Damn it's been a busy week. It's only Thursday morning, but I've already put in 40+ hours. Nothing like a deadline at work to make everyone nuts, eh?
The Commercialization Train that is known as Christmas keeps moving on, and is unstoppable. And I know this isn't a lot of segue here, but have you ever gotten really frustrated when writing something down, and you have a specific word in mind, but you can't spell it correctly, so you attempt to look it up in the dictionary, but because you can't spell it correctly, you can't find it?
Anyhow...
Christmas is coming, and I'm so woefully unprepared. I haven't even started my Xmas shopping. Gail and the kids took care of the tree...it looks great!. I've been working too much lately, so I haven't even seen my kids, let alone go out and shop for them. I think sometime next week, I'm gonna take some time from work and go shopping at the mall. That, or whip out the credit card and go shopping online. Woooo...that can be so dangerous.
And speaking of dangerous (now there's a nice segue. My dad would be so proud :), check out the link to the article below. I think the most dangerous thing on this planet is stupid people. 'nuff said about that!2022 Edit: Link removed from dead site.
Took my brother to the train station last night. He's off to "the big city"...New York City that is. He's finally got all his crap together and moved up there. Gonna miss him. But he'll be back for Christmas, and it's only a 3 hour train ride up there. I'll make it up there to see him sooner or later.
During the day we cleaned his car, because he had to sell it. He said all the change I found, I could keep and put in my chrome jar. I bet I walked away with over 5 bucks in change. He's worse than I am.
We took his car to Carmax to sell. I have to say, I was impressed with the place. Next time I go buy a car (hopefully soon. The poor little Honda's on it's last legs) I'll be going there.
We had a nice day. My brother came over, my mother in law and Gail cooked all day, we ate, played some board games, ate s'more. Generally, stuffed our faces.
Interesting weekend. Saturday morning, at about 1:30 am, I was awaken by a boom outside. I sat up and said "What the hell was that?" and it must've woken Gail up too, 'cause she answered me with "It came from outside. And I hear voices too." So I got up, and peeked out the window. Took me a minute to figure out what I was seeing was the neighbors car on fire across the street. Naturally, I had to get up and go outside to watch. The fire department wasn't even there yet, so just to make sure, Gail called 911. The next day, the car was just this slag, looks like it's gonna take a putty knife to get all the melted fiberglass off the driveway. At least no one was hurt.
Saw a couple of movies over the long weekend. First one was Unbreakable. The second was the X-Men which we rented. That rocked. As a comic book and X-Men fan, I thought they did a good job.
Not much happening. Tomorrow's Turkey Day. Or, as it seems all the sitcoms seem fond of pointing out, "The Rape Of The Native American" Day. I've seen no less than three shows that mention how poorly the white man has treated Native Americans. Geezus, we're still doing it now. Gail was telling me of a tribe that the government won't recognize. Without government recognition, they cannot open a casino on their reservation. And heaven forbid they find a way to support themselves.
sheesh
/rant
OK, sorry about that. Personally, I'm looking forward to stuffing my face full of food tomorrow. And I plan on enjoying it too!!!
The weather's finally getting cold here. Lit a fire in the fireplace for the first time (well, since we've owned the house anyways). Happy to report I didn't burn the place down.
Cody had his birthday party this Saturday. It was actually a lot of fun, even if some of the kids were on the hyper side. Gail organized a treasure hunt of sorts, with the treasure being the kids goody bags. Cody's party was set to a Harry Potter theme, so Gail made the treasure hunt go into rooms the book had. Cody's was Gryffendor Tower, or something like that. The final stop on the hunt was the "Whomping Willow". Whatever that is in the book, I don't know. But I got to play the part of the Whomping Willow, and as far as I'm concerned, if I get to whomp kids, that's fine by me!
I borrowed my old neighbors gilly suit (for those that don't know, a gilly suit is a suit with strips of burlap and camoflage hanging off of it. I looked like a huge bush :) and sat out in the lawn with all the leaves (Those suits work really well. My mother-in-law took a picture from our deck looking down at us. Aside from the cardboard wrapping paper tube I was using to whomp the kids with, you can't tell where I am). I sat very still, and as the kids came out, they saw me right away. However, I don't think some of the kids knew I was in there, 'cause when one reached for the bag, and I whomped him with the tube, he jumped. Pretty soon I had kids yelling and screamin' and laughin' and hollerin' (Sounds like a Charlie Daniels song) and I was a-whompin away with my whompin tube. Great fun.
After that, Cody had another birthday party to attend at McDonalds. Needless to say, when it came time for him to go to bed that night, it didn't take much to get him there.
Sunday, Cody and I went on a hike up Sugarloaf Mountain with our Indian Guides tribe. We rode across Whites Ferry, and then hiked up the mountain. It was a good hike...at least my lungs and legs told me so. The view from the top was great. Jon, one of the dads there, was telling us how they used semaphore from the top of the mountain to signal troop movements during the Civil War. It was a great hike.
Finally saw The Perfect Storm last night. Gail loved that movie so much when she saw it in the theaters, she bought it as soon as it was available on DVD. It's rare that I buy a movie I haven't seen before, but this was a good one. I really enjoyed the story, and the special effects rocked.
After work I get to go to Maryland: First, to pick up a treadmill from my office spouse Heidi, then to my friend Jon's. Mostly to stop in and say hi, but he's also going to loan me all of his darkroom equipment. I've been wanting to get into photography for awhile, however, I've just never had the resources. Jon's a font of resources though. I have his helmet, along with his Dazzle, and now his darkroom equipment. Maybe he should just move in.
Man, slippery tubs sucks. I was in the shower this morning, and the wife hopped in. As I was maneuvering around so she could get under the shower head, I slipped, both feet going out from under me at the same time.
Naturally, I was against the shower curtain, and not the wall when I did this. Went ass backwards right out of the shower, hit my back against the corner of the counter, and flopped on down to the bathroom floor, where I managed not to yell out all sorts of obscenities.
Now I have a wonderful cut/bruise up my back (about 4 inches long...damn sharp counter top!) and it hurts to rotate my right arm around, as it's sore. Geezus, I tell ya, when it rains, it pours.
Some days I look upon my wife with awe and wonder, simply amazed by her beauty, her compassion, her inner child. And other days, I look upon her, and go "you are such a dork"...
Take last night for instance. She told me about this dream she had. It was one of those dreams you have that incorporate reality into your dream. We were snuggling in bed, and I was rubbing her butt, simply 'cause I know she likes her butt rubbed (yeah, alright, I like rubbing it too. So sue me.) and she dreamt that as I was rubbing her butt, this pink smoke came out of her ass and consolidated into a genie, who then proceeded to give me three wishes.
No more ice cream for her before she goes to bed!
And for those of you wondering, yes, I rubbed her butt a lot trying to get the genie to come out.
I meant to post this yesterday afternoon, when I got back, but for some reason, I never got around to it. The largest group ride I've ever been on prior to today was about 25 bikes. Today, I met with a group of about 30 at the dealership for the Toys for Tots run. From there, we headed down to Classic Iron where, we met up with about 500-750 more bikes for the run to Fredricksburg. Yup, you read that right. Between 500 and 750 motorcycles. It was way cool (And loud!). There were bikes everywhere...mostly Harleys, but there were also BMWs, Ducatis, Hondas, Yamahas, Kawazakis. You name it, it was there.
The Toys for Tots run is sponsored by the United States Marine Corps every year, to help get toys, and raise money for those less fortunate during the holidays. It's a great cause, and I'm glad Gail kicked my butt outta bed this morning to go. They had one vendor there, and one concession stand. However, this is the first year they've done this, so I suspect next year it'll be even better.
There was a radio station onsite doing a live broadcast, and they were doing USMC and Harley-Davidson trivia. First question was; what was the first names of the Davidson brothers? I happen to be close to the the table, so I wandered down there, gave the right answer, and received a set of Mac tools. Well, it was two screwdrivers, and a tape measure, but it was still pretty cool :) (The answer, in case you're wondering, is Arthur, William, and Walter)
So after grabbin' some grub, and chattin' some, I headed home. I like riding in groups, but I think I like alone better, or with just one or two other people. It was a wonderful ride back up 17 to 28. Sad to say though, I believe this will the be last good ride of the season. I'm sitting here in sweats and am just now warming up. My fingers were cold, my knees were cold...getting to be that time of the year!
You know...I hate it when I'm taking a shower, and the shower curtain blows in. It cuts the shower in half, unless you want to shower with vinyl stuck to your backside. So naturally you weigh down the bottom of the shower curtain with shampoo bottles. And you know, if I wasn't married, that would be a problem. When I was on my own (and had hair), I had one shampoo bottle. Now, there's at least 4 bottles in there: shampoo, conditioner, special face wash, hydroxexfoliatingsomethingortheother...all sorts of cool stuff.