Trip Home Update!

Just wanted to share a few pictures with you. I'm remembering to take a lot of pics and videos while I'm back home. So far this trip has been excellent and we're really having a good time.

Okay, anyway, here ya go!

Yoo-Hoo and 88 Fingers Louie

Well, I was about half way through a Midnight Shift Security Officer's Night Before Christmas poem post, but I decided that it was turning out to be decidedly unfunny, so I deleted it.  Mostly, the problem I had was trying to rhyme the word "Caremark," which wasn't working out to well, and that was in the first line of the thing.  Well anyway, it's Christmas eve, and I'm at work.  I'll make no bones about being at work and blogging right now, because, well, there's nothing going on and I don't have anything to do right now anyway.  But how about a story?

About 9 years ago, I was smack dab in the middle of a Yoo-Hoo kick, where all I wanted to drink all day was Yoo-Hoo.  I was a total addict for a month or so in there.  So I remember that year having a couple Yoo-Hoo's in tow as we went to all the houses of relatives around the area on Christmas eve.  Also, instead of listening to boring old Christmas music while we drove to all the houses, we listened to 88 Fingers Louie's album Back On The Streets.  Well, somehow, the events of that Christmas 2002 ended up being repeated every Christmas eve until we moved to Nashville.  Now, whenever I hear this album, or drink a Yoo-Hoo, it reminds me of Christmas.  It's my little tradition, and I always forget to buy Yoo-Hoo until it's too late and all the stores are closed.  At least I have half of the tradition going on as I'm jamming Back On The Streets here at the desk tonight.

Okay, well that's all for now.  I'm going to play some air drums and wait for Santa to land his sleigh on the roof of Caremark.  Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas.

Vloggerated!!!

The Crying Baby Flight Fright

There are a few questions that I have that are involved in heading home this coming weekend(!).  Some of which are the mundane, like, should we take this laptop?  And even if we do, will there be WiFi?  I'm sure that is something I can look up or make a quick phone call to find out, but I just don't know.  But the bigger question involves the travel day itself.  First off, we're going to take the bus to the airport.  It's the cheapest way we can get there, because parking the car is too expensive and Taxis are very much too expensive around these parts.   I'm not looking forward to riding the bus with a baby and luggage, but we'll save a buck or two in the process, and my lovely wife, who is experienced with the MTA bus system thinks it will be okay, so I'll trust her judgement.  But what time do we have to catch the bus?  How long is our bus ride going to take?  Again, these are questions I can look up the answers to. The bigger question is, how will baby handle buses?  The whole trip, from getting on the bus to getting off the plane, it's going to be a long day.  Baby takes pretty scheduled naps, these days.  I hope she can catch some Z's on one of our shoulders.  I mean, she'll have to.

But speaking of how will baby handle stuff, my second big concern I have is the actual plane ride.  I had the same anxiety about having a baby in the car for a 10 hour car ride, and that turned out to be just fine, because she is an awesome baby.  But babies don't know how to cope with the changing pressure of takeoffs and landings of airplanes.  It can be uncomfortable, and when babies are not happy/uncomfortable, they cry.  Now, I've heard of a lot of people that have complained about having to be stuck on a plane with a crying baby.  I feel really bad that I'm going to be that guy (not the annoyed guy, the guy with the crying baby).  It's most likely going to happen, and I feel the urge to stand up and address the problem with my fellow passengers before we takeoff.

"Hey guys, I know it's sucks to be stuck on an airplane with a crying baby, and I'm sorry you all have to go through this, but honestly, who doesn't have noise-canceling headphones these days?  I mean, c'mon.  Slap em on and let's get to where we're going, already."

We're probably going to annoy some traveler, but you know what?  That sort of comes with the territory of flying with other humans, dude.  I can't help that my baby is crying, okay?  You're gonna have to get over it, because there is nothing you or I can do about it.

Look at how defensive I've already gotten about this?  The plane doesn't even take off until Sunday afternoon and I'm already defending our right to cry on airplanes.  Besides, your anguish of having to deal with a crying baby is nothing compared to the thrill we have of traveling home for Christmas.  So suck it, irritated traveler.  You are no better than anyone, and your problem with crying babies is just a reflection of our own misery that you don't have a family, or anyone that loves you. I mean...I'm assuming.

I'm so excited to go home.  It's going to be great.  Maybe baby will live up to her reputation of being an awesome baby and just be chill the whole time.  It would make the day a lot easier if she does.

See you all next week, folks.  (literary)

Vloggerated 12-20-11

The Mystery Note

For a few months, I've been collecting music project name ideas in a note on my iPhone. If a cool-sounding name for a project/band would strike me, I'd jot it down so I wouldn't forget it. Within that note, at some point, I had written "Scott Walker- The Drift." I don't remember writing this, but I know me, and I like to do that sort of thing so I can go check it out later when I have more time. So every time I open that note I see that written there but never looked into what it was and I forgot why I wrote it. So today I went to find out what needed to be saved for later.

As I said, I don't remember what made it so special that I had to write it down, but it must been something musical that I wanted to ripoff with my music project. I have done that before with other songs that struck a chord with me. So I assumed that "The Drift" was a song whose melody or structure I wanted to subtly steal.

I copy and pasted the words and headed over to the iTunes app. I chucked on my headphones and pasted those words into the search bar. It came up with not a song, but an album, released in 2006. I hit the ol preview play button on track one.

What is this? This is terrible. What on earth is this?

So I skipped to the next song, which just played some noise before the song kicked in and again, more weird. Track three was more of the same. Why did I write this down? Is this a prank on my future/present self? Did I feel inspiration by this because if this exists, I can have confidence to make my own music, because it can't worse than this?

As I listened on to more previews, it became apparent this was the weirdest, creepiest shit I had ever heard. It's just absolutely strange.

I don't remember why I wrote that down, but I now know this, Scott Walker made some terrible yet strange "music." I mean, at least it's something different, but this is way beyond me. Check it out sometime. I hope this wasn't someone's favorite music ever and I'm ripping it, but seriously, what the hell? It sounds like a high-pitched Elvis singing shoegaze.


Editors note: here's a pic showing that I apparently don't know shit about what's "good music"

Supervised Friday Musings

man, this kid kinda looks like me

You know how hard it is to write with someone looking over your shoulder?  That's happening right now.  It's like, a deeper level of scrutiny than normal.  It's like, I know when I'm writing a post that someone will eventually read it.  Hopefully, a lot of people will read it.  But when someone is right on, literally, on your shoulder watching you as you type, it's even harder.

So I flipped my sleep schedule a bit so I can attend a Christmas party today.  I stayed up all night long last night, and it was pretty difficult to do.  It was a real struggle not to just lay down on the couch and fall asleep, but I knew that would be a really bad idea.  Normally, I stay up late on Thursday nights and get very little sleep, so I can take a nap Friday evening before going into work.  Well, this evening we have to go to a Christmas party, so I couldn't be napping at that time.  So instead, I stayed up until 6 a.m. this morning.

I did it by just messing around on the computer.  It's amazing how much time I can waste doing pretty much nothing at all.  I did nothing creative.  I did nothing to advance myself or my personal wealth or health.  I did absolutely nothing useful, I mean in the grand scheme of life.  It was useful to me that I removed a bunch of crap music from the iPod.  Okay, that needed to be done, but not needed to be done.  I spent 6 hours in the middle of the night doing nothing at all.

So now I'm awake, and I'll be awake for the next 23 hours or so.  My lovely wife supervised this post from begining to end.  She just told me my second paragraph of this post is "crap."  I would normally change it, but for the purpose of this particular post, I'm just going to leave it.  It really is crap, now that I've read it.  This is why I have a wife.  To read what I write and tell me it's not so good, so I can improve.

Have a fantastic day.  

Green Christmas

I have to say, it's pretty hard to get into the Christmas mood when it's 70 degrees.  Last night as I was walking the dog in shorts and a t-shirt, I had to stop and remind myself that it's the Christmas season.  It felt more like spring or early fall to me.  Now this isn't some kind of bragging, you know, like, "ha ha it's warm here be jealous you northerners."  It's just a fact that it's still weird to have a "green Christmas" every year.

Technically, if I remember correctly, last year we actually had a white Christmas here in middle Tennessee, but it's not like home's white Christmas.  There was a dusting on the ground, and so it was technically white, it's just not the same as trudging through ankle-deep fresh snow going into a relative's house.  It's just hard to remember that it's Christmas when it's 70 degrees outside.  That's all I'm saying.

Right now, my lovely wife is wrapping little baby Evie's Christmas presents.  It's rainy and warm today, and even though it's not a beautiful spring day like yesterday, it's still sort of feels like it.  It does not feel like December here.  So to make sure it felt like Christmas here in our little apartment, I've hooked up this computer I'm typing on to the stereo and have Pandora playing Christmas music.  I also turned the tree lights on.  Everything helps, but's I have to make a real effort to stay in the Christmas mindset.

Another thing that was a reminder yesterday that it is indeed the middle of December, it was 70 degrees, but the sun was going down at 4:30 p.m.  That sort of thing just doesn't happen on the days it's supposed to be warm.

So I'm trying to be in the Christmas spirit, but it's just hard when there's
no snow and when you don't need a jacket and stuff.

Shredder thinks he's presents 

Taylor University's Silent Night Tradition

College Sports have many great traditions throughout out all sports, but there is one, a tradition from Taylor University that has to be one of the coolest ones I've ever seen.

On the Friday before finals week, everyone gets all dressed up in pajamas and heads out the the Taylor U basketball game.  At the game, they stay dead silent, no cheering, or whatever.  But once the 10th point is scored for the home team, the crown explodes.  It's amazing to see.  Here's a video!

How cool is that, eh?  Man, that looks like a blast. Plus afterwards they go to a Christmas party and the President reads a Christmas Story, and they eat cookies and Santa is there, and all that jazz.  It seems like a nice thing for the students to break the ice and the tension before finals week.  I thought this was one of the neatest things I've seen.  Hope you enjoy it.  

Vloggerated 12-11-11, A Week in "Review"

So I threw together a video tonight of crap that I collected this past few days, both pictures and videos.  I threw this together while drinking some adult beverages and a bit sleep deprived, as I have been awake for over 24 hours at this point.  Well, without further ado, here's my latest video, Vloggerated.

A Dad Who Cloth Diapers

What was my mindset when it came to cloth diapering before our daughter was born?  That it was an outdated form of child care.  I felt that with all the advances in diapers  made by Pampers and Huggies and all the rest, why would you cloth diaper?  What is this, 1947?  Why would you do that?

Before the baby was born, I had absolutely zero experience putting a diaper on a baby.  I had never done it.  In fact, I had to have the nurse at the hospital show me how to do it.  I had no idea.  So when my wife said we were going to use cloth diapers, I was pretty hesitant.  I can't even put this disposable on her, how can I put a flippin' cloth diaper on her, with all it's folding, and pinning and all of that?  Why did we have to make it so difficult?

Let's take a look at an image form Hollywood for a minute.  In the movie Back to the Future 3, Marty McFly goes back in time to 1885.  Shortly after arriving there, he coincidentally runs into his distant relative, Seamus McFly.  After sleeping off getting his head hit on a fence and being knocked out, he awakens to meet William McFly, his Great-Grandfather as an infant.  When Marty meets him, he holds him up and says "So you're my Great-Grandfather.  The first McFly born in America...and you peed on me."

You see, baby William McFly was wearing a cloth diaper and it only took about 10 seconds to get peed on with that cloth diaper.  This is the only visual of cloth diapers I had ever had.  But after learning about it, I learned that that scene in this modern day is a total misconception.  I mentioned above how I was aware of the advances in diapers that the major corporations had come up with for disposable diapers, but what I didn't know (because there were no TV commercials telling me so) was that the advances in cloth diapering were just as impressive.

I spend the majority of the time home with baby, because my lovely wife, who has the college degree, goes off and makes the real money.  I work part time on the weekends to help make ends meet.  What this means is that I'm the one who's home with baby most of the time.  I have gotten a whole lot of practice in it over the past 7 months.  But that doesn't mean that I'm a master of cloth diapering.  Without the guidance of my wife, I would be lost.  She did all the research and decided that cloth diapering is the way to go.  So as far as me being the one trying to convince someone that you should cloth diaper your kid, I'm not going to be all that effective.  I can't "own" someone in the cloth v.s. disposable debate.  I really don't know enough about disposables to have that debate.  What I can say is I know how it has been beneficial to us and our particular situation.

First off, if you don't own a washer and dryer, you probably won't want to do this.  You will be doing diaper laundry often.  With our stock, we do diapers about every other day.  We have a stack of prefolds (a type of cloth diaper) that we use, and I don't even know exactly how many.  But if you don't own a washer and dryer or have one withing a short walking distance, you will find cloth diapering very difficult, I believe.    There are several different kinds of diapers, all with their own names.  There are flats, prefolds, pockets, all-in-ones, all-in-twos, and probably even more that I've never heard of.  We have all of these types listed above except flats, but our good friends in Lansing swear by them.  Anyway, most of the time she gets a prefold, which is basically just a sheet of cotton with a thick part in the middle.  Once you learn how to put it on, it's pretty simple, really.  They stay attached with a thing called a snappy, which is like a elastic band with three ends and plastic teeth that hold into the cotton.  You cover the actual diaper with a waterproof cover that snaps or Velcros together.  The cover is formed into the shape of a diaper, and as long as you have the cover on right, there should be no leaks.  No pins, nothing like that.  Super easy.  It's just like putting on a disposable, only you have to attach the snappy, and you have to do a bit of folding under the butt to make it form into a diaper shape.  What is to be afraid of there?  I don't really want to get into the different types of cloth diapers here, because this is running long, and you can find that information very easily across the world wide web.

Weather you use cloth diapers or disposable diapers, you will eventually get poo on you.  That's one thing I've learned from all moms and dads.  Before our daughter was born, I was pretty grossed out by the thought of getting poo on me, but I think that because little baby poo is such a different consistency than adult poo, it makes it not so bad.  Just don't go eat any hummus after changing a poop diaper.  Some people have an issue with having a bag or bucket of cotton covered with human poop sitting around the house.  Yeah, I can't blame you there, but it's better than filling landfills with disposable diapers.  Those never go away, I mean in the grand scheme of the Earth.  But poo diapers are really easy when they're little.  It just washes out.  You don't have to deal with it until they start eating solids, because when you eat solid, you poo solid.  So you just swish it around in the toilet, big deal. (actually, the swishing is my least favorite part, but when you take a step back and think about it, it's not that big of a deal, really.  Get over it.)  Sure, you have to use a special laundry detergent when washing cloth diapers, but you use such a small amount, it's really not that bad of an expense.  I figured our water bill and electric bill would go up when we started doing laundry every other day, but to be honest, I havent' noticed.  Now, I don't manage the bills, because if I did, we wouldn't have lights or internet due to lack of payment, but from what I've gathered, there really hasn't been much of a difference.  Our shopping bill hasn't risen due to buying packs of diapers all the time, that's for sure.  One less thing to worry about at the store.

All in all, putting on a cloth diaper is absolutely not more difficult to master than putting on a disposable.  There is a price to pay up front to get all the supplies you'll need to get started, but it eventually evens out, and while I don't have the numbers, it has got to be cheaper than buying diapers all the time.  Another thing to consider, have you ever experienced a baby with diaper rash?  I have, once.  Once.  She has only gotten diaper rash one time, and it was horrible.  From what I've learned, babies who are in disposable diapers get diaper rash all the time, and they hate it.  As a parent, the last thing you want is a screaming, unhappy baby on you hands.  That's what you get when you have a diaper rash baby.  Cloth diapered baby = no diaper rash = happy baby.  That's a big deal, in my opinion.  I highly recommend you give this a serious thought, because it's probably not what you think it is.  I hope I could clear some misconceptions about the whole thing here.  I'm not an expert, I'm just a dad.  I can only say that my experience with cloth diapering has been very positive.  If you're a dad, or expecting to be a dad and you're wife of girlfriend wants to do this, give it a shot.  It's just a better way of taking care of your kid.  Isn't that what we all want?

Spare Change?

Sometimes a little change can go a long way.  I found that out back in 2006 when I saved change in a piggy bank for a year.  After a year of dropping my pocket change into the piggy bank, I ended up cashing it all in for around $250.  I was able to finance most of a trip to Milwaukee to see my beloved Atlanta Braves play.  It's amazing how it can add up and you don't even notice it.

But these days, I don't ever have any change, because I don't use cash anymore.  I know there are banks that will round up your purchases to the nearest dollar and put it in your savings account, which would be amazing, but I don't think our bank does that.  I should ask.

Anyway, in the age of plastic, there are things that are definitely out of the question as far as purchases are concerned until new technology comes along.  I've always wondered why they don't have card swipe things on vending machines.  I mean, I can go the corner store and buy a coke for a buck and a half and use a debt card, why can't I use a vending machine the same way?  I mean, there are just some things where you need cash, but I don't ever, ever have any.  They have card swipe things on gas pumps, don't you think they could use similar technology?  Perhaps it's not worth the cost to implement it?  But I digress, per usual...

Like for instance, I always feel weird paying for something with a card at the Farmers Market.  I mean, they're out there selling vegetables in a tent, and you want to swipe plastic?  It just feels strange.  Like, I should have cash in that situation.  Also, things like parking meters and whatnot, you need change for it.  So I have a bit of small change in my car in case I'm in a situation where I need meter fare.  Boom, taken care of.  But basically, I never have cash amounting to over a dollar.

I guess they have ways to pay for donations to the Salvation Army and their red buckets at this time of year, but I haven't seen it yet.  I think I saw on the Thanksgiving day football games, during the halftime show with Enrique Inglesias, they had Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys dropping a bit of change into the bucket, and then they showed someone swiping a card along one of those iPhone/iPad card swipe thingies they have.  I was like, "okay, first off, Jerry Jones is a billionaire, he can afford to drop in more than a handful of change, and secondly, I doubt that the dude waving the bell down the street at our Kroger has an iPad with a card swipe thing.  Granted, I didn't look, but somehow I doubt it.  So if I'm gonna donate, I gotta get some cash, which never happens.

So I hope that card swipe thing works out, I mean for the Salvation Army.  I think people would use it.  I would be a bit paranoid about it, but that's just me.  Cash is simpler.  I just don't have any.   I really hope they put card swipe thingers all over the place.  I would spend more money, which is bad, but it's just easier.  

Vloggerated: 2010 Clip Montage

Now, don't expect this video blog stuff to continue everyday like this, but right now, while I figure out all the things I can do with Windows Live Movie Maker, I'm going to be doing this often.  I really like that I can make these things, because I've never been able to do this sort of thing before.  So it's not going to continue everyday, but I think I'll be doing this often.

While today's video is finishing up it's upload, I decided to actually write words here today, which is a nice change for a minute until the video is ready.

I was going through the videos we have stocked up on this computer and I noticed we have a lot of footage of us hanging out with our old friends Dave and Erin. Now for one reason or another, we're not really friends anymore, but while making this video I was thinking back to the good times we had, and I miss it terribly.  You'll see some of that in the video, I suppose.  So, without further ado, (didn't I say that the other day, too?) here's today's video.  It's got cameos from all kinds of people.  I think it's pretty good for about 45 minutes of work.

MOM IS YOU WATCH THIS VIDEO, DO IT ON MUTE.

Vloggerated: The Shopping Cart Escalator

Bloggerated Presents... Vloggerated!!!

Yeah, that's right, I've unintentionally ventured into the world of video blogging, or vlogging.  This is the first installment of... oh, who the heck knows if I'll actually do more than one of these.  This damn thing took 2 minutes to record and 5 hours to upload.  That's just precious internet bandwidth I can't afford to be giving up all the time.  But hey, I'll try.  I also hate vlogs, so there's that..  But without further ado, here it is.  Enjoy.

Thanksgiving Trip pt. 4: Going Home

So the Thanksgiving trip has come to an official conclusion with us returning to Nashville earlier this evening.  Technically as of this writing, it was yesterday, but we all know what I mean by "earlier this evening."  The final day of the trip consisted of us waking up far too early and packing up all our things.  After the goodbyes were said, and a few tears from grandma, we set off for Nashville at around 8 a.m. Eastern time.  We got on the road and things were going smoothly, and then...they continued to go smoothly until we got home.  There was no trouble on the ride home at all.  Little baby Evie slept just about the entire 11 hour trip, after sleeping a solid 7 or so hours during the night before.  Can you imagine sleeping for 18 hours?  That's what my little baby did today.  I didn't think she would sleep the whole time and I figured she would get fed up with the car after a short while, but that never happened.  About an hour outside of Nashville she woke up and was starting to get fussy, but it was time for her to eat, so that solved that.  I can't believe how well she did.

As I said, the drive home took a little longer than Google maps says it should take.  That's because we stopped a few times and took our time getting back into the car when we were finally ready to continue on.  We had to stretch out the legs, both canine, infant, and adult alike.  Somewhere in northern Indiana, we stopped at a Burger King to eat.  After letting the dog go pee, we put him back in the car by himself, which I have never really done before, and if I have done it, it's been years since I did.  I was worried he was just going to freak out and bark at everyone that walked past, so we sat at a booth where I had a clear view of the car and the dog.  If he was going to misbehave, I would be able to see it.  I was surprised to see that he just laid down, at least I couldn't see him, anyway.

So inside the BK Lounge, we needed to change the baby's diaper, but there was no changing table in either bathroom.  This is odd, as every restaurant and store these days has a changing table, at least in the ladies room.  We asked about it, and someone said the manager or whatever didn't want to have a changing table in their place of business because of the "liability."  Are you serious, bro?  That's ridiculous.  So, like any good parent we just changed her right there on the booth.  Screw you, hick Burger King, in your hick town.

One pretty cool thing about this Burger King was that they had this Coke machine for your fountain drinks that would dispense not only Coke products, but also flavor mix-ins, whatever you wanted.  I got a cherry, vanilla Coke Zero.  It was pretty cool.  It said there was over 100 drink combinations you could make out of the thing.  I hope that they get this machine at every Burger King.  I though that was a really good idea.

As we were eating, we put a crown on Evie's head and took pictures.  It was around this moment that I realized that Bowser was being such a good boy in the car, he must be getting into something he shouldn't.  This is also when I remember that left a bag full of Thanksgiving leftovers on the floor of the front seat, right where he is sitting.  Suddenly, visions of mashed potatoes and stuffing and gravy strewn about the floor of the passenger seat of our car started flashing across my thoughts, and I figured we better hurry up and go check on him.  Thankfully, he truly was a good boy and just laid on his bed on the passenger seat and waited.  If nothing else this trip helped me understand that our dog has matured and is actually a pretty good dog.  Bowser of 2007 would have been a nightmare on this road trip.  He basically handled everything well, and that's more than I expected.

As we drove through Kentucky, both Bethany and I were so sick of being in the car, but obviously there was nothing we could do about that.  We just trucked on, and made it home with enough time for me to take a nap so I could come into work and be slightly refreshed.  While on the drive I watched the sun rise and then set again.  That's always weird to notice.  I mean, the sun rises and sets everyday, but you usually don't notice it if you're indoors.  This was the first time that I can remember that I actually drove through Kentucky in the daylight, at least most of the way.  We stopped at a Dairy Queen for a diaper change and a snack.  It got dark out while we were in there, so the rest of the trip was in darkness.  It was odd to stop when we were only about 100 miles away from home, but I needed a break.  We all did.


It's funny because I remember thinking at about the time we were crossing into Tennessee, that this whole thing sucked so bad and I was miserable in the car that long.  But now as I sit here thinking about it, I think to myself "it wasn't that bad." Overall, the trip went extremely well.  It gave me confidence that we can travel with this family and everything will be fine. There was some uncharted waters that we had to just endure, and everything went smoothly.  Will it always go smoothly, traveling with this family? I doubt it, but at least this gives me hope that it won't be such a nightmare, and don't avoid traveling altogether in the future out of fear of hell in a Ford Focus.  It was a wonderful trip, and I can't wait to do it again.  

Thanksgiving Trip pt. 3

There is just something about the comfort of being at my parents house on a fall/winter holiday.  Now, my moms house is not necessarily home, as I didn't grow up here and she only moved to Big Rapids, MI in 2008, it's still my moms house.  When I'm here, I sleep better than anywhere else on earth, that I've found so far at least.  It smells like cinnamon and spices and stuff, just like our house home did while growing up, so that helps, I think.  My dog like it here because it's a bit more open than our little apartment back home.  There are four pairs of hands to hold a increasingly heavy baby, which is nice.  The refrigerator and pantry are filled with food, unlike my house.

It's not like it's a super nice, new bed that we sleep on when we're here.  It's an old bed, and it's really not that comfortable, actually, but I sleep so hard every time we're here.  Another thing that's neat about being here is she lives in an area where there is no neighbors.  I mean, they are around, down the street a little ways, but you can't see them and they can't see us.  When I was walking the dog last night, I couldn't help but notice how dark and quiet it was out there.  Living in the city, I never see stars, except for the very bright ones.  As I walked the dog last night and my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed the stars beginning to appear, peaking through the partly cloudy skies.  You forget how many stars there are if you never see them anymore.

Another thing about being outside here in Big Rapids is that it's actually cold outside.  22 degrees is way to cold for my new southern blood.  I had to borrow a jacket, which is a fantastic 90's Columbia jacket that actually used to belong to my brother.  It's pretty ugly, but when there is no neighbors and no traffic, no one will see me, so I really don't care.  Here's a picture of me wearing that jacket.

So, now the gross turkey is in the oven, (well, I'm sure it's tasty if you eat that sort of thing) but I would have to admit, it smells pretty good.  There are a lot of things cooking right now that smell great.  Some chick just sang the national anthem for the Packers Lions game, and I couldn't be happier right now.  I have to go enjoy this day now.  See ya later.  

Thanksgiving Trip pt. 2.5...Pictures

I think it would be okay to post pictures here every so often, don't you think?  Here's some pictures of Evie and Vada that I took yesterday.

Thanksgiving Trip pt.2

Let me drop by and say that everything is great.  We left Nashville at around 11 central last night and arrived in Lansing at about 8 eastern.  So we did the supposed 9 hour drive in 8.  Pretty good if you ask me.  It was totally uncharted waters, and we pulled it off without a hitch.

Baby fell asleep right away after we left the house and slept for just about the whole time, except for when she got hungry.

There was definitely a moment in Indiana, somewhere in the middle of it, where I lost interest in watching the road.  I was just sort of bored with the whole thing.  I know I shouldn't admit to such things with such precious cargo in tow, but I was just over with the whole paying attention to the road thing.  I started to fist pump to keep the blood flowing and keep me awake, which surprisingly worked very well.  Also, there was a convenient free preview of Sirius satellite radio going on right now, so I had a very wide assortment of tunes to choose from, which made the drive very, very tolerable 

Overall, it was a very easy drive.  Even though it was in the dark, I never missed seeing scenery.  It was just a little boring, but not the worst drive of my life, by any means.

So now we're here in Lansing, hanging out with our good friends and comparing babies.  Theirs is a bit older, but they're still cute little babies.

Here's Evie eating a bowl

Thanksgiving Trip Pt. 1

24 hours from the time I am writing this, I will be out of the state of Tennessee. This will be baby Evie's first trip away from home, and it's a doozy. I think the farthest she has traveled away from our tiny apartment has been Cool Springs, which is less than 20 miles outside of Nashville. We are going to my moms in Michigan for thanksgiving. Thanks to my schedule, I am able to take five days off and travel without using any vacation time, so that's excellent.

We are going to drive overnight because I'll be coming off midnights, where I stay awake anyway, so
It makes sense to travel this way. Plus the added benefit of light traffic on the roads because it's the middle of
The freakin' night was a deciding factor. Also, its possible that we might get to travel with a sleeping baby for the majority of the trip. I've never driven through the night before though, so I don't know how my body and brain are going to react or with any certainty how baby Evie will fair. I've got a good feeling though, that I know myself well enough and my happy baby well enough that we'll be just fine.

Another issue with our thanksgiving itself is my vegetarianism. There is an amazing company out there called Quorn, and they make meat replacement foods like chick'n nuggets and meatless balls and things like that. Well, they also make a turkey roast that I've eaten on thanksgiving the past two years. Only problem is I haven't had a chance to go pick one up before we go. Their website says it's not sold in any stores near my moms house, so we have to bring one if I want one. I'm not sure it's going to happen, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I know one thing, I'm sure as hell not eating turkey.

So a week in Michigan. I hope to keep regular updates while there, maybe even while on the road? That would be fun. Of course I won't type while driving. Do you really think I'm that reckless?

(any huge autocorrect typos in here, I apologize for. I didn't see any in my quick read through, but I probably missed at least one. Sorry about that.)

Here's a picture of baby Evie holding a pizza crust like a cigar.

Take Pills

This is a buspar

After reading an article about drug abuse problems in rural areas of the country, it recalled an incident that happened to me sometime around my freshman year of high school.  There was this dirtball kid around town, let's call him "Jimbob" for the sake of anonymity.  I think he probably was a nice guy, but he had a reputation of being a troublemaker.  Anyway, one day, I was hanging out, minding my own business when I saw him and a friend walking around as well.  We both knew that both of us smoked cigarettes, so we had a bit of a connection because of it, therefore I guess we were acquaintances, I suppose.  So, while we were talking and probably smoking cigarettes, he tells me he has this drug that he or someone he knows takes to correct a lazy eye, and if I take one, it will make me feel amazing.  He said the pill was called a "Bushpar."  In the days before Google, I just had to trust him that that was what this drug really was.  But, I couldn't confirm it, because it was just a little white pill.  He said "Are you going home after this?"  I said I was, so he suggested that I don't take the pill right now because he figured if I went home, I'd be all messed up on this drug and he didn't want me to get caught by my parents.  So he suggested I shove in in my pocket and take it the next time I had a few hours to kill.

I did just that.  I stuck the pill in my pocket and walked home. I never told anyone, not even my closest friends that I had this pill.  I couldn't shake the feeling that he was playing a joke on me or something and if I took this drug, something terrible would happen to me, like going into a coma or something.  I carried that pill around in my jeans pocket for about a week, fiddling with in in my pocket, thinking about what ill effects or what sweet effects it would have on me if I took it.  I kept in the back of my mind something that my dad had always told me, that my dad had pills in his medicine cabinet that if I took trying to get high, would stop my heart.  He had pills that would drop my blood pressure so low that it would put me in a coma.  He had all of these to make him better, yet I had this unknown pill in my pocket that was supposed to make me feel great.  What if Jimbob was wrong?  What if this killed me?

I threw the pill in the trash, because I was afraid to take it.  I had never heard of a "bushpar" so I didn't know if he was just making up a name for some pill that I shouldn't really be taking. (turns out after searching for it years later it's actually a buspar, and it's an anti-anxiety medication)  I was tempted to take pills, I was given it out of the courtesy of an acquaintance but I said no to drugs, mainly because I was to scared of the unknown.  I guess my dad taught me something.  

An App For That

Jesus Christ there's an app for blogging? Sorry, didn't mean to take the lords name in vain there, for those of you that get offended by such things. But remember before how I said I could blog from my phone and I thought it was the most badass thing that humankind had come up with this far? Well now there's an actual app that I can type this nonsense up with. Pretty damn handy if you ask me.

I've attempted to insert a picture to this post here, but I'm not sure where it's going to put it. Well anyway, that's a picture of my activity for the past 24 hours. A dead computer and a good book from the library. I want to thank my good friend Tagan for the suggestion. It's actually a pretty good book, even though the thing started with a bunch of nonsensical explanations of characters that I wasn't entirely sure I needed to know about. At any rate, the book picked up a bit, even if it's still not clear what the plot is or what the purpose of this books existence is just yet. I'm nearly done with it, by the way.

I want to give a shutout to spellcheck, more specifically autocorrect. From the looks of things, I'm a perfect typer on this touchscreen, when in reality I'm pretty much just mashing my fat little fingers on the screen and somehow, this bastard knows what I mean. It's pretty incredible.

So, that's whats up. It's 3 in the morning and I'm blogging on my iPhone. I did not expect this to be my life at 28. Honestly, I've pounded this thing out faster than I wrote some posts on a traditional keyboard. Guess I am pretty good at this iPhone typing thing.

266 Hits and Counting...

I feel as though I did the World Wide Web a serious injustice by writing a post a few months back titled "Instant Netflix v.s. Hulu Plus."  I felt that if I wrote this piece, and then titled it something that I knew people were eventually going to Google, I was probably going to get some page hits.  Little did I know that I was very right.  I got page hits alright.

A typical post of mine, depending on how hard I promote it, gets about five and thirty views.  Not this Netflix post.  To date, it has gotten 266 page views.  I'm sure that's a very small number to other sites and stuff, but for me, someone who wants readers and wants people come keep coming back, that's a big number.

The problem is that the post itself was so non-informative, I feel embarrassed about it.  I didn't go through the pros and cons of each service as clearly as I could have, and thus, making it a real hard read.  I know that people came to that post for a reason, they wanted a clear cut answer to the question, what is the pros and cons of these services.  Now, I did answer that in the blog post, but the post was so full of opinion and other diatribe and meanderings that it made it useless to a reader.  If I happened upon that page when looking for answers, I would have closed it after the first paragraph.

So I didn't expect people to actually read what I wrote, but they did.  It makes me realize that when I go fishing for hits by titling a blog post something that I know will be Googled, I need to make sure the post is actually relevant to what people will be searching for...or, it should at least be entertaining and funny...that would help, I suppose?

Who am I kidding, I've never really been funny on these virtual pages, have I?

A Shameless Plea

Do you see that up there?  Right at the top of this post, right above what you're reading right now?  That's my feeble attempt at begging.  Yes, why not beg?  You see, just because none of you have ever tried it, as neither have I tried it before just a few days ago, doesn't mean it's not going to work and it doesn't make it wrong. What it makes me is shameless.  I know that all of you readers desperately want to support the blog without having to buy all that stupid merchandise I am selling on my side bar.  Who really want's any of that anyway.  But what you really want to do is support me and the things I say and whatnot.

This is a donate button.  Yes, you give me money, I give you my presence, both physically and on this here blog.  The less donations, the less content, got that?

Here's why that button exists.  On Sunday night, I was just hanging out by myself here at the apartment, and I got to thinking about just how expensive it might be to fly home for Christmas.  You see, the family has plans to go to the great northern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, our place we call home, for the holiday season.  At one time, the tickets were actually moderately priced.  Damn near cheap, actually.  We failed to lock up tickets at that time, and as the date has grown closer, the cost of a couple round trip plane tickets have skyrocketed.  Now, it's not that we we're necessarily paying for these tickets out of our pockets anyway, as some of you may be thinking.  Parents were planning on giving a gift of flying home for Christmas as a Christmas gift itself. But as the cost is so high, I thought it would be a good idea to chip in ourselves, and this is where you all come in, and donate.

 I always feel that if I ever announce that I'm doing something, like going to a hockey game next week, then beg for you to give me money to fly home, it all seems a bit like I'm doing something wrong.  I know, it really doesn't look good on my part.  But the truth is, no discounted hockey ticket will make a dent in the cost of these plane tickets.  I also seriously doubt that begging for donations is going to help either.  But do you know just how much effort went into creating that PayPal donate button up there?  Next to none.  So I can ask, it doesn't mean I expect anything.

However, if you want more quality posts, unlike this one, you better start donating, jack.  I mean it.  That's the only way I can afford to do research for the posts I write, or something.

So that's the fact.  I want you to donate money to me and my family so my little girl can meet her family then donate if you have the heart.  If you don't donate, you don't have one.     

Daylight Savings Time

This is this guy's only job. 

I think it's only fitting to talk about daylight savings time for a minute.  I wasted a perfectly good story about my personal experience this morning with daylight savings time by posting it as a Facebook status.  Honestly, it was such a brief encounter, a Facebook status makes sense instead of an entire blog post.  Also, I think that it was way funnier to me than it actually was as a story to tell your friends.  Anyway, if you don't like to read Facebook very often, as I don't like to do, basically, someone showed up to work an hour early this morning and couldn't get in the doors.  For the people that work here, there is a section of time where their access is restricted (I think it's 12:30 a.m. until about 5:15 a.m.)  So when I told her she couldn't get in because it was to early, I found it hilarious, even though it's really not all that funny.

I think I find if funny because I have always been afraid that I will also make that same mistake.  One of these days, I'm going to forget to set my clocks back or forward and I won't realize it.  It only happens twice a year, so I mean, what, I've only seen it happen 56 times in my whole life.  That's not a whole lot of times.  I've checked into the Kroger down the street from my apartment on Foursquare in the past 6 months more often than daylight savings time has occurred in my entire life.

But daylight savings time, oh what a weird thing we do.  Set the clocks back an hour in the fall, because we couldn't possibly stand to have all that sunlight in the evenings for four months?  Daylight savings time was put into place in the 70's during the oil crisis to save fuel.  If you don't have to turn your lamps on in your house until 9 o'clock instead of 8 o'clock, you will have your lights on for a shorter period of time before you go to bed, thus saving the amount of energy your house is sucking up.  Also, I'm pretty sure that the plan is that if there is more daylight in the evening, that equals you most likely to staying out shopping instead of heading home when the sun goes down.  Arizona doesn't observe DST, for the logical reason that it's hot as all Hell, and the last thing they need is more sunlight and heat late into the night.  That makes sense to me, because people sleep better when it's cool.  If the sun goes down sooner, the sooner it gets cool in your house.  But why oh why did Indiana opt out for all those years?  Just to be dicks?

My problem with DST is that in 2007, they extended it an entire month longer, making it from early to mid March until the first Sunday in November (today).  Okay, that's 237 out of the 365 days in a year that we are on a "special" daylight savings time.  A mere 127 days we're on "standard" time.  Why not just shift the whole thing to always be on "daylight savings time?"  I mean, now that it's switched, it's going to be getting dark here in Tennessee at around 5:30, I think.  That's ridiculous.  And by Christmas, it's more like 4:30, and it's pitch black outside.  There is no reason for that, in my opinion.  Especially after extending it back in 07, it's a blink of an eye that were on this so-called "standard time."  It's not a special thing if DST last two thirds of the whole year.  Might as well make it all of the time.  I think it would help everyone out.  There would be more business activity later into the day and there would be less seasonal depression due to lack of sunlight.

Another problem I have with "daylight savings time" is that we're not saving any daylight, there is no such thing. It's just darker in the morning.  There is still the same amount of daylight, it's just not out when it's convenient for you people.  Extended evening daylight time would be the appropriate title for this event.  Who are we saving this dreaded daylight from, anyway?  But hey, we saved some daylight for a while, and it was fun, but now it's time for daylight wasting time!  That's what they should call it.  Daylight wasting time.      

Feeding Baby

om nom nom

When it comes to having a baby, as she gets older, I realize that she is a human being.  I mean to say that I always knew she was a person, just the baby version, but I mean certain things change as she gets older.  For instance, she is getting old enough to eat solid foods, instead of just jamming a bottle into her mouth and filling her up.  The thought that when I make food for myself, pretty soon I'm going to have to cook something for her, too.  I've been a bit resistant to giving her solids lately because she means she's getting older.  I'm pretty sure I've written before my fear of her getting older, but all the while knowing that that's how life works.  So many people have told me that they grow up fast and you need to cherish the days of when they're little and sweet.  I know that this won't, no can't, last forever, no matter how little solid food I give her.

When I give her food, it's this strange feeling of providing nourishment.  She needs me to do that for her.  I feel powerful, like I'm important.  When I give her a bottle, It's just, you know, fill 'er up so she stops crying.  No, not that extreme, but there isn't a connection as I get when I'm shoveling rice cereal into her mouth, or when she's munching on a stick of root vegetable.  Basically, it's just different.  As hard as I want her to say as a little baby forever, for a number of reasons, I can't change it.

So the little girl is graduating to solid foods at a rapid pace and it's a little scary.  If I'm scared about her eating food, how am I going to react when she goes to preschool, or kindergarten, or even a daycare sometime.  It's enough to drive a loving dad crazy.  The reality is that if I want to make more money with a better job, she'll probably need to be in daycare.  So, I'm not getting a new job so I can be a daddy more.  I'll eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so she can have the best, and have her daddy holding her.

Alright, so that's it.  She's starting to wake up now, she's happily cooing into the monitor right now, so I gotta go get her.  What a cutie.  

The Basics of Ice Hockey For A New Fan

I have been tasked with a very intriguing predicament.  I guess I never thought about it, but how does one explain the game of hockey to someone who has very little knowledge of the game?  How do you explain it?  Here, I will try to explain hockey as best as I can, from the basics to the more intermediate level.  I can't go too deep because I'm afraid I don't even know all that much.  Again, this is a post about the the game of hockey, in general.  If you don't want to read this, you don't have to, I won't take offense.  (ed. It's also going to end up being really long)

First, the really basic stuff.  A hockey game consists of three, 20 minute periods.  They are not quarters or halves, obviously, but still because other sports use quarters and halves, people sometimes don't think and call it quarters.  There are five skaters on the ice per side, and one goalie per side.  The skaters consist of three forwards (who try to score) and two defensemen (D-men, blue-liners) (who can also score, but are more focused on not letting the other team score, as the name defensemen would indicate.)  If you commit a penalty, and there are a variety penalties to commit, you get sent to the penalty box for either two minutes, four minutes or five minutes, depending on the type and/or severity and/or discretion of the referee.  When a player gets sent to the penalty box (the box) the team on which he plays for must play with only four skaters until the penalty time runs out.  This is called a Power Play (PP) for the team with the man advantage, and a Penalty Kill (PK) for the team with the man in the box.  A goal is scored when the puck passes completely across the goal line into the net.  The net is a 4 feet tall and 6 feet wide and some other measurement deep.  The start of play (both the start of a game or period, or also after any stoppage of play) is done with what's called a faceoff, where the referee drops the puck between two opposing players, who fight with their sticks to gain possession for their team.  yada yada yada.  The team with the most goals after 60 minutes of play wins.  In the NHL, if there is a tie after three periods (regulation) there is a 5 minute overtime period, where each team plays with only 4 skaters (4 on 4) and the first team to score wins the game (sudden death overtime).  If after the 5 minute overtime, there is no goal scored, it goes to a "shootout" where each team takes a turn having one skater attempt to beat the goalie one-on-one.   In general, hockey purists hate the shootout, even though it's pretty exciting to watch as a fan.  They say that a hockey game should not be ultimately decided by a glorified skills competition.  Anyway, I digress...

This is going to be long, isn't it?

Offsides.  There are three zones to a hockey surface.  The attacking zone, the neutral zone and the defensive zone.  Your teams goalie is in the defensive zone, and you wanna score on the attacking zone.  When the team in possession of the puck skates down to attempt to score (on offense), the puck must cross the blue line into the attacking zone before any player of the attacking team does.  So basically, you can't have a guy go down and stand next to the other teams goalie and wait for a huge, end to end pass and score.  This is one of the more confusing rules, I've found, to new hockey fans.  Also, icing.

Icing is when the puck gets shot (cleared) by a player in his own defensive zone all the way down the beyond the red, extended goal line on what would be his attacking zone.  Does that make sense?   Also, a player on what was on the attack has to go back and touch it for it to be icing.  If a player who was on the defensive goes down and touches it first it negates the icing.  The more I talk about icing, the more confusing it makes it sound.  Basically, you can't fling the puck down to the other end of the ice when you're on defense.  If you do, the faceoff comes back to your defensive zone and you can't execute a line change (change players on the ice).  Any questions on this just ask me.  That's really hard to explain.

Speaking of line changes, an entire hockey team usually consists of  about 20 skaters and one starting goalie and one backup goalie.  Typically, one goalie plays an entire game (unless he gets hurt or pulled (replaced) because he sucks).  Players change on the fly, meaning there doesn't have to be a stoppage in play to change personnel on the ice.  Teams usually consist of "lines" or groups of three forwards that are accustomed to being on the ice together (sort of a mini team).  Also separate from the forward lines, there are usually pairs of defensemen that are on the ice together, but don't necessarily change when the forwards change.  Linemates can get mixed up, it's okay, but a good strategy is to have the three guys on one line out there together, as they are used to playing together, and would have better chemistry, but it's not against any rule to just have any player out there along with any other player. Your first line would typically be your best players, but not always. The skill level of the players on each line decreases as you go from line one being your best and the fourth line being usually the guys who are lower skilled (plugs, grinders, muckers), but are needed to give the good players a break.  When a line is out on the ice, it's called a shift.  Shifts are usually short, and line changes happen frequently, so there is always fresh players on the ice (as often as possible.)  The fourth line is where they stick the guys who fight, as well.

Fighting is accepted, in the way that if two guys engage in a fight, the refs won't break it up until one guy falls or if it's clear the fight is over. There an automatic five minute penalty (major penalty) for fighting, but since both teams get penalized, they just continue playing the game at five aside with they fighters in the box.  This season there has been debate in whether fighting still has it's place in the game, since three different active players who are considered fighters died this past offseason.  Anyway, everyone generally likes a good hockey fight.  There is a great site dedicated to fighting called Hockeyfights.com.

Um...other tidbits:  Between periods, the ice is "cleaned" by a machine called the Zamboni.  Ice gets pretty chopped up by all the skating during the period, so the Zamboni comes out and lays down a fresh layer of hot water, which freezes, making a nice, new smooth surface.  Um, the "original 6" teams are the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers.  The Canadiens have won 24 Stanley Cup championships (the league championship trophy) which is far and away the most.  Hockey is traditionally a Canadian sport, people in Canada go crazy for it, where as it's not the most popular sport in America.  Let's see, what else...?  That's really the basics.  If you want to know more about strategy, you can look up different strategies like the Neutral Zone Trap, which most fans hate because it's kind of boring to watch, even though a lot teams have been very successful using it.   I think after reading this, you would have a pretty clear understanding of the basics, but I really don't even know for sure.  I've never had it explained to me, I guess, so I don't know how to explain it to someone ele.  I hope this is helpful!  I also hope this isn't something you could have just gotten from Wikipedia...

Brad Has A Library Card, Now What?

Yesterday, my wife, baby and I ventured out to our friendly local library for the first time.  We went there because there was a puppet show for the kids that was free, and there was supposed to be a few of the local Nashville moms there that my wife has been networking with for the past few months, and she wanted to go and have a bit of a meet-up with them.  Well, as it turned out, only one other mom was there, and we only chatted with her for a few minutes after the puppet show was over, so it turned out to be kind of a bust on that front.  On the positive side of the trip to the library was the fact that I went to a damn library, where the books that you can read are located.  You see, books are good for reading and they make you smarter, or so I've been told.  I should read more books.

The puppet show was actually pretty good.  I was a Duke Ellington themed puppet show, talking about jazz and how cool jazz is.  It's good for the kids to learn about that sort of thing.  Well, Evie is only 6 months old, so she didn't really get anything out of it, but hey, I enjoyed it.  After the show was over, the other mom we met just sort of went on her way and we went on our way.  I realized that since we were there, we should get library cards so that we can check out books and read them.  Every so often I'll hear about a book that seems interesting and want to check out, but I don't really do libraries.  Why?  I can't say for sure, but maybe because our little library back in Michigan was so inadequate that I just sort of forgot about the whole idea of libraries as a place to get entertainment.  And now especially after I cancelled the newspaper, having something to read seems like a good idea.

I have a book that I am half way through called Brain Rules for Babies.  It's like a psychology book for raising a smart kid.  I got halfway through the thing and just sort of stopped reading.  It's very interesting, but for some reason, I just don't pick it up.  This makes me leery about picking up a novel and reading it, because I'm usually pretty bad at finishing them.  But, hey, it's never too late to try again.  So as we walked around the library, I couldn't decide what book to check out, because I haven't the slightest clue as to what's a good book, or what's a good author.  I don't even know where to begin.  It's pretty overwhelming to be in the huge Nashville Main Branch library, with their thousands upon thousands of books to read.

So here I sit, with my fresh, new library card and no idea where to begin.  I think I'm going to read Slaughterhouse 5.  I don't know much about Kurt Vonnegut but I think he's someone I would enjoy reading.  I've heard that fans of his are crazy, so that's a start.  The only author I've read regularly is Chuck Palahniuk, and that's mainly based off the fact that Fight Club is an amazing movie.  I don't want to read and author because a kick-ass movie was made out of his book.  I want an author that is well-respected, but not like, stereotypical novel n00b material, you know what I mean?  I just want a good book by a respectable author that I can dig into and enjoy.  Since I don't know where to begin, I'm just going to take a shot in the dark with Kurt Vonnegut.  I hope it works out.

And please, by all means, recommend me some damn books.  What type? I don't care, probably not romance novels or anything right wing political would be great.  

2 out of 5 Stars

Okay, sorry I've been gone so long.  I took a creative vacation, which is sort of ridiculous because I'm not that creative in this space.  Anyway, sorry about that.

wanna go to dinner? These are good.

I want to talk about online reviews.  Online reviews can really hold a lot of weight in peoples decisions on everything, from restaurants to apartment homes, from car dealerships to colleges and universities.

A lot of times, when you are trying to make an educated decision about something, you hit up the internet to find out what others have had to say about it.  Sometimes it's a big decision, and sometimes it's a small decision, but a negative review or two can really affect someones decision.  For example, my sister-in-law is a high school senior who is going to be headed to college next fall.  When exploring her options, we suggested she looking an art school that is very close to our apartment here in Nashville.  She could go to that school and live with us, living very close to her school.  But when she looked online to what other had said, she found less than desirable reviews, and now that school is out of the running altogether.  Really?  Not going to even consider it now after a few online reviews? I'm biased because I want her to move here, but you know, that seems like quite a sweeping decision based not on information you found out yourself, but what someone else had to say.

I was at the car dealership a few weeks ago, and while I was there, I got what I perceived as less-than-excellent service from them.  The first thing I thought about doing was going online and telling people not to buy their car from them.  I would have to say from experience that someone somewhere would look online for what I, or anyone, had to say about the place and think twice about going there.  Boom, internet review hurting their business.  Happens all the time.  My step-dad lives on the review sections of sites researching what is good and what isn't before he makes a purchase.

It made think that we should all be doing these reviews.  Unfortunately, most of the time when someone feels compelled to go online to review something, it's very often negative.  So a place could be the greatest thing since sliced bread, (especially if you're reviewing a bread slicing place) but two or three people go online and say "IT'S TERRIBLE" when in reality, it wasn't that bad, it can really deter someone from going there.  So I need to remember, that when I have an experience out there in the world at a business, I should go online and tell people what's good, as well as what's bad.  It's only fair.  Just one negative review on an independent site can really do damage.  That's all it takes.  

Whoops

Holy shit, I need to write something.  Alright, later today or tomorrow, I'm on it.

C ya later, hommies. 

Heading to the Park

This week has been preparations for a visitor from way up north, my Mother-in-Law.  This means actually doing the items on the chore chart.  I think I had mentioned that I had slacked off to the max on the chore chart, and that it was making the hard-working, full-time-employed mom/wife upset with me.  So I've actually been doing the damn thing this week, and I have to admit, it makes me feel real good about myself when I get things done.  Makes me feel like a good dad.

Today, I think we're going to try something that I have been dreading trying.  Putting the dog and the baby in the car at the same time.  For those of you that don't know, our dog is a bit of a crazy guy.  He likes to run and park and pull and be a bad dog in general.  Well, this is espeiclly true when we take him out of the comfort of our apartment.  When we take him to the park, he just pulls and chokes himself until he runs out of energy, which usually takes a while.  Anyway, the lovely wife just suggested we try taking him to the park today, so we can see how he does in the car with baby.  We will be taking them to Michigan for Thanksgiving this year, so I want to know what to expect once that day comes.  So wish us luck as we attempt to go to the park with the crazy dog and the cute kid.

Have a good day.


***Ed. Note***  We didn't go to the park because little baby decided to take a nap and sleep all morning.  So, instead I did a Google+ Hangout with my friends. 

Win A Pair of Beats by Dr. Dre?

Can I talk about internet some more?  I mean in general and more specifically the people who use it.  When we use the internet, we are faced with advertisements and other things that we have to use a mental filter to recognize what is legitimate and what isn't.  Sometimes we go to websites that have ads that say in big, flashy writing that you have won something and you need to click to claim your prize.  You know that it's total bullshit, right?  You know you didn't really win anything, right?  If you said maybe, I'll punch you in the face.

Anyway, I also dismiss anything that sounds too good to be true, especially on the internet.  Sometimes in real life, there are real deals that sound too good to be true, but you can use common sense and a little research to figure out if it's legit or not.  Yesterday morning I received an invitation from one of my Facebook friends, one in which I totally regret accepting the friend request, that said "First 100,000 participants will receive a new pair of headphones."  This event was created by "Receive a brand new pair of Beats by Dr. Dre headphones for FREE."  Okay, this is probably bullshit, I said.  Oh, there are steps you must take to claim your free headphones?  What are they?  Oh, I'm getting excited!  Here's the copy and paste of the "more info" section of this event.

The first 100,000 participants will receive a brand new pair of "Beats by Dr. Dre" headphones for FREE.

To participate, you MUST do the following:

STEP 1. Click the "I'm Attending" button.
......
STEP 2. Invite all of your friends, if you skip this step, the automated system will not register you. This is VERY important.

STEP 3. Write on this event wall "Attending" and the color of the pair of headphones you want.


Step 4. "Like" this pages: YOU MUST like the pages to get your FREE Beats!!

-->> http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-love-my-family/108153879284206

-->> http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Hate-Wake-Up-Early/117261995038684


This steps are required to get your shipping address.

** FAILURE TO NOT FOLLOW THE RULES WILL RESULT IN YOU NOT GETTING A FREE PAIR OF HEADPHONES. SINCE THIS IS FREE YOU MUST FOLLOW OUR STEPS!!! **

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

Once we reach 100,000 they all will be shipped.

Event Sponsored by Monster Energy Drink® and Dr. Dre!

First thing I noticed was the double-negative in all caps hear the bottom of the instructions.  FAILURE TO NOT FOLLOW THE RULES?  So wait, if I follow the rules, I won't get headphones?  Is that what you're telling me?

Okay, so it's a stupid event that no one in their right mind will fall for, because no one is that stupi...wait, what?  4,468 PEOPLE HAVE CLICKED ATTENDING?  The comments section of this event is filled with people writing "attending bright pink" or "I'm attending, black"  Also, looking deeper down the comments, someone wrote this gem:

 "This has been going on for months has anyone actually gotten anything from this "Beats by Dr. Dre" or is this another scam to grab your info? I would be very greatful if the public can be assred by the promoters of the page thaat htis is in fact legit."

It's just so confusing to me.  You really believe this?  You even stopped believing for a half second to question it, but I can tell you're leaning towards believing it.  Is this just another scam, this person asks? YES, YES IT IS.  Not sure what they're scamming you out of, but I promise you it's not legit.  I absolutely promise you.  There is no way that the Monster company, who makes these headphones, are going to be mailing out 100,000 pairs of headphones, valued at around at the very least $100, just because you asked for it.  Not going happen no matter how many pages you "like."  Not going happen no matter how many friends you invite.  Simply not going to happen.  


Also, fun to note at the very bottom, it says this event is sponsored by Monster energy drink.  I think someone got confused when they were making this shit up.  Totally different company, idiot.  Monster is a company that makes audio equipment.  Monster energy drink is made by Hansen Natural.  


I don't even know what else to say.  If you want to see the page in all of it's natural glory, here's a link to the actual Facebook event.  Feel free to click "attending" but be warned:  If we're currently friends on Facebook, we probably won't be shortly afterwards.