MS update and art class

I’ve mentioned before that my wife is now taking Copaxone for her MS.  The medicine itself hasn’t been an issue but the shot sites are starting to be a problem.  She’s been taking it now for about 5 months so the sites are really starting to get used up over and over.  They are daily injections and she rotates from each arm, each leg and each hip.  But like I said, 5 months of shots means approximately 25 shots in each spot so you can see why it’s becoming a problem.  Certain spots looked more bruised than others, people probably think I beat my wife.

But this post isn’t about all that, the people we get the Copaxone from sent us a couple of things I want to show off.  I know, it’s been 5 months but I’m remembering them now.

This thing is way cool and my wife and I love it.  We used to have to keep a sharp’s container to put all the needles in and then find a place to get rid of it when it’s full.  What this does is, you stick the needle in the small hole on the side (there’s a small hole in the silver part), then you press the other 2 ends together, like nail clippers, and it cuts the needle off and stores it inside of it.  Now you just put the cap back on where the needle was and just throw it away in your trash.  They said it holds up to 500 needles before you need to get a new one.

I know it probably doesn’t mean much for you, but we struggled trying to find a place to get rid of the containers of needles on her other shots.  Some places we called just said to throw them away, which didn’t seem right to us.

They sent us this fridge magnet.  Your supposed to take out the yellow section and insert a photograph showing why you take Copaxone.  I got bored one evening and drew the picture of my wife, she’s the one with the huge hair and the butt chin.  It took her a few days, but she noticed it and drew the picture of me in all my handsomeness.  Then my daughter saw it and wrote the Love Forever on it.  We are easily entertained here.

the Writing was on the windows

I had picked the kids up on Sunday night from theEx to bring back home for the week.  And we were almost to the apartments when I saw this

In case you can’t read it, is says – we went to Chicago.  So here I am a few days later and I’m still trying to figure out what I saw.  So here’s some guesses.

• Facebook was down so they posted their status on the back of their SUV.
• Someone needed to write down a message but didn’t have a pen.
• They believe that nobody else has been to Chicago and therefore get bragging rights.  Probably Notre Dame fans to.
• They believed they were in a Zombie apocalypse but lost the rest of their party, so they wrote on their SUV where they would be and left for Chicago.  The rest of the party showed up and took the SUV to go find them.  (A nod to “the Walking Dead”)
• It’s another one of those Facebook status things that the women were doing where they post the color of bra they have on.  This one was “we went to ____” post your favorite musical.
• They robbed a bank and put that on the back to throw off the cops.
• They were lying about where they really went so they wrote their lie on the back so they wouldn’t forget.

 

Anybody else have any idea’s?

Cousins-Chanting

I’ve spoke of the cousins before.  Here is another story for you.

These 2 sets of brothers, pretty much grew up together.  Even lived in the same household for some of it.  During the days, they played sports outside with the neighborhood.  Baseball, wiffle ball, football, basketball and whatever else they could come up with.  This isn’t the story about playing catch in the driveway at night and getting a baseball to the head, nor is it about the soccer ball breaking the lamp out front of the house.  This one was actually intentional.

3 of the cousins were awake, the Midge wasn’t.  I couldn’t tell you who had the idea but what I remember is we went downstairs to wake the Midge up.  They shook him awake, he was groggy.  They told him it was time to get up, he didn’t want to.  “But Midge, we’re all up and want to play some wiffle ball”.  “No, let me sleep” he cried.  “But it’s almost 12 and the whole neighborhood is out there waiting for you, come on, we need one more” they pleaded.

“I don’t know, I’m so tired.”  “The whole neighborhood is out there, chanting your name” and the 3 cousins started to chant his name.  They started softly “Midge, Midge” and got a little louder “MIDGE, MIDGE” and finally the Midge broke down and crawled out of bed.  The 3 cousins took off while he got dressed.  The Midge drug himself upstairs and headed outside only to be met with complete darkness.

He came back inside to see the 3 cousins laughing at him as he glances at the clock to see that they hadn’t lied, it was almost 12.  At night.

Randomness

Went to the dentist this morning to have the teeth extracted that I mentioned here.  It was supposed to be last Friday but the dentist got sick so they rescheduled for this morning.  He really had to work at one to get it out.  He said because I didn’t get it taken care of 2 years ago that it fused to the bone.  They informed me that he got a piece of my lip and tongue so those will probably be bruised once the swelling goes down.  I’ll let you know if it ever goes down.  The nurse told me she was impressed with all the work he had to do to get that one tooth out, she said I never flinched.  The dentist kept asking if I was ok, I think he was checking to see if I passed out because I just laid there with my eyes closed.  I treat the dentist like I do the doctor, I trust that they know what they are doing so I don’t worry about it.  I plan on going back to work tomorrow but she said I would be really sore so we’ll see.

I’ve been a blogging fool lately though.  I’ve gotten a bunch of posts typed up for this blog and a bunch for My Sports Obsession.  Although that blog is easy to post because it isn’t like this one where it’s mostly about what I type.  That one is post a picture and talk a little about it.  Here’s what I got typed up so far.

1. Cousins – Chanting
2. the First of an Obsession
3. MS update and art class
4. the Writing was on the Windows
5. Chase Fridge

I don’t know what order I’ll post them in, and I have a few other idea’s to type out.  I’ll have to select some for the weekly Dude Write contests too.  I don’t think I’ll ever win it all there but it gets my traffic up and those posts I usually have a lot of interaction in my comments section.  I’ve picked up some followers through there as well.  I write for myself but I’m not ashamed to admit it’s a nice boost for my ego when I have readers.

My wife just informed me that she thinks I’m getting fatter.  We don’t have a scale here so I’ll have to weigh myself tomorrow at work, if I go.  It’s a heavy duty industrial scale so it’ll hold my fat ass.  I guess it’s a good thing I’m on soft foods for a few days.  Maybe I can drop 100 lbs to please my wife.  I thought she loved the Buddha, but apparently not.  Maybe it’s the swollen mouth that makes me look fatter.

INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE

I have this song stuck in my head.  I heard it this morning after the dentist.  Cheri was still sleeping (trying to get rid of a migraine) so I sat down at the kitchen table with my laptop (to blog) and plugged my headphones into my phone and was listening to my spotify playlist when this came on.  My wife said she didn’t remember Michael and Janet doing a song together.  So here’s my proof.

Kind of a weird video, but what do you expect from the Jackson’s.

I better go, my mouth is starting to hurt and I don’t think it’s completely stopped bleeding yet.  I need to stick a tampon up there or something.  I have to leave to go get the kids from school in a hour and Trevor has Boy Scouts tonight.  Plus Cheri has some shopping planned, picking up a few things, but shopping none the less.  No rest of the fat and bleeding.

The latest work drama

So, yesterday’s drama at work would concern our bonus.  First off, when I started here almost 13 years ago, we got a $10/weekly attendance bonus (if you showed up every day that week) plus a monthly bonus that was based on profits which average between $350 and $400 (take home).  Now, we have no attendance bonus and we have a quarterly bonus that usually runs between $100 and $150.  I understood when they took the bonus’ away because the company did fall on hard times (although it’s my belief it was still making money) but now that we are up and going with more work than ever (at least we were a few months ago) we got very little back.

With that being said, you all know about going from 3 8 hour shifts to 4 12 hour shifts because we had so much metal.  Today they posted in the break room that we will not be receiving a quarterly bonus because when we had a bad transition time when switching shifts.  Really?  So because management didn’t take the time to have people ready to come in when we switched to 12 hour shifts, we are being punished.  Maybe before you make a huge decision about adding another shift, you should wait at least a month before the transition takes place instead of saying “We’re switching to 12 hour days next week” then can’t figure out why we aren’t getting any metal done when you’ve divided the work force to run in 4 shifts.

And by the way, in those meetings where we discussed (you told us) we were switching, you had said that we have so many orders and metal coming in that you don’t foresee us slowing down for a long time.  Funny how 4 months later we have very little metal to keep us busy.  Good thing you don’t have to pay us overtime anymore otherwise you would run out of money.  Or you could take our bonus, apparently that works too.

Google maps stardom

I got bored the other night.  I was looking something up on Google maps and started messing around.  Checking out places I’ve lived and such.

The green arrow shows my car at work.  It also shows the multitudes of people who can’t park.  When we get to work, all the empty spots are filled with 3rd shift’s cars.  I parked on the outside of the lot because there were no spots when I got there.  I tend to get there last second.  I clock in every day at 6:58.

This is in front of what is now my brother’s house.  But at the time it was taken, I lived there.  It’s also the house I grew up in.  But I digress, both those cars were owned by me.  The one on the right I still drive but I’ve had it for 9 years now.  The white car was a beater that I bought as a 2nd car for my ex and I.  I haven’t lived at this house in probably 5 years so it’s an old photo.  I want to say that would be someone else (probably the ex) getting out of the car because I would like to think I would have noticed a Google car going by.

It’s kind of hard to miss the camera mount on top.  My wife and I have seen this car while sitting at a stop sign.  The problem is, we were lost at the time and haven’t been able to find ourselves on Google maps because we don’t really know exactly where we were.

My cars used to be outside another place I lived but that picture has since been updated and they are no longer there.

How many times are your vehicles on Google maps?  Have you ever seen a Google maps car?

Head case

I’ve explained before how my work went from 3 8 hr shifts. to 4 12 hr shifts.  Don’t worry, I won’t complain about the hours.  This complaint is because all of our maintenance men and operators on the other shifts are short.  On 8 hour shifts, all the maintenance department employees worked on 1st shift, so any work that was done, was done on our shift.  On the 12 hour shifts, there is at least 1 maintenance guy on each shift.  They have given the duties of any crane maintenance to one of the off shifts.  Why does this matter?

I run an overhead crane.  The crane box is suspended in the air on a coil, so when you let it go, it bounces back up so they aren’t at your head level and are just above it.  On the 8 hour shifts, when they were fixing the coils, they would always have me stand there and set it to recoil enough that the box was just over my head because I was the tallest guy on the line.  Now that they do it on the off shifts, I don’t know who they use or if they use anybody, but gradually, they are replacing all the coils and putting the crane boxes about 6 feet off the catwalk.  The problem is, I’m 6’3”.  Which means I keep hitting my head on them.

As you can tell by the picture to the left, the crane boxes are solid metal, and thick metal protects the buttons.  In other words, it hurts like hell when these hit me in the head (or I hit my head on them).  About a month ago, I took one of the corners of the box right into my temple.  For the next hour, if I opened my mouth, I could feel it in my jaw.  And of course, since it was the least possible moment that I could deal with it, I got a case of the yawns.  It was a very painful hour.

The next tallest person on my line is under 6 feet so I’m the only one who has issues with it.  Which of course means nothing will ever change.  Unless they bring them down lower because that seems like something they would do.  It would be something about it being a safety issue because that crap is always backwards.

Cousins–Now that’s a fire

Today, we will try to get to the truth of one of the great mysteries of these 4 cousins.  Names have been changed to protect the innocent and the not so innocent.  Our cast, 2 sets of brothers.  The Dink and the Hulk and Sluggo and the Midge.  The Dink and Sluggo are the same age and the Hulk and the Midge are the same age, but there is a 3 year difference between the Dink and Sluggo (older) and the Hulk and the Midge (younger).

Our story takes place in the backyard of the Dink and the Hulk’s house.  It was a spring afternoon.  The parents were away at work and the 4 boys were screwing around like boys do.  They weren’t rolling grass in notebook paper and smoking it or throwing rocks at Mercedes or anything like that (whole other stories) but one of the boys had an idea.  There may or may not have been a discussion but the boys started gathering some of the dead grass from the backyard, and there may have been a few other things thrown under there.  Under where, you ask?  I’ll get to that.  After a decent pile of grass, sticks and twigs.  One of the boys had an idea to help it along.  They went into the garage and grabbed some lighter fluid.  Because it was the 80’s and nobody had gas grills yet.  This particular boy sprayed some of that on the pile.

What comes next is up for debate.  One of the boys lights a match and tosses it on the pile under the picnic table.  That’s right, under the wooden picnic table, they started a fire.  The stories all vary here and this cub reporter hasn’t gotten a straight answer about how big the fire was.  But there was multiple reports of using wooden bats to hit out the fire.  Nobody remembers how the fire eventually gets put out or how much of the picnic table got burned.  But I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.  None of the boys admit to anything and none of the boys have recollection of any punishment, at least none they would admit to.  There has even been reports of a neighborhood hoodlum who goes by the name Murph to have been involved.  But typing this story out 20+ years later, nobody has much memory left of this incident.

This reporter has heard from all 4 of the conspirators and 3 of the 4 vaguely remember Sluggo starting the fire.  But Sluggo denies this and offers up the Murph theory.  So I guess even after all the interviews I’ve conducted 20+ years later, that this will remain a mystery to be debated at all the family functions.  As it is now, when 3 of those 4 get together, the 1 who isn’t there takes the blame.  This reporter has his theories and thinks he knows who lit the fire, but here at Random Thoughts from a Random Guy, we only speak the truth and not conspiracies

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.  Stop by, read them all and vote for me and 4 others.

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?

I have a question for all of you.  It’s a very simple, basic question.  What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?

I have 2 answers.  Work days, I get dressed then go pee.  Non-work days, I go pee.  When I get dressed before I go pee it literally takes me 2 minutes to get dressed because I have to pee.

The reason I ask, is because both of my kids never pee first thing.  My wife and I literally have to tell them to go before we leave to take them to school.  Neither one of them get up at all during the night to go so I don’t understand how they can not go after sleeping for 11 hours.  If I got up, got dressed, had some breakfast, got my stuff ready to go to school, I would have already peed myself.  Trevor usually runs to the bathroom and you can hear him dancing while trying to get his pants undone.  The problem is, that’s not until after he eats breakfast.  I have never in my life knew of anyone who didn’t go pee fairly quickly after getting up.  Granted, I don’t have much knowledge of most peoples pee habits, but it just seems like most people go right away.  Cheri posted the question on her facebook.

So you can see, I’m not far off.  Most people go pee first.

With Samantha, it’s not only a morning thing.  She will go most of the day at school without going.  Some days, she doesn’t go until she gets home.  I’ve told her time and time again that she is going to have bladder issues but she won’t listen.  I guess when she starts getting infections, she’ll figure it out, maybe.

So what say you?  Am I wrong in this thinking?  Do your kids go first thing or is this something they learn to do later in life?

TBell and Wally Hell

Does anyone else get annoyed when you go through the drive-thru at Taco Bell and they ask how you are doing?  Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the question so much but the fact that I’m supposed to order after they say it.  The conversations should be like this.

Taco Bell “Hello, how are you today?”

Me “Just fine, thanks”

Taco Bell “Great, may I take your order?”

Me “One of everything, please”

If that was the way the ordering went, I would be cool with it.  But, sometimes I always get the lazy teller.

Taco Bell “Hello, how are you today?”

Me “Just fine, thanks”

Taco Bell “……………..”

That’s right, I wait until they ask to take my order.  For all I know, they aren’t ready.

Taco Bell “…………….”

I’m just sitting here, staring at the speaker, and waiting.  I don’t know what they want for me to do next, they haven’t told me.

Taco Bell “Go ahead and proceed with your order”

Me “I’ll take one of everything, please”

My wife is used to it now, but I think it annoyed her that I made them ask.  I guess in a way, it does make me sound like I think I’m better than them but the way I see it is I’m giving them a courtesy.  I feel like if I just start telling them my order without them asking, that it makes me sound like I’m above them.  Here’s my order, I don’t care if your ready kind of attitude.   I think I’m doing the right thing, I guess it doesn’t matter.

And while I’m bitching about Taco Bell, our local one that I frequent, is located in front of what used to be an outlet mall type of building.  A church bought the building and redid the parking lot along with an auto parts store on the corner.

As you can tell, when you enter and follow the directions (yellow arrows) you have to go all the way around the median and then hang a sharp left and cut through the parking lot to get to the Taco Bell.  That is the only entrance to the TBell.  If you come down the backside of it, you still have to drive all the way around it to get to the parking lot or drive-thru.  So what are the green arrows?  That’s how I go in.  I always look first but if nobody is coming out, I go in the exit.  Such an easier drive.  I suppose one of these days I’ll probably do it in front of a cop and get a ticket for something.

And speaking of horrible parking lots.  Check out the local Walmart.

The yellow arrows are the way to get in.  Where the yellow arrows start is where the stop light is at.  So that’s the entrance most people use.  Very poor planning.  Don’t even get me started on that.

Effective Immediately

This was posted at work today.

Let me translate this for you. 

Effective immediately, we don’t have enough metal for you to work overtime because we changed to 12 hour days and ran through it all.  While we greatly appreciate you working the weekends, we prefer to keep paying you straight time on said weekends rather than admit we made a mistake when we changed from 8 hour days.  P.S.  We will probably have lay-offs in a few months when we go back to 8 hour days because of all the people we hired when we added another shift.

Randomness

Time for some randomness

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment about my 200th post.  I appreciate it greatly.  I look forward to the next 200.

I took the kids to the park yesterday.  There is a playground here but they prefer the one just down from their school.  I usually sit in the car, radio on and reading on my phone or Kindle.  I glance up every so often to check on them and one of those times I did that, I see this.

Mom, throwing a frisbee.  Notice the boy standing in front of her.

Son, fetching the frisbee.  Seriously, she was playing fetch with her son.  She would throw it, he would go get it and bring it back.  Your at a freaking playground, let the boy run around and play with the other kids.  This went on for awhile too, not just a couple of throws.

I suppose that’s better than using a TV as your babysitter.  At the least the kid’s getting some exercise and spending time outdoors.  That’s about the only time my kids want to spend outdoors is if I take them to this park.  There is a park at our apartments but they don’t like to hang out there.

For an update on theEx and the JackAss, Samantha informed me yesterday that she got to sleep on a mattress in her room this past weekend.  That’s right, they moved in to their new place at the end of July.  And they have been sleeping in the living room because there were too many boxes in the room they were supposed to share.  Now if she was extremely busy I might be able to understand this, but if you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you’ll know she pays me a whopping $27/week in child support.  The court actually said she didn’t owe anything because she only works part time and doesn’t make much money but I talked them up to that.  Did you catch that?  Part time, but there are still boxes in the kids room.  They moved almost 2 months ago.

So Sam got be in a bed finally, that leaves Trevor on the couch still.  And apparently it’s a new couch.

JackAss posted this on his Facebook.  Funny thing is, we had problems with Trevor wetting the bed about a year ago.  How did we solve the problem?  We quit giving him drinks before bed, he’s only allowed water.  Because he tends to guzzle everything else.  I even told theEx of this issue.  Apparently they don’t listen.  I’d feel bad about it, but I don’t.  I asked Trevor if JackAss spanked him, he said no.  They made him clean the dishes and bathrooms as punishment. 

When I asked him about it, he said “I didn’t wake up, daddy.  I didn’t know I had to go.”  He said it in a pleading voice, he was embarrassed about it.  I told him he wasn’t in trouble with me, but he needs to realize that when your going to be going to bed soon, that he is old enough to be responsible and not drink anything.  If someone offers you something to drink, ask for water.

To bad we can’t punish the parents.  Idiots!

Samantha came home from school today and informed me that she knows how to make herself cross eyed now.  I don’t know what they are teaching in school now a days, but I never had that class.  Did my book fees pay for this education?

Apple sucks.  I hate apple products.  I won’t get into all that, all you Apple people can go out and buy your new iPhone4s.1 or as they call it, iPhone5.  From what I hear, there isn’t much difference between the 4s and the 5 as far as how it works.  Oh wait, they did change the charger plug, so now you have to buy all new chargers or adaptors.  In short, keep giving Apple some more money.  I even offer visual proof that Apple sucks.

See, I wouldn’t lie to you.

200

Welcome to my 200th post, this will by far be my best post ever!  Not really, I just happened to notice I was at 199 otherwise this post wouldn’t have happened.  Technically, I created this blog long before I used it as more of a journal to my everyday life as I use it now.  The blog it is today, this would only be post 119.  But I don’t erase anything, I’m not ashamed of where this blog has come.

I’ve gone from 1 follower (my wife) to 17.  I know that’s nothing compared to other bloggers out there, but I appreciate the fact that 16 people who don’t know me, check out my blog on a regular basis.  So I thank those that follow.  I also realize that I may have other readers who actually follow on feed burners and such who don’t actually click the follow button (my mom),  Me personally, I always click the follow button on other blogs that I read in my feed burner just because I know how much it means to me when I have followers.  But to each his own.  I write this blog for myself, for something to turn back to when I’m all grown up (yeah, I’m still growing) and I can flip through stories of my life.  Everybody wants to publish a memoirs, but my life is boring, so these are my memoirs.

I have no reason to stop blogging and have no plans to do so.  As you can tell, I don’t publish daily and I publish at all times of the day.  I post for myself, but I’m glad you all are along for the ride.

Thanks to you all who read my blog, please take the time to follow my Twitter, like my Facebook page.  I would like to interact more with followers but I don’t feel like taking the time with very few followers.  I know you won’t all be interested in these, but check out my other blogs listed below.

My other main blog is about sports cards.  I still collect baseball cards.  Told you I was still growing up.  This is another Blogger blog.

This is the brother blog to the other above.  It is a picture only blog.  I post all kinds of pictures from MLB, NCAA, NFL, NBA and anything else sports related I come across including my sports cards.  This is a Tumblr blog.

This is my newest blog, also a Tumblr blog.  It is also a picture only blog but I post all kinds of things that I enjoy.  Here are all the tags I’ve used so far to give you an idea of what I post.  Alyson Hannigan, Anne Hathaway, Batman, the Big Bang Theory, Bruce Lee, Family Photos, How I Met Your Mother, Michael Clarke Duncan, Michael Jordan, Michigan Wolverines, Miscellaneous, Muppets, Star Wars, Supernatural.  I don’t post a lot here just because I don’t really run across a lot to put on there.  But I enjoy it when I come across something.

This isn’t actually my blog, but I do guest post on it.  It has anything and everything to do with the Michigan Wolverines.  You can find my name in the tags to read what I’ve wrote.

As you can see, I keep myself busy.  I don’t expect you to really check out the other blogs, but I have a duty to plug them.  I look forward to the next 200 and I hope you all do to.  Thanks for sticking with me

Not already!

So, I received a text from my wife while at work last week.  It says “your daughter is doodling Blaine’s name on her notebook.”

Blaine is a boy she has mentioned here and there.  I’ve harassed her about boys for as long as I can remember.  Make fun of her for having a boyfriend.  But now, I don’t get the “Daddy, he’s not my boyfriend.  I don’t like boys.”  I get the grin and puts her head down so I can’t see it.

I got home, took my shower and when I came out, Samantha was sitting at the dinner table so I went into her room.  Guess what I saw sitting on her desk.

OH HELL NO!  She came walking in when I was taking the picture.  She asked what I was doing.

She is only 10, she can’t be into boys yet.  I thought I would at least make it a few more years before I had to threaten boys (again, I threatened Skyler’s boyfriends once, but that’s another story).

“Step away from my daughter, and get off my lawn!”

I’ve told her to enjoy her time with him at school because she will never see him outside of it.  I’ve told her she’s grounded till she’s 30.  I’ve told her she’s not allowed to date until she’s 30.  She doesn’t care what I say.  I’ve lost her.  I’m going to have to kill someone to make her believe me.  And that only leaves me with more questions.

• Can I use blogger in prison?
• What about internet porn?
• With all the body washes out there, do I still need a soap on a rope?

This is so not fair, kill me now.

 

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.  Stop by, read them all and vote for me and 4 others.

2 year toothache

Almost 2 years ago, I was having some tooth pain on the right side in the back.  I went to the dentist.  He said that the wisdom tooth needed to be removed but there was an infection that needed to clear up first.  So he put me on antibiotics and we schedule for the tooth to be removed for the next Friday.

Now back at this time, our oldest daughter was still living in Virginia with her grandmother.  But the week that I was taking the antibiotics, she had issues with living down there and we decided to bring her home.  I already had Friday off because of the surgery so we called and cancelled it, and headed off to Virginia to pick her up.  The plan was to reschedule the tooth surgery when we got back.  But by the time we got back, with a weeks worth of antibiotics, the tooth pain was gone.  So I never rescheduled and everything was fine.  For about 6 or 7 months.  Then the pain came back.

So I told Dr. Cheri that I need to get more antibiotics but I didn’t want to go to the doctor.  Not that I have a fear of doctor’s or dentist’s but I hate having to pay them money when I know what the problem is.  So she mixed some tea tree oil with some water in a water bottle.  I shake it up, and gargle with it a couple times a day and in a few days, the pain goes away.  I stop gargling after a week and it’s all good.

Or is it?  The pain seems to come back ever 4 or 5 months.  So here I am, a couple of years later apparently Cheri decided it was time for me to go back to the dentist.  So I spent about half an hour talking to him and he checked out my x-rays.  He asked if hot and/or cold hurt it.  Nope.  He asked if it hurt when I eat.  Nope, not really.  He told me he’s not sure how I’m not in pain.  He gave me antibiotics to take care of the infection.  He also wrote me a script for Vicodin which I probably won’t ever take, but is always nice to have on hand.  And next Friday, I’m going in to have 3 abscessed teeth removed.

So, we’ll see how much blogging I do next weekend, which in case, would be my next weekend off of work.  Great way to spend it.

My Weekend

Before I start, I decided to use nicknames of my friends in case they are reading this and don’t want their names out there.  Although, I have told everyone about this blog, as far as I know, my wife and mom are the only ones that actually read it.  I should just use their names since most of the people in my life don’t give a crap about me anyways but I’m a nice guy. 

So I’ve had a busy weekend.  Friday, I rolled out of bed at 7 and Cheri and I took the kids to school.  We had about an hour to kill before doctor’s appointments for both Cheri and Skyler so we decided to hit this little diner in town.  I had been there years ago but not recently.  Cheri and I sat down, looked around, and immediately felt out of place.  Now we are almost 40 years old, and we were about half the age of everyone else in there.  Cheri took the picture to the left with the comment “A girl sure feels young in a place like this #old #feelingyoung”.  Food wasn’t bad and it was a pleasant meal.  We left there and met Skyler at the doctor’s office.  She came in like the typical teenager.  Half asleep, yawning, and putting her head down.  You know because it’s so early at 9am.

After the appointments we ran to the grocery store to pick up some burgers for later, and then went to Cheri’s chiropractic appointment.  He started feeling around on her back and asked what she did to get her all out of whack.  I proceeded to narc her out for carrying all the groceries up while I was at work and told him that he needed to give her a lecture about it.  Not that it will help because Cheri doesn’t like to admit she can’t do things that she used to be able too.  She’s hard headed like that.  I wish I could say she learned her lesson, but I know she hasn’t.  We head over to the pharmacy and then finally get home a little after noon.

I get to relax for an hour or so then about 2 in the afternoon then I headed out.  I picked up Big Daddy and the Latin Lover and then went to meet at Double D’s house.  We loaded up his truck and were off for Chicago.  A few months ago, the Latin Lover picked us up some tickets for a White Sox/Royals game.  After talking Double D into waiting until we got to the game to drink, we drove straight there.  Double D kept wanting to stop and switch with Latin Lover in the backseat, because the windows were tinted and he could start drinking.  We got there and tailgated for awhile.  Weather was kind of iffy.  We got sprinkled on a bit but nothing really hard.  We had brats, burgers and wild turkey on the grill.  Along with chips and pop for us and beer for Double D.  It was a good time hanging out with the guys.  The guys next to us offered us up a shot of Patron.  They all looked at me.  I asked what the hell they were looking at.  Double D says “I’ve seen you drink almost a fifth of tequila by yourself at my house”.  The Latin Lover says “He did drink a whole fifth at my house, only one other shot was given out, you had the rest of the bottle.”  I don’t know what they are talking about.  My virgin lips have never touched alcohol.

We had a great time at the game.  Double D apparently gets chatty when drinking but he behaved.  It was a back and forth game, lots of hitting so it kept the excitement up.  But in the end the Sox lost.  Since Double D was drinking, I got volunteered to drive us home.  I found out a few things on the way home, Double D’s truck tends to hydroplane in the rain at 83 mph and Big Daddy likes to ask “What’s your hurry?”.  We eventually got home around 2 am.  I headed to bed and slept till 10 on Saturday.

I got up and spent about 45 minutes with Cheri before heading out on the road again.  It’s a 2 1/2 hour drive from here up to Ann Arbor.  I topped out around 92-93 mph to try to cut down some of that time.  A fellow sports blogger text me on Wednesday night and asked if I could get an extra ticket if I could make it, I said “Hell Yeah”  He lives in Ann Arbor so I met him at his place which is north of the stadium.  He works for the school so we parked in a permit only parking garage for free.  Which can save you up to $40 to park.  I had never come from that way into a game so it was a unique experience to walk through the campus to get there.  To walk through the herd of maize and blue.  It was pretty awesome.  The game was good, a little close for comfort but I always love the atmosphere of being at the stadium.  The tradition at the beginning of the game and even the halftime show with the band is always entertaining.  Since we were playing Air Force, there was a lot of patriotic stuff going on too.  Flyovers by 3 helicopters as well as the stealth bomber.  An eagle flew down to it’s trainer on the field during the national anthem.  And all kinds of applause for those who have and continue to serve.  I left the bloggers house around 7:30, and after stopping at Steak ‘n Shake to grab my wife a shake, I got home a little after 10.

One thing I noticed with all the driving I did today was I have a lot of songs on my playlist at Spotify.  Since I just started using it again, I’m playing them in order and working my way down alphabetically.  Because I’ve been using it at work, I started where I left off there, that was at “Farther On” by Russ Taff.  Now you would think driving 5 hours yesterday, that I would have gotten most of the way through the alphabet.  But the last song I played when I pulled in to home was “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” by U2.  So I went through 3 letters of the alphabet, in 5 hours.  But that is also 69 songs and I have 700 on the playlist.  It might take me awhile to get through it all.

This leads me to today.  I’m not doing a damn thing.  Sitting in my PJ’s all day.  Picking up the kids at 7 so I wouldn’t even have to get out of my PJ’s for that but the wife wants to stop and pick up a few groceries before we get the kids so I guess I’ll have to get dressed, damn it!

Now I’ve only got one question to answer.  Do I really have to go back to work tomorrow?

 

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.  It’s not a great entry to follow up with my first card last week, but I’ve had a busy weekend.  Stop by, read them all and vote for me and 2 others.

Attention Ladies and Dudes

I have to make an announcement.  Today, I am officially a man.  No, I wasn’t a woman before and just finished my surgery.  I got an official man card earlier today.  As you should know if you read my drivel, I’ve entered in the Dude Write contest a few times.  Today, I finally received a man card.  It wasn’t one of the top billing ones (Diamond, Platinum or Gold) but that doesn’t surprise me because there are some great writers over there.  I can’t vote for myself, but I wouldn’t anyways because I never think I’m in the top 3.  But they also have a Chairman’s Choice award where the previous week’s winners get to pick one.  WilyGuy chose my post “Dating Mrs. Palmer” for one of the cards.

Thanks bro, or should I say, Dude.  I guess I should have known it was going to take a post about masturbation to impress other guys.  Be sure to check out the Dude Write site for some other great writers that are men.
To celebrate my win, I decided to make myself like one of the manly men out there.

      

Shave Tom’s head and it’s close.  I’m rocking that mustache.

I posted this picture (the one on the right, I know they look like the same guy) on my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram figuring I’d get all kinds of comments.  I did get one, and this is the type of comment I was expecting.

So at least one of my friends didn’t let me down.  I actually didn’t leave the mustache, I was in the process of shaving it all off and thought I’d stop and take a picture.  But I haven’t told any of my friends yet.  All my disappointing friends that is.  Who wants friends that are going to be nice, a friend is supposed to tell me I look like an 80’s porn star, that I have a caterpillar on my lip, tell me I look like a douche, something.  They suck!


Damn, I could have been a millionaire and gotten laid over and over.  Give me a few weeks, I’ll grow another one.

Books vs. E-books

I was reading a post over at “Blue Batting Helmet” about using his Kindle Fire for the first time and he said he would stick with traditional books for now but could see using it more in the future.  It got me to thinking about when I started reading on my Kindle app on my phone.  I started thinking of the positives and negatives of both and thought that I would spill my feelings about it here.

First, some reading background.  I read a lot in school.  I’m one of the kids who used to set up his textbook in front of his book so he could read in class.  I remember as far back as elementary school where I was into the Hardy Boys books but I would read 2 a week so I flew through the ones I could find in the library.  As I got older I got into Stephen King books and read all of them.  If the library didn’t have it, I went out and bought the paperback.  I also got into the staples of reading with Dean Koontz, Robert Grisham and James Patterson.

Once I got out of high school, I got out of reading,  I went years without picking up a book.  I missed it but I didn’t want to take away time from something else to take the time to read.  About 13 years ago, I started working where I am now.  I was originally on 3rd shift  for 8 hours.  I got a 45 minute break, the first 15 minutes were spent eating   Then I would half an hour of nothing.  Being on 3rd shift I would fall asleep and then I wouldn’t be able to sleep when I got home.  So I started to bring in books and I got back into reading again.  And now that we’ve gone to 12 hour days, I’m even reading more.
Financial strains have curved what I’m reading because you can get all kinds of free or discounted books for the Kindle so I’ve been reading a lot of those lately.  There are a couple of series out there that I’ve started and would like to finish.  One of those has 14 or 15 books and I’ve only read the first few.  But our finances are getting better so I’m hoping to start purchasing novels for the Kindle again.
Which gets me to the first positive, I know it was a long road but we’re here.  Purchasing books.  Compare going to a book store, searching for the book you want, buying it and bringing it home.  Or sit on your couch, click a few buttons and it’s delivered within a matter of minutes.  Advantage – Kindle.
And when your talking about purchasing, you have to talk about price.  I’ve already mentioned that you can get free and or cheap ($.99) books, but those are usually small books or books that are older.  If you can find a bargain book store, you can get cheap books there but those stores are getting harder and harder to find.  So those are push so let’s look at new releases.  I’m going to google a new release and check the price differences.


I chose James Patterson’s new book Zoo.  It was just released yesterday (Sep. 3rd).  The pic to the left is from the James Patterson website.  The list price is $27.99 for a Hardcover.  Which is the first problem with buying a newly released book.  You have to buy a hardcover and they are way more expensive then a paperback, which by the way, isn’t being released until May of 2013.  But this is modern times and if you pay the price over there, then you don’t know how to use the internet.  Let’s take a look at Amazon.com prices.

You can buy the Hardcover for $16.79 which is a lot better.  But that doesn’t include the $3.99 for shipping.  So your still looking at $20.78.  You can also see the Kindle Edition price up there.  I can get it sent to my Kindle Fire for $14.99 delivered.  You can wait a few weeks and get a hardcover used cheaper or you can wait 8 months and buy the paperback.  So there is definitely alternative routes, it just depends on your preference.  In my book, advantage – Kindle.
Now if you’re a book collector, then obviously you want a book in hand.  They look better on a shelf together.  Whether it’s a paperback or hardcover, a collector always wants a book in hand.  Advantage – Book.
Carry a book, carry a Kindle, more or less the same thing. – Advantage – Push.
You have to keep your Kindle charged and/or bring a charger with you.  Advantage – Book.
For me, this is where the biggest advantage to the Kindle is.  While I don’t take my Kindle everywhere, for the most part, just work and back, I do take my phone everywhere.  And my phone has the Kindle app which syncs with my Fire.  So if I really get into a book, and don’t want to play Coin Dozer while I’m in the bathroom.  I can read.  Or I get stuck in a line somewhere, I can read.  So now I have a “book” with me at all times.  Which to me, is the reason I would choose a Kindle over a book.  In my mind, the positive of a book, is if you actually keep them around and collect them when your done.
Agree? Disagree? Positives or negatives I forgot? Let me know in the comments.

I do have a GoodReads account.  You can see what I’ve read recently and what I am currently reading.  I’ve been trying to update it when I start a new book.  I just opened the account a few months ago so a lot of the books listed as read are books I could remember reading.  I have also decided to tweet my progress on the days I read so you can follow me on Twitter as well.