Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Weekly Catch-Up

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July 24th. – I changed my cover photo.  Went with an Anne Hathaway shot because she’s way hotter than Christian Bale

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July 26th, this is off my Random Thoughts Facebook page.

Random Thoughts From A Random Guy(1)

July 28th. – This is also from my Random Thoughts Facebook page.  I so want one of these.

Random Thoughts From A Random Guy(2)

July 29th.  Was tagged in this photo which gives away my cover, thanks Cheri.

Jeff Laws(2)

And that’s it for Facebook. As you can tell, even though I use it a lot, I don’t post a lot..

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I’m only going to copy over actual tweets or retweets because the majority of my posts over there, are links to my blogs or Instagram photos which will be shown below.

July 23rd.  Checking in at the new Batman movie.

Jeff Laws (jccsst1022) on Twitter

A retweet about Penn State.

Jeff Laws (jccsst1022) on Twitter(1)

True story.  She turned to me and said, I could use one of those for Kitty.

Jeff Laws (jccsst1022) on Twitter(2)

July 25th. – @Warrenkluck would be the local morning show guy.  He was talking about the girl who sings that song so he played it in the background.  Something about want a sex tape of her or something.

Jeff Laws (jccsst1022) on Twitter(3)

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July 24th. – The only family member who gets up with me.

July 25th. – More rain coming.  Apparently the dry spelled has gotten me obsessed with rain.

July 28th. – Samantha helping with the cake for her party.

July 28th. – Me during the kitchen heat vs. the Air Conditioning wars.  I think you can figure out who’s winning.

July 28th. – We watched this for an hour.  It was so cheesy.

July 29th. – Kitty’s morning sun spot.

July 29th. – Party preperations.

July 29th. – I was going to order a drink when I got up to the window because I forgot, then I saw this and guess what he forgot to ask?

That was my week through Sunday evening.  Exciting stuff, I know.  I would have to do this if you all would just follow everything.  Actually, I would anyways, because this blog is a storage of my thoughts.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Sunday Randomness

We’ll go with the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good. – We had Samantha and Trevor’s birthday parties today.  We weren’t going to combine them but we had trouble getting a weekend that worked with some of us.  We are about a month late on Samantha’s and half a month early on Trevor’s.  You can see why we just combined them.  We had it at the “family” pool.  I think a good time was had by all, especially the kids.  I invited my ex sister-in-law and her family as well as my ex mother-in-law.  Instead of just calling them those names, I will refer to them as friends, because that’s what they are.  They’ve all had their own issues with theEx and the JackAss so we have that in common.  Plus she said her kids never get together with my kids anymore because of the JackAss so we invited them so the cousins could hang out.  It was good to see them as well, they are getting so grown up.  Anyways, here’s some photos from the party.

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Like I said, good time was had by all.  All the parents fought for shade while the kids swam.  Cheri was awesome with all the food and cakes.  And she did pretty good in the heat.  Her back is broken now from all the standing the last couple of days but she’s going to try to get in to the Chiropractor tomorrow.  That will help, hopefully.

The Bad. – I found out yesterday that theEx and the JackAss moved last week without telling me.  My kids even stayed at their new house one night.  I’m pretty sure she has to notify me that they moved.  I do have the right to know where my kids are.  They won’t be getting the kids back until I have an address and they are lucky I’m not a dick, because I could give the kids back next weekend, go to their old house, and call the cops and tell them nobody lives here and this is where my kids are supposed to be.  Like I said, they are lucky I’m not a dick.  Actually, they are lucky I won’t put my kids in the middle of their petty bullshit.  I just have no idea why they wouldn’t tell me, they actually didn’t tell their own family until after they moved, and that was a btw comment on Facebook.  Oh yeah, remember a few days when they wouldn’t drive Samantha here so she could go to the water park because she had no money?  That’s probably because she hired movers.

The Ugly. – Or what we like to call WTF Did They Just Say?  This is a special edition because it’s all about me.  In the trifecta.

First off, the other day I was at work and my foreman was talking about an ex employee

Foreman - “Blah, blah, blah, he was even more of a pain in the ass than you”.

Me – “Wait, what?  Pain in the ass?  Why?  Because I show up everyday and do my job with less mistakes than anyone else, that’s a pain in the ass to you?”

Foreman – “No, your smart ass mouth is a pain in my ass".”

Me – “Well you can solve that by staying the hell off my line and quit talking to me.”

I know, employee of the week over here.  That was probably the smart ass mouth he was talking about.

Secondly, while at the party mentioned above.  I was making fun of my wife because she was giggling in her sleep last night.  Then I said, in front of my mom, that I’m waiting for her (my wife, not my mom) to have the skiing dream, then made the arm motions.  Do you get it?  Come on think about it.  Pretend your laying down at skiing, what motion does your hands make.  Yeah, that’s right.  I’m a perve.  Even in front of my mom.

Thirdly, while Facebooking this evening, I came across a photo that was taken at the party mentioned above of my cousin’s son, with his girlfriend.  And I commented on it.

(1) Family

Yeah, that’s right.  I went there.  At least they aren’t skinny jeans.  But it is almost 90° and humid and he dressed liked that.  He deserved to be made fun of.  His girlfriend commented back that it was about time someone supported us.  See, all in good fun.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

To sleep, or not to zzzzzz

I haven’t talked about my wife’s MS in awhile so think of this as an update on her.

She’s been on Copaxone for a little while now.  The only issues she has with the drug itself is the shot site on her legs.  She doesn’t seem to have much problems with her arms or her stomach, but her legs always swell up and look really red.  There is no way to actually tell if the drug is doing what it’s supposed to since it’s job is to slow down the progression of MS.  So no real issues there.

One of the two issue’s that’s really been affecting her is all the heat we’ve had this summer.  Heat absolutely kicks her ass so she does what she can to not go out in it.  She’s missed a few gatherings with the family (birthdays, 4th of July, ect) because she can’t be outside and they are held outside.  Tomorrow we are celebrating the kids birthdays, outdoors.  It’s supposed to be 86° and sunny, she’s going to suffer through it as much as she can since it’s the kids birthday.  We have some shade so as long as it’s not majorly humid, she should be ok.

But it’s not the only heat that bothers her.  Today, she is baking everything for the party.  So it’s warm in here and she’s been sweating profusely.  Between being in the kitchen and laying on the floor to stretch out her back, she’s been at it for around 6 hours.  But in order to keep herself as cool as she can, the air is kicked way down.  Here I am.

It hasn’t been so bad most of the time because it’s been so hot outside that the AC hasn’t been able to keep up and keep it cool enough.  But we use hoodies around here all year long.  She’s always apologizing that she keeps it so cold, I keep telling her we can put more clothes on.  It doesn’t bother me at all.  I think it bothers her more that she’s freezing us out then it does me.

So now if we can do something to fix the arthritis in her back, she would be doing better.  With all the baking today and being on her feet as much as she has, she’s been hitting the meds to alleviate the pain.  Which brings us to the second issue she has to deal with.

It’s all about sleep.  Most nights, she can’t.  Some days, she can’t stay awake.  Right now she’s in a drug induced stuper and trying to stay awake because of the pain meds.  But come bed time, she’ll fall asleep, only to wake up a little while later.  Eventually fall asleep again, to wake up a little later.  Part of it is me, part of it is the cat, almost all of it is because she’s way too light of a sleeper.  During the day, if she does too much (which she tends to do) it exhausts her body and she’s tired.

If she could find a happy medium somewhere, to only be tired at night and be awake during the day, she’d be fine.  But until she finds it, or the right combination of meds to not put her to sleep, she’ll do like she does with all of her other symptoms.  She’ll keep pushing on through it.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Manning up

I’m entering my first Dude Write contest this week.  Because I’m a dude, and I write,  or type, whatever.  I tried to think of something manly to write about, but in other men’s eyes, I may not be manly.  I don’t grill and I don’t know crap about cars.  I can’t fix things and I don’t know crap about power tools.  I don’t hunt, fish or drink beer.  I cry at sad and happy movies (something in my eye).  Maybe I shouldn’t write about manly things.

Or should I?  Because I’m way more manlier than the youth of today.  You would never catch me in skinny jeans, even back when I was skinny.  Seriously, skinny jeans?  It’s even worse when they roll the bottoms up and it looks like capris.  What the hell happened to the next generation?

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I’m all for being in touch with our feminine side, but that doesn’t mean you have to act feminine.  I’m all for women’s rights but the older I get, the more lopsided it’s becoming.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying only real men get in fights and blow stuff up, and this isn’t towards the stay at home dad’s out there.  Taking care of your kids is the noblest of professions.  But skinny jeans?  Glasses with no glass in them?  Order drinks called Caffe Vanilla Frappuccino Light Blended (taken off the Starbucks menu, I have no idea what it is.)  They don’t even watch sports.  You know the guys I’m talking about.  We’ve all seen them around.  I’ve seen them in my own home.  They are my daughter’s type.  I guess that could be a good thing.  I don’t have to worry about them smacking her around because she could probably kick their asses.

I want to say something when I see them out on the street.  Grab them and shake them and yell “what the hell are you wearing?”  but I’d probably just go nuts when he looks at me and says “YOLO”.  AAAGGGGHHHHH!   Instead, I kind of look like this.

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I don’t know what to think anymore.  While I may not be manly for the things I listed above.  I do the most manliest thing out there, I work to take care of my family.  I am a provider.  I take care of my wife and kids.  You know, when it doesn’t interfere with watching sports.  So I guess if these kids grow up to take care of their families, then I guess I’ll have to concede that they too, grew up to be men.

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And when I’m old and have my pants hiked way up, where they look like capris, hopefully I’ll be proud of the men they have become.  All I know is, I’m not very proud of them now.

Dude Write

I am participating in the Dude Write Starting Lineup this week where you can find some excellent posts by bloggers who happen to be dudes.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Why Hipsters, Why?

Before I get to today’s post, I wanted to let you know that I created a blog button.  I took all my mad skills and spent hours making it.

RandomThoughtsButton

Yes, it took me hours.  I have no mad skills.  I haven’t created the html link yet.  Maybe this weekend.  And yes, that I can actually do.  Playing with pictures, no, html code, yes.  I’m weird, I know.

So today, I’m at work and my mind is thinking “How the hell do hipsters do it?”  Do what, you ask?

I realize Zach here isn’t a hipster, or at least I don’t think he is, what the hell do I know.  But the point I’m making is, full beard and the hat.  Now in the winter, sure, I understand.  But at work, you may remember, is beyond hot.  And these idiots are still wearing them.  Like I said, I don’t know how they do it.  Maybe it was because I looked like this, this morning.

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Now that’s hairy for me, when you can see the gray on my head, it’s too long.  It’s nowhere near a full beard, and I was sweating my ass off with all of that hair.  If you make the pic bigger you can see my sweat.  Go ahead, I know you want to.

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This is what it was outside, notice the RealFeel at 93°.  That’s with humidity, which is what most of the heat in the plant comes from.  I usually double the difference to figure out the temp with humidity inside.  So it’s 6° between actual and RealFeel.  So I add 12° to the inside temperature because the humidity in the plant is usually close to 75% which is around double what it is outside.  So what was the temp inside.

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104° + 12° = 116°.  And there are idiots walking around in those stocking hats or toboggan or whatever you call them.  The beard, ok, I get that because it’s a style, your not thinking about work.  But the hat, come on, just to look a certain way?  To me that makes you an idiot.  I actually asked the kid at one point awhile back if he wears it to keep his last brain cell from escaping, but that’s another story.  Anyways, back to me, because it’s my blog and it’s all about me.  That’s probably why I don’t have many followers.  But back to me.  I came home and shaved, because even with just that little bit of hair, I was roasting.  And I bet tomorrow I will feel a lot cooler, even if it’s not that cool.

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See, doesn’t that look cooler already.  I only use an electric razor on everything.  Straight razors are like my dress clothes, only for weddings and funerals.  That spot that looks like it’s bare, is actually gray.  I have a similar spot on the other side.  Because I’m old, and that’s what happens.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Guns & Women

My problem with picking a side, is a lot of times I agree with both sides.  Abortion and Gun Control are 2 of them.

With abortion, on one hand, it should be the women’s choice but shouldn’t the father have a say?  I understand that the woman is the one that has to go through the pain and the change in her body so I agree it’s their choice.  But it seems like the father should be at least allowed to comment about it.  Say their peace, so to speak.

On one hand, I want the teenagers getting pregnant to have to carry the baby to term as a punishment for being stupid.  But on the other, I understand there are way too many kids in the systems care now and we don’t need to add to that.  I understand that it could cause all kinds of schooling issues.  But on the other hand, I’m a strong believer in there are consequences to actions.  I want it to be hard on them so they learn, but I also know these are the years that are impressionable and most teenagers wouldn’t recover in school from that.  I think we should make it a law that they can’t have sex.  No jail time, that’s just ridiculous.  But there should be some kind of penalty for it.  Right now, the girl gets pregnant, the guys gets away free.  They should have to suffer a penalty as well.  Let’s face it, kids are so nonchalant about sex anymore, they damn near all have sex before they are even old enough to drive.  I don’t know what that penalty would be, but it would have to be something that works.  You couldn’t go the Scarlet letter route, let’s face it, the guys wearing the letters would know to just look for a girl with a letter and hook up.  That’s just the way kids are now.

On one hand, rape victims should definitely be allowed to have an abortion.  It wasn’t their fault or choice.  Yeah, I have nothing for the other hand on that.

As you can see, I’m all over the place.  And notice I didn’t even touch on what age it’s considered murder.  I have no clue what to believe there.  I guess what it comes down to for me is, I would think less of you for having a baby and not taking proper care of it, then I would if you had an abortion.  I guess with that line, I’m saying I’m pro-abortion.

And gun control, I definitely don’t think everybody should have guns.  The problem is, everybody does.  There is no way you can take away all the guns now because they are all out there.  These people who want to take them away, their argument makes no sense to me.  Sure, the law-abiding citizens will turn in their guns, but the ones killing people aren’t exactly known for following the law.  There are all kinds of stories where everyday citizens foiled a robbery or such because they were armed.  If everyone was armed, maybe people would think twice about robbing people and or stores.  But there would also be a lot more accidents and a lot more children getting a hold of them.  There are just too many people that have no business carrying because they have no common sense.  But like I said, they are out there now.  You can’t take them back.

I don’t know if more people carrying firearms will stop people from going on shooting sprees or not.  Those people are just lost in their own head and it won’t matter.  Maybe if someone had a gun in Colorado, they could have stopped it.  Maybe not.  There is no way of knowing that.  So anti-gun can say it could have been stopped if you take the guns off the street, but I don’t think it would have.  He had illegal weapons anyways.  But he may have been stopped short had there been someone in the theater with a weapon.  Not saying it would have, but it’s a possibility.  Personally, I get tired of them using the incident as a stepping stone to their agenda’s.  The only thing that should be talked about are the victims and the victims family.  Even the survivors have more than enough to go through.  Let’s have compassion for them, none of them deserved what they got.  Nobody deserves to go through that.  All I ever hear are gun and anti-gun sentiments.  I’ve heard some survivor stories and that’s all I care to know.  Let me know that these people are trying to move on.

So on the gun issue, I guess I’m for them, because I think it’s too late to go back.

So let me know, am I right?  Am I wrong?  Or am I just confused?  What say you?  Want to know my side on some other burning issue, comment below.

Weekly Catch-Up

note-This was supposed to post on Sunday, but I got sidetracked.

Since this blog is essentially for me to go back and check out my life, I am going to post my media stuff here.  When I was typing out the story of how my wife and I got together for Red and Brett, I wanted to use the original tweet that started it all, and I did, but it took me forever to find it.  I even went to go back to some of the Facebook posts when we started dating but with timeline, it’s actually a pain in the ass to go back to a specific post.  So I’m going to post all my crap on this blog, you get a view into my life, and I get a chronicle of it added to my blog.  I used to do these but showed each post that I did for multiple blogs.  I’ll stick with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram photos for this reboot of the Weekly Catch-Up’s.  The Facebook posts are from my personal profile, not the one I set up for my blog.  I don’t really post anything there but blog stuff since nobody’s following it anyways.  There won’t be a lot of Twitter because most of that is plugging my blogs as well or copy’s of my status’ on Facebook.  I also use Google+ but again, I only post blog fodder there because I don’t really use it much. 

I only went back 7 days because in the future, I plan on doing one of these once a week.

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Thursday, July 18th, 2012 - Reposted this photo. It’s a very good question.

Posted this on Thursday as well.  Being as I live in Notre Dame country and a lot of my family and friends are Notre Dame fans, I tend to post some Michigan stuff to my page.

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And that’s it for Facebook.  While I use it all the time and check it multiple times a day, I don’t like to post a lot of stuff unless I feel led to.

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I’m only going to copy over actual tweets or retweets because the majority of my posts over there, on links to my blogs or Instagram photos which will be shown below.

Sunday, July 15th. – If you follow the NFL at all, you’ll like this.

Jeff Laws (jccsst1022) on Twitter

Monday, July 16th. – As you can see, I generally retweet funny stuff.

Jeff Laws (jccsst1022) on Twitter(1)

Wednesday, July 18th. – Project Unbreakable was asking that you tweet using their hashtag to see if they could get on the trending list.  If you don’t know what it is, click the link and find out.  I don’t hardly ever tweet anything when I’m asked to unless it’s something worthy, I feel that this cause is.

Jeff Laws (jccsst1022) on Twitter(2)

Sunday, July 22nd. – Finally, another funny (and sports related) retweet.

Jeff Laws (jccsst1022) on Twitter(3)

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Monday, July 16th. – My new guilty pleasure (Duck Dynasty)

Wednesday, July 18th. – The rain is coming.

Wednesday, July 18th. – And it’s here.

And that’s all for this week.  Nothing too exciting.  We’ll see what the new week brings.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Random, or is it?

I’m not sure what to type.  I have a lot on my mind, but it’s all over the place.  The bad - theEx and the JackAss have pissed me off again.  I’m depressed about the world in general after the Colorado shootings.  I’m watching the White Sox after they’ve lost 5 straight.  The good – had a great date with my wife to see the new Batman.  Had an equally enjoyable lunch with my wife and oldest daughter afterwards.  I’m watching the White Sox.  The meh – I’m actually following my Twitter feed this evening.  I’m watching the White Sox.

So in general, this is going to be a random post.

First on the agenda, theEx and the JackAss.  Now I know what your thinking, I don’t want to read about these idiots again.  So don’t, skip a paragraph.  First off, out of the blue this afternoon, I get this text from the JackAss.

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First off, Trevor’s hair is a little on the long side, but believe me, nowhere near as long as he is suggesting it is.  We’ve had the kids for maybe 3 days total in the last 2 weeks.  (Remember this text about not giving her rights, my ass).  So, they’ve had them most of the last 2 weeks, but it’s my fault that Trevor’s hair is a little long.  WTF ever.  BTW, my wife’s name is spelled Cheri and my name is spelled Jeffrey.  JackAss.  I guess I’m asking for too much since he cant spell personally or shaving, or use capital letters, proper punctuation or spaces after a period.  You see my response, straight and to the point.  And it really isn’t his concern.  Why am I getting this text you ask?  Because theEx was at work and apparently he wanted to start something.  Problem is, I don’t bite.  Then you can read his threat.  One thing you need to know about me, you can threaten me all you want.  I’m unlikely to do what you want.  In this case, we will, because we were already planning on cutting it.  Cheri had actually thought about cutting the day they went back there but decided to wait until later in the week when we got them back.  But again, it isn’t really his concern.  I let it go, you can’t bait me if I don’t give a shit about you.

Like those infomercials, but wait, there’s more!  I get a text from a parent of one of Samantha’s friends asking if she can go to a waterpark with them tomorrow.  Cost is $23.  So I call theEx and tell her.  Of course, it’s a no because she doesn’t want to pay the $23.  I text the parent and tell her that her mom won’t let her come.  I go about planning Samantha’s birthday party that we are having this Sunday.  I text Screenshot_2012-07-23-20-16-23theEx (to the left) and ask her to have Samantha call me up, I get the “k” (don’t get me started on how much people using k like that annoys me).  I wait 20 minutes and ask if she’s going to call, then check out the response from the JackAss at the bottom of the screen pic.  Really?  Is he 5 years old?  Are you seeing what I have to deal with?  After that Samantha calls me and I find out who all she’s inviting, after I get the info, she tells me “Daddy, I have $13 but I don’t know where to get the other $10”  My heart broke for her.  So I told her, ask your mom to bring you home tomorrow morning and I will get you to your friends and give you the money and then she can pick you up here, afterwards.  TheEx asks what time so I tell her I’ll get back to her and contact the kids parent.  I call her back afterwards and tell her she needs to be at the kids house by 9am.  She says “I don’t know, I’ll let you know.”  So I tell her let me know ASAP because I need to tell the other parent then hang up.  Then I get this text, notice it’s from the JackAss and not theEx.  Read the bottom 2 boxes, you’ve already read what’s above.

 

#1.  The we are not made of money Screenshot_2012-07-23-20-16-02comment, they went to the fair yesterday and probably spent a fortune.  They eat out constantly.  They sure as hell don’t spend any money on the kids.  And they only pay $27/week in support for those 2 kids.  Not to mention, I can’t tell you how often I heard “he has all kinds of money coming in” when they were dating.

#2.  I didn’t make it last minute, her friend did.  That’s what having kids does, it makes you deal with everything last minute.

#3.  Plans?  TheEx said she was working at 10:30 and you were going to Fort Wayne.  Where are the kids while your both away, oh yeah, home alone.  A 10 and a 7 year old, home alone.

#4.  Really, 8 minutes later you’re going to correct, and if.  What about minute and all your other errors.  And how am I going to pick them up anyways, I thought you had plans.  If your going to lie, your going to have to get a lot smarter than your 5th grade education will allow.

Ok.  I just did a word count and I was at 892 before this paragraph.  So maybe this won’t be a random post.  We’ll see if you get to hear all the rest I had going on up above at a later date.