Local news has gone viral

Our local news has gone viral.

This would be Maureen McFadden.  Trevor and I met her when we did the scout trip to the studio.  As a matter of fact, do you remember this picture?

That would be Terry McFadden, Maureen’s brother, whom we also met.  Which might be obvious, since I’m over his left shoulder and Trevor is over his right one.

And for the record, if you will notice the call letters of the station.  Does anybody know what the NDU stands for?  Anybody?

I’ll give you a hint, it’s by the same geniuses that gave us this.

You got it!  Notre Dame University.  It’s nice to see their pride in education showing up on the internet.

Trevor was a pilot for a day

Last Saturday was a busy day for our household.  Samantha had a Girl Scout trip to Build-A-Bear at the local mall,  and Trevor had a trip out to a field (airstrip) with his Boy Scout troop.  Cheri took Samantha to the mall where her troop was meeting.  All the girls got to make a Girl Scout bear for themselves, plus an additional bear that they are taking to the local children’s cancer ward sometime in the next week or so.  Samantha dressed hers in a White Sox t-shirt,  I raised her well.  I was going to take a picture of it for you to see, but apparently she took it with her to her mother’s this weekend.

Trevor, on the other hand, went out to a field and learned how to fly not so small RC planes.  If you follow me on twitter or Instagram (jlaws13) then you’ve already seen these, but most of you don’t, so here goes.  I tweeted this with the caption “Welcome to Indiana #Boring”.  On the other side of the orange fence is the field where they take off and land.  As you can tell by the grass, it is very dry here.  They had to cancel the local fireworks show on the 4th.  But here’s a bunch of the photos I took.

 

 

As you can tell, they are fairly big planes.  Not nearly as small as I had originally thought they would have been.

In this picture, the pilot is explaining how it flies and a quick lesson on how the controls work.

The first picture is Trevor and Christopher, they are best buddies.   The second picture is the real pilot, helping Trevor fly one of the planes.  He had a blast doing it and had the plane doing rolls and other tricks in no time.

The scout leader set this up and it was pretty awesome, the kids loved it.  It’s human foosball.  As you can see the red noodles are facing one way, and the green noodles are facing the opposite.  You drop a soccer ball in the middle and the kids kick it whichever way they are facing.  You have to keep both hands on the noodle or you have to sit out and your team plays a man short until they score.  In the 4 or 5 games they played, nobody sat out.  They did a pretty good job of keeping their hands on the noodles.  Trevor, who is not big on physical activity,  played in almost every game.  He was sweating and everything.

This is just another photo that I had taken, I had liked the way these planes were painted like old World War planes.  None of the kids got to fly any of these, but they were still cool to see.

A good time was had by all.  The group that did this provided hot dogs on the grill,  along with chips, cookies and bottled water.  None of this was charged to the scouts,  all voluntary.  It’s pretty great that some of these organizations just volunteer their time and money for the kids.  The scout leader said he put on his scout uniform and went to the street department and asked them for the orange fencing that is used in the human foosball and they just gave it to him.  So there are still some good people out there.

 

 

 

I’m sorry I don’t have much on Samantha’s trip, but Cheri drove them out there and she can’t just stand there while they build the bears.  She had to go down to the wifi area and sit on the furniture there until they were done.  But she was a trooper and took the girls out so Sam didn’t have to miss it and so I could go to Trevor’s.  I’ll show you the bear when she comes home.  If she remembers to bring it home, things tend to go over there and disappear.

The year my life changed forever

This is a respost from my sports blog “My Sports Obsession”.  Not long after I posted this over there, is when I realized that I enjoy writing this stuff out and started to use this blog more.  Granted, it is about sports cards, but it’s also about my father and now that this blog is up and running, it seems like a good fit here as well.

I have a post that I need to get out about the Boy Scout trip yesterday so who knows, maybe you’ll get 2 posts today.

This was originally published on Feb. 1, 2012

**********************

I just finished reading a post by AJ over at "the Lost Collector" about a kid excited about the 2012 release of Topps and his father taking him to the store to get them.  Click here for the story.  And it got me wondering if my dad would have collected with me.  Before I continue with this post, I'm going to give you just a quick summary.  My father was diagnosed with cancer around 1979 or so and passed away in the summer of 1981.  I was 8 years old then.  From what I've heard and remember is he was a huge baseball fan and was a diehard Cubs fan.  My mom tells a story about when I got home from the hospital after being born, how he gave me a pencil and started throwing paper wads at me hoping I could hit.  He was big into the strat-o-matic games back then as well.  I don't remember cards ever being around back then so I don't think he collected.  I'm guessing the neighborhood kids got me into it.

My first thought after reading AJ's post was that was awesome that somebody young was into cards that much.  I've said before on this blog that I think when our generation dies off, so will the baseball card collectors.  My second thought was, I wonder if my dad would have taken me to get cards.  Then it slammed into me. 1981.  The year my father died. The 1st year I started collecting.  Now I can't tell you if it was just coincidence or if they are related.  But now I wonder if I didn't go into card collecting full steam after my dad had passed to subconsciously keep him around.  I know growing up, that I invented a dice baseball game just to create stats.  The number rolled corresponded with what happened at that at bat.  And I would keep an actual book and keep all the stats for each player on my team.  Even pitching stats.  My mom used to tell me that I was so my fathers son, because he was that way.  I don't really remember a whole lot about him so I don't know if any of this is true or not.  I might have to investigate.

But what I really started to wonder was, would we had made a father/son duo in the collecting world?  Would he have taken me to all the local card shows and shops?  Would we have gone to games together?  Would we open packs and get excited at what each other's pulled?  I would like to think so, but we'll never know for sure.

What I do know is, those questions I asked above, my mom did those.  She used to take me to the Pierre Moran mall so I could spend my allowance at the coin & card shop.  She'd listen to me ramble on and on about my cards all the while pretending to be interested (like my wife does now).  My grandparents lived in Glen Ellyn (suburb of Chicago) and we used to make family trips to Wrigley.  But as awesome that my mom was with that stuff, I can't help but wonder what could have been.

One of my last memories of my father was a birthday party for him at the Glen Ellyn house.  I remember the cake and even what he was wearing that day.  But I also associate that day as being a month before he died.

I know we still made trips to Glen Ellyn after he had passed.  My grandfather was a pastor there and lived next door to the church.  Now that I'm older I realize it was probably the parsonage.  But I remember a younger guy, a youth pastor or assistant pastor or something to that effect, lived in the lower level.  And I remember how much I loved to go through his filing cabinets.  Because they were full of cards.  The only thing I remember as to what cards were there are he had them in order of teams rubber banded together.  And on the top of each stack, was the 1981 Topps team card.  So sometime between my father dying, and meeting this guy was when I started collecting.

One thing is for certain.  1981 was a significant year for me.  In my personal life and my card collecting life.  Here is something else to throw at you, my dad died at the age of 30.  Now here I am, exactly 30 years later, trying to collect the first set I collected.  1981.  The year my life changed forever.

-----------------------------------

UPDATE:  I've texted my mom and she doesn't remember my dad collecting.  He did as a kid but his mother threw those out later.  I also texted my grandfather, (yes, my 80+ year old grandparents text) and they lived in Glen Ellyn between 1981-1982 so my memory serves me correct on that point.

theEx and the JackAss

I got a text from theEx (I’m a poet and didn’t know it) asking if her husband, commonly referred to on this blog as, the JackAss, could take the kids swimming today.  I said that was fine but I would let her know as soon as the kids were up.  Eventually it got to where the JackAss was texting Cheri and making arrangements.

Um, you do realize that she gets your number when you text her.  JackAss

Apparently I don’t talk to him very well.  That’s because you treat me like crap, JackAss.

Notice, Cheri stopped texting him and he just keeps rambling on.  I’ve told him that I don’t have a problem texting him about the kids, but if you want to call me names and act like a 5 year old, then don’t bother texting.  Apparently that means I don’t talk to him well.

So she texts me and tells me to deal with him.  So here’s how that conversation went.

You can take them to their activities?  Like the 2 softball practices that Samantha missed because you were too lazy to take her.  Or the birthday party that you were supposed to take Samantha to, that you faked a phone call to the father and told Samantha that he didn’t answer so you couldn’t get directions.  That’s right, I talked to him too.  Why didn’t you GPS the address I gave you again?  Sure I’ll trust you for that.  Whatever.  JackAss.

Notice I didn’t say all that, I just simply said “It’s not up for debate, I said no”  Simple, to the point, didn’t make fun of him or anything.  Then decipher his response.  Tina’s rights?  She has rights one day a week, and every other weekend.  But I give them to her every weekend and told her she could have them anytime during the week if she gives me some notice.  Now she doesn’t ever take them during the week.  But the offer is out there.  Now she has had them quite a bit this summer, and I have never said no when she’s asked for them.  As a matter of fact, she took them on Wednesday (the 4th) and had them all the way through the following Monday (the 9th.)  So as you can see, she has them way more than her “rights” allow.

So instead of saying “oh, ok.” or in JackAss text “o,k” he runs his mouth.  And I’m the one that doesn’t talk to him well.

So, I’ll treat him like I do my kids.  You run your mouth, you won’t get what you want.  As far as punishing the kids, it wasn’t about that.  It was about, I DON’T TRUST YOU!!!  He’ll take the kids and then I’ll have to fight to get them back.  They’ll say they’ll bring them to their activities and they either will be late, or won’t show up.

And another thing that I didn’t tell him was the kids have friends spending the night on Friday night.  But I shouldn’t have to, I told him they had plans and even told them what their plans are.  That should have been enough.  Also, before all this, on Sunday or Monday, Tina and I text and I told her I would need the kids this weekend for scouts, so again, all he is doing is stirring up trouble when theEx and I already had this crap worked out..

I told the kids about this before bed.  I explained what happened, and why they didn’t go.  I basically asked them if they would get what they want from me by calling me names?  If there stepfather couldn’t behave himself, then he wasn’t going to get anything from me either.  They seemed to understand.  I told them that I’m sure that theEx and the JackAss (I didn’t call them that to them) will probably have a different story, but that is what happened.  Just let them say what they want to say about me, that they know the truth.

Sexy Aliens taking over

I’ll admit it, I watch my stats, and I’m annoyed.  Not that I don’t have many followers or hits on my pages, but because of this

These are the top 4 posts all-time in my history.  The sexy aliens post I essentially reposted content from the www.furiousfanboys.com site.  I gave them credit and everything so I didn’t steal it.  I just found it an interesting post so I brought it over.  Boy, did I not see that coming.  Apparently if you want to boost your stats, post half naked women on your site.  I guess I kind of knew that from my porn background, but I wasn’t really expecting it on this blog, and it’s not like they are naked.  I guess I should never underestimate the power of horny geeks.  I went and looked at my search stats to see if they were all coming from Google.

As you can see, a bunch are coming from Google.  Not quite as many as I had thought, but still a bunch.  43 if you add them all up.  Apparently I need to do more of my WTF Did They Just Say?, it seems to be a hot search.  Even though the posts stats don’t really show it.  Only one of the 4 posts is even in my top 4 and I’m pretty sure that’s the one with the JackAss.

I kind of wish I didn’t post that one over because it feels like my stats are false.  I feel like I tricked the viewers to checking me out.  I would never do that on purpose.

Jennifer Love Hewitt nude Katie Holmes Tom Cruise Divorce Spiderman Batman Rises Kardashians the Walking Dead Baseball Cards Found in Ohio iPhone Mad Men Spoiler Rashard Lewis deal Sofia Vergara Nikki Haley Healthcare Obama MLB All-Star game

No, I would never stoop to those levels.

I Made Money in the Porn Industry

Yeah, that’s right.  You’re all thinking he must be huge down there.  So that’s all I’m going to put in this post.  Let your minds wander.

 

Ok, not really.  I’m a guy, I like porn.  I know, your shocked.  I started renting them as soon as I was old enough.  I remember leaving the VHS tape under my car seat until everybody went to bed, then getting it out and watching it in my mom’s living room.  Yes I still lived at home at 18,  I didn’t move out until I was 20.  I also got married when I was 20, maybe I should have stayed home since that marriage didn’t end up well.

What?  Oh, you want to know where I made money in the porn industry?  I’m getting there.  You can rent the DVD’s here.  Yeah, there’s no link.  There’s no DVD’s, VHS’s, Blu-Rays, or anything else.  It wasn’t like that.  I know, your thoughts on my penis size just shrunk.  I WAS IN THE POOL!!!!  (Sorry, Seinfeld moment).

I worked in a factory right out of high school.  I worked there for 4 years before we got new management and they decided to fire me to make a point.  For a year or two, I jumped jobs.  Worked for a temporary service doing data entry but couldn’t get anything to stick.  I was getting desperate for anything full time.  I put apps in everywhere that was hiring and I finally got a call, for a video store.  The owner hired me, even though I had an earring and a ponytail and he hated both.  He rarely even hires males because as I was to find out, 95% of his business was renting porn.  And 95% of that 95% of porn business, was males.  Who generally would rather talk to a female behind the counter, but he hired me anyways.  It must have been the sad puppy dog face.  He didn’t like me, thought I was lazy.  I didn’t like him so I didn’t work hard for him.  He complained about me to his other manager,  she said give him to me.  So I went to work at her store.  Her, I liked.  I loved working for her and was constantly asking for stuff to do.  They started giving me more responsibilities. 

One of those responsibilities was to repair broken VHS tapes.  When people brought in porn titles claiming they didn’t work, the first thing I had to do was watch it and see if they were lying.  That’s right, I got to watch porn at work.  I know you’re jealous.  Sad part was, I had to watch all kinds of things I wouldn’t have normally watched.  I’m telling you, I’ve seen it all, well, maybe most of it.

Anyways, eventually I took over the main store as the manager, the same store that the guy that hired me ran.  Who was also the owner of the chain.  Before I quit, I was doing all the ordering, entering, stickering, sorting.  I was doing everything with the porn.  All the regulars knew me and we chatted about porn all the time.  I knew what rented well and what didn’t.  I was good at the job, I was a porn connoisseur.

Now back then, internet was getting popular.  I ran a bunch of ezines (internet magazines) that were delivered to your inbox.  I had humor ones, sports ones, recipe ones. and yes porn ones,  5 different porn ones.  I used advertisements on all of the ezines,  but only the porn ones made money.  So I dropped all the other ones and stuck to the porn ones.  I was in it for the money, not that it was a lot.  But I had very little to begin with.  That was the reason I quit the video store and went to steel construction.  The owner wouldn’t pay me crap to run 3 of his stores.  I threaten to quit and he offered me a quarter more an hour and would allow 5 hours overtime.  Whatever.  I quit there but kept the ezines, I brought in an addition $500 or so a year with them, and I certainly didn’t have a problem searching for more material.

I haven’t done the ezines in a long time now.  I no longer make money in the porn industry, nor do they make money off me.  Of course, that’s because it’s free all over the internet.  I may or may not still have a porn blog with pictures.  But if I do, it won’t have ads and I only do it for the fun.  Wink, wink.

To my wife and my mom who are both regular readers. Sorry!

Holidays and off days

Had a good couple of days off from work.  I told you about golfing on Tuesday here,  Wednesday was the 4th so we did our traditional cookout which happens to be at the same place that we go to the pool.

Only this time, my cousin, whom I haven’t seen in probably 10 years, was there.  She hung out with us original four that were always together.  I’ve been telling my wife for the last year, anytime her name came up, I miss her.  Well, I don’t miss her anymore.  I talked to her for awhile and we got all caught up.  Came home, friended her on Facebook and now hopefully will keep in touch.  She didn’t get to meet Cheri though since it was too hot for her to go to the cookout.  She would have lasted a few minutes in that heat and would have been down for the count for a few days.

The thing I’m known for when swimming in the pool, is the butt dive.  What is the butt dive, you ask.  You stand at the very edge of the board, on your heels.  Then you just drop and land with your butt on the diving board and flip into the water.  It doesn’t sound like much, but everyone else that has tried it, has hurt themselves.  Well, I finally got my cousins kid to do it right.  The tricks are number 1, you have to land with your butt on the board, if your to far forward and you hit the edge, you’ll feel it all the way up your spine.  And number 2, spread your feet after you hit the board, otherwise you’ll hit them on the bottom of the board as you go over.  You can see in the picture of my cousins kid why spreading the feet is important.  Oh wait, come to think about it, I think my wife filmed me doing one last year.  Let me see if I can find that.  Hang on a sec.

Ok, I found it.  Ignore the whiteness of my fat gut.  Hopefully it won’t gross you out too much.  Here it is.

DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!!!!

Wow, I can’t believe I shared that.  Anyways, after the cookout we headed home and hung out and relaxed in the AC.  Tina was supposed to take the kids that evening but cancelled on them.

So on Thursday, I asked what they wanted to do.  Something indoors that they wanted to do.  They said they wanted to go bowling.  So I got online and checked prices and decided to take them bowling.  I decided to go to Signature Lanes, it’s probably the furthest alley from home but I’ll show you why in a minute.

Samantha was upset because she didn’t get to use bumpers.  They had an age limit on them, but Trevor got to use them.  That was fine with me because it’s high time she learned to bowl without them so I worked with her.  She wasn’t doing too bad by the time we finished.  She had trouble aiming the ball but when she did manage to aim it right, she did well.

Before we started, I went over and ordered a snack and some pop.  Then we got to bowling.

We started bowling.  I took a couple of shots.  Samantha would only take a few steps before she threw the ball because she had trouble aiming if she ran up.  Trevor on the other hand, ran up there and chucked the bowling ball.  We got a few frames in and then our snack came.

Oh yeah, I ordered the super fries.  I spent many of nights here at the bar drinking and eating for free and this is what I ordered along with all those shots of liquor I was taking.  French fries with melted cheese, bacon, onions and green peppers.  The kids weren’t too sure about them but I had to fight them for them by the time they were gone.  We finished our first game.

Yeah baby, I still got it.  Trevor edged out Samantha as you can see, she struggled to not throw it in the gutter without bumpers.  Trevor on the other hand got to use them.

After this game I saw this lady bowling a few lanes down.  Oh my god, her hair was horrible.  It was like dreads.  I tried to get a picture of her, this was as good as it got.

You can’t expect any better than that from me, I took a bunch of photos but this was the best one.  I’m no “Misty’s Laws”, she’s a professional with her camera phone.  So you’ll just have to trust me, it was horrible.

I pointed it out to Samantha and told her that’s what her hair looks like when she doesn’t shower every day.  Hey, I might as well use this as a teaching opportunity.  We have issues trying to get her shower every day.

Anyways, back to bowling.  We started our 2nd game, kids were having a blast.  It was an enjoyable day with just the 3 of us.

      

Trevor really got into it.  He would throw the ball then stare at the pins to knock them down.  I swear he thought if he stared hard enough they would fall down.  Then when he hit some, he turn around and do a fist pump, it was hilarious!

        

The stare and the fist pump!

We had a great time.  Of course, I had a good time because of this.

Yeah baby, I still got it.  Samantha’s score went down but she did do better as far as keeping it on the lane.  As you can see, Trevor got better too, almost hitting 100 with his 95.

It’s been a good few days, until I went back to work today.  Blah!

Happy 4th!

I got this photo from the Michigan facebook page but I was actually at this game.  I’m over there on the left, holding a blue piece.

Just wanted to take a minute to say that I hope you all have a happy & safe 4th of July.  Spend time with your friends and family.  But don’t forget those who are still protecting our freedom.

Two stories about holes.

Went golfing today.  First time in probably 5+ years that I’ve even touched a golf club.  My cousin from North Carolina is in town, and he’s been golfing a bunch lately so he wanted to go.  I couldn’t find my driving iron so I ran to Kmart last night and picked up a driver for $16.  Notice I said couldn’t find my IRON so I bought a DRIVER.  I always played with no driver’s because I couldn’t hit them worth a crap.  So not only am I going against my cousin who’s been playing, I have to learn to hit a driver.

We head out, our foursome is myself, my cousin and 2 of my kids cousins (16 yrs old and 12 yrs old).  Beautiful morning, and since it’s Tuesday, nobody was out there.  Sweet!  I can’t make a fool out of myself.  I won’t go all into the details but it comes down to the final hole.  My cousin and I are tied.  It’s a par 3 (144 yards) and I drive first.  Straight at the treeline to the right of the hold.  CRAP!  He tops his drive so it’s short, I might have a chance.  I drive (that’s right, I’m too fat and lazy to walk it) to the trees and can’t find it.  Wait, there it is.  Somehow, it went all the way through the trees and am lying about 25 yards to the right of the green.  My cousin’s 2nd hit puts him to the left of the green.  We both chip on the green.  I sink my putt for par while he 2 putts.   I ended up winning (101-103) by hitting par on the last hole.

After some lunch and running around, I decided to come home.  But I had to make a stop first, to pick up something for the wife.  I head on over to Walmart.  I’ll let you in on a little secret, if you go to Walmart just to pick up a few items, park at the Tire & Lube entrance.  You can park next to the door so no long walk through the parking lot.  And if you only get a few items, they’ll check you out there as well.  So I park there and head in to get my “merchandise”.  I head on over to the aisle I need and grab this.

I never understood why guys have problems going to the store to buy these for the wife or girlfriend.  It’s not like anybody behind the counter is going to ask “So what are you doing with those”.  I’m so little embarrassed that I took them to the Tire & Lube desk to check out.  The manliest register in the place.  The guy in line in front of me had pads in his cart, along with alcohol.  I nodded to his cart and said “You know how to do it right, feminine hygiene product“ lifting up my package “but you were smart enough to grab beer.”  He just kind of shrugged and turned back around.  Alrighty then, thanks for playing.  He’s probably embarrassed to be buying them and just bought the beer to make himself feel more manly.  Then as the guy scans my tampons, he asks if that’s it, I said “Yup, payment for going golf this morning, can you pick up tampons?”  He laughed and said “Yup, we’ve all been there” 

See, it doesn’t have to be embarrassing.  Man up and buy your woman their products.  Maybe they’ll remember in a week and you can actually get some.  I doubt it because they only remember the bad things we do, but you can take a shot.

Now that this post is over, go back and read the title.  I kill myself.

Happy Birthday Samantha

Today is my daughters birthday.  She’s with her mother today so I won’t even get to see her.  I did call her and wish her a happy birthday.  Instead, I’m going to my cousin’s wife’s graduation party this evening.  Which is fine, I always enjoy the family get togethers regardless of what it’s for.  And my cousin’s are in from North Carolina and I only see them every couple of years.

So 10 years ago today, I was in the hospital with my now ex-wife.  It was our first child.  She was a scheduled C-section because she was breach.  Tina didn’t produce enough amniotic fluid for her to turn.  Since it was scheduled, we got to choose her birthday.  I chose the 1st of July.  Easy decision. 1st day of the month sounded cool.  Plus she ended up being 7 lbs, 1 oz.  So she was 7 1 on 7 1.

Because of the C-section, I stayed up by Tina’s head so I couldn’t see what they were doing.  I was afraid I would look right down in there and pass out.  I didn’t know how I would react and I didn’t want to take a chance that that would happen.  They pulled her out and said stand up and look at your baby girl and I did.  I then followed the nurses over so they could clean her off.  I couldn’t believe it, I was a daddy.  I never really wanted to be a parent and here I was, holding a baby daughter.

I was an involved parent, after I was taught how to hold, change and feed a baby, I did them all.  Before I had a kid, I had no idea what to do.  I was never the kind of father who wouldn’t change diapers, or stay home with the kids so the wife could go out.  I never really had a problem taking the baby with me places.  As a matter of fact, you’d be amazed how many women give you a second look when your out with a kid by yourself.

She was a good baby, I don’t remember any major problems.  But she has grown up fast.  I can’t believe she’s only 1 year removed from going to Jr. High.  And she is a daddy’s girl.  I planned on using some pictures of her growing up on this post.  But I’ve been fighting with the Ex just trying to borrow them and scan them.  So I leave you with this picture.  It was taken a few years ago, but I do enjoy it.

I cropped it close and it’s a little blurry.  But you can see my beautiful princess (don’t tell her I called her that, she’d be mad).  Happy Birthday Samantha.  You’ll always be daddy’s little girl.