And so it begins...

I knew the day would come, as my boys get older, that they would push things further and further. Until this morning, I knew when my boys said they were sick, that they were sick. Like about to puke up a lung sick. Sick to the point where it would not be a good idea for them to be in school. They are at an age where they are self diagnosing these kinds of conditions. I have to take their word for it.

Up to this point, it hasn't been an issue. This morning however, I saw the first signs of a budding Ferris Bueler. See yesterday B went to Six Flags Great America down near Chicago on a school trip. They left school early in the morning, made the 2.5 hour drive down and then spent all day in the park. Then they got back on the bus for the drive back and arrived at the school late in the evening. He was exhausted I could tell. That combination of travel and having spent all day yelling and being excited as he rode roller coasters and having a blast being a teenager with his friends.

This morning he was up at 5am like usual. Yes, its HIS choice to set an alarm to get up that early. As I was getting ready I hear a knock on the door and B comes in and tells me that he doesn't 'feel good' in his best whiny, feel-sorry-for-me voice. I looked at him and he wouldn't look me straight in the eye and I knew it was bullshit.

I got to explain that what he was feeling is normal and frankly, it's life. If he makes a choice for a long busy day on a Thursday, then he has to deal with getting up for school the next morning. I explained that how he was feeling was how most people feel going to work EVERY day and that he had to suck it up. He set his alarm for a later time and went back to bed.

Now begins the waiting game. When am I going to get the call from the attendance secretary at the school wondering why my child has been absent NINE TIMES. Unfortunately for him, I have seen Ferris Bueler. Many times.

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Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King

I know not all of you are on facebook, so I thought I would post the link here as well. You can go HERE and listen to the new Dave Matthews Band album. You can't download it, but you can listen to it as many times as you like.

I have listened to it all the way through a couple of times and I must say I am quite impressed. I was a little dissapointed with their last studio release as I felt it was very 'pop-y'. I didn't like the direction they had gone with their sound as much on that record. This album returns to much more of their blues, jazz and rock roots. It has a bit heavier feel than some of their other albums. The sound is thicker.. it reminds me more of the song 'Don't Drink the Water' off the album Before These Crowded Streets.

There are some tracks with killer horns. I was wondering how they would handle the passing of LeRoi and how that would factor into the amount of focus they have on brass sounds in their music. It was always a big part of their sound and I think it would have changed them too much had they departed from it entirely.

Overall, I am extremely impressed. The sound is tight, solid and BIG. The songs have great energy to them for studio tracks. I can only imagine how these are going to translate into amazing jams when played live.

To commemorate the occasion, here are a couple of my favorite live performances from DMB. There are countless incredible live vids out there, so it was hard to choose.

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Math Skillz

As a parent, you know that your kids are going to excel at some things and possibly struggle with others. You hope that they are good students. Both my boys do very well in school, but they are polar opposites on what they like and easily excel in. My older son is definitely more on the reading / writing side of things while my younger son is the math / science junkie. Now that is not to say either 'struggles' with the other subjects, but they both definitely have something that seems to just come naturaly to them.

Attending my older son's music performance last night for choir set my mind at ease on his math skills however. I could go into some long dissertation on how music IS math, but that is really not my point. I was able to simply look at him up on stage and I knew he had a firm grip on statistics, ratios and even probability.

How did I know he had a firm grip on these concepts simply by observing him standing up on stage and singing? Easy. There were about 30 kids up there performing with the seventh grade choir. Five, including himself, were guys. What can I say but SMART KID.

The performance was awesome and we had a great evening with friends and family. We grilled brats and dogs for dinner and then went to watch B perform. Then back to the house for some awesome desserts. It was a good time all around.

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Music Friday

I stumbled across 2 amazing live performances from Jason Mraz this morning so I thought I would share them here. The great thing about this guy is that he sounds just as good live with limited production value behind him as he does on studio records. The second has a bit of a intro to it, but trust me, wait through it for the song to start. It's well worth it. Jason Mraz is doing a show with G. Love and Special Sauce in Minneapolis August 20th. Road trip anyone?

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Where's the pole?

So what happens when you cross big red balls, a 30 foot pole, temporary blindness and a young alaskan woman who announces she has never been kissed because she doesn't want to make out with anyone from her home town because they are all related? Good TV. That's what you get. If anyone of you reading this remember the host of the old E! show called talk soup John Henson, he is now one of the hosts of the show called Wipeout on ABC.



The show itself is hilarious with people doing stupid things for a shot at fifty grand. Its humor is only magnified by John Henson making endless cracks on the contestants and the abuse they take on the course. If you haven't seen it yet, you can go to abc.com and check out a couple of full episodes on there. But here is a clip with all the mentioned components in it.




Enjoy!

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Sam!

4:38am.....

SAM!

SAM!

SAM! W.T.F. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!?

SAM YOU FUCKER! DON'T YOU CALL ME AND THEN NOT COME OUT! WHAT DO YOU THINK NOW FUCKER?!? SAAAAAAMMMM!


At this point I have woken up enough to realize that its not my alarm going off. At first through my sleep addled fog, I thought the noise was some really bad radio dj 'prank' that I was hearing. It was not. After a 20 seconds of this irate yelling and me getting my wits about me enough to comprehend what was going on I managed something along the lines of:

I don't know who you are.. but get your crazy drunk ass away from my window!


I would imagine my rather angry and gravely morning voice coming out my window sobered her up some and maybe freaked her out because she said nothing else after that and took off.

Needless to say, it was not how I wanted to start off my morning. I guess that is the downside to being fairly close to a bar and having ground floor windows. Though this was the first time I have ever had someone yelling in my window. At least she waited until it was close to time for me to get up I suppose. :P

I did end up making it into work early this morning though.. so maybe I should thank crazy drunk bitch? Nahhhhh.. get the hell away from my window before I get the shovel!

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Fitting

I saw this shirt today and thought of my poor sister who before long will have two toddlers running around.



I often get into the discussion with people about why I don't want to have any more kids. That right there is one of those reasons. :P I like my kids being old enough and for the most part wise enough, to not break things randomly around the house. Not to say it never happens, but the frequency compared to when they were little is much more tolerable.

Just remember.. those Best Buy warranties even cover accidental damage! :P

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A tragedy.

My brother and I decided to watch a movie when we were both off on Monday. After starting to watch a movie that was so bad we turned it off after less than 10 minutes, we decided to watch 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People'. The movie stars Simon Pegg (from Shaun of the Dead), Meagan Fox (as G would say Haaawt!), and Kirsten Dunst (seriously.. how is she STILL getting movie roles?).

Now normally I would have to skip the movie on general principal since she was in it but it started off ok. She was an ugly, stuck-up bitch who no one liked and I had a feeling she was going to die a horrible death in this movie. I had this glimmer of home that Simon Pegg would treat her like a Zombie from Shaun of the Dead and decapitate that fugly troll. Then throw in the fact that you have Megan Fox there as the hot chick that he is pursuing to counter-balance said hideous harpy's negative impact on the film, and I was actually optomistic. Key word being WAS.

*Spoiler Alert*

How this movie unfolded however was nothing as glorious as it should have been. Quite the opposite. This film turned into a tragedy the likes of which I have never seen. Its a good thing we were watching this at my brothers house for a couple of reasons. First off, I didn't throw anything at the screen as I didn't want to break his TV and second, I didn't get us kicked out of a theater from yelling my disgust at the sheer retardedness of the movies plot.

To be fair, its not the plot that was really the problem. The plot was decent even if a bit on the predictable side. The problem was, the plot was ruined when IT was cast to play the other female lead. See the problem was that in the end, Pegg's character realizes that fame and money aren't everything and that he doesn't really want Megan Fox. He decides that he wants that billy-goat-eating, lives-under-the-bridge, soul-sucking-hideous-hosebeast of a woman.

This plot would have worked fine had hosebeast's role been filled with pretty much anyone else. Eliza Dushku would have been an excellent choice for example. I would have certainly bought that he gave up a chance to have sex with Megan Fox to chase after her instead. But Nooooo! He is going after .. that... thing. WTF? How am I supposed to buy into this movie? I'm all for suspending belief at the movies, but even I have my limits. C'mon!

You could have put in the monster from Alien in Dunst's role and I would have had less of a struggle with it. It still wouldn't have made much sense to skip sex with Fox, but it still would have made more sense than him chasing after Dunst. If you put me in a room with Dunst and the Alien, with her acidic skin desolving saliva, razor sharp teeth and claws, huge chip on her shoulder and all and told me I had to try to have sex with one of them, I would tell Alien to pucker up buttercup. I would rather have my unit disolved off with acidic spit as she disembowled me than have to interact with that other hosebeast.

Everyone knows JarJar Binks is the most annoying character on the planet and everyone wants to see him killed violently, but I would even rather have him wandering around the movie and Pegg's character trying to hook up with him than pursuing Dunst.

Overall I felt what could have been a decent movie was ruined completely by one bad casting call. Really.. HOW is she still getting roles? HOW? Was Babe the Pig not available? Barney the dinosaur? Shaq in his Shazzam outfit? Any of those would still have been far superior choices.

Really.. we are supposed to believe he went after:



instead of:




Maybe the real hero of this story is Simon Pegg because it is a testament to his incredible acting ability to pull off that role. I mean he was able, with a straight face and only a few dry heaves, act like he wanted to leave Megan to go slay the beast after Dunst. Kudos to you Simon. You have conquered your Everest. You have proven your versitality and ability to act even under the harshest of conditions. Next time though.. do me a favor and demand a different actress to work with. She will eat your soul when you aren't looking!

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Say what?

So we were all set to grill up some venison steaks for dinner last night with my brother and SIL when my son reminded me that we had promised that the next time we were all together, we would go to Buffalo Wild Wings and split an order of the 'Blazin' wings. This is the very top of their hotness scale and has this warning on it: "Keep away from eyes, pets and children." Now we had tried their 'Hot' a while back and that was pretty intense itself. Blazin is another 3 notches above that.

As we were heading into the restaurant, my younger son turns to show me how one of his adult teeth was coming in faster than another. His older brother asks him how he remembers when the second one was lost to know that its coming in faster. The converstaion at this point was:

G: "Don't you remember when Mom punched me in the balls and I lost this tooth?"

B: "Oh yeah! I remember that!"

Me: "Wait.. what?!?"


No, you concerned people do not need to call child protective services. The story was that G had picked up a big excercise ball and had been carrying it around asking if anyone thought it was weird that one of his balls was bigger than the other. Typical shennanigans from him and then mom apparently dropped down to 5th grade level (as I would have) and punched the big 'ball'. This somehow coincided with his tooth coming out.. or at least close enough that G has the ability now to tell the story about mom punching him in the balls and causing a tooth to come out. Mom packs quite a wallop!

So after that story.. I am already laughing as we head in and get out table. Brandon has this ring that he wears which my SIL noticed and commented on. Now B wears it on his right ring finger as he knows it signifies marriage on the left. It was also fairly loud in there, so I think he missed part of the question asked of him. This led to the following very amusing exchange:

SIL: Thats a cool ring B. Looks like its made of Tungsten. Same as J's wedding ring.

J: Heh.. who are you married to B?

B: It's my right hand!

It took a lot of effort not to make a new distance record for shooting soda out of a nasal passage. In clarifying .. B was trying to say that the ring was ON his right hand and thus didn't signify marriage. But the way it all went down.. well that is just priceless. SIL was quite proud that she got the joke this time right away though and for once, I was surprised in that it went over both my boys' heads. Nowadays I am usually shocked how all those little innuendos don't go over their head and the two of them are giggling away.

The big adventure for the night was splitting an order of those wings. 2 each for B, J and I. We had extra drinks on hand. Ranch to dip them in. We were set. We ate them quick before the first one completely hit and we had a chance to rethink things. It wasn't bad at first, but about 60 seconds later the burn started. The back of the throat felt much like battery acid was slowly burning a hole right through to the outside. We tried out best to quench things, but it was a good 10-15 minutes of sweating, red faces, watery eyes, runny noses and burning in the mouth and throat.

We managed to complete our little challenge although I doubt we will ever do that again. The waitress was telling us about the challenge they have with those wings that will get you a picture up on the board. You have to eat 12 of them. By yourself. In under 6 minutes. With NO drinks or other food inbetween. Insanity IMO. On top of that, while they will take your picture for free and put it up on the board, you still have to pay for the wings and if you want the T-shirt proving you did it.. you have to pay for that too. What kind of crazy food challenge is that? I'm going to skip the whole paying to torture myself bit thanks. Paying for the 6 we split between us was bad enough. :P

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Happy Mother's Day!

To all the mothers out there who do amazing things for their children, I just want to wish you a happy mother's day.

I wish I could be there to celebrate with you today Mom, but I am glad I was there a week ago to see you. You will be in my thoughts today!

Love you Mom.

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And the stupidity continues..

People never cease to amaze me. Recently we have had users whining or in a panic about the fact that their new computer.. built all shiny and fresh in 2009, doesn't have a floppy drive in it. A FLOPPY disk drive. That is like saying I won't take that new stereo system with the 100 disk CD changer, digital tuner with HDMI ports and 5.1 surround sound because it lacks an 8-track player. Or walking into the store and trying to pick up a cellular phone, but telling them you will only take it if you can get one with a rotary dialer. Wake up and join the rest of us in the digital age.

For this desktop transition I made a temporary server for users to copy their music too. Technically speaking, if its not business related, its not supposed to be on a work PC. However, because we are nice, we try to accomodate people and let them have those little things that makes the day go bye fast, like their music. As long as the music is stored locally and not on the server, we allow it. So to help people transition to their new PCs without losing their music I created a temporary server for them to use as a storage point instead of everyone trying to copy music out to their user directories and overloading our file and print servers. I sent out directions and an explination of what was allowed and how to do it all. Step by step. Every click and every thing you needed to type was in there. I am fairly certain any toddler that has mastered the use of his hands and fingers and can read the instructions could have handled it.

Here, however, we have grown adults pulling in good salaries that apparently can't. We had a user copy her music out to this temp server like she was supposed to. However, when it came time to copy it back to her local C: drive, she failed. On an epic level. Instead of selecting her music folder from the temp server, she managed to select EVERYONES folder. And then, instead of copying it to her C: drive, she attempted to copy it to her user folder. So instead of a couple hundered MP3s ending up on her local drive, she attempted to copy upwards of 13,000 of them to her home directory. Essentially managing to single handedly do exactly what we were trying to avoid in the first place. Filling up and overloading the file server. /sigh

Just goes to show you.. try to make something idiot proof and along comes a better idiot. Have a great plan in place? No problem. They will find a way to fuck it up. As they say, where there is a will, there is an moron that is going to screw the pooch there is a way!

But enough of that.. here's some Jim Gaffigan to take you into the weekend!

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Some people...

Most of you that read this know that we are in the process of upgrading all of our desktops at work. This means for the last two months, we have been constantly reminding everyone to make SURE they have all their important files stored on their home directory. These directories are on our file servers, which means they are backed up and will also still be available to them when their desktop is replaced. Simple concept right? Apparently not.

So far we have had at least 3 people suddenly need their old desktop back because they forgot files on that machine. After repeated emails and our techs asking them point blank when they are swapping out machines "Did you get all your files moved to the network?" .. they still didn't get it done. This requires us digging through piles of old machines to find their. Time consuming and pointless. But hey.. we are a 'service' department and we live to please! Or at least thats what I think we are supposed to believe.

Yesterday however, took the cake. I had a frantic user call up because he wanted to make sure that somehow, someway, he got a machine with a floppy drive in it. You know, those little 3.5" square things that people used to use before the invention of the CD Drive, DVD Drive and USB drives? Yeah.. those things. Why did he need one? He is still storing important business data on floppies. Never mind the fact that he has access to both his personal network share as well as several departmental ones to store it on. Never mind the fact that floppies have a high failure rate. Never mind that floppy drives were NOT purchased for the new machines on purpose. Never mind that their massive 1.4MB of storage is about as useful as a talented musician would be to a Rascall Flats concert.

I tried to patiently explain that he should copy the data off those floppies to the network share and he was concerned that it would "Take up too much space on the network". I told him to do it anyway, that living on the edge was life was all about! He wasn't convinced. I then told him to do it anyway because when those floppies broke, I was going to go down to his desk with the midget rodeo clown I am going to hire for the sole purpose of taunting him for being a moron.

After about 20 minutes of dealing with this rocket surgeon, I finally get him off the phone with his assurances that he is backing up his files and whatnot. 10 minutes after that I get a call from him saying that after he deleted some files off his hard drive, that some of the files on the network share for his department aren't working. I figured he accidentally deleted some of the network files, so I set about tracking them down to restore them. Only all I found was shortcuts on the network share.

Instead of actually copying or moving the files to the network share, he just copied shortcuts to them. Then of course, he proceeded to delete them from his hard drive. Oh, and these were not files he backed up to his almighty floppies. Now I realize that not everyone is a 'computer' person. But c'mon. It says "Shortcut to blahblah". The options when you drag a file over to a location like that are: Copy Here, Move Here or Create Shortcut Here. Two of those options would have worked fine for him. But he managed to pick the third and entirely useless option.

Needless to say, he was rather upset when he was informed by me that he was SOL on those files. He was also upset when he called every other person in my department and got the same answer about his files and his stupidity.

I suppose I should be thanking him though. Its people like him that make me want to hit him in the face with a shovel keep me employed. So I salute you Mr. ChampionOfTheFloppyDrive. Party on!

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Aaaand we're back!

I know you all missed me terribly and while I had my laptop with me in AZ, I just didn't find the motivation to blog. It was much more fun to hang out with my nephews, play rock band or chill outside with a book, a beer and a cigar.

But I'm back now. Vacation was awesome and I had a fabulous time visiting with my immediate and extended family that made the journey to AZ for Zane's baptism. We ate too much, drank too much and just had a great time all around.

My nephew Caden, who didn't want water on his head and was very happy that it was Zane's turn and not his, decided halfway through the proceedings that he wanted to be up with with mom and dad and so he walks up to the baptismal font. Well halfway anyway. He then stops on the second step and proceeds to lounge there looking like Cleopatra waiting for someone to feed him grapes and fan him. It was adorable. I snapped a good picture of it, just have to have my sister send it to me.

I got to visit and catch up with some friends from high school days as well while I was there which was good times. Did I mention beer? Had lots of good beer while I was there, but far and away the best I had was at a brewpub called BJ's. If there is one near you.. go try their Jeremaih Red. It's absolutely fantastic. Check it out HERE.

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