We won! Well, I didn't win.

Per my last post, we have a new addition to our family. A green anole named Kirby. Here is his first baby picture.

When he first got home, the boys moved him from his small traveling cage to a 10 gallon tank that was all decorated up for him. He has a climbing area, a long stick that goes down to the ground, he is lying on that in this photo and then we have a bunch of fake leaves for him to hide in. I wasn't there when he was moved, but I understand there was an escape and a re-capture. I got home and went right to the tank to check out the little guy, but couldn't locate him. The boys were gone and to be honest, I wasn't 100% sure what he looked like or how big he was. I texted Marcy that I was getting concerned because I still hadn't located him after a 5 minute search. Finally, I located him in the leaves. It was a lot smaller than I had anticipated. (That's what she said)Sorry, that is my The Office quote that I'm addicted to and I can't help myself most days. I typically say it under my breath, but this one had to be published. I was glad I finally located him and now would have an easier time finding him since I knew what he looked like. He is a pretty cool little guy. I'm amazed at how much of a range of color he actually has. He goes from a dark green to a dark brown and blends in to the leaves very well. I fed him some crickets and watched him eat one, pretty cool. I know the boys are going to like watching him all summer, or until they get bored with him and he becomes my responsibility. Probably next Tuesday.

You may have seen that I actually had a night to myself the other night and I can't tell you how good it felt to just have to take care of myself. I didn't have to figure out what to feed 3 of the pickiest eaters in the world. I only had to do a few dishes, clean up one mess and I didn't have to tell one person not to do that. I love my boys, but we have been together alot for the past 4 months and I needed a break. I made myself a great dinner, no peanut butter or jelly involved and watched a pretty funny movie, Zombieland. I didn't have to argue about brushing teeth at bedtime and I didn't have to get out of bed 5 times to tell anyone to go to sleep. It was a break. I picked them up from Michelle the next afternoon and within an hour, we were arguing again. Ahhhh, parenting.

Funny thing happened on Saturday. Our cellular phone contract is up, so that means we get either new free phones, or new inexpensive phones. I went into the local Verizon store to learn why Verizon changed their plans, so if I got the same phone I currently carried, I would have to change my plan and it would cost me an extra $10 per phone per month. The guy was very helpful and explained they added a "limited" data plan to those phones, my guess was to get people hooked on using email or internet on their phone and then they will bump up to the full data package, which is $30 more a month. My current financial situation doesn't have room for an extra $20 per month, let alone $60 a month. I found our new phones and was getting mine set up, but the guy was going to re-activate Marcy's old one since she was in MN and unable to get her new phone. She would be able to go into the store when she got home and have her address book and stuff moved over. When the guy tried to re-activate her phone, it said it was on the "lost or stolen" list. Flash back to Sept. of 2009 when Marcy lost her phone, so I called Verizon and had it de-activated. She found it a short time later, so I called Verizon and they re-activated the phone. Now, after she used the phone for 8 months, they are telling me its still on the lost or stolen list. Nice list. The phone is on it and can still be used? Doesn't sound like a good system. Long story short, they couldn't re-activate her old phone, so now she is without one. I activated her phone and decided to overnight it to her, which wouldn't get there until Tuesday because of the holiday. I get to the shipping place and the guy says UPS and FedEx have all ready picked up, but I had 20 minutes to get to the post office. I went as fast as I could and made it with 2 minutes to spare. Now I just hope it actually gets there, especially if Marcy is able to come home next week, I want her to have a phone for the drive. I tried to do something nice by getting her a new phone and end up making it so she has no phone. Strike one. Since she didn't have a phone, I couldn't even tell her what had happened. I tried to call the place she is at, but since they are technically closed, I was in voicemail hell. Luckily, she borrowed a phone and called me and I explained. Wouldn't be my life if it went how I wanted.

A winning letter.

This year, Mason's class studied Anoles, or lizards. At the end of the unit, they send the lizards home with lucky students. In order to be one of the lucky winners, you have to write a letter to the teacher explaining why you should get one of the lizards. Here is Mason's letter:

Dear Ms. Harper,
I don't have a pet, I have all the stuff, I've taken care of pets before, I've wanted a pet all my life, and I've been waiting a long time for this moment. I will make sure it is in a safe place, I will feed it, and I will make sure my brothers don't kill it. It will go right on the table so everyone can see it.

From,
Mason

That sounds like a winner to me. I wonder if any of the other kids have guaranteed that their siblings would not kill the lizard? I'll let you know if this is enough to win over his teacher. I suggested a $10, but he didn't think that would help. I bet it would.

Misc

Here is just a bunch of crap that I either saw, heard or is just buzzing in my head. First, I've had a police scanner for years. I bought it when I lived in Des Moines so I could hear what was going on, I'm just interested. I broke it out tonight and listened in for awhile. One call was for a domestic. Dispatcher said, "male subject is saying the female in the house hit him with a bat and tried to scald him with water." Then the cop said, "Anything else?" The dispatch then said,"She tried to poison him." The cop said, "Of course." I'm listening to a shooting right now, very scary.

I don't know if this is very visible, but this is an area I drive by everyday. If you can see it, there is a patch of grass that is basically a border between two properties. I'm not sure if they are in a border war, but they appear to be doing it backwards. They aren't trying to claim the others property, they appear to be forfeiting a foot wide section, refusing to mow it. I took this a week ago. Since then, they have both mowed and they refused to mow this patch. I can't wait to see how long this goes.


They have been doing sidewalk replacement in our neighborhood, so we have a lot of equipment around. For a week, we had a truck and trailer parked on our street during the day. As I drove by one day, I took this shot:

Why they need to dump all of that dirt in the street outside the supply trailer, I have no idea. They would dump the dirt and then scrape it off at night.

We got a few fish the other day, but sadly, they lasted 2 days. Why are goldfish so darn fragile. I tried to tell the boys they were just good at swimming on their sides, but they didn't buy it.

They were given to us and the boys didn't have time to get attached, so it wasn't too upsetting.

For Mason's baseball games, the umps are kids that play in the leagues above him. They appear to be about 12 or 13 years old, which means they aren't through puberty yet. When they yell out "strike" it sounds like a 6 year old girl. People look at me funny every time I laugh at that, but it's hilarious.

I thought I had more, but I guess that is it. I'm so into my scanner, this shooting is very exciting.

Customer service 101

I've written about my issues with customer service before, but here is one that I just don't understand. Our local cable company is Mediacom. There is no other option, it is them or a dish. I was with them for several years, but we always had trouble with our Internet and they raised their prices every month, without adding any value to that increase. I'm well aware that the cost of business is going up, but they seemed to up their rates $3 or $4 every month and then throw you a new channel every six months, but it was never a channel that you would ever watch. Hell, maybe they never actually added the channel, I never checked. Who wants to watch a 24 hour cat grooming channel, or whatever the hell they made up. I finally had enough and switched to DirecTV, which I had before and never had any trouble. Mediacom always runs adds about how you loose your signal during storms, which I have, but I've never lost it as much as I lost my cable. I've been happy with my switch and have watched reports that Mediacom has raised their rates even more. That's all fine and good. It's their business and they can run it and do with it, whatever they wish. The problem I have is, the amount of money they spend to try and get me, and thousands of others who switched to a dish, back. I get something in the mail every week trying to lure me back. I had a guy stop at my house last night with a deal to get me back. It was all three of their services, cable, phone and Internet, for $100 a month for 2 years. That's a good deal, but why don't you lower your rates for the customers you have, and they won't leave? I took customer service classes, way back when I was in charge of that department at a previous job. The first thing we learned was, it's cheaper to give a little to keep a current customer, than it is to acquire a new customer, by a lot. So it's fine and dandy to offer these good deals to get new customers, but you all ready had me, so you should have tried just a little bit to keep me. I was paying more than $100, so just stop trying to bleed me dry, and I stay. They have other issues, like their call in customer service sucks. I mentioned the Internet went out on us all the time, so we had to re-set the modem and the wireless router, almost every day. But I'm convinced they would have far more customers if they would just treat the ones they have, like they are happy they are their customers? Am I crazy? A radical thinker? Not even close, this stuff is customer service 101. Maybe I should offer my consulting services? They'd have to raise their rates to pay for me.

Am I the only one who notices this stuff?

I see a lot of goofy stuff, at least it's goofy to me. I'm not sure if I'm more observant than other people or if I'm just lucky to have a lot of things happen around me. Here is my example from today. One of my responsibilities when Marcy is out of town, is to pick up the boys from school, along with the oldest of the Pee brothers from down the street. I park in a church parking lot that is right next door to the school and I walk up a little hill to collect the three boys and bring them to the van. There is a drive in front of the school that I could use, but I get so pissed at the inconsiderate people in the line, that I'm sure I would eventually get into trouble for ramming some soccer mom in the rear end of her Lexus and shoving her out into traffic. I've decided that I wouldn't do well in jail, so I don't go there. Today, I picked Max up from where he was staying and we went to the church lot. We were early, so we sat there in the van and waited until it was time to go get them. A car pulled into the spot next to me and I watched as a Indian lady decided that this was an opportune time to dig for some gold. She was a knuckle deep into her left nostril, when I decided that this would be a good time for a photo. Just as I got my phone out and turned on the camera, she backed the finger out and the show was over. I was disappointed. Max was sitting in the passenger seat, so I was talking to him, but I could still see her, right over his head. She stuck that same digger finger into her mouth. I don't think she was eating any of the treasure she might have found, but it was definitely the finger she was working with. That was gross.

Mothers day

What can I say about Mothers Day that hasn't been said in thousands of cards published by Hallmark? I'm torn anymore. Seeing as how my mother is no longer with us, this day brings a little sadness to me, and I'm guessing to some of you as well. Even if you are a mother, which would bring happiness, if your mother is gone, it still stings. I loved my mom. I learned a lot from her and like to think that my serving through missions was from her. My mom went to several places to serve God, India, Russia (when it was still Communist), China and was working on a Jamaica trip when she died. She taught me that God wants us to serve those less fortunate than ourselves, which I hope I make her proud with the work I try to do. I'd like to think that my work ethic came from her (It most certainly DID come from my dad)and the patience that I have for the a'holes in my life was passed on from her. I still remember about 6 months after she died, I was in a tree cutting down a branch that had broken off from an ice storm, when it occurred to me, I can't get down. You might think that was a funny time to think of my mom, and no I wasn't wanting my mommy. I knew that she would laugh at the story, probably call me a dumbass which I most certainly was, and I would get to hear her laugh the laugh that I loved so much. Not that she had a unique laugh, but I just liked to hear it. My biggest regret isn't that we fought all the time when I was a teenager or that I didn't visit her much when I first moved out on my own. My biggest regret is that my kids will never know her. That when I tell the story of how she tried to make homemade rolls once, they turned into hockey pucks (her term) which ruined a food processor when she tried to chop them up to feed the birds, my kids won't get to hear her laugh and tell me they weren't "that" bad. Maybe the story of how an exploding bowl of gazpacho went all over our dining room with it's red tomatoey mess, minutes before a party was to begin. Or how she ripped the lights out of a Boston airport parking garage with our Winnebago, blacking out the area. She loved to tell those stories, I guess that is where I get that side of me. As soon as I do something stupid, I'm trying to figure out a way to tell everyone to make them laugh. My mom was a strong woman, both physically and mentally. She fought cancer for years, did the chemo, had the surgeries and kept on going. She had a deep faith and shared it with anyone who would listen, and even with those of us that wouldn't. I'm one of the few people I know that can look back at their childhood and not have a list of issues with my parents. The only sad thing was my parents divorce, but life, get ready, is what it is. I love and miss you mom. See you soon, but not too soon:)

Parenting 101

Parenting is a hard job. If you have kids, you all ready know that. If you don’t, just wait. That being said, I’m all for trying to do everything you can to make it easier. My system, avoid getting yourself into issues by trying to think, if I let this happen now or if I do something, how will that translate into future behavior/expectations? This isn’t easy, but I’m a planner, so I try. It’s funny how anything you say or do, can come back to haunt you. The harder part is trying to avoid issues from other peoples parenting, that then affect your kids and their behavior/actions. If those kids do something, you have to jump on it to be sure that isn’t interpreted as a, “If he can do it, I can do it.” Let me give you a neighborhood example. As you know, I have 3 boys. What you may not know is there is a house 3 doors down, also with 3 boys about the same age. It works great for play time, but this is where I get into the “If he can do it, I can do it” scary time. The other boys aren’t bad, but their parents do things different than we do. I’m not going to say our way is better, but for us, it is. They are raising their boys to be all boy, if you know what I mean. They like aggression, motorcycles and language that might not be appreciated in school or church. They are encouraged to fight it out. One thing that is encouraged is pee’ing outside. Not a big deal, we’ve all done it, but the issue is, there is a 4 year old and a 5 year old that don’t really understand the boundaries or location of this act. They pee in their yard all of the time, front yard, back yard or side yard, it’s all open for business. We’ve asked our boys to please refrain from this unless it’s absolutely necessary. My whole issue is, we aren’t in the country, so you are visible. I doubt anyone would call the police to report a 4 year old for indecent exposure, but I guess I think, why risk it? People love to sue each other, and that is a game I don’t want to play. Plus, because they don’t seem to understand that you don’t really want to pee where you are currently playing, I’d just assume they focus on putting all bodily fluids that are expelled, in the toilet. What they do in their yard, however, is none of my business, so pee away. Where the issue comes in, is when these boys come to my yard and want to do the same thing. I’m not happy with my yard being turned into a urinal. The other day, I was doing dishes and looked out the window to watch the 5 year old drop his pants and pee on the dirt hill that Max was currently loading into his truck. Before I could yell my complete disgust, his 4 year old brother was right IN FRONT OF HIM doing the same thing, plus adding his brothers shoe to the landing zone. If they want to pee on each other, fine, not my laundry, but again, Max is sitting right there in the line of fire. I’m happy to report that Max stayed dry and we sent all 3 boys out front, since their playing field was now a bit muddy. Their excuse as to why they were pee’ing in my yard was, “I couldn’t make it to the bathroom.” About an hour later, I went outside to move some stuff from the front yard to the back, when I noticed a unusual rain pattern on the side of my house. What was really odd about it, was it hadn’t rained in a few days. Max was nearby, so I asked him what happened there and I was informed that the 2 boys from earlier, apparently, couldn’t make it home in time, so they pee’ed on my house. Not a killer on the house, but damn, buy these kids some Pampers. They both showed up soon after the revelation, so I explained to them how I didn’t appreciate them pissing on my house, which fell on deaf ears, mainly because they are 4 and 5 and it’s perfectly fine to do at home. We made it clear to our boys that this wasn’t something we encouraged and that they needed to try and make it into the bathrooms. I didn’t want this behavior to continue through to my boys. Next day, I get a frantic “telling on” by one of the neighbor kids that Max just pee’d on their 4 year old. My response, “Where do you think he learned it?” Apparently, got the kid on the shirt, and unfortunately, in the face. (hahahahaha) Sorry about that, couldn’t hold it in. I pulled Max aside and went over the we don’t pee on people speech, again. I finally thought we had the whole “using my yard as a shitter” fixed, when I heard an unusual request from Marcy.

Marcy: Max, tell daddy what (I will leave the kids name out to protect his guilt, but he is 4 years old) did in the back yard.
Max: Nope
Marcy: Tell daddy.
Max: no words, just a stare.
Now daddy is getting pissed.
Daddy to Marcy: Can you just tell me?
Marcy to daddy: (4 year old) pooped in our back yard.

SON OF A BITCH!!!!! What is wrong with these kids? My theory? They are taught it’s ok to pee in the yard, what’s the difference? Where do you draw the line? Well doesn’t that just make your day. Not only do I have to dodge dog crap in the front yard from inconsiderate people, but I have to dodge people crap in the back yard. I got the story, and I won’t disgust you with the mess that occurred, it involved hands, back of legs and I’m guessing shoes. It also involved said 4 year old walking down the street with his pants down, covered in, well, poop. Anyway, I’m not sure, but we may need to have the “this is why we don’t try to poop in the back yard and then bury it” speech. Never thought I would have to write such a speech. I can’t refer to Dr. Martin Luther King for inspiration. I’m guessing he never had to write a speech like that either. Just as a side note, the 4 year olds 5 year old brother pooped in his own yard awhile back, sooooooo.

Sorry about this one

I was going through my pictures on my phone, and found one of me standing in the bathroom of my hotel in Akron, don't worry, I'm clothed. I know I'm a little taller than average, but I'm no NBA player. Here is the shot of me standing at my bathroom sink:

Do you see the problem here? The "ceiling" over the sink come an inch and a half or so down my forehead. This seems like poor planning to me. Some 4 foot guy draws up the plans for my bathroom and I have to knock my barely awake self senseless every morning. I can't tell you how many times I walked right into that thing. I'm not sure if that says something about my intelligence or if it tells you how out of it I am when I wake up, since most of my concussions were acquired in the morning. The rest of the room seemed to be built with a normal sized person in mind, maybe even a tall guy, so I'm not sure what happened in here. My view out the window was also breath taking:

Not sure if you can see the slightly confused Canadian geese on the roof outside. Not sure what they were looking for up there, didn't appear to be any standing water and the food supply seemed to be low. Those damn Canadians. The next pictures are for Max, who loves trains. The warehouse I was at had their own engine to move the railcars, so I snapped a few shots for him.


And finally, a few shots of the warehouse I was in, from above. This was an old Firestone plant, so they had a walkway at the top of the building, I'm guessing so management could keep an eye on the workers. We have several warehouses that were old car manufacturing buildings with these same walkways.


Sorry if this post fell into the "there's 5 minutes of my life I can't get back" category. Sometimes, they are just for me.