Donner & Blitzen

“I can’t believe George Carlin is dead.”

http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

George Carlin has always been my favorite comedian. Even when the Lewis Blacks and Dane Cooks of the world came along and made me listen, it was because of Carlin that I love stand-up, and that these guys were able to be as irreverent as they were.

I will miss you George, and now you can say anything you want, not that you didn’t.

Thanks for listening

Made ya’ look

Again, in no particular order…

51. Driving 14 hours round trip to watch your sister graduate Law School.

52. Buying a brand new car, do it once, but only once.

53. Teaching your kids to fly a kite.

54. Buying your first suit.

55. Seeing the sun rise at Hatteras.

56. Giving your son his first haircut.

57. Watching your son glow as he sleeps on your chest with his bili-blanket.

58. Jumping in the ocean with your daughter on her 1^st beach excursion.

59. Getting the Super Mega-Deluxe Car wash, and driving around proudly.

60. Seeing Clarice come running up to you after a long hard day, and feeling the weight of the world lift from your shoulders.

61. Seeing your best friend take great strides to get his life in order, and actually following through with them.

62. Hanging out with new friends, and acting like old friends.

63. Making sales quota for the month before the month is over.

64. Picking up Clarice from a fall from her tricycle and fixing her up with Dora Band-Aids.

65. Watching Rudolph roll around, laughing so hard he can’t jump on the trampoline.

66. Thinking that in that moment of silence in your work room that you heard your old dog.

67. Seeing Rudolph sleeping late into the morning, and realizing how much he is already like you.

68. Mowing the lawn just right.

69. Finally defeating the squirrels, even if for just one day.

70. Looking at the beach house online, and dreaming of that vacation.

71. Telling your wife why you love her, even when she doesn’t make the salad right.

72. Having a recruiter tell you, “…you’re ready. This job is yours.”

73. Listening to your wife tell you that you are a great poet.

74. Touching the ceiling for the first time, without jumping.

75. Riding your bike for hours as a kid, and never wanting to come in for the night.

Stole this idea from my sister, and she probably never thought I would do this, but here it goes…and in no particular order…

76. Counting in English, Spanish, and German while swinging Clarice and Rudolph

77. Making brownie cupcakes with Clarice for Mother’s Day…they had to have green frosting, “…’cause green is Mommy’s favorite color!”

78. Riding the SkyFlyer with two friends’ girlfriends because their boyfriends were too scared.

79. Getting a promotion after three weeks, and then another after two weeks.

80. Seeing the ocean and beach in West Palm.

81. Playing an entire football game after breaking your wrist on the 3^rd play.

82. Making and drinking Rum Runners freshman year and then going hedge jumping.

83. Knowing your parents love you, even if they don’t say it.

84. Knowing your girlfriend, wife now, loves you, even though she didn’t say it when you did for the first time.

85. Driving to El Paso on a family vacation when I was fifteen and then driving part of the way home myself.

86. Cooking and entire dinner for the family on Mother’s Day, outside, in the driving rain and lightning.

87. Watching your first Super Bowl, and then everyone since

88. Watching Avatar with your kids every night, and being their comfort when it gets “scary”.

89. Reading your sister’s blog, over and over again, just to feel better.

90. Throwing the most outrageous Luau Party that you can’t afford.

91. Living alone in a new city.

92. Dancing, anywhere, anytime, just dancing.

93. Making gnocchi with your grandma.

94. Walking nine holes of golf with fraternity brothers instead of going to class.

95. Driving home from an interview, knowing you nailed it, but also knowing you’ll never take the job.

96. Trying to beat your sister at Scrabble, because there is no way you can beat your grandma.

97. Eating Nestle Quik and Choco Bliss for breakfast for an entire summer.

98. Playing catch with your sister while the kids take a nap.

99. Talking about wine with your dad.

100. Knowing you’re going to fail you Spanish final, but showing up anyway, and your professor checking to make sure you are in the right place.

101. Walking through Barcelona by yourself all day, and not speaking a lick of Spanish.

It has been a roller coaster ride around here lately.

Me to Atlanta, Molly to Denver, a week of reprieve, now Molly to Atlanta.

I had a chance to peruse some blogs lately, and it has made me really appreciate the world we live in. 

The new pic is of Clarice this past fall.  She is a bundle of joy!  I was reading Karen’s blog today and it really made me cry.  Now, it didn’t help that I had just read my sister’s blog from yesterday, and her second one, technically the first but I read them out of order.  I know that I can be a better husband and father at times, but seeing the kids this morning made me truly appreciate what I have in my life.

The kids started in a new daycare, if you will, a couple of weeks ago.  They seem to like it, but what I like best about it is being able to walk them home, or in the case of this morning, walk with them to school as we call it.  This was the first time I had walked them there in the morning.  It was amazing! 

It is a less than a quarter of a mile, but with their little legs it takes about ten minutes.  They ate a snack as we walked because we had a lazy morning today and didn’t leave the house until 9am.  We walked without holding hands most of the way.  It was maybe the first time that I had allowed that to happen.  They stayed close, unless Rudolph turned his head to watch a bird, then his feet followed his gaze.  They were happy.  I was happy.

I used to get anxious and stressed when Molly went out of town and I had them alone.  The anxiety made the kids even more edgy, which led me to be more stressed.  Now I approach it much differently.  This is my special time with the.  Moments, like Karen said, that you might forget but you will never get back.

We swirl around in our lives trying to make the best of what’s around (Thanks Dave Matthews Band), but we often leave out the little bits that make a difference.  The packing of lunches, the waves from the bus, the walks to school, and the time we have to help the little ones get bigger.

Thanks for listening

So, I am a little bored so I changed the header pic.  I couldn’t find any cool pics from exotic places, so I found some pics of our house right after we bought it.  The cool thing about this theme is that you only get a little sliver of the whole pic, kind of like a blog into someones life.

This pic is from our family room.  Lovely wood paneling!!  I spent almost a month and a half sanding, priming and painting it white.  The actual color is called Turban Shell, don’t tell my wife it is actually white…sshh.

The “Tiffany” lamp is great.  It hung there until I painted the room, about a year after we moved in, and now hangs in my work room.  It is a lovely sea-foamy green with a hint of pee-pee yellow in it.  Recently the great glass globe fell from its perch, and crashed on the floor in a glorious manner.  The kids were fascinated by that feat.

The windows are one of the many reasons why we bought the house.  The picture window on the right is one of three in the house.  The smaller ones on the left are two of twenty-two throughout the house!  Needless to say, we won’t be replacing them anytime soon$$

Thought I’d share a little sliver of my life with you.  I hope you are having the best day you can!

Thanks for listening

I just got back today from a two and a half day seminar for my current sales job.  Call it brainwashing if you want, but I feel like I can make a real difference in people’s lives with what I am doing.  I work for a major home fire and security company, and I realized today that I am really in the business of saving lives.  I know that this may seem like a real stretch for most folks to make, but after what I heard and saw the last couple of days, it is true.

I got to hear a recorded call from our national customer monitoring center yesterday.  The home system called the CMC and alerted them of a sensor reading.  The center immediately called the home, it was 2am.  A groggy woman answered the phone.  The CMC asked the woman if everything was ok.  The woman seemed out of sorts, and said everything was fine.  The CMC told her that her carbon monoxide communicator had notified them of high levels of the toxic gas.  The woman seemed confused.  The CMC rep asked how she was feeling, and she said that she had a headache.  The CMC then asked if there were any other people in the house.  She said that her two sons and sister lived in the house as well.  The CMC asked if anyone else had been feeling bad that day.  The woman stated that her oldest son, a 7 year old, had said that his head hurt after dinner that night.  The CMC asked if the woman wanted us to contact the fire department, the woman siad she didn’t know what was going on.  The CMC said that they would contact the fire department and EMS and dispatch them to the home.  The CMC then advised the woman to gather her family and wait outside of the home until help arrived.–END OF CALL–

–NEW CALL–CMC answers and the woman is ecstatic.  She thanked the rep profusely for the call earlier that morning.  The woman said that when the fire department arrived they tested the basement for carbon monoxide, and the level came up as 39, and that 9 was enough to cause CO sickness.  The rep accepted the praise for the company and was audibly happy about the outcome.  The woman, who was 7 months pregnant, said that had it not been for the CMC the entire family would likely not be alive.–END OF CALL–

These were real calls.  I heard them, recording beeps and all.  It changed my perspective on what I am doing.  Yes, I am in a sales position.  Yes, I do do make money by selling the services and protection.  Yes, the more that is sold the more money I make.  Yes, I believe in the products and the services.  So yes, I do work for ADT Fire and Security, and yes, I do save lives for a living.

Thanks for listening

Whirlwind!

That’s the word to describe this weekend.

Easter Weekend was a torrent of family affairs.  Saturday my grandmother, sister, parents and uncle all came to our house for the day.  This was a little more stressful than most.  Beside my grandmother, and sister, we had no idea anyone else was coming until Thursday.  So the planning that usually happens over the course of about two weeks was smashed into 24 hours.  To add onto that, I had just started a new job a week prior, oh and the kids were off from school on Friday, so Molly had to stay home with them for the day.

We got through it just fine, and had a good time along the way.  My sister, grandmother, Molly, the kids and I all went to a local Easter fair.  It was fun, but terribly unorganized.  The kids got hot and cranky quick, and Rudolph only wanted to sit on the tractor all afternoon.  He is obsessed with them.  We sometimes even go to Sears so he can sit on all of the lawn tractors there.  My parents and uncle came later in the day, and we had a nice dinner, and the kids had an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. 

I have to say that I really enjoy the times when my grandmother comes to visit.  She is full of life, and hasn’t changed one lick in my lifetime.  She still looks the same and acts the same way.  She is very outspoken, but not to the point of being obnoxious, but sometimes she is rude, especially to passersby.  She makes comments that makes them turn their heads, which can sometimes be embarrassing, but she means well most of the time.  She is always inquisitive, she just finished her teaching certification the the tender age of 74!  She would kill me if she saw that number here, but I don’t think she’s a big blog reader.  She is always asking about my job and family, but gives me some great insight to our family’s past, as biased as it is, I still enjoy it.

Sunday, we got up with the kids, and Molly got them ready and went to church.  She usually takes them every Sunday, and I choose not to go.  She is ok with that, and that makes me love her even more every week.  I think that church is important, but I also think that you should choose to go rather than being forced or guilted into going.  She gets that.  This also my down time for the weekend.  With a few exceptions, we each get some “me” time each weekend when the other takes the kids and has some quality time with them.  Usually that me time is a couple extra hours of sleep, but this weekend I just chilled with some Sports-Center.

She called and I me them at her mom’s for Easter brunch.  Her sister and her family were there, and this is usually a good time for all, this time was no exception.  The kids love it because Nana lets them do and eat whatever they want, even with us there.  Both Clarice and Rudolph always ask for more brunch.  What this really means is hash-browns.  They love them and could probably eat them all on Sundays, but usually there is another cousin or toy to distract them from gorging on frozen then baked hash-browns.

From there we went home, got readjusted and started on the 2+hour journey to central Maryland to see my other grandparents, Nana and G2.  My sister and I always called my grandfather, well, grandfather, and it wasn’t until we were much older that he told us that sounded to formal, too late.  So when Clarice and Rudolph came around he decided that he didn’t want to be called great-grandfather, to formal he said.  So he decided on G2.  He likes to think that it is young and hip, and we let him believe that.

The kids have always been great travelers, and this trip was no exception.  When we got there they warmed up very quickly to everyone, thanks in part to the activities of the day before.  My parents were there, along with my great-aunt, her daughter, and her great nephew who she takes care of.  T3 is an interesting young man, and probably the most high maintenance boy I have ever met, but this time he seemed to have matured, and he even ate the dinner that was present.  He normally has his great-grandmother, my great aunt, cook him a steak and potato, this time he seemed content to eat Easter dinner.

My grandfather, G2, had a couple of strokes last year.  Over the past couple of family gatherings he has seemed to be slipping, but thankfully, he seemed much better this time.  I actually played cards with everyone this year.  The past couple of visits I have passed in order to make sure that the kids well behaved and entertained.  We always play Hearts, and he is always the score keeper.  My sister wrote in her blog about how that had been bad the last couple of times, but he seemed almost as sharp as ever, at 77.

We drove home, with full bellies and full hearts back to VA.  I really had a great weekend.  In the past I would have vented about some little thing that just seemed wrong or off, but not this time.  I have to say that either I have become more tolerant, more wise, or more oblivious, or maybe, just maybe, I am beginning to understand what I means to have a family that really cares about each other, and can make it through an entire weekend unscathed.  Yeah, that’s the one

Thanks for listening

I know, I said I would write more, and I haven’t.  So, I write now with way too much in my head.

I got a job.  It is not the one I wanted, or even one that I thought I would like doing, but so far it has been good.  I have some freedom and latitude in my schedule, even during training, so that is what brings us here today.

My job is a sales job, and is based on commission.  I do get a training wage but it is not much.  I have never worked on commission and I am a little scared about the prospect in these troubling financial times.  I talk about money today because I am really worried for the first time in about 7 years.  I, luckily and thankfully, have not had to worry much about money since about the middle of 2001.  I took my first “real” job in Charlotte, NC that year.  Molly and I have been doing just fine for ourselves since we moved in together in 2002, and married in 2003.  We have been able to live a comfortable life, and have our children in one of the best daycares/schools.  Now we are looking at ways to make ends meet, and make adjustments to our lifestyles to do that.  Ever since I left my last job in July of last year, and the severance ran out, I have been looking for a good job and new career move.  It’s not that I haven’t gotten offers, or been in the running for these jobs until the last decision, but with each week we have reached deeper into our savings.  It would not have been so bad if we hadn’t gone through the same thing for 6 months in 2006.

I am not obsessed with money, but I do enjoy the comforts that come with having what we need, and most of what we want.  I have always enjoyed finding the perfect gift for someone and not worrying about the price tag too much.  I want my children to have all the opportunities that are out there, and to have a solid education.  I now find myself looking at every price tag, and costing it out to the dollar, and where it fits in our budget.  I am compromising my educational ideals to ensure that our daughter will have a safe and learning environment, even with the conflict, because it make more fiscal sense.

I am not sure how most people are able to make the seemingly impossible seem possible.  Single parents with multiple kids are my heroes.  A friend of my sister has 4 kids, and makes it work! How, I have no idea, but she does it with a smile on her face

Thanks for listening

OK.

I have been thinking about this post for a long time.  I feel that at this point in the election process it is time for me to speak. 

I am a registered Democrat.  I believe in the processes that we have in place to elect our executive officials.  I do not believe that it is perfect.  There is no perfect process. 

One of the better forms of government is a parliamentary form of government, not our democratic republic.  As my friend Karen, so astutely, points out, we live in a republic, meaning that we elect officials to be our voice in the government.  In a true democracy we would all vote on bills, and legislation that would effect the laws and statutes of our country.  While this is ideal for the greater good, it is not plausible for a country with over 300 million citizens.  This system worked well in the Greek City-States of 2000+ years ago because of the small population, and because the concerns of the people were not as far reaching as ours in this day of global interaction.

I have supported the Democratic Party candidate for president since I was able to vote.  They have always aligned with my beliefs and concerns as a citizen.  This is the year when only two are in line with my beliefs and concerns.  The sad part about this is that  only one is left in the Democratic Primary.  John Edwards was my man.  He has very similiar ideals and matches well with what I see as the future for this country.  Barack Obama is the other.  His vision of hope and change is what we need at this time. 

Many within in the party, and even more from outside the party, have stated that Obama and Edwards did not have the experience to be the Commander in Chief.  They choose this title carefully  because of there lack of experience with military concerns.  And, while I appreciate their concerns, these candidates will have the opportunity to surround themselves with people of great experience and knowledge.  The President of the United States does not have to be an expert on everything, as our current president can attest to, they need to have the ability to seek out those who have the expertise and  then utilize that skill set to make the best decision.  I see Barack Obama as a person who has the substance and confidence to make the right choices, and to listen to those he surrounds himself with. 

Hillary Clinton has stated time and time again that she has the experience and can make the tough decisions because of that experience.  This leads me to think that she believes she can make the tough decisions with little input.  As a manager and leader of people I can tell you that making “tough” effectively can not be done alone, you need the input, and more importantly the buy-in, of those who have to implement and execute the decisions that are made. 

Hillary ISthe same-old-same-old.  She has about four more years experience than Obama in the U.S. Senate, and less experience as a law maker, given Obama’s experience in the Illinois State Legislature.  She is banking on her name, and her interactions with her husband as her “experience”.  This is bad.  This is how GWB got into office, not the husband part, but GHWB will suffice.  Do we really need that again?

I know that there are few choices for the executive leader for our country.  We have boxed ourselves into this two party system, something George Washington warned us against over 200 years ago, and it has led us to this point, again. 

On a side note, I can remember when Geraldine Ferraro ran as a Vice-Presidential candidate with Walter Mondale.  This was the first presidential election that I remember.  I also remember asking my dad, “We’ve never had a woman president?”  That was a revelation to a 9 year old kid.  We have the opportunity to write history.  We also have an opportunity to right history.

We have choices, as narrow as those choices may be, we do have a choice.  In fact, we have two choices, vote for one candidate for president, or to not vote at all.  The latter is not a choice for me, and I hope that it is not a choice for you.

Thanks for listening