telemarketers. I generally don't answer the phone on my day off but I got a call this morning and I answered it before I realized I don't know the number. It was some telemarketer trying to sell me a small business phone system. While I might be interested, that's something I will go out and look for. I certainly wouldn't buy it sight unseen over the phone. Jerks. I can do my own research without you having to call me and wake me up.

It was a pretty uneventful day. I spent the great majority of the morning running around and didn't make it back to the house until early this afternoon. I actually had written a couple of posts on my phone but for some reason Pocket SharptMT keeps losing my darn settings and won't post. Guess I need to look into that before the weekend. I won't do a ton of blogging but I am bound to post at least something from the phone. While I won't have any cell phone service on the island there is bound to be someplace with wireless I can upload a couple of offline entries.

That's what I am referring to in the title. 90 Hours from now the wife and I will be on New Providence Island in the Bahamas hanging out on Cable Beach. I don't see us doing much of anything on Friday after we get there around noon other than hanging out at the resort, although I do want to check out the Crystal Palace Casino on Friday night. Saturday we'll go into Nassau and do some sightseeing and shopping as well as head over to Paradise Island and check out Atlantis.

We were going to rent a car but the wife has pretty much talked me out of it. I am still pretty hesitant about not renting but since I don't know anything about available parking downtown I suppose we'll be fine. If we get stuck somewhere there's always the taxi. There is some type of pretty cheap bus service (privately, individually owned) that costs a buck according to Fodor's we will most likely use.

I think we are pretty much decided on taking only carry on bags, maybe with a cloth bag stuffed in there in case we buy a bunch of junk and need to have it checked on the return trip. The less time I have to spend in the airport the better I will feel about the whole trip. Jeans and T-Shirts are going to be the order of the weekend, with shorts during the day. I guess I need to take my camera vest too but that will be about it. If it were later in the year I could probably pack even lighter but I have to dress for Atlanta weather and since we have to leave the house at 6 a.m. Friday it's sure to be pretty cool.

Anyway, I started the post writing about my day. I spent the greater part of the morning at Douglas County Dodge. My airbag light has been coming on constantly since the day after I bought the thing, so I set up an appointment at CarMax to get it looked at. It's still under manufacturer's warranty so I was only there long enough to get directions to the Dodge dealership. Why they didn't fucking send me there in the first place I'll never know. Ends up they couldn't do anything today. They have ordered a part and are going to call me when it comes in. Something about a spring. All I could picture in my head was this big old bed spring pushing out this little airbag into my damn face when I hit the breaks...

I also had to stop by one of my stores and leave my expense report for my boss to approve. He and all of the great muckety mucks and the rest of the dog and pony show are going to be in Colorado for the next two days for their annual meeting and I start my vacation the day they come back. I thought that was good planning on my part even if I wasn't aware of it. That means I won't get hassled too much when I have a cook in my restaurant on Wednesday morning. I may run one tomorrow as well if I can get in touch with the girl. I have a ton of stuff I need to get finished between now and then.

I went ahead and had a tasty cheese steak and hash browns for lunch while I was there dropping off my paperwork. Sitting in the damned waiting room was famishing. I did type a couple of posts but as I said above the stupid program lost them.

I also had to stop at the vets and make an appointment for Riley on Thursday morning. His ears seem to be bothering him lately. Most likely he's got another infection and needs some antibiotics. I don't particularly want to leave town with him sick.

That's about it for today. I have to Blogs for Borders thing to post after this but I think I am going to hit the sack early. I didn't sleep for shit last night and am nodding off sitting here at my desk. Me drooling on my desk is not a sight anyone needs to see.

I woke up this morning seriously hurting. At the time I wasn't sure if it was my chest or if I had pulled something. It was actually closer to my back but every time I coughed (or moved for that matter) I had a seriously sharp pain. Ends up I have pulled a muscle or something. I don't know if it's something I did at work or if I just slept wrong but it's been a pretty rough day at work. I picked up some Alieve, which helped to dull the pain somewhat, but it's still pretty sore.

This has just been one of those months I suppose. I was somewhat sick a couple of weeks ago, the wife had a cold for a while, both girls have had the flu and Pete's turned into pneumonia, and even the Marine had a cold or the flu his first week at Twentynine Palms. Good thing we have insurance. A couple of folks I work with have individual health insurance but it looks to be as expensive as the group health policy we are covered under through the state (the wife is a teacher).

I have about five more days of work until my vacation. It would be six but I'm taking Monday off if I can get away with it. I will have worked six days and I'm only taking three or four days off in the month of February not including my vacation so hopefully nobody will mess with me for being off. Starting to count the days until I fly to Nassau.

Wouldn't you know it? One day off and all kinds of stuff to do when all I really want to do is lie around on the couch eating bon bons. Fucking real life.

I have to drive to Carrollton today and pick up tags for the new cars. I'll just transfer the old tag from the Oldsmobile. The guy I am selling it too has paid most of it off so I went ahead and dropped it at his house yesterday along with the keys and title. No big deal. He needs to get brakes and then can finish paying me. Since I get his paycheck first I'm not particularly worried about not getting paid. We are keeping the other one. Although the Plymouth has 200k+ miles on it it is still in great shape so we will garage it and keep it here so that the Marine has something to drive when he's at home. Besides, it's a good idea to keep an extra just in case.

RePete has finally returned to school today but Pete has a dentist's appointment at 11 a.m. and I have a doctor's appointment at 2:30. It's pretty much pointless to take her to school today since she has a mid-day visit with the doctor. She's still got a lot of that crap from the Pneumonia in her lungs anyway. One more day won't kill her although I'm sure the school will think so. What the fuck do they know anyway? Not a damned thing about proper parenting, that's for sure.

I haven't been doing as well with the non-smoking the last couple of days, although I am still smoking way less than I was. I am working on that today. Even with the Chantix this has been pretty darned hard. One day I want to quit and the next I don't.

Once I get home this afternoon and get some bills taken care of there is quite a bit of writing I intend to do. We'll see if I get it accomplished or not...

24 hours later and the blog is publishing again. I am still not sure what the heck was up with that. I made some changes in my templates and cut out some overhead but I still think it was some sort of database issue. Either way it pisses me off but I won't bitch too much. Any time I have a complaint my host will stay on it until they get it fixed.

Two more weeks and I will be on vacation. Damn, I am seriously looking forward to that.

Both girls are still sick. I mentioned earlier in the week that RePete had tested positive for Flu and Pete had all of the symptoms. Now they have ear infections and Pete has the beginnings of Pneumonia. We have a small pharmacy going on here on the kitchen counter. Both of them are pretty miserable. I felt a bit under the weather earlier in the week and it seemed like it was going away but now the crud seems to be creeping back into my chest. Crap, I can't miss work. Nobody to call in to as the boss...

Valentine's day is a darned joke.

Up until he late sixties the Catholic Church recognized almost a dozen different Valentine's Days, named so after Christian martyrs. Our current Valentine's Day comes from two of them named Valentine and is supposed to be a saints day commemorating Saint Valentine.

During the time of that dirty old man Geoffrey Chaucer the day became associated wit romantic love.

During the 1800s handwritten notes to our 'valentine' started giving way to mass produced greeting cards. The commercialization of Valentine's Day led the way to the further commercialization of holidays. It's the time to buy greeting cards, red lingerie such as bustiers and tons of flowers.

Not that I am a complete Scrooge about the holidays or anything, but personally I would prefer the wife to just write me a note or something rather than go out an buy junk that will just get stuck in a drawer somewhere.

This year is a bit different though. I start my vacation on Valentine's Day. Since I don't know what things are going to be like in June as far as extra money goes, or my work hours, we are celebrating our 20th anniversary a bit early and going to the Bahamas on the 15th. I would have gotten tickets a day earlier but it would have been much more difficult for her to take an extra day off work, not to mention the fact that we had to find childcare for the girls as well.

I got an email from a friend the other day. Seems that a few bloggers are getting together for dinner tonight in Atlanta. I lucked out on that one. One of my manager's is supposed to be off this weekend but he is wanting to go skiing the weekend prior to my vacation with some buddies and wanted to know if I would trade days off with him.

I thought that was a pretty good idea. My weekend off wasn't supposed to roll around until that weekend four days before I start my vacation and I am pretty sure I would have lost at least one of those days off once my boss looked at the schedules. This way I still go on vacation in three weeks AND get THIS weekend off. Sweet. We even found a babysitter for the girls for tonight, so the wife and I will both get to go. She's made it to a couple of blogmeets with me but not had the opportunity to just go hang out with them.

Today is the boy's birthday but I will post about that later today. It's kind of sad because this is the first time he has never been with us on his birthday. I think I will call him shortly and see if he's awake. He has a pretty bad cold in addition to being miserable because he has no clothing to speak of. Maybe I can send him some Sports Authority coupons :)

Actually he already has received his birthday present. He wanted the Orange Box version of Half-Life 2 and since he lost the password for one of my Steam accounts and can't seem to get it reset, that was perfect.

I have spent the great majority of the morning going between reading news sites and fooling with paperwork. Since the wife and I are going to the Bahamas next month and I don't have a passport, while her's expire ten years ago, there is quite a bit of stuff to do.

It takes two or three weeks to get one if you are willing to pay out the nose, which we are having to do. The first thing we had to do is get online and order our birth certificates. We got hers this weekend but I didn't get mine until today because a signature is required and of course I am at work during the day. Fortunately I am off today and tomorrow. My first two days off in a row since December 8th. I feel it too.

I was supposed to go to the doctor today at 9:30 or so but they have moved the office and I misunderstood where the location was. Needless to say I missed my appointment. They were nice enough to reschedule it for tomorrow morning for me. That's cool because I have some writing to do today anyway. Tomorrow I am keeping RePete home with me as she also has a doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon.

I have to go pick up another copy of my auto insurance policy as well. We have decided that the time has come to get new automobiles and as much as I am a fan of driving a car until the wheels fall off and hate car payments, it's not worth the inconvenience when one of them breaks down and that will be at some point in the near future. We both take good care of our cars and have over 200k on both of them, but with my job I can't be car-less. Since I donated the van a few months ago to the Alzheimer's Association I don't have an extra vehicle in case something happens with one of these.

I prefer to go through 99% of the car buying process online. Financing all the way up to finding the car. All I should have to do at the dealer is take a test drive and if I like it, drive it the hell out of there. The last car I bought was in 2000 and we ended up spending about 30 minutes in the dealership. The only reason it took that long is that I had not arranged to have it added to my insurance ahead of time. I won't make that mistake this time. I have to stop and fax my license, insurance and references to the financing company in the morning and then I can start looking at cars. I was hoping to have everything taken care of by yesterday morning so that I could pick the car up today but no such luck. That's OK, it will give me time for a bit of research. The wife can go get her car this weekend and I will go on my days off next week after researching a few. I still haven't decided what I want anyway.

Traffic has been pretty heavy (for me) at the site over the last 72 hours, mainly because of the Meredith Emerson posts I put up. Somehow I have landed fairly high at Google and Yahoo! (number 2 and 4, respectively) and I have had something like 16,000 visits on those two posts alone. Several comments as well, which is nice because it means that someone is actually reading it and not just breezing through. If I could just bottle that and figure out how Google picks the top stories I would retire my happy ass tomorrow.

We had a bit more company earlier today. Michelle and the kids came over this afternoon to hang out for a while and it was nice to see them. Not it's pretty quiet though. My brother and his wife have started their seven hour drive back home to Cary along with the kids. I know that they are ready to get home and relax after having spent the better part of the last three weeks in Maine or here.

They were up north with his wife's family when all of that bad weather hit the northeast and the pictures they had of the snow was amazing. At least once I would truly love to just go check out some snowy weather. Perhaps not for long but it would be pretty cool to see and play in, then get the hell out of Dodge for warmer weather.

Speaking of warmer weather I think we may actually be able to manage getting to the Keys in February. If I can get off my ass and make a good deal of money online over the next few weeks we may just do it. It does mean flying down though because we will only be able to go for two or three days without the children, not to mention the fact that the wife will still be at work. Alas, my vacation won't coincide with their spring break once again.

While I miss my brother already it's kind of nice to have a few minutes of quiet. I have put both the girls to bead, the wife is relaxing watching the boob tube and the Marine is immersed in a book on the couch. The loudest thing going on now are the fans in my computer and what my son describes as me attacking the keyboard.

It's been a pretty doggone long week. I have one more day of work until I get one day off. My brother and his wife are staying in town until Saturday evening so that we can hang out a bit. It's been pretty nice seeing them this week.

They are moving back down here in a few months and that will be very cool. As far as I know they are going to be on the north side of town which means that while I may not see them on a weekly basis I will be able to get together with them more often that I get to now.

I suppose the only caveat to that is the fact that I am going to turn in my card for promotion in February. If they don't put me on a development plan they could send me just about anywhere, including out of state. That would be a bit of a bitch now that my family is back in the Atlanta area.

My stress level has risen quite a bit this week while my threshold of dealing with stupidity has gone quite low. I am having a hard time putting up with the amount of bullshit that goes on. One of my managers that has been with us a little less than a year is also having a pretty hard time dealing with the stress of it right now. She calls it her stupidity level. I can understand that. Hopefully it will get a bit easier for her to deal with, that is if she sticks around long enough.

Hopefully she won't quit before it does get easier but she's not making enough money as she could. I lost about a grand this month in bonuses due to the fact that I lost that crappy manager last month and while I hate the shitty paycheck it was worth it for her to go. This one I don't want to lose because she is good at her job, I just need to get in there and show her how to manage some of it a bit better.

One more day... That's pretty much all I have thought about today. It has been pretty hard to actually get anything done. At least I know I'm not the only one that's worn out. My boss has worked just as many days as I have and his Thursday meeting only lasted about thirty minutes today as compared to hours just a couple of weeks ago. A blessing in disguise.

It's obvious here too, being as how this is the first thing I have posted in the last twenty four hours. I have actually been doing some writing on another story/timeline having to do with one of the news reports I write about quite often. Right now it's probably somewhere over a thousand words and not even a quarter of the way finished. I may try and get it finished on Saturday if I get the chance. That's about it for tonight. Perhaps I can get something posted in the morning prior to leaving for work.

I just wanted to get on an wish everyone a very merry Christmas. Most likely I will be offline the rest of the day as I will be working from 6AM until about 2AM tomorrow morning and then back at work at 7AM the next day.

We had our Christmas at the house yesterday evening. A good time was had by all. My son is home for the holidays and my brother, his wife and their kids are here as well. We opened the gifts and had a nice traditional Christmas dinner. Now everyone is off playing with their goodies and just chilling out.

I am pretty tired since I had several phone calls from one of my stores up until just after midnight last night. Just as soon as I get staffing from my stores tonight I am going to hit the sack. Tomorrow morning is going to come much too soon.

I hope you all have a joyous holiday season and get to spend time with your loved ones. Time with the family is what it's all about.

...another dollar, or at least 50 cents.

My brother and his family should be arriving at some point this morning. They called last night and said they were on the way, so I don't know what time they will be here. Particularly with the rain that has been pretty persistent over the last 24 hours they may have been delayed a bit.

Rain?

Yep, thank goodness. We certainly need it right now. Not that a couple of days of rain is going to fix things here but it certainly won't hurt. It would actually take about three months of steady rain to get the water table back to where it needs to be, but every bit we get over this winter will help to alleviate the drought once it starts getting warm again.

I am spending the day again at my busiest store. With tomorrow being Christmas Eve, the Wal-Mart is sure to be pretty busy which means that I will as well. We have a bit of prep work to finish up today and tomorrow. Most of it is stuff that is going to have to wait until tomorrow anyway at least. I told them to wait until then to do salads and tomatoes. I will go cut them myself at all three stores in the morning since they would get mushy doing them too early. Most of the managers will be very busy tomorrow so I need to make sure to finish any last minute items.

...

Toward the end of the summer I noticed that we apparently have mice. Over the last few weeks the cat has caught several of the damned thing. Mostly babies but that means that somewhere around here is the momma. Good cat. Better than my plan. I am the kind of guy that would wander the house and pick them off with a .357 but for some reason shooting holes in the floor just doesn't seem like a real good idea. That and the fact that the local police seem to frown on shooting up houses in my area. I don't know. One of those things I guess.

...

Got the paper towel holders installed in the restrooms at work recently. With the changes in law that the state implemented we are required to have paper towel holders so that people can use them to open the door with. After you wash your hands when you touch the door you have re-contaminated yourself with someone else's feces. Nice thought this early in the morning. Next thing you know I will be required to install wipes in my restrooms. Actually the paper towels are a great idea, unfortunately what happens is that customers tend to shove them in the toilet and clog it up. My how I would love to come visit them at their houses...