Additional funny!

We usually raise our voices and say "JAMES" when James is being bad. Lately he has been up-ending his dinner plate onto the table, eliciting the raised-voice "JAMES" response from Karen and I every time he does it. This afternoon, James turned his plate of veggies over, emptying his veggies onto the table and then he loudly announced "JAMES, JAMES, JAMES". He cracks me up.

News and more news!

MY FRIEND SCOTTIE IS GETTING MARRIED!!! He asked Melisa to be his wife, and she accepted! Congratulations you two, I am totally psyched for you guys!

Scottie also asked me to be his Best Man!! I have been friends with Scottie for a long time, and this really means a lot to me! I am very honored and really excited that he has asked me to participate in sharing the day with them! I can't wait for the big day!

I wanted to talk about this as soon as Scottie told me the news, but I was afraid to spill the beans, just in case someone hadn't heard about it from him.

A little bit about my life. Karen and I started the adoption process through a place called "Independent Adoption Center" located in Indianapolis. The neat thing about the independent adoption center is that the birth mother gets to pick the couple that will be adopting her child. We are going to put together a letter for women who are making an adoption plan for their child. The birth mother selects the adoptive parents from the letter. It is also an open adoption, I.E. after the birth of the child, the birth mother (or biological parents) can stay in contact with the child if they choose to do so. We will probably be adopting a domestic-born baby, since we probably couldn't afford to adopt a baby from outside the US. I (we) just hope it happens soon!

Back to being myself again...

After several months of really struggling at my job, I seem to have a few more things figured out and I appear to be swimming instead of sinking. I feel much better about my job and I am much happier these days. Just thought you should know. Instead of an upset stomach, now I have a sense of pride that I am capable of doing my job. It was really scary for a little while there, but things are looking good lately. Now, if I could just figure out how to get the efficiency so high that I wouldn't have to make the guys work every other weekend, I would be very happy. That would be nice. My conscience gnaws at me pretty heavily for making 200 people spend so much time away from their families.

I still feel horrible that the plant manager lost his job this week. I really hope he is okay. I know he took pride in his job and I feel awful for him. I only worked with him for a little while, but I gained some respect for him in that short amount of time and I still have that respect for him even though he is no longer my coworker.

$2 a gallon?!?!

Okay, what gives? Why the hell is gas back to two dollars a gallon? Is this in light of the recent inquiries launched against the big oil companies? I think we need to investigate the makers of really sweet cars to see if they drop the prices too.

In other really strange news, the plant manager where I work was fired this week. He worked at the plant for something like 27 years. That scares the hell out of me. He is a nice guy, too. He is definitely in my prayers. It was definitely a shock to almost everyone.

I have some really exciting news! Karen and I just started the process of adopting a baby! We are very excited about it and we hope it happens quickly as we would love to have another little one to love. Wish us luck! I wonder if it will be a boy or a girl???

New internet connection!!!

We are finally getting a DSL!!!! I have been a dial-up user since 1992, and I am finally getting a high speed connection!! I can't wait for my line to be installed!

I will probably wonder how I ever got along without it.

It seems weird to me that my son will never know what the world was like without a computer or the internet. My, how times change... Remember the days when books were more than just entertainment?

One of the schools in this area doesn't even use textbooks any more, the students have PDAs to carry all of their info on. Imagine if you forget to charge your PDA and you lose your homework, all of it, along with all of your textbooks, and your databases, etc... Weird.

Daily Challenge!!

Here is a glimpse of the fun I had this afternoon!

I spend 60 to 70 hours a week scheduling production for the plant that I work at. Today (at 4:45 PM, no less) I was told that the schedule that I wrote for next week was being revised; we have to send half of our production to one of our competitors because they screwed up their plant. Apparently, it is my job to make up for the diminished capacity of our competitors. We wouldn't want them to miss any of their orders now, would we? All of my scheduling work was for nothing, since someone (who outranks me) apparently has a buddy at our competitors' place. Now I get to re-write the schedule to fit their needs. What a load.

Holy crap, it's winter.

I had ice on my windshield this morning! That sucks! It was 80 degreees last week, now it suddenly sucks. We were wearing shorts and t-shirts just a week ago! What the heck happened?

In other news, my in-laws were here for a short visit. It's nice to have visitors, and I miss them already. We live in the middle of nowhere, and we know very few people in the area, so it is really nice to see friendly faces. Karen's parents are really cool, they even help us out with work around the house when they visit. As a matter of fact, Karen's father and I cut a Bradford Pear tree down in my front yard on Saturday, in the 55 degree drizzling rain. (The tree had sustained serious damage from a nasty ice storm a year ago. It was in really sad shape and needed to be taken down.)

If you want to see some recent pictures of us, including the Alton Brown pictures, go here and follow the pumpkin patch link: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/karenperidot/my_photos

WE MET ALTON BROWN!!

Karen, James and I got to meet Alton Brown on Saturday!!! It was really cool, and his live performance was even funnier than his TV show "Good Eats". It was like watching a scientist-comedian make food. Really brilliant! We even brought in our "unitasker" for him to sign, which I think he got a chuckle out of. (the only unitasker that Alton thinks that everyone should own is a fire extinguisher, everything else in the kitchen should serve multiple purposes) We had a great time, and we were very pleased to find that our favorite TV chef is such a nice man.

Alton Brown rocks.

Spiders and mice.

There seems to be a lot of spiders around here. I had one cruise across my screen in my office today, another one left a web across the arm of my chair during lunchtime. I was about to give James a bath a few minutes ago, and I saw him trying to pet a little spider in the bathroom while I was running his bath. Has anyone else noticed a zillion spiders this year, or am I just in Kansas with a zillion spiders? Not to sound the alarm, but I think global warming is to blame, with El Nino a close second.

There are mice in our distribution center. They are very smart mice, able to avoid snap traps and glue boards while crapping all over the place. There are so many mice in the distribution center that we had to name a guy to head up the vermin eradication program. Since his job is to stop the super-crapping mice, his new job title is the "stop the poopers supervisor". Just thought you should know.

Work still sucks, but I had enough by 4:30 today, so I left. I am actually in charge of the facility tomorrow, so I may not be able to leave quite as early. I hope that everything runs smoothly tomorrow, I don't have a lot of plant manager experience under my belt yet. Wish me luck!

Long hours of fun...

I have a complaint. Why haven't people figured out that nothing is for free, especially when it comes to e-mail? I am so tired of "Forward this to ten people and Bill Gates will send you a twenty million dollar talking fish!" Okay, perhaps I made that one up, but you get the idea. Why do I still get that kind of e-mail? I don't even reply to the senders any more to tell them that they are being bad monkeys, I just delete them. Maybe human nature says that we want to believe that one day it will really happen? It's kind of like buying a lottery ticket. Someone will win a bazillion dollars, but the chances are excellent that it will not be you.

The long hours part. It is Wednesday and I have already put in 36 hours at the office. What the heck did I step in?

Back from vacation again!

Last week, Karen and I went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We spent a relaxing week at the the beach. In the rain. Tropical storm Tammy pees on us ALL WEEK. My parents, my sister, and her fiance were also there with us. Karen and I got a timeshare from her parents and we invited my family to go on vacation with us. It was a lot of fun, even if it did rain all week. We got to see gardens in downpours, plantation in drizzle, and a lot of other cool stuff. We took lemons and made lemonade, I guess.

It sure is nice to sleep in my own home again, but work sucks. When do I get to retire? I am going to save a lot of money, pay cash for everything, and retire early. I doubt it will really happen, but it would be pretty cool. Yup, it sure would. I wouldn't stop working, but I would definitely take a less stressful job and live life a little slower.

Quick note...

I really dig all the new names around here and anyone is welcome to post a comment on my site, with one exception: no pay site ads. Half the time, I don't know if it is spam or if it is actually someone leaving a real comment and plugging their own commercial site. For this reason I ask anyone leaving a comment to please not plug any commercial sites, lest your comment be deleted forthwith. If you want to increase traffic at your site, by all means leave a link to your site, I would be happy to see it. I will probably follow the link to your page and check it out as well!

Fish

Wendy's for lunch...

I had Wendy's for lunch today. Somehow, when you spend ten minutes looking for a restaurant, it makes the food better. Maybe it was also due to the fact that they also have a new menu item that I dig? They now sell Frostys (chocolate shakes, if you have never had one) that you get to dump M&Ms or other candies into, kinda like a DQ Blizzard, only cheaper.

One thing that really made my lunch special today was the fact that Karen and James joined me for lunch. I like living close to work. :) I got to share my lunch with James, my drooling baby St. Bernard. I don't know how he can stand drooling all the time, half of the time his shirt is soaking wet from all of the slobber.

Which bring me to my next question, why doesn't baby slobber smell like slobber? Adult slobber is stinky, baby slobber is more like water - it's not stinky. Weird...

James' a walkin'!

James is walking! He took his first few clumsy and precious steps on his own today! It was freakin' awesome! I love that little boy so much, and I am so proud right now! Thank you, God!

In other news, we got the paint sandblasted off of the brick on the front of the house, and it looks much better. If you want to see the latest, just follow the link on the previous post and look for the updates file. The pictures also show the new ceramic tile entryway and the upstairs bathroom vanity after the silver paint was removed.

Pictures and stuff.

Karen set up a web site for us with some pictures of us and our new house. Here it is: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/karenperidot/my_photos

The most recent file is the one called "house pictures".

Telemarketers get theirs, again.

Since we moved to a new area and we are not on the "do not call list" yet, we get about two to three telemarketers a day, most of them selling either home security systems or water systems. Karen has gotten tired of them and she ahs begun to mess with them, just a little. Here is the conversation that I overheard yesterday. I will only post one side of the conversation, since that is all that I could hear.

"Hello?"

"Yes, this is Mrs. Kyyyyoooooooogalurrrrr."

"No, thank you, we don't need a home security system, we don't even lock our front dooor half the time."

"No, it's okay, my husband actually likes walking around the house at three A.M. in his boxers with his Louisville slugger every time we hear a noise in the middle of the night. He really does."

"Did you just say booglar? What the heck is a booglar? Bwahhahahaa! Do you mean a burglar? No, we are definitely not worried about booglars, have a good day, bye-bye now."

I fell over laughing after that one. Karen is my hero.

I knew it!

I told them what to do much earlier this week, and they should have listened. I knew what I was talking about and I was right. I stayed three hours after work today to come to the conclusion that I was right the first time. I may be new here, but I am smarter than the average godzilla, darnit.

There, I vented and I feel much better now, since I can't say it to anyone at work. They all went home at normal time and they stopped answering their cell phones long ago.

James the Guilty

The police came to our house in response to a call to their emergency 911 center. James did it. He called the cops on us. My little 14-month old buddy really called 911 and made the police come to the house. Karen was horribly embarassed, and I was at work so I didn't get to see it. Oopsie. Sorry about that, Overland Park police department, we really didn't mean to waste your time. Karen knew we were in trouble when she hung up the phone that James had been playing with and it started ringing. The police apparently have to pay a visit to your house when you call them, even if you assure them that there is no reason for them to do so. When the police got here, Karen told the officers, "Here's the culrit. Take him away and lock him up!" James grinned and drooled, somehow lacking any remorse for what he had done.

James still says "boobies" every once in a while, but his favorite word is definitely "lights". He points out all types of lights and announces their presence wherever we go. He is especially comical on the highway as we pass under the streetlights, all of them are individually announced, one at a time. By the time we get to where we are going, we are trying to guess the next time he is going to say it, laughing the whole time. "Lights, lights, lights..."

It's about time...

After a brief hiatus from blogging, I thought that I should get back to it again and put out a new posting. We have begun the update of the house and spent most (okay, we really spent it all) of our money. We put in a ceramic floor in the half bat and hallway, and Karen's Parents helped us out by completing several projects for us. The spare upstairs bath has a new look, the silver paint is gone from the front of the vanity. The room that used to look like an easter egg is now a beautiful and stately off-white color, and closet doors have been installed where they were once missing. I have to figure out how to post pictures on the blog so I can show you the progress that we have been making. There will be a short break in the remodeling action while we wait to see if we can pay the bills this month. :) I like that game, there is never a dull moment.

On a side note, my new job is amazingly difficult. I bet that there are CEOs that have easier days than I do. My job is much, much more of a challenge than I ever expected. Oh well, I will eventually get to the point where I can do it well and do it quickly, in about three years. To be honest, nothing ever slows me down, and I almost never stress about anything. Scottie can definitely attest to this, he saw me in action in school. This job has really got me stressing hard. I didn't sleep from last Wednesday until Saturday night because I was so freaked out and worried about sinking the company like a lead balloon. That is very out of charater for me, to say the least. It has got to get easier, or I will go nutso, pronto. One thing that made me feel much better about the job was that I talked to the guy who retired from the job, and he gave me some pointers and some hints on how to make it a little more bearable. He also told me that we will occasionally have orders that we can't meet, and we will occasioanlly make the customers mad. It actually made me feel much better to hear that after many years of doing the job that he still had challenges. That was the major reason that I was able to sleep on Saturday night, since I was finally able to stress out a little less after talking to the vetran scheduler. I am confident that things will eventually get easier, but it is hard as hell right now and I am really struggling.

Karen and James are doing very well so far. They make me happy and proud, all the time. :)

I hope you are all doing well! Have a great week, just in case I don't get back to the blog right away!

Fish

New house of boxes...

We are in a crazy sea of boxes. I thought that I was no longer a pack rat, but this move has shown me that I still have way too much stuff. Karen and I are going to purge and purge like never before. The local goodwill store is going to be overrun with Mr. and Mrs. Fish's stuff. I can't stand all of the garbage that we have, it is driving me nuts. The garage and the basement here are not big enough to hold all of our crap and I am not going to put in a shed just to have more storage space.

Anyone need anything? I have lots of stuff if you need anything, just let me know! Shipping might even be free! What do you need?

Sleeping in one's own bed is a beautiful thing.

BTW, one of my nice new neighbors has a fast unsecured wireless connection, which I am using. Thank you new neighbor for allowing me free access to the internet!!

I found out that I can also get a 1.5 Mbps DSL for only 19.95 a month. That is nuts. That is cheap enough that I might even get my own connection instead of being a freeloader.