Response to JJ’s 100 things post…

Hopefully funny and insightful

1. I dislike stepping on a wet bathroom rug … regardless of the cause.

2. I never use the label “miscellaneous” for files. Because I can’t spell, I use “Temp”

3. I find it amusing that women watch TV so quietly because they “can hear the dialogue” and yet they can’t hear the word “sex” period.

4. they make lipstick that lasts for 12 hours ? Why when my wife and every other woman I know
reapplies every 30 minutes….. especially when driving.. what is the connection there ???

5. People write checks at the grocery store really annoy me. Come on…

6. People who brake when approaching a green light also really annoy me. IT’S GREEN!

7. I believe that acne and bloating/water retention are perfectly natural reactions to hormonal shifts in our bodies...

8. How does an elephant hide in a cherry tree? Paints a part of HIS anatomy with red fingrenail polish….. What’s the loudest noise in the jungle ? Giraffe eating cherries… boom boom.

9. I still gag when trying to swallow pills perhaps it is because we didn’t have M&M’s when I was growing up….

10. I also learned how to properly paint my fingernails when I was 18 years old…. It’s a long story, I was a troubled youth

11. When I get sick, I REALLY get sick because I’m a man.

12. I haven’t faked sick, but I have called in sick and tired of going to work.

13. I love apples and eat them raw, like an apple, every chance I get. I detest apple cores.

14. I also love eating raw Oranges. What kind of a freak eats raw potatoes!

15. I love to grow beets and radishes, but not so much on the eating side of things.

16. I’ve had turnips, last week, they were yummy!.

17. I love mixed vegetables and, if you fix them for me I will be your best friend. But I don’t like vegetable soup.

18. I eat seafood. Although, I don’t like the slimy gross stuff that comes out of its shell

19. I’ve never tasted alcohol…. yeah right as if, I’ve never tasted alcohol this morning.

20. My father drinks and so does his father.

21. I am easily addicted to things I like.

22. I plead the 5th..

23. I know a thing or two about fish I have had goldfish, koi, tropical, cichlid and Marine tanks in the past, but I do not have a tank right now.

24. I used to have a 40 gallon drum of saltwater in my cupboard under the stairs to do water changes on my 75 gallon marine tank because it took a week to get it ready for the water change.

25. I adore cats, but I have a dog.

26. Believe it or not I have a nativity scene that I bought for me because I liked it, despite my religious convictions

27. If I eat anything first thing in the morning, I will barf within an hour.

28. If I have a headache, I take a couple of pain killers.. .

29. I broke a tooth on a chip once….

30. Soggy bread makes me gag. Seriously gag. I’m gagging just thinking about it. Blech! Actually soggy anything makes me gag.

31. When loading the dishwasher, randomly throw stuff in there … because I’m a man.

32. I own an apron, but I don’t own a gun but I do know how to use both.

33. I own an iPod and a MP3 player but don’t use either.

34. I love snow, and am just fine being cold. As long as it isn’t that I’m about to get frostbite cold that hurts when you come back in side.

35. I love to build snowmen, 2 winters ago the girls and I built two three ball snowmen about 7 feet tall and I had to use a 10’ 2x4 to lever the body on top of the “legs”

36. I do have a favorite season. I love autumn. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, because it is like Christmas really should be…

37. I have a thing for t-shirts. Meaning I have many t-shirts.

38. My daughter chews her cuticles/fingernails for as long as I can remember. We have tried to bribe / embarrass her into stopping… she doesn’t chew her toe nails anymore. Perhaps I should offer her a box of chocolate.

39. NO ONE can get saran wrap to stick to anything other than itself.

40. My ears are pierced once. Like I said troubled youth...

41. I passionately and actively abhor earwigs. They are the only bug I’m truly phobic about and only because they are intrusive and violate my person, well at least they do in my warped imagination...

42. My daughter coughs as a nervous tick.. drives me up the wall

43. When I have the time, I enjoy figuring out the time using a sundial….. It reminds me of my great grandmother.

44. I cannot kiss my wife at night after she has put lotion on her hands and some sort of lip sauce on her lips.

45. I love to sleep completely under the covers because I am anti-claustrophobic. I love being enclosed in small places, I feel safe and cozy and very happy. I once squeezed in to a bed at a friends house without untucking the sheets and blankets, during the night I rolled out of bed and woke up hanging on the side of the bed and had to be rescued.

46. I’m not allowed bubble gum or chewing gum and we do not keep or allow it in the house.

47. I hate the alarm on the fridge that beeps when the door is open.. When I have both doors wide open and loading it up with stuff it sits there going beep, beep beep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! I know! I’m right here! However if you happen to close both doors at the same time the jam each other and they both stay cracked open even though they look shut.. not a fricking sound!

48. I find the sounds of freeway traffic to be soothing.

49. I love the sound of any engine, except those of other people’s lawn equipment. I remember the best nights sleep I ever got on the lower decks of a big ship and I could hear/ feel the engines… light out

50. Never used a Tanning booth. I did mention to my wife thought to remind me when I’m old that I have always had sudden urges, frequent trips and a variety of other ailments that they try to say is due to an enlarged prostate so I don’t freak out later in life thinking I have cancer all of a sudden.

51. I have never entered in a beauty pageant, much less come any where close to winning one.

52. As a teenager, if exposed to the sun, I always tan real easy.. As an adult, I burn even if I use SPF T-shirt.

53. The sound of a lawn mower or chainsaw always pisses me off unless it is mine, then it depends on my frame of mind.

54. If I plug my ears when I use a public restroom the people standing next to me would complain about me peeing on their foot!

55. I hate reading and writing, when I was little, learning to read and write was one of the reasons I hated school too!

56. When I came home after the last ever day of school, I was very ecstatic, because no more writing. My handwriting was so bad, when I started work I was told that I could only write in block capitals, I still regard that as a pivotal moment in my life that shaped me for years to come over night my ability to write was transformed and following that my reading improved too, I now enjoy reading and writing all the time, I wish my teachers had been as insightful as my first supervisor (Thank you Lisa Elvey),.

57. When I finish a really good book, I often take a break for a week.. like cleansing the palette.

58. I do not love Scrabble. Personalized license plates are cool though.

59. I can whistle, but can’t blow bubbles with gum see above.

60. Hmm First kiss… well I was about 17, I married her…. divorced her re married the second and only other girl I ever kissed… lol

61. Why 17 ? well I guess it comes from another pivotal moment in my life, I was 11, had no interest in girls, and started a new school. First day I was asked what girl I liked in class, I replied “none” that wasn’t good enough so for more than a week I got pestered over and over until I picked one, they went off and told her and just about died of embarrassment. Still to this day couldn’t look her in the eye if my life depended on it.

62. That was nearly thirty years ago and still to this day couldn’t look her in the eye if my life depended on it. Sorry Jane, and thanks Gary and the gang.

63. Gardening is a new found hobby of mine, I am keen for the winter to get here and be over so I can plant out in the spring.

64. I’m not really a big fan of cookies. Yeah right! Cookies and alcohol.. two things you will never see in my hand…

65. In England we call bangs a fringe.. one of the more obscure word changes between the two.. Would love to know the origin of bangs

66. In my early 20’s, My hair was down to my waist and I would crimp and tease it out, add make-up, earings a equal smattering of Lycra and leather… getting a better picture of my youth ? Another pivotal moment in my life, a party at a friends house, Motley Crue and Iron Maiden, a new image, new found confidence and finally able to lay the anguish of #61 aside.

67. My hair is short, but I do miss the long stuff..

68. I haven’t used shampoo in my hair since 6:08am this morning.

69. When I was a teenager, I didn’t much take notice of those around me I was and still am fairly introverted at heart.

70. When I’m old I hope I appear distinguished and presentable but I plan to act the complete opposite!.

71. Every morning before I leave my home, I make myself a sandwich for lunchtime…. It’s about the limit of my capabilities first thing in the morning.

72. I obviously don’t pray much.. lol, I don’t really care to be prayed for either. Even though I know people do. It is not so much that I mind people doing it for me, I just feel that it is much of a waste of time, I wish people would stop.

73. Late one afternoon in 1997, I took a picture of the pier at the lake in my now wife’s nieghbourhood with a camera that I had just bought. To this day, it is still one of my favorite pictures and I have it framed and hanging in the house. My wife and I were married in the exact same spot that I took the picture from 6 months later.

74. I love weddings and birthdays, I don’t like planning parties, but it is all worth it when you are done. We just held a huge Guy Fawkes party at our house and I actually suffered something akin to anxiety attacks leading up to it, but is was so so worth it to see all our friends enjoy themselves.

75. My first celebrity crush as a teenager was on Madonna. That was back in her “Like a virgin” days.

76. I author 1 blog. I have 3 readers!

77. I’ve been told that I’m louder than one would expect if you meet me in person.

78. The thought of Raw milk makes me feel quite ill. I’m not keen on the thought of most milk products, except perhaps milk chocolate…

79. I hate clutter and disorganization, but I do nothing at all to combat it.

80. I love having a routine, most of the time. I function better with to-do lists and scheduled time sets.

81. I like to plan ahead, work ahead and organize things. If I find myself procrastinating on something, it’s usually because I have an unresolved question that’s holding it up.

82. Survivor, the TV show, is the only television I watch with any consistency, and CSI, and Criminal Minds, and Football (both sorts) and other sports and the discovery channel, and the Science channel, and animal planet, and BBC America, and any British sitcom and it’s always sunny in Philadelphia….

83. When I was a teenager, I could barely write at all… I was actually diagnosed with dyslexia.

84. I also made pin money as a teenager delivering newspapers, I used to hate Sunday mornings, the bag was so heavy I couldn’t ride my bike until I was half way through the round.

85. I blew all my teenage pin money records, concerts and booze…. Rock ‘n’ roll!.

86. I kept a diary for 6 months while on holiday when I was 10, I look back at it bow and my handwriting was awful!.

87. I was a hopeless swimmer at school, they would line us up in the pool strongest swimmer to weakest deep end to shallow, I would try to swim in about 2 foot 6 of water, some swimmers measure how far they swam in lengths, some in widths, my group measured it in depths and it was always 1.

88-91 are kinda personal to you and I really don’t fell that they deserve this kind of response J

92. I do not automatically respect or trust people just because they have MD, RN, LPN, ENT, GYN, DDS, CMA or any other licensed medical abbreviation after their name. In fact I approach them with a healthy dose of cynicism.

93. If you have one of those abbreviations after your name, I do, however, expect you to respect me if I’m sitting on your exam table.

94. Likewise, just because a prescription is written, I do not automatically fill it. I do not like my current doctor because every time I go see him he writes me 3 more prescriptions. I had a sore toe the other day and I thought it might be broken. I went to him to get xrays and he sent me on with the note for the lab and 2 prescriptions for what it might be. X-rays were negative and it got better in a couple of days, scripts went unfilled.

95. I know babies are really cute and would love to have two or three more of someone elses… well maybe just one.

96. Family and genealogy…. Hmmm it’s cool and all that but I think it is kinda weird the obsession Americans have about it. No where else in the world do people prefix their nationality with another, there are no African-Englishmen.. there are no Italian-French, I guess technically I am ¼ Greek, but I have only ever considered myself English.

97. Tolerance is something I struggle with I like to think that I am tolerant, I certainly do not discriminate against people on the basis of colour, race, sex, orientation, age or any other similar criteria and I am quick to call out anyone who is, but there in lies the issue, I am intolerant of intolerant people, I can’t stand it. And I often wonder to myself am I right or wrong to be that way. I mean it is fine to call out Hitler and Hussain, The KKK and the black panthers etc, but what about G.W.Bush and his homophobic ramblings, or a preacher spreading lies about another faith or My uncle when he tells an off colour joke, or a friend even saying bless you when I sneeze, when do I become more unreasonable for objecting than what I am objecting to? That is for me something I struggle with day to day.

98. I still miss my Sister and all of my family. Nothing much I can do about that though so I don’t worry about it much (I got that from my Mum) It has been 3 years since I have seen my sister and her family, a year since I saw my dad, a couple of months sine my Mum, 6 since I saw my daughter, and 10 years since I saw my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents.

99. I kept my maiden name when I got married. J My wife wanted to take my name when we married although it would not have mattered to me if she hadn’t, neither my Mum or sister have changed their names when they married even if they sometimes use their husbands names

100. I have never loved anyone the way I love Jana. I can not imagine a day with out her and even when we have rough times It still makes me happy to see her and hold her and love her and I should tell her that more often.

40th Birthday party

{For those of you who DON'T have facebook..... }

Friday April 24th 2009

I am writing this in part to document my view of the spectacular surprise sprung upon me by my wife and friends, and in part as a sign of my appreciation of their part in what was an amazing night.Intentionally or accidentally Jana was superb, and I can confirm that the surprise was complete and total. I can not lie and say that the thought had not crossed my mind that there might be a surprise party, in fact that I was fairly sure there was going to be a one… on Sunday. Her decoy “PTA event” was perfectly played. We had a fake invite on the fridge for a month before hand and she had just the right amount of “what a hassle this is going to be” that I was totally taken in, even enough that when Bob walked across the road in front of us as we approached she allowed me to talk my self out of thinking it was him, I think if she had denied him I may have got suspicious. When I climbed the steps of the building I thought it strange that we were late but no one was there yet, but to be honest I didn’t have time to think it through, The next thing I knew was everyone shouting “Surprise”. My first shock, my immediate and extended family from Atlanta, Sam, Anne and Carlos from work (Antoinette came slightly later) and good friends Frank, Karen, Dave and Hazel. Quite an array of people, awesome surprise and very well done, I was impressed, but that was not the last of my surprises, First Paul from work and his wife, very good to see them again, Paul was my boss up until December. I was thinking, wow they drove a long way. The clues for the next couple inferred friends from Tampa, and I was thinking there is no way someone drove 500 miles to celebrate my birthday! But low and behold Tess and Marty walked round the corner. By this point I was reeling again. Tess and I worked together at my first ever job in the US, we have kids of similar ages and often compare notes… Wow! At this point I was directed to watch a video, projected onto the wall of the room. It was a little blurry and I could hardly hear but I recognized a message from Miles and Glen, two very good friends from England that I have not seen for over 10 and 15 years respectively. At this point I was thinking, this is great messages from home, cool….. when I turned round and saw them standing there… well I have tried several times to describe how I felt and there are no words, nothing I can write here can come close to describe that feeling.The party was awesome, I thoroughly enjoyed my self and wish it could have gone on longer so that I could have spent more time with everyone. Miles and Glen stayed with us through Monday and I don’t think we were in bed before 2am any night just chatting up a storm, it was as if we had never been apart… I had such a great birthday weekend, and I thank everyone who had a hand in planning, attended, planned on attending or wished me well on the best birthday I could ever wish for. And finally I would like to thank my amazing wife who so far exceeded even her own usual greatness for making an old man happy. Makes me wonder how she will top this next year….

Thats a bonus

I haven’t written anything on here except family stuff for some time, so here goes.

Bonuses are in the news… The banks, that we have been bailing out, have been doling out bonuses with apparent reckless abandon.
Now I have not really looked into this too carefully but I do come from a banking environment and know that some employees, for financial reasons that benefit either the company, the employee or both, work for minimal salary and the rest is made up of bonuses. I also know that many traders and such are paid bonuses based on specific goals. I am concerned that the media in the zeal for a story may be a little less than honest in reporting these facts and I, personally do not think that such bonuses should be withheld any more than the regular pay of the rank and file (imagine the uproar).

Now as far as discretionary bonuses on top of substantial salaries, especially those based on performance, I can certainly see them being suspended. But I have to wonder, just what the real story is.

Unfortunately The media, especially here in the states seems to be more interested in sensationalizing stories than reporting facts…. To illustrate..

1) While living in Florida there was a year where there were a large number of shark attacks, it seemed that every day there was a report of someone being killed or attacked by a shark, A man eaten by a bull shark while diving off his dock, a boy’s uncle wrestling a shark out of the ocean when a it bit the boys leg, a wading fisherman attacked for his bait…. It went on and on, every one was starting to think the shark world had gone mad, people started thinking twice before going to the beach… turns out there were no more attacks that year than any other, it is just the media hyped everyone up about it. The thing is that while their advertising dollars were buoyed by the stories, others like the bait shops and ocean front hotels and businesses suffered for no good reason.

2) Just a couple of years ago a company I worked for was fined a very large amount of money for “breaches” The amount of money was impressive, staggering in fact, and it was duly reported in the media with great gusto. However the company never admitted wrongdoing and as it turned out a lot of the fine was bogus, written off against past losses and the amount that was actually handed over ended up being less than 5%.. not reported at all, even though those facts were far from private, in fact it was laid out in the document for all to read. But that didn’t make a headline. The company took the fine because it made financial sense but the bad publicity hurt it badly, all to sell newspapers.

So I wonder about the “Sub-prime” mortgage fiasco, the collapse of banking as we know it, and so forth and so forth and I wonder just how bad really were things… I sure hope it wasn’t a great news story.

Ahhhhh...

See it was worth it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDVZ-rMsY0Y

Births

OK, I have written before about the worst birthing story ever Well, this last birth was not that bad but worthy of a blog entry…..

We are “AMA” Advanced Maternal Age, and also we lost a baby last year, so we were high risk from day 1 this time. This lead to about 40 separate doctor visits and countless tests for this and that and the other thing until finally we had to say ENOUGH! If there is a problem we will just have to deal with it, we can’t be worrying about every little thing that could be wrong. One of the tests they did wasn’t covered by insurance because it was “experimental”! Having said that the pregnancy went pretty well, we were very nervous until we were well past 26 weeks when it all went horribly bad last time but as we got close it was too exciting to contain. In the final weeks things got tiring, the baby was “very large” according to the Dr. so we decided that we should deliver 2 weeks early. We went in for amnio to test for lung maturity, which was all good, and so the began induction. All progressed well if a little slow. Once she started dilating she got her epidural started and still all proceeded as planned my wife was in good spirits talking to the nurses and midwife about how much she hoped she would not need an episiotomy or worse still tear, they assured her they would be careful. After a long time we were still not close and the epidural was beginning to become less effective. The asked my wife if she wanted a booster, she said that she would because we were hours away, if it was just going to be an hour she could have coped…. Just after the extra meds were added the midwife came in to check and low and behold she was up to 10 cms. Ready to push the moved my wife into a better position, she however seemed a little strange and didn’t help as much as I thought she could have, I put it down to pain, but over the next couple of minutes she became less responsive and the nurse and midwife became concerned and started asking her to push all of a sudden her eyes rolled back in her head and she went totally limp. At this point they went into full on panic mode, the heart rate monitors dropped alarmingly, I didn’t know if it was my wifes or the baby but you could hear it slow and that was scary enough. As more and more nurses and Doctors poured into the room I got pretty much pushed of to the side, obviously they were way too busy to be concerned with me. It was looking like ER with people everywhere shouting commands and reaching across each other doing I know not what. Suddenly half the bed went flying across the room, literally thrown 10 feet allowing access for the doctor who I later found out was using suction to deliver the baby. At this point I was a complete wreck not knowing if I was going to lose the baby, my wife or both (later I found out that it was the babies heart rate that plummeted). Avery was delivered by the Dr fairly rapidly (BTW not our doctor, but one that was press ganged in to service from the room next door, I still do not know her name!) and when she came out she scored 4 on the scoring system which is not good although she did make a full and rapid recovery. At this point I was really torn , newborn in one corner barely breathing and wife in the other unconscious and for all I knew dieing all I could do though was to sit down and cry. About 5 minutes after Avery was born one of the nurses came over to me and asked me if I was OK, It was one of the most intense feelings of relief I have ever experienced, not because of my self, but because it meant that one of the fifteen nurses at least was not wholly concerned with either my wife or baby and that meant that they must be in less danger. Soon I could see Avery myself up close, she was now fully recovered from the shock of her sudden birth and soon after that my wife regained consciousness although she was confused for a while and shook for fully an hour and a half. What had happened was that she had a reaction to the medicine, although she lost consciousness she was never in any real danger, her heart rate, blood pressure oxygen levels and all other vitals remained stable.

A final funny story to finish off with, from my wife’s point of view. She of course was oblivious to all this happening, she came round to the nurses calling her name and telling her she had had her baby, she had not opened her eyes yet and we still heavily drugged especially below her waist, she assumed, somewhat reasonably that she had had to have an emergency C section, pondering this she was very surprised to hear “oh and good news, no stitches” of course referring to the episiotomy issue, but my wife was sitting there thinking, how on earth did do a C section without using stitches ?????


Avery is now 3 months old, healthy, progressing well and keeping us up at night. And we love her dearly.

And so I leave you with a thought that has occurred to me over the course of raising 5 girls. Love is defined by the emotion input you give to the relationship, It is the hard trying times far more than the easy mundane ones that contribute the vast majority of this input. We love them so much because what we have gone through bringing them into the world and it is so totally worth it.

None of that Sissy Stuff

Sent to me in an email.....

None of that Sissy Stuff
Are you tired of those sissy 'friendship' poems that always sound good,
but never actually come close to reality?
Well, here is a series of promises that actually speak of true friendship.
You will see no cutesy little smiley faces on this card-
Just the stone cold truth of our great friendship....


1. When you are sad --I will jump on the person who made you sad like a spider monkey jacked up on Mountain Dew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.

3. When you smile -- I will know you are plotting something that I must be involved in.

4. When you're scared -- we will high tail it out of here.

5. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining, ya big baby!!!!

6. When you are confused -- I will use little words.

7. When you are sick --Stay away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have.

8. When you fall -- I'll pick you up and dust you off--
After I laugh my butt off!!

9. This is my oath...I pledge it to the end. 'Why?' you may ask -- because you are my FRIEND!
Friendship is like peeing your pants,
everyone can see it,
but only you can feel the true warmth.

Send this to 10 of your closest friends,
Then get depressed because you can only think
of 4.

Introducing baby girl #5

Avery Maleah .....

8/19/08 7lbs 10oz

Mother and baby are doing fine, the delivery was a bit of a nightmare, but that is another blog!

Wisdom of Jeff

You may or may not have noticed the wisdom of Jeff quote on my blog and I’m not sure that I have explained the brilliance that is Jeff, but while browsing you tube I finally found the classic Jeff clip that sums it up.

Jeff is a character on the BBC sitcom Coupling… there was a U.S. version but that was rubbish… Anyway Jeff is the confirmed bachelor, who can not talk to girls and has the most screwed up thought process in the history of mankind. In this episode he has fallen for the leg of a girl he sees each morning on the train, he has just been explaining how the leg is virtually his girlfriend and this clip is what happens when he finally meets her face to face….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81kPWzpDHcA&feature=related

The show airs frequently on BBC America and the episode is entitled “the man with two legs”.

And now for something completely different...

All the blogs I have been reading, mine included, have been preoccupied with life’s issues so to give everyone something else today I thought I would do my version of this US-UK English language list, coupled with some hopefully witty anecdotes from personal experience. I am basing it on the list but ignoring the ones that quite frankly aren’t really an issue (Drink-driving vs. drunk-driving .. really does anyone really struggle with that?) or the ones that haven’t come up personally (eg. aeriel vs. antenna). So any way here goes…
Format:
UK Word – US Word
Anecdote
Part one - For the CAR
Boot – Trunk
Nothing really funny here except it is the one every American thinks they are incredibly funny for mentioning .
Bonnet – Hood
Actually they kinda mean the same thing, both equally inappropriate only our one sounds more girly
Wing – Fender
Took me about 6 months to figure out this one, people kept bumping their fenders and for a while I thought they meant their butt.
Car Park – Parking lot
Not a problem for me, we are familiar with both terms but I do get funny looks when I ask people where the car park is.
Petrol – Gas
I still go to the petrol station on a way to regular basis, unfortunately I have got used to saying Gas and also got used to the price so $4 / gal now sounds like a lot instead of akin to free gas (petrol costs nearly $10 / gal in the UK
Tyre – Tire
I thought people we making this up… then I saw a commercial that said “there’s no I in tires.. wait a minute… Doh!” oh the irony.
Indicator – turn signal
OK, about a year after getting here my “turn signal” went out. First step, check the fuse… so I got some fuses and opened up the fuse box and spent an hour trying to figure out what fuse was the indicator. In the end I gave in and in a very unmanly way read the instruction manual and fixed the problem. This is a classic example of how moving to another country strips you of self confidence.

Next up Part 2 - Food

Week 33

Pregnancy is going well, my wife is sick and tired of being pregnant but apart from that and the associated discomfort things are going well. The Baby now weighs 5lbs 10oz which is scary big considering we have seven more weeks to go she has moved head down, but has not yet engaged. My wife is holding her weight steady (1lb gain for the whole pregnancy) and her blood pressure is consistently 120 /60 to 130/70. All tests are negative and we are seeing the doctors twice a week from here on in as a precaution considering what happened last time. Probably the next time I write we will have our 5th girl… lol Dad to 5 girls….Mom to 5 boys we should team up!

Karma ?

"I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else," Stone said Thursday during a Cannes Film Festival red-carpet interview with Hong Kong's Cable Entertainment News. "And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?" - Sharon "dumb as a rock" Stone.

The fact that she didn't trip and break her neck on an upturned corner of that very red carpet is proof enough that Karma is dead and buried as a concept.

Q2 blog - you thought I was joking about the quarterly thing?

Update - The fence is up! Well the left side fence is up woot! 200 feet of gleaming new fence, looks good, and the best part is I didn’t have to put it up! My new neighbour came over and offered to split the cost with me and with that the price ended up cheaper than me doing it myself, so I loaded everything up on a truck and took it back to Home Depot (boy, they were not as happy to take it back as the pretended they would be when they sold it to meJ). Now all I have to do is extend the dogs run back towards the hill and see what my other new neighbour wants to do when he moves in this weekend.

Update – The baby is doing well, better than can be said for my wife. She is having all kinds of issues and I’m not so sure it isn’t because we are having every medical test known to man and a few from our friends on alpha centuri for good measure. We have had Dr appointments every week for 3 months now and we still have months to go. Fortunately work is being very understanding so I am able to go with for moral support if nothing else. Good news is though the baby is ahead of schedule and doing great… oh and it is a Girl…:-)

Update – BOB is still with us, still a complete pain in the buttock region but is doing OK, we had some liver work done on him and he is fine which considering his meds is amazing. He will probably live to 103…

Our youngest, currently 6, is going through a rough patch at school just now. They have 5 “cards” and if they misbehave they get one of their cards pulled. If they have all 5 pulled in a day then they miss out on a privilege (might get silent lunch, laps at recess or perhaps miss out on an ice cream treat or some such) Well horror of horrors she had a card pulled last week, the first one she has ever had pulled. To put it in perspective they get pulled for the most trivial thing in the world and the teachers say that most kids have at least one pulled every day, but to our little girl you would think that the bottom of the world had fallen out. She is sure that she is going to be punished, even though we and both teachers have assured her that nothing happens unless you lose all five in one day, but she can not get her head around that for some reason. She went to school in tears this morning it was more than a week ago since it happened, the teachers have forgotten why they even pulled the card.

Our next oldest turned 9 yesterday, half way to 18 SLOW DOWN! I wrote her a note in Gnomish from the Artemis Fowl books that we read together, she read it as if it were in English, didn’t even glance at the translation table. It is amazing to me how their brains work and that they can grasp things so quickly at this age. I played her Bohemian Rhapsody in the car the other day, she got home ran to the computer, printed out the lyrics and had them memorized within the hour, the 6 year old learnt them from listening to her sister and by the end of the night they had worked out a duet version with each of them singing parts and everything. If you would like to check out the videos go to youtube.com\redfredsed69. There are some of them playing in the yard too if you are interested.

Anyway until there is news of the baby arriving See ya!

Ok, Time for my Quarterly blog….

So what have I been up to? Well my fence is still not up…. There is a story in the bible I think that goes something like A moron puts his house up on Sand, a wise man puts it up on Stone… well a genius puts it on hard packed Georgia clay… Man that stuff is tough to dig through. I do have a small section of the yard done, but have had to call it off for the time being due to errr….. weather, yes that’s right weather….

We still have boxes in the garage (and 70 bags of quickcrete) but not as many as before and I can now park in the garage.... (my trash can not my car). We are down to boxes of decorative stuff, which we will need display space for and stuff that is going into the monster garage sale.

On a family front we are pregnant again, after last time we are extremely cautious and quite frankly scared poop less but things seem to be progressing well. Mrs Fred is sick as a dog… well a regular dog, not one of mine, if she was as sick as one of my dogs I would probably have her put down… speaking of which when my wife was sick with our last baby (now 6) we had a very old greyhound with bad hips and an incontinence problem and she was in some pain, one day late in the pregnancy my wife decided, probably correctly that it was time for “Flower” to go meet her maker, so I was dispatched to the Vet who agreed that it was for the best and did the deed. To this day the family gives my wife jibes about killing the dog in a fit of intolerance…. So we have this German Sheppard who has epilepsy and other issues and, despite being on the borderline liver failure due to the meds he has to take, has been having more and more frequent episodes. The fits are a nightmare to deal with, quite scary to have a 100lb dog convulsing round the room peeing and recently pooping (nice). After a fit he will pace for about 4 hours straight, can not or will not obey any commands, can not walk properly or avoid things like walls, and generally is tough to deal with (did I mention he always fits in the middle of the night) For days afterwards he is a mess, my other dog will not go near him and we have to be real careful with him. Originally he had a seizure once every 5 or 6 months, now we are down to three weeks if we are lucky and we are already maxed out on drugs (if he doesn’t get them he will seize hourly 10 or 12 times in a row sometimes as frequently as every three or four days)… My wife has started calling him BOB since she has been pregnant, it stands for beast of burden. I have another name for him, STBD (Soon to be dead). RIP flower.

Winner

You have won second prize in a beuty contest, collect $10 from each player....



Actually it was a costume contest and it was $50! ARGH!

Fencing

So I am sitting here looking at my hands, that are just about recovering from the bruising they took moving all my stuff into the new house, and I am thinking about what I just signed up for with a trip to Home Depot last night to buy 40 8 foot 4x4 fence posts, 20 6 foot 4x4 fence posts, 70 bags of quickcrete, 38 6 foot privacy panels and 80 1x6 slats and I am thinking… why me? Why did I buy a house with such a big yard? Trouble is with all that we are doing to the house right away I really need to economize and put the thing up myself, but that is a lot of fence!

Along with the fence and the unpacking of the 6 zillion boxes we seem to have (do the procreate in storage?) I have also discovered the joy of putting up blinds / shades / curtains… window treatments in general… what a total pain in the ass! Everywhere I have lived before already had stuff on the windows and now I realize what a huge selling point that is with a house! And can I say that like my boxes, my windows are rabbits, I have six in the master suite alone!!! So I have learnt the following tips…

* Measurements need to be a lot more accurate when you are doing blinds than when you are doing curtains.

* Measurements are still important when you are doing curtains.

* Measure twice cut once, or better still, measure twice and buy the right size in the first place.

* Fitted bed sheets make excellent window treatments (and you don’t even have to measure them!)

* When you are in the design center and they ask you do you want the window in the master bathroom obscured, say “yes” unless you like waving to the neighbours stark naked in the morning.

Oh the joys of home ownership…. There is so much more to it that a dirty great mortgage payment at the beginning of the month.

Busy times

Well, I have not blogged in a good long time, mostly because I didn't know how to deal with following up the last two posts and frankly it just made me cry to read them again much less post. My wife and I lost our baby, still born, honestly it was the saddest thing I have ever been through and I am still not ready to talk about it much here, but before I can move on and stop being depressed every time I come here I have to let you know so you won't ask me any more.

I do not want to belittle that event but I also don't want to dwell on it so... what else have I done in the past 4 months? Well I have worked my ass off, we are short people and long on workload there doesn't seem to be an end in sight so I am working 10 hour days and some nights and weekends too. Not that I am not busy at home either, last weekend we moved in to our new home and have been painting, furniture moving, unboxing stuff that has been in storage for over a year now, hanging curtains, putting up towel bars and toilet roll holders etc. We love our house, when I moved out to come work in GA last August I had no idea that it would be so long before we were living together in OUR house again and it feels really really good. There is no way I would do it that way again. But we have our new home, it has a fantastic lay out , plenty of room especially where we wanted it and a huge lot, We did sacrifice the basement but the house had so much else going for it it was a no brainer, Oh and we got it for $20k less than we were going to pay!

Not sure how long it will be before I blog again, maybe tomorrow, maybe 4 months, we will see how it goes.

Peyton Rene

Grand daughter #2 has arrived... early!!!

6lbs 2 oz mother and baby are doing fine. :-) no pics yet.. well they are on my cell phone but since becoming a grandparent I have completely lost all abilities to use a "new fangled darn contraption"... I remember when you had to wind the phone up to make it work....

Three interesting things that are happening in my life right now I have not blogged about

1. My daughter is pregnant.
2. I turn 38 this week
3 My wife is pregnant.

Fantasy football

OK, So I volunteered this season as an assistant football (soccer) coach for my 7yo’s team, which as you may have guessed soon turned into a head coach role as they were short of volunteers.

We started practice a couple of weeks ago. I have an 8 Girl U8 team which, by process of kicking balls in to named boxes, is called the Eagles. We have so far had three practices and 2 games. The practices have been a little disjointed as I really have no idea what I am doing! :-) For some bizarre reason they like to run laps so that helps but I had no idea how difficult it was going to be to entertain 8 girls for an hour much less teach them anything. I learned early on they were unable to stand in line and wait for a turn doing anything as the line immediately degenerates into a brawl! So each time I practice anything it kinda has to be an all together activity.

Our first game was a 4-3 loss I thought we played very well though and it wasn’t for a couple of lucky kick and hope goals we would have won. The second game, the reason for me writing this, was one the proudest moments of my life. My Eagles soared to a 5-0 win, three different scorers and my Daughter scoring the best of the lot, her first ever in an actual game. I usually try very hard not to go too over the top when my team scores but I could not contain myself… I pulled my shirt over my head and “soared” about the pitch screaming “no place for losers ‘cause we are the champions….of the world” … OK I threw my hands in the air and said yes!... but in my mind I was soaring!

The team played awesome and I was so proud of each of them they actually did some of the things I taught them despite me thinking they weren’t even listening.

GO EAGLES

Rooty tooty fresh and fruity..

Well finally the denquackquacktist finished of the root canal, now I “only” have 4 more visits… Great. Hopefully the next visits won’t be so painful seeing as he is done all the digging and now we are just building a base for the crown.

Why do dentists talk to you, or rather ask you questions when you have a mouthful of god knows what? I mean I could handle him telling me about his weekend or summit (tee hee) but why ask me stuff when I can’t possibly answer? It’s sadistic I tell you. This time it was the nurse, or whatever they are called at a dentists’ office, I am sitting there with drills actually stuck in my mouth for them to take xrays to make sure they are done, I have my mouth as wide open as I can get it so I don’t drive the drills through my tooth that I wouldn’t feel if I did (until the Novocain wore off) I have a mouthful of gauze, blood, tooth, temporary filling and all manner of other crap that tastes foul, I am sweating like a pig through some kind of anxiety attack that I seem to have developed to enhance my dentist experience, and in she comes with my x-ray…

Her : Did you know you have a wisdom tooth?

Me: Uhhh?

Her: a wisdom tooth?

Me: Ohh.. ger huh hughh

Her: you probably want to have that removed..

Me: Bitch! (in my head at least).

Something for the weekend.....

Well kind of a bleugh weekend, Mrs. Fred has a hurt back and I don’t know if she was less tolerant of me or I just was being an extra special pain in the ass but we argued quite a bit.

Friday was cool, I took 7yo to Father Daughter dance, dress was smart casual and I had on Khakis and a mint green shirt that matched her dress. We got there and the first 5 fathers I met were in a shirt and tie.. Great I thought, I am going to be under dressed, but as it turned out there were people there in jeans and t shirts and most of the ties came off. I have never been to one of these things before and had no idea what to expect but apart from the ear shattering screaming I was pleasantly surprised. I did the Chicken song, the Macarena (until 7yo abandoned me in the middle of the dance floor), some cha cha thing, a jump and slide and whoosh… well I’m not sure what that thing was!!!! Oh and the YMCA song along with a couple of slow songs. 7yo had a great time when not dancing with me playing with here 7yo friends and I met one of the dads who seemed very nice and we agreed to arrange a play date or something. Mrs Fred and 5yo went to dinner with our good friend and had a great time too.

Saturday we all went shopping, Mrs Fred and I argued and I sulked…. Then we split up again, Mrs. Fred took 7yo to our nieces’ birthday party (at a bead place) while 5yo and I did one of her favorite things, we coloured. I had picked up some of those felt pictures that you colour in the gaps and sat down with her for an hour and just coloured and coloured until she was happy, then we went into the bedroom and watched a couple of kid movies. I fell asleep through the Care bears one but she woke me up to switch to Madagascar. Later we all met up at the niece’s house for cake and presents but cried off early because of Mrs Fred’s back. On the way home we signed up with Blockbuster’s net flix thing got a little confused, and ended up getting a few in store movies but I think we have the hang of it now. On the way home we argued again.

Sunday, we did a little better and again shopped in the morning. There are so many things that you don’t realize you are going to need when you move into a new place, especially when you only half move in and 50% + of your stuff is still in boxes and the rest doesn’t fit in the new spaces…. Then we came home and argued some more, I ended up at Walmart getting an indoor broom and another new trash can for the kitchen. I also picked up a small coffee machine to see if it could make tea… It worked! (at least well enough for me) and coolest of all it made me a cup automatically this morning at 5am!!! Mrs Fred and I managed to pull it together enough to watch a movie (from blockbuster) which as it turned out was the worst movie we have watched in a while, Miami Vice. If you haven’t seen it, don’t. If you have…. Sorry.

Well here’s to hoping the week wont suck as bad as the weekend… oh wait I have a root canal for this afternoon… yippee.

you tube

OK, So I have figured out I like you tube... lol

I have found old music I loved.... I saw these guys about 20 times!

I have found old TV Clips from my childhood.... Got to love the cotten wool smoke on the train.

I have found The Quote on my blog from Jeff.

And finally I found Bitty

:-)

Because I like these things

1. Name people who made you smile yesterday? My five year old told me her favorite letter was "D" because D is for Daddy.
2. What were you doing at 8 this morning? Working, in my coat because the office was freezing this morning.
3. What were you doing 15 minutes ago? Reading Jeanette's version of this.
4. What is something that happened to you in 1994? I had my hair cut. My bosses had been asking me to do it for years, but the reason was because my baby wouldn't stop pulling it!
5. What is the last thing you said aloud? Surely you have seen Airplane [the movie].
6. How many different things did you drink today? Milk to swallow pills, Coke (2 cans so far)
7. What color is your hairbrush? Blue
8. What was the last thing you bought? A Wrench.
9.Who is your best friend?My Wife.
10.What color is your front door? I honestly don't know…. We only moved in yesterday and I have only gone in through the Garage… The Garage door is White!
11. Where do you keep your change? In my pocket, which I empty into a piggy bank. I often just trash coins or leave then in a pile on a desk or shelf or whatever comes to hand
12. What was the weather like today? COLD
13. What is the best ice-cream flavor? Raspberry Ripple… or really just plain Vanilla.
14. What is something you are excited about? Moving in to a house, even if it is not mine and not at all permenant, it is still exciting
15. When was the last rainbow you saw? I read a cool book about Rainbows to my 5 year old last week, it had strands of ribon threaded through the pages and it grew one colour at a time as you read. The last real rainbow I saw was in FL 8 months ago.
16. Do you have a sister? Yes I do.
17. Are you very random? I don't like random, but apreciate I am very much so.
18. Do you want to cut your hair? No, I haven't found a new barber that I like yet. The first thing I do once I have a haircut iss rush home and shower.
19. Are you over the age of 25? Yes I am
20. Do you talk a lot? I can tell a good story if needs must, but I like to listen more.
21. Do you watch The OC? No, see answer 19 above
23. Do you know anyone called Steve? No, I do not even have a steve at work.. Weird
24. Are you ticklish? No, my sister and I used to play a game where we had to stay still for as long as possible while the other tickled them, I got very very good at it. It furstrates my kids, but I have found that I am pokelish and scratchlist
25. Are you typically a jealous person? No not really, I usually are glad for people I know who are doing well for themselves.
26. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘A.’ Me.
27. Do you chew on your straw? No, I do not do anything that might interfere with coke getting in my mouth
28. What is the next concert you’re going to? My Chemical Romance
29. Who is the coolest person in your life? Me!
30. What is something you say a lot? Bloody. Because everyone at work thinks its cute and it is not often you can vent a curse in a cute way. Also trying to say Summit [for Something] because it winds my wife up.
31. What is the last thing you ate?chicken pot pie and peas.
32. Have you seen the movie ‘Donnie Darko’?Nope
33. Do you have work tomorrow? Yes
34. Is marriage in your future? I would think so.
35. What should you be doing right now? Working.
36. Do you have a nickname? No, in school for a while I was called pidgeon
37. Are you a heavy sleeper? Yes, I have slept through Hurricanes.
38. When was the last time you used a skateboard? When I was a kid I sat on a skateboard and went down a bloody steep hill, never got near on ever again.
39. What is the best movie you’ve seen in the past two weeks? Smokin Aces, It was weird , bizare, I definitly didn't understand they whole thing but is was disturbingly compelling.
40. Are you currently depressed? No, I have my ups and downs, but I do not believe I have ever been clinically depressed. My worst point in recent history was when I was in GA and my family was in FL…but that’s done with now. Concidering my current situation, living in my in-laws home, having a house in a different state I can't sell, living away from my eldest daughter and my Grand daughter, in a new very stressful job with 3/4 of my possesions in boxes in a number of garages I think I am coping pretty good.

Charlotte’s dead.

A few weeks ago I took my two youngest daughters to the cinema to see a film, Charlotte’s web. The whole film is basically devoted to making you feel sorry for the dieing spider to which your natural reaction might be yuck. Suitably my 7 year old is fighting back tears as Wilbur is taking Charlotte’s web sack in his mouth and I have to admit I too was a little emotional. The 5 year old on my lap turns slowly to me and says “is Charlotte dead?” I gave a grimace and nodded, “I’m afraid so…” I start, “Good, I hate spiders” she exclaimed.

It Blogs…

OK, here is my Quarterly offering, hope you enjoy.

This week I have had….

A happy moment: I booked to fly home the weekend of the 8th and the 22nd but just for good measure I got a business trip to Tampa on the weekend of the 15th . I get to see my family three weekends in a row.

A scary moment : On my return last weekend, late Sunday night, I followed my regular routine. I jumped on the train to where I work, and had left my car and drive home. When I got on to the Train a gentleman asked me if it was the train to BLAH BLAH, I said no, you have to change trains halfway. When we got to the place you have to change he asked me another question concerning the platform for the second train and when I got to my stop he asked me if this was BLAH BLAH, I said yes and we got off. He followed me off the platform and through the barrier, down the steps in the parking lot and then down an obscure alley that puts me on the road my company is on. I was a little freaked out that he was still following me but not to bad, I was thinking maybe he thought I was going to the taxi rank or something. I walked down to the intersection and crossed over both roads to the sidewalk that leads into my company… he is STILL following me, OK I am seriously starting to freak out here the only thing down my company’s street are a couple of restaurants and my company and it is 10pm. I walked in the entrance to my company and scrambled over a bank into the parking lot.. And he follows me!!! So I’m thinking This is it, I am about to get mugged, I put my keys between my knuckles and turned to confront him and he said “So, you work for XYZCORP too?” got in his car and drove off…. His car was the only other car in the lot.

A surreal moment: today as I parked my car, I reversed in so that I could display my special badge for overnight parking so I am looking over my shoulder left and right, do a pretty good job if I say so myself, I put the car in park and look to my right and Santa is asleep in the car next to me, his coat hanging in the rear passenger seat.

Last day

Today is my last day at Chase, A mixed emotion day, I am very sad to be leaving the many good friends I have here, the security of working for a blue chip, the comfort of the familiar etc. Then again I am excited at the prospect in front of me, new opportunities, new friends, new everything….. I’m also very anxious, my house here in FL is not even on the market yet, my family can’t join me until it sells, my Girls are gonna miss me and I am going to miss them. Right now just about every emotion is coursing through my blood at the same time, this is it and it is Scary.

Atlanta Bound

So I have had an adventurous week so I guess I should share with my faithful 2 visitors.... :-)
Background..... 6 years ago when we came from England we settled in Florida because 1) that's where my mother and Father in-law lived, 2) that's where my Wife's best friend lived, 3) that's where all my daughters friends lived, 4) that's where the rest of my wife's family (that we have a great relationship with ) live, a cousin (+family) and an aunt and uncle. Soon after arriving my in-laws were forced to move to New Mexico for his job. Last year the cousin, uncle and aunt and best friend all moved away to Atlanta (it was a coincidence that the best friend moved to the same county as the others. There are another two cousins and their families already living there in Atlanta. Later this year my father in-law retires and they plan to move very close to us. My daughter has grown up now and most o her friends are now away at college and what not.

SO.... As you may have guessed we have been thinking that before the in laws move to Florida we should probably take a look at Atlanta ourselves... I love my job and I work for one of the leading national banks and so I asked my bosses if there was a chance that I could transfer to the Atlanta office, perhaps in the new year. They did not get back to me for a while and last Wednesday night one of my job search bots emailed me a position very close to where we want to live and matching up rather well with my resume. so at about 10pm I sent off my resume without much of a cover letter just to test the water. 7:30am Thursday I got a call from them asking me if I could do a phone interview that afternoon, which I did and it went pretty good, then they asked me if I could get up there for a face to face... sure I said so I booked a flight for Monday around noon. Monday morning my boss phoned me to let me know that there was not an opportunity to transfer as the office in Atlanta was not suitable for my line of work, that he was sorry and hoped that it didn't mean they might lose me. I bit my tongue and caught my flight.

I arrived at the office in Atlanta via a very hot MARTA train ride from the airport (apparently they do normally have AC) and interviewed with 5 people until 6:30pm. then flew home. At 7am the next morning I got a call, I got the job, when can I start? so Tuesday at 10am I handed in my resignation. I start in Atlanta on Aug 28th I will be staying with the friend and my Wife and kids are staying in Florida until the house sells.....

Once again my life sends me for massive loop de loop.

By the way did I mention that the job is about a 25% pay raise, has great benifits and has 20 days vacation ?

Halle

WC 2006...

Did any one mention that it was World Cup time ?


Officially the world cup starts tomorrow!!!!!!!

Holy crap I am excited :-)

Come on ENGLAND, Come on ENGLAND !

OMG....

Just a quick update to show just how close to Grandfather-dom.. or is that ..doom...