Get over here, boy!

Went to church yesterday morning. Just like every other Sunday. Everything was normal
until we headed into the sanctuary. I think the cleaning lady left some kind of chemical residue. Things weren't all normal in there.

There was a couple sitting in the pew we normally sit in. Well, this REALLY upset Cari. Cari seems to think there is assigned seating in God's house. I'm not really sure how God feels about Cari cussing people that sat in "her" seat. That topic will have to wait for another day.

So, after we got seated in the pew one row up, Randy decided he wanted to sit alone in the pew one more up. I allowed him. He said he wanted to be closer for the childrens lesson. As I was getting my self situated, the organ started to play. That's the indication it is time for everyone to quiet down and get ready for church to start. Otherwise known as, "quiet meditation".

As I look over toward the organ my eyes opened ten times larger than normal. The boy, that is, MY boy, was standing up front next to the organist! What in the. . .

He was smiling. He was smiling a huge smile toward Cari and I. Cari motioned for him to come sit down. With his index finger out and pointed toward the keys, he pushed a button. He was so proud. Cari again motioned for him to sit next to her, now with more urgency. I whispered to her, "No. Now he is sitting next to me."

Not that she couldn't handle him, but that after what I just witnessed, I felt he needed some time next to his father. When he got to me, I asked him if he forgot how to behave in church. He didn't answer.

After church I asked our friend, Bill, if he saw what Randy did. He kinda laughed and then asked Randy, "What were you thinking, boy?"

Still full of pride, Randy just smiled.

One great snack!

I was rooting around the kitchen for a snack the other day. It was just before I had to leave for work. After looking in all the normal spots for snacks and not finding quiet the right thing, I noticed a package on the counter. It was small, about the size of a small pack of cookies. It was even next to the cookie jar.

The package caught my eye, it was purple. I was hungry. "Are these any good? ", I shouted to Cari in the next room. As I waited for her to get to me, I continued to stare at this item I didn't recognize.

When she got to me, she said, "Yeah, the cats like them!" She immediately started to laugh.
"How was I supposed to know they were cat treats?", I asked. I felt tricked. These things were sitting next to the cookie jar. Cari did this to me on purpose.
She walked over and picked up the package. She read the label to me.
"Purina Whisker Lickin's. . .", was all she got out before I interrupted her. She could hardly stand up she was laughing so hard. She tried to hand the package back to me, as if I would still eat them.

The words "whisker lickin's" is written so small! How was I supposed to know? I wasn't reading it, I was looking at the goodies inside. It doesn't say, "not for human consumption."
or "warning: cat treats only!". Maybe the package shouldn't be clear. What? Is the cat going to look and think how tasty they appear?

I opted for a few carrot sticks and left for work.

Summer Fun

Sing with Me

On Saturday afternoon, I went driving around with my camera. After not really finding anything great to photograph, I headed back home. As I drove through downtown, I noticed a large amount of folding chairs in the plaza. Also, the new stage was fitted with lights and microphones. After a few minutes of investigating I learned that Saturday evenings is the Liberty Idol competition.

LIBERTY IDOL!! In this small town, Liberty Idol seems to be as popular as American Idol. The contest started at seven. After dinner I took my family back to see some of the singing.

The place was packed. How awesome to see that many people down there! Everyone in town seemed excited about it. The mayor was there. The police brought out large fans to help keep people cooled down. They closed off half of commerce street.

Liberty Idol is complete with a host and three judges. In the time we watched, we didn't witness the judges arguing with each other or with the host. It also seems we lack a "Simon", because all of the judges were pretty gentle with the contestants.

The contestants range from young children to a middle aged woman that has only been in town for two months. One teen got up there with his guitar and played "Every Rose has a Thorn". He even played the guitar solo. While he was playing through it, a train passed by on the tracks one block away. Afterwards, one of the judges reminded him it was a singing competition, not a great place for a guitar solo. I didn't hear his entire solo because of the train whistle, but after the judges comment, I probably didn't miss anything.

Everyone in the audience can get one ballot sheet. At the end of the evening, you circle the name of your favorite and turn it in. That's a process that seems easier than trying to get through on the phone for two hours.

This is going to be running every Saturday evening through August. Unfortunately I have to work this Saturday night, but I can't wait to go back and place my votes. The winner does not get a record contract, but earns $1,000! The restaurant on the corner would probably give him/her a free Pepsi too.

Imagine eating dinner and the Liberty Idol winner comes in and sits at the table next to you. How would you react?

What do snakes eat?

My newest video. The hardest part was taking 20 minutes of raw video and turning into 4 minutes of something you might sit through.

Click on the above picture to watch the video.

You have interrupted me!

I hadn't planned on writing about the Esseily family this morning. I had other plans that will now have to wait. Why? Because the Esseily family and CNN has irritated me!

This family has been back and forth, staying in Lebanon. The husband is Lebanese, the wife American. CNN posted a picture on the front of their website early this week showing the family begging for evacuation. They were very critical of the US embassy. Mrs. Esseily said this:

She said the U.S. Embassy should have been better prepared for the crisis.

"It's a very insecure country, and other countries as well around this area. The American Embassy should always have a backup evacuation plan. They knew that this was going to happen at least 12 or 24 hours before it did," she said.

In the paragraph before that, she said she went to a shopping mall when they heard that Israeli soldiers were captured. She said she knew there would be trouble but had no idea it would be that extreme. They figured the fighting would only be in the lower part of the country.

Damnit woman! They lived in Beirut for eight years. Now it's Americas fault she is there? She acts like she should be the first friggin' one to get out!

The next day, CNN posted an update:

Monica Esseily said they hadn't been contacted by the embassy by Tuesday. This is from the article:

But on Wednesday, the family decided they could wait no longer. Although they hadn't been called, they packed up their belongings and headed for the port of Beirut to see if they could get on a ship.

The next paragraph the demanding Monica says with a laugh how organized the Canadians and English were at the port. She said the American gathering was chaos. I'm thinking if she would not have gone until she was called, it would have reduced the chaos!!! Then she complains they made her re-register for the boat. OH!!!! I WISH I COULD SLAP HER!!!

They were very scared. They had to stand in line an hour. AN HOUR! The torture that she was put through. But, in her own words, the port was ". . .very safe."

They took a Navy ship to Cyprus, and will then fly back to California. She has nobody to thank but the American government for saving her. America didn't put her in that situation, but when things got rough she expected America to come get her immediately.

I think it was the right and necessary thing to get American citizens out of that area. From everything I read and witnessed on television, the government used several methods to rescue our people. This woman, Monica Esseily, really irritated me with the attitude that showed in her quotes. I also blame CNN for trying to make a drama out of this rescue operation.

Now that I've got that out, I hope I can move on to my regular writing. Thank you.

I have never been an Indian (Native American)

We had pizza pasta for dinner tonight. Pizza pasta is pretty much pasta with red sauce and some pepperoni mixed in. For vegetable, Cari fixed some corn on the cob for us.

Randy started a conversation about the corn. We got to talking about how the Indians that lived in this area may have grown corn.

"Did they have to eat pizza pasta with corn?", he asked.
It took me a minute to catch on to what he said.
I replied, "What do you think? Do you think the Indians plucked pepperoni from the pepperoni bush?"
Randy laughed. Meredith jumped in to the convesation. "Maybe they found the noodle tree.", she said.

I looked over to gauge Cari's reaction. She wasn't lauging. I asked her, "Do you think the Indians might have found a can of sause laying under the trees?"

I did my best Indian voice, "OH! A can of red sauce! This will go good with my noodle tree and pepperoni bush! I think I will eat this with my corn." The kids and I laughed pretty loudly after this. Randy followed with his best Indian voice.

Cari reached over and started to grab the corn off of my plate. I was afraid she might beat me with it, so I grabbed her hand to stop her.

The three of us weren't laughing at Cari. We weren't even making fun of her dinner selection. We were making fun of Indians because they never had pizza pasta.

Ouch! That hurts!

Ok. The bites on my ankles and feet have gotten worse. Mostly because of wearing shoes and being on my feet all day irritated the bites. So, I started putting band-aids on them.

I am still not certain what caused these nasty bites but I'm leaning toward spiders. I think that maybe a whole family of spiders jumped on my legs and started chewing. They must chew softly, because I'm telling you, I didn't feel a thing. There are several wolf spiders that hang around the sides of our pool. Maybe I invited them while I was taking pictures and not wearing shoes. If I find a nest of spiders that look full on human flesh, I'll take their picture for you before smashing them to bits.

My parents were here last week and now my mom is reporting having similar bites. She put some lotion on them and I guess they are fine. It didn't work that well for me.

On the bright side, I haven't recieved any more bites since first realizing I had any at all.

Yeah, I took the picture myself. It only took four tries. The first shot was of my knees.

Revisit an old issue

Passwords was one of my first posts on this blog. I think my 2nd or third. If you care, here's a link.

This issue is still bothering me. It came up again today at work.
While I was at work with my itchy feet today, I couldn't remember my password to get on the computer. The company started a new policy about passwords.

When I started there ten years ago, your password could be pretty much anything. I used a four digit number. My birth year. I never, EVER, changed it.

Then the company changed their policy. Your password must be a minimum of 7 characters and contain numbers and letters. It didn't take long to find a loophole. At the prompt, you create a password that matched the rules. Once in, you hit the button to change password. THAT screen didn't force the rules. So, back to my birth year.

Last month, they re-implemented their rules. Loophole gone.

Now today a new set of rules. Password must be more than seven characters but no more than eight. Password must have at least one number and four letters. Password will change every thirty days and you can not reuse any of your previous five passwords.

I have a lot of crap to do at work. I do not want to sit there thinking up new passwords every freaking month. Then coming in after my days off trying to remember my password. This is getting out of control. I want my loophole back!!

I went in today. Tried a password, didn't work. Repeat that six times and I found myself locked out of the computer system. I had to track down a manager to reset my password. I hope I remember what my new one is when I go back tomorrow. Ugh...hackers have a better chance at my password than I do.

Wow...two posts for me in one day. That's a new one for me. Maybe I should have saved one for later in the week when I'm boring.

I've been attacked

It's true. Something attacked me and I don't know what.

Both of my feet and ankles, my left knee, my left side near my rib area, and my left armpit all have swelled up, itchy, bug bites. They have blisters on them too. I'm going to spare you the pictures of all this.

It looks like what happens when I get bitten by a fire ant. The reason I am doubting the fire ant theory is because you normally feel an ant bite you. Really, I don't remember anything biting me. It's too serious of a bite to be a mosquito. Ugh. Today I went back to work after being off. I had to wear socks and shoes, of course, and it really irritated my bites.

I'll learn to live with the bites, no problem. I just don't want more. Where did I contract these things? In bed? Cari doesn't have them.

My new toy

I got a new cell phone. My other one lasted me about two years. It still worked just fine, but I was wanting something with more buttons. A phone with more buttons and a LCD screen or two must be good. Sprint gave me a credit since I held my other phone for so long. This one came out pretty cheap.

This phone has a camera on it. Now I have a camera in pocket all the time. I have been thinking what I could do to put this camera to use.

My idea is to try and put a picture from my phone on the blog once a week. I'm going to try and get pictures of things I normally wouldn't get a picture. Situations that I normally wouldn't have a camera.

My first trial of this idea starts with this picture:This is Dave. He is a little unstable. Just a little.

This shot was captured during a particularly frustrating moment at work. Dave and I were in the front office. His store phone started ringing and it was a customer complaining about a delivery. Using his left hand, Dave used his cell phone to try and reach the driver. Just outside the office, it was getting pretty busy. I could have helped him. Maybe I could have contacted the driver for him. It was easier to pull out my new phone and snap a picture. SMILE, DAVE!

HEY GARBAGE MAN!!!!

YOU'RE FIRED!

That's a great thing about not having city garbage pick-up. You can fire them.
Remember how Yankee was curious about garbage pickup a week or two ago? Well, last week our garbage pick up fell on the 4th of July. Of course, we did not think they would be here that day. Probably on the 5th.

A few days past and Cari took our trash to the dump herself. Then she called the garbage people. Yeah, I just called them garbage.
They said they couldn't come at all because it would put off some of their customers later in the week. They have a lot of customers on Thursday and Friday and didn't want to disrupt them.

Cari answered, "Well, now you have a little more time for them. We cancel."

They cried a bit, but it wasn't worth it. When Cari was on the phone with the new company, they said they had several customers switch over last week for the same reason. They said they would pick up, even if it was a holiday week.

Cari asked me, "Should we tell Yankee?"
I asked her to please not tell him. Let him figure it out.

Out of Order: the conclusion

The other day I wrote about feeding the kids dessert first, followed by a healthy dinner.

I attempted to make it work. I even took photo evidence of it in action while Cari was at the store. That's a key point. Cari was at the store. Do you think I would have tried to implement this while Cari was here? She is a mom. She isn't going to allow anyone to eat ice cream before green beans.

Before I even sat down to write the blog, she knew. My children seemed to love eating ice cream first. They also seem to like watching me suffer.

Cari came home from the store not long after we finished dessert. The kids came running down the stairs screaming, "Dad gave us dessert before dinner!!!!"

Cari slowly turned to look at me. She didn't say it out loud, but her look was asking if the kids were telling the truth. I didn't answer. Randy gave her a hug and said, "mom, it's really true." Then Meredith piped up, "Mom, I didn't even want to eat it. Dad made me."

That's when I had enough. "Dad made you eat ice cream?", I asked. "I hardly remember you begging for vegetables.", I told Meredith.

Randy begged Cari to ground me from the television for my outrageous behavior.

I learned my lesson that day. I learned first of all that feeding dessert first didn't seem to help much.

I also learned that my kids will turn me in at the first opportunity.

Trust

Last night we decided to head back to Pickens. Every year the East Pickens Baptist church hosts a great family event for the 4th of July. The YMCA is directly across the street and the church uses the fields there. They put up the giant blow up slides and bounce houses. They offer free cotton candy and snow cones. There is a stage on the other side of the fields where live bands play. It really is a great time and a good atmosphere.

Then around nine pm they have a presentation. There is video and some speaking. Last year the program was focused on the military and their families. At ten, fireworks are launched from the church.

That's how it is supposed to happen.

At 9 pm this year, as a speaker was finishing his speech on finding Jesus, a lightening storm snuck up behind us. Another man got on stage and told us he was shutting down the stage to protect the electrical equipment. He said that the storm was headed for our area and we should all take cover. Fireworks would still happen at ten if the rain let up.

We headed to our car with just about everyone else. (Everyone else was going to their own cars, not ours.)

It never did rain. We sat at the car waiting for the fireworks. Prepared to leave quickly if the rain started coming down.

At that time, Cari and I were joking that maybe the church leaders didn't trust God enough. Didn't they trust God to keep the event going? Maybe God didn't approve of their message. Why else would we all be sitting in our cars?

We continued to trust that the fireworks would launch at 10. And with only a minute or two delay, they started. The kids sat on the trunk with Cari while I stood next to the car with my camera.

I didn't look through the viewfinder this time. I had the camera on the tripod and just roughly aimed as I pushed the button. The result was some really neat fireworks pictures. Roughly 90 of them. The only thing that bothered me was a parking lot light just off to the side. That light bled into my pictures a bit.

Maybe next year our faith will be stronger and I'll get some better pictures taken from the field.

Out of Order

As I was attempting to get my children in bed last night I realized we do things out of order. We were taught to do things wrong.

The problem starts with dinner. After dinner, a very healthy meal, we have taught our children to demand dessert.

The lesson: Suffer through green beans, meatloaf, and salad and you will earn a sweet treat.

Not long after getting loaded full of sugar (sugar=energy), we start getting them ready for bed. We brush teeth, get our pajamas on, read some books, then hop in bed. The key word is "hop". These kids are bouncing off the walls. After getting them in bed, I go downstairs. Before I can even sit down one of the children is standing on the stairs asking a question. Get that one back in bed and the other follows me down. Repeat that process for thirty minutes.

This is similar to me drinking two cans of mountain dew at eleven pm last week. I went to bed at 2:30 am that night.

The answer is obvious to me. Maybe some of you have already started this new system. Feed the kids dessert first. After dessert you can eat dinner. It will add that much more time between sugar fest and bed time.

Cari went out shopping today, Walmart of course, so while she was out I decided to try my theory. I'll let you know how it goes.

UNSTOPPABLE!

Whew. Work has kept me away from the blog for a few days, but here I am tonight. I also started work on my next video tonight. That should be coming soon. Now on to the story. . .

"I'm unstoppable!", he yelled from the doorway. 'HE' is a new breed of super hero. 'HE' is brave for yelling in the house when mom is home. 'HE' is Randy.

The picture tells this story. He is part Incredible Hulk and part Spider Man. Imagine the possiblities (he did).
Not only can he disable you with his web, he can then approach you and pound you into the ground.

I really think the boy is onto something with this.