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Happy Leap Day folks.
Actually, he wasn't leaping there.
We have friends in Chicago that had a daughter born four years ago today, so happy official first birthday young lady. You might have been around for what seems like four years, but seriously...you don't look a day over one.
Music is a big part of our lives, we listen to tunes daily.
I have alluded in the past that the kids will sing along to anything. So it was no surprise that Doodlebug was walking through the house today, singing at the top of her lungs the following:
I'm going to rehab to say hello, hello, hello.
Momma has been listening to some Amy Winehouse in the car. Please dear, another tune on the album.
First the drought. Now it won't stop raining and/or snowing.
It's not raining or snowing enough to catch up with the lack of rain we had in the summer, but just enough every other day it seems, to annoy everyone in the this house beyond belief. The temperature lingers right around freezing, so it isn't like the snow is fun to play in. It's just mushy mud.
Cabin fever is setting in. Big. Time.
I just want to be able to let the kids get out and run. We've been riding bikes in the garage and there is now a dome tent set up in the basement. We've been doing anything to try and expend some energy.
What's going on in your neck of the woods?
Doodlebug is about to put her dad in the crazy house.
Every answer is questioned nowadays and people, it's driving me loco.
Here is a conversation we have about lunch on any given day. You can take this conversation and apply it to anything else that might go on throughout the day, such as a craft, folding laundry, ,playing in her room, cleaning up the basement, or cooking dinner.
Me ~ Finish your lunch please.
Doodlebug ~ How many more bites?
Me ~ Four...eat it all up.
Doodlebug ~ What does four look like? as she starts counting to four on her fingers, then shows me
Me ~ Right! See you got it, now take four more bites.
Doodlebug ~ Do you think I will finish it all in four bites?
Me ~ Sure you can. Now quiet down and finish up, so we can get on with the day.
Doodlebug ~ How do you know?
Me ~ Because I'm a smart guy.
Doodlebug ~ How did you get so smart? yet to take another bite of her lunch
Me ~ Because I went to school like you. Now finish your lunch.
Doodlebug ~ Was Ms. Marsha your teacher?
So you see what I mean!? It's adorable the first time of the day, but all day long is another story.
If there is one positive about this making me want to jump in the car and drive far away communication, it is The Little Man is talking a lot better than what we would have hoped for at this point in his young life, with being premature and all. For goodness sake, he better get with it or he'll never get in a word edge wise.
All this talking, all day long, is why I stay up so late and love my silence in the night.
Today was the last, in a series of three, Ice Bowl Disc Golf Tournaments held in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. The tournaments are held in the winter with the slogan is "No Wimps, No Whiners" and part of the proceeds are donated to help a local charity. The charity this year for our local Ice Bowl series was Fairhaven Rescue Mission in Covington, KY. I was the volunteer liaison between the tournament and the charity. I put together clothing and food drives with collections being at the disc golf courses the day of tournaments, so players could bring stuff to the course for me to collect and delivery to Fairhaven. We were able to raise over $3000 and a lot of clothing that will help Fairhaven to help those in need. The tournaments were held at Mt. Airy Forest course in Cincinnati, Banklick course in Independence, KY, and today ending at Idlewild & Boone Woods courses in Burlington, KY. Today's conditions truly were Ice Bowl, with about a quarter of an inch of ice over a inch and half of snow.
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The Lady and I went out to eat this evening at P.Diddy Chang's, the China Bistro. I know that's not the real name of the place, but I also point out that the big giant concrete horse in the front of the place has an anus that is shaped like a heart. Romantic. Yes, I'm a fourteen year old.
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I finally got to the library to drop off all those compact discs to donate today. I think I'm going through a mid-life crisis or something. I'm wanting to get rid of a bunch of stuff, although my wife wouldn't say that.
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I watched the Clinton/Obama debate the other night. I was surprised to see that Hillary didn't just drop the gloves and go after Barack, but just as I type that right, I see how she is fired up about a mailing the Obama campaign sent out. Before you get really fired up, let us not forget about the lies you and your husband were peddling about a month ago. You started the "silly season" first, but I'm not a fan of it, so enough from you two. Hillary looks like the fuming mad 10th grade teacher, that is salty because the student knows more than she does. Tuesday night's debate should be very interesting.
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We got the new TV mounted on the wall and it looks cool. I just need to get a little bit longer cable and it will be centered and done. It looks like a picture on the wall, all cables hidden behind the wall. Nice.
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I don't know if you get a chance to listen to Weekend America from American Public Media, but it's good to have on in the kitchen when cooking, cleaning, or just standing at the counter eating cereal.
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Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Did you happen to catch that lunar eclipse last night?
There was a total eclipse of the moon last night. I had a great view of it, as I was driving a solid white van, full of film, all night through the state of Kentucky.
The moon was in total eclipse about the time I was driving through Fort Knox and dare I say...it looked golden. You know, Fort Knox is where they keep all the gold. Supposedly. There is a seedy cool stretch of US 31W, prior to getting to the military base. The stretch of road features, adult shops, gentleman's clubs, and hotels that are named just right for the area. I passed The Gold Bar (for nightlife), Gold Pole (for entertainment?), and Fort Knocks Hotel (for the weary traveler).
I went all over central Kentucky last night, through Frankfort, Louisville, Lexington, Danville, Bardstown, Elizabethtown, Radcliff and other places. I have yet to do the sight-seeing of the Bourbon Trail, but now that I know the route, I look forward to doing it in the spring.
Next time you are messing around with someone, ask them "How do you spell the state capital of Kentucky, Louisville?" It's a trick question.
It's been a while, let's catch up shall we?
Hello, Lover. On Valentine's Day we received our new television. I made the purchase from PlasmaBay. Who? That's exactly what I thought when I heard of the on-line retailer of flat panel televisions. After doing all the research on what I was looking for in a LCD television, I went with a Samsung. I didn't have a clue as to what I was getting myself into when I found the cheapest price listed at PlasmaBay and placed the order on-line on a Sunday night. I was kind of worried when I didn't receive a confirmation email or call on Monday, but figured the weekend was most likely their busiest time of the week, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Tuesday afternoon I received a call from a sales representative at PlasmaBay to confirm my order and shipping address. The man also made a soft sales pitch on HDMI cables and an extended warranty. I inquired about the extended warranty seeing that this is our first major purchase in some time. After explaining the LCD technology and the extended warranty to me in a cool manner as if we were neighbors across the street, the gentleman said he could give me a deal on the warranty. All of their warranty work is done by Best Buy in-home techs, so I purchased an additional three year, full in-home repair, warranty and since I made that purchase the salesman said he would bump up my free shipping to air. Sure enough, first thing Thursday morning a local courier telephoned me with a two hour delivery window and they were at our home unloading the television twenty minutes later. Overall I'm very happy with the service we received from PlasmaBay and I made the purchase, including shipping and full four year warranty, for about $300 less than I could have anywhere locally.
I called DIRECTV about upgrading our service to a high definition signal for the new TV and they were wanting all kind of money to do that. Of course, after wanting all the money for changing to HD, they wanted us to recommit to another two year contract with them and pay to lease the equipment. That's crazy talk. I've been with DIRECTV for years now and have been very loyal to them, as I think they provide a better television service than cable, plus I have to have the NFL Sunday Ticket to be put through the yearly pain of watching my New Orleans Saints lose. So after voicing my displeasure about them wanting to charge us about $300 for the HD upgrade, I was transferred to speak with someone in their "customer retention" department. I told them I thought it was kind of lame that they wanted me to pay all this money for the new receiver/DVR & dish, when I was doing them a service for continuing to be a loyal customer. Long story, short...we didn't pay anything for the dish & equipment upgrade, we have free HD/DVR service for a year, we've got all the premium stations (movie & sports) free for six months and they were here to install it on Friday, the day after the TV arrived. Thank you DIRECTV, you make us want to be a customer.
Have you noticed almost every woman in America is pregnant right now? There are a lot of women out there with one in the chamber. It's crazy! Keeping with the baby boom, the gals went out of town to go to a baby shower for my sister-in-law. I sent along the gift of a unwrapped Baby Ruth candy bar inside a diaper, with the note saying "In the future these will stink."
So the boys of the family were home for the weekend with the new TV. We found ourselves watching stuff we would normally not tune in to, such as NASCAR, food shows and women's gymnastics. High definition is very cool and now that once I've watched it in our home, I'm spoiled. I found myself getting bummed out because something wasn't broadcast in HD.
Now I'm not saying we sat around and watched television all weekend, there was also an XBox 360 involved too. After a full day of playing outside, running the roads and watching some racing cars, The Little Man hit the sack hard. Later, I would turn on what has to be the equivalent of the drug of choice for an addict. A friend of mine was going out of town for the weekend, so he made the suggestion that I borrow his XBox 360 and some games to check out on the new TV. Wow! I turned it on to play for a bit, next thing you know I was single handedly fighting terrorism into the wee hours of the morning. It's scary how fast the time flew by. Needless to say, the graphics are amazing and well, I'm a gamer. I have always enjoyed video games, but once the kids came along I don't play much at all.
The next few weeks, I will be working for a friend of mine on Wednesday evenings. He owns a company that delivers movies, from the studio's depot, to different movie theaters in Kentucky. So Wednesdays I'll be going to depot, loading up his delivery van with metal cases full of film reels, driving to movie theaters in Lexington, Louisville, and all small town theaters in between to deliver them. I'm doing this to help out my friend while he recovers from foot surgery, not to mention put a nice chunk of change in my pocket. Maybe some of that change could go towards buying a XBox 360?
The Lady and Doodlebug went to the aunt's baby shower this weekend in Indy.
No time to type right now, me and The Little Man are sitting around eating junk food in front of the new TV.
One quick thing about HDTV, the good looking people look awesome, but the ugly people...not so good.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
The eagle has landed, (y)our gift is here.
Not much time to write today, but look back on this won't you?
Be mine.
The new album by Drive By Truckers entitled Brighter Than Creation's Dark quickly tops my best records of 2008 list.
Long time fans know of the changing line up and might consider this record a bit of a change, but if you have never listened to them this is a good introduction. The record has great story telling songs that mostly move along to a country twang, but there are a few rockers on the album as well.
On DBT's website it says:
"Not only is this our finest album, but it sounds better on vinyl by an even bigger margin than any of the others. It was written, learned, played, mixed and mastered for vinyl. It's how it was meant to be heard and it shines like Rain Dance Car Wax on a 69 Camarro."
Being a big fan of the way a recording sounds on vinyl, I can understand what they are saying. There is something about analog recording and vinyl that give such a depth to the music. Once the album is available on vinyl, I would surely look into making the purchase.
Turn it up.
