A Tale of Two Gookins (and a Tail of a Cooper)

Round two

2009-03-10T18:48:00.002-05:00

Welp, as you might recall from my previous post, we've been battling off various illnesses over here. I missed two days (a Thursday and Friday) two weeks ago. Last week was good for me, though not for Caitlyn. She had "stomach" issues that led to pretty bad diaper rash. Then this last weekend, I caught her stomach problems. Unfortunately, I didn't have a diaper to handle to dirty work, so I had to miss yesterday and today. Somewhat unsurprisingly, our HR person called me at home today to inquire as to my status. I gave her what was probably more information than she wanted, but she called me at home whilst ill. So, I have little sympathy if it was too much. She asked whether I had been to the doctor. I hadn't. I went to the doctor when I discovered I had the flu and infection two weeks ago. No one seemed to care... didn't really see the point in risking dirty pants (not to mention car interior) for another note no one wanted to see. Afterall, it was just a stomach issue: No fever, no sweats, no boils, no night terrors, etc.... Did I mention I've lost 11.2 pounds in three days? Yeah, I did, though not in the most comfortable manner - as you might be unsurprised to discover. Oh yeah, adding to the work tension, several weeks ago I took a vacation day for Thursday because Renee has an eye appointment in Iowa City that she needs me to drive for. On the upside, the time to reflect, albeit in non-opportune spots, that I need to rededicate myself to writing in my free time.

See, back when I had no work, there was no rush because, well I had nothing eating into my time. Except television. And videogames. But, those were [mildly] entertaining and pleasant distractions. Now my only distraction is work. And television. And videogames. But by far the most disruptive (by way of not having a real choice in the matter) is work. So, sometime over the last three days I've decided that it has become imperative for me to write on the weekends and on Tuesday nights (no decent sitcoms Tuesdays). It doesn't seem like a lot, but my previous dedications to writing have all fallen flat from challenging myself too much. I haven't worked out a hard-and-fast schedule as yet (it's difficult to concentrate with a one-year old running about).

See, this is proof. Caitlyn just awoke from a short nap....

Catch-up

2009-03-02T19:27:00.002-06:00

So to catch everyone up:
Work life
Renee was promoted last week to store manager! The McD north of Wynnsong is now hers. In turn, this ends my four consecutive weeks of making more money than her. Sad for me, good for us.

As for me, I'm adjusting, though somewhat slowly, to work life. Not only is it more challenging than I had anticipated, but it's re-affirmed my long-held philosophy that my brain handles theory much more readily than application. It was apparent in classes and even more so now that I'm working.

Which brings me to my decision to go back for my MBA. It'll either be Drake (Health Care Management) or ISU's DSM (Information Systems Management). This isn't really related to my current position, but still it was a nice segue wasn't it? Since I'm doing HIPAA/COBRA Electronic Data Interchange, it's a nice platform to lean either way.

Wiped-out
So, yeah, a couple of weeks ago Renee got a pretty nasty chest cold. This turned Caitlyn into a runny nose. Then last Wednesday I got a scratchy throat, which turned into Influenza-A and a bacterial infection. After dragging myself across town to the urgent care clinic (because Renee's doctor wouldn't see me), I got some pills and codeine-laced cough syrup. This, in turn, led to some good sleep (with two days off from work) and a much happier Eric. Today, though, Caitlyn went to the doctor and was diagnosed with her very own sinus-based bacterial infection (likely from her long-distance running nose). So, she's miserable, but Renee and I are feeling better. Best of all since Renee doesn't have to work tomorrow, she'll be miserable tonight and I will be asleep!

"In normal economic times, there might not be anything wrong with this. But these aren't normal times."

2009-02-02T11:33:00.002-06:00

I've come to really hate that phrase, as I see or hear it at least once per week. (That is, of course, an average as some weeks I don't hear it at all and through the election cycle peaks, it comes across news stories five or six hundred times per week.)

We are in perfectly normal times. The economic cycle we're in is normal, though perhaps somewhat exaggerated from '01 and from the mid-90s and the mid-80s and the 70s... well you probably get the picture. Terrorist threats and being involved in overseas wars is perfectly normal... Kosovo, Desert Storm, Vietnam, Korea... name me a decade in the last century or two that we've not been at war or threatened by terrorists, external or domestic. I'll wait...

So give me a reason why this should be considered a "non-normal" time.

Until then, I'm calling shenanigans on fear mongers.

So much information...

2008-12-20T17:07:00.003-06:00

Okay, so a lot has gone on since... well whensoever I last posted a "real" updated.

First off, my car is fantastic. It's quick, gets great gas mileage. It's a little on the "girlish" side. Read: The styling isn't quite as aggressive as I'd like. But then, to get the car I really wanted, would have been at least $200/month more. Still, the A6 is probably two cars away yet. BTW: I highly recommend Lithia for your next car, Azra (my saleswoman) in particular. I have phone numbers if you want them. Next time, I'll either go A4 or possible a Passat. But first, I have to get a job - bringing me to my next point.

I have finally graduated from Grand View University (go me!). Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, the economy isn't great for tracking down a job. I'm mostly looking for Finance or Accounting positions. I am hesitant to go with a retail position, but not opposed entirely. It's nothing personal, but I had hoped to jump on to a corporate track somewhere - a good 9-5 somewhere. However, I might have to put that off for a bit. Luckily, Renee and I have enough cash that I can go until about the second week of January before kneeling to that pressure. If you're curious, I'm spending a lot of time with Caitlyn and working on writing my stories and synopses. The time with Caitlyn is nice, but taxing. I'm entirely convinced now that men are not hardwired to spend all day, everyday, with babies. My books/novels are coming along, though not as nicely as I'd like (see comments about Caitlyn above). I'm also working on tracking down freelance writing... again the baby thing is slowing me down.

Caitlyn is doing great! She's really smart, and saying "thank you" now, though I'm still not 100% she knows what it means. She does, apparently, know that she needs to say it after she gets something handed to her. She also kisses her dolls and stuffed-animals now. She'll have a blast when she gets a new nephew in January. Also, she's walking like a little crazed person right now. She chases and hugs and kisses on the dogs. They don't much care for her new-found walking abilities, but ya know. If you're curious but not keeping track she's 11 months now. We have various birthday plans, that I'll reveal to those who need to know over the next couple of weeks.

~Eric

2008-12-01T21:53:00.001-06:00

http://www.kontraband.com/videos/3152/Too-Many-Guys/

Hiliarity... mayhaps NSFW

New whip

2008-10-17T18:39:00.006-05:00

My pics got unarranged and I'm too lazy to fix them. So here's some pics of Caitlyn to start and then we'll get into new car things below:

So for trading my beloved 1997 Monte Carlo LS, of which I apparently do not possess a picture, and $1000 down, I am now the proud lessee of a 2009 VW Jetta, which left the lot on Tuesday with a grand total of 4 miles! It's a 3-year/39,000-mile lease. The awesomeness kicks in with free scheduled maintenance. That means free oil changes, etc for the duration of the lease. Go me!

Also awesome: A switch-blade key:

So, yeah that's all I really got. Though here's several pics of an adorable Caitlyn, some of them as her dressed for a boxing match:

Update upteenth

2008-09-05T20:58:00.003-05:00

Just briefly: I'd love to post about the political goings-on, but alas, I'm looking for a new job. In the interest of my soon-to-be life and other such happenings, I'll probably remain silent for the most part. I'll be voting Libertarian in the general election and that's the most anyone will ever need to know. You all know why, if you don't email me and I'll be glad to enlighten whomsoever needs it.

Congratulations again for Kara and Thune. Speaking of which, I think I saw Thune entering GVC's library today, but I was late for class, so.. ya know.... I didna' stop because I'm only 90% sure it was him. If so, my gratz again....

It's my last semester at school... at least until I get feedback one way or another from potential employers about my (potential) MBA schooling. I want to go, part of my five-year plan, but there're other classes which would be (potentially, again) more beneficial first. I'll take them if I'm asked, elsewise I think a good six months-to-a-year off would be good for my overall santity. Right now, I'm thinking 18 months then head back to scchool, but we'll see how bored I get first. ;p

Despite the rapid changes, I'll [try] to keep everyone abreast of Caitlyn's changes. For starters, she's crawling now and has her two lower front toofers coming in. She's even shown affinity for standing on her own and talking, though it's too early to confirm either of the last two on their own merits.

Tonight is our anniversary, our 4th. For our 5th, we've decided to take Rob and Amanda on a Carribean cruise for a 5th anniversary/honeymoon. More on this for the upcoming months.

Pics and videos

2008-09-01T22:22:00.006-05:00

I'll probably do a text-based update later in the week. However, for now here are some videos and pictures.

Eric's update

2008-07-14T13:57:00.001-05:00

So, it’s been a home improvement summer. After three years (as of the July 19th), we finally got around to painting. Sometime ago, before Renee was pregnant, I had painted Caitlyn’s room from an office into a nursery. Last summer we painted, half-assedly mind you, our bedroom. We rushed that one, and it turned out much as one would expect two novice painters sans any semblance of patience.

This summer we did the bathrooms, the living room, kitchen and downstairs hallway/entryway. All of which turned out well, better than I had any right to expect. A couple of weeks ago I installed two ceiling fans, one for the living room and a second for our bedroom. Apparently, I managed to do those half-assed too. They work fine, but our house is wired to be able to run the lights from one switch and the fans from the other. However, they don’t seem to be installed that way. Both the lights and the fan works, but we have to pull the chains to turn the lights on (instead of just hitting the other switch). It’s that way for both fans. Not a big deal, but somewhat annoying. If I fix it, it won’t be until next spring probably. It’s nearly time for videogame aftersummer. The week after we installed the fans, we bought custom in-set, wood-slat blinds for the living room. They also look fantastic! I couldn’t be happier, overall, with the efforts. I’ll still have to fill in and sand down where our curtains were hung with drywall anchors. But that’s a major inconvenience (having to move furniture around), so I’m guessing that’ll wait until we move. Our final measure of home improvement was the new PC. Not really, but I’d have felt amiss had I not included it.

We still need to replace the carpets and kitchen/bathroom floors, but we’re doing all of the improvements with cash and not credit, so that’ll require some more saving before we get to it. The only other thing I really have earmarked for this summer is replacing the light fixtures and switch plates. We have four normal lights, one of which we already replaced. We like that one and are sticking with it for the rest. Then we have two bathroom light deals we want to replace, they’re the kind used for makeup tables. They look cheap and when I was painting I learned they not only look cheap but they’re poorly installed (I nearly knocked one off the damned wall when the paintbrush scraped up against it). The last light we’ll worry about is the main kitchen light. It’s florescent fixture and it blends in pretty well, so we won’t worry about it too much.

L’see, what else? I finished the second draft of a script for a graphic novel (unfunny comic book). My co-collaborator and artist, Breck, seemed pleased with it. He has to do the concept art then do the rough sketch. I figure at that point, I’ll re-address it and see if any changes need to be done. Never having done it before, it’s difficult to know what’s working and what’s not. We plan to have the website on which it will be published 2008Q4. The site’ll be designed by Breck, and originally keyed by me, I’m taking a web design introduction class in the fall and plan on using the site for that. Eventually, I’ma make Rob pretty it up. I’ll keep y’all updated.

On the 26th and 27th, we’re attending Renee’s family’s outing. It’ll be a camping trip eastward at a private campground deal, similar to KOA. I’s called Outback campground, (http://www.outbackcamp.com/index.html), I don’t know much about it other than we’ll be staying in the lodge instead of tents (thank you, Caitlyn!). I’ll give my impressions upon our return. That following week, both Rnee and I are taking vacations. So we’re looking forward to that.

Now for the only part of the update anyone really wants to read: Caitlyn. She’s had diarrhea since Friday. Explosive diarrhea. (This sort of update will be a lot amusing when she’s older). Today she’s done a lot better. Though, the one bad diaper was monumental. Much to my chagrin, Renee’s had to work early-morning shifts from Saturday until today; so much of my share of the fun has been solo-work. She’s been in really good spirits, still laughing and playing as usual. I called the doctor’s office this morning and apparently baby diarrhea can last 10-14 days! Renee’s going to see an eye specialist tomorrow in Iowa City. Actually, her mom’s going, but they both share the same disease, so Renee’s going to tag along and see if she can get a free diagnosis. I figure it’s a university hospital, which means the guru she’s going to see is probably as much a researcher as a treater (?). It’s a rare condition (Reis-Buckler or granular corneal dystrophy something-or-other: http://www.hopeforsight.org/info.htm), so having two people, mother and daughter no less, has to be a plus for any research he might be doing. Anyhoo, Renee’s taking her tomorrow, so we’re hoping Caitlyn has a good day. Caitlyn has crawled a few times, but mostly is still falling on her face. She has a better stance this last week, so we’re hoping that that helps. She’s to the point where, when she’s on her hands and knees, she has her weight farther back on her haunches, so her arms don’t get so tired.

Meh, that’s enough. Later.

Finally an update

2008-07-02T23:04:00.000-05:00

So I know that it has been a while since our last update, and you thought us having a baby would encourage us to update more, silly readers. However since I am on that topic Caitlyn is doing Great! She becomes increasingly beautiful with every passing day.
I do not know if we have said this already but Caitlyn has been rolling over for awhile now, and she has started to crawl a little as well. She is growing up so fast. The older she gets the more you can see her personality, and I love watching her learn. She is everything a mother could hope for (that’s what every Mom says of their children I know).
My job is becoming increasingly irritating. I probably just need a vacation. I am so glad Eric took the summer off from school. I think he needed the small break. Hopefully he will be inspired when fall semester comes around. I am sooo excited that he will graduate in the fall! He probably isn’t as excited as I am but still, yea!!!

This is a short update, but I will try to update again soon.
~Renee~

2008-05-14T21:46:00.003-05:00

Last Saturday we hanged out with Breck and Natalie and their daughter Adaya. She was born a month before Caitlyn. The following are a few pics and a video of that wonderful time. Renée keeps saying she's going to update then doesn't. Me? I'm lazy, so this is what you get.

Here's one of Caitlyn laughing:

Here's one where Caitlyn makes Adaya cry:

Here's a still shot of them hanging out:
And then we have some random images and perhaps some from Mothers' Day.

in no particular order

2008-04-23T10:41:00.003-05:00

Renee's update

2008-03-26T22:08:00.002-05:00

So I have not updated in a while and I decided tonight that I probably should. Get comfortable, this is going to be a long one. I would like to again congratulate Rob and Amanda on their engagement. It made me begin to think about my wedding day. That was one of the best days of my life, I was so nervous. I was worried about everything, although I really don't know why, my Mom was determined to make sure everything was done as far as the food and drink goes; my sister Ronnie did a beautiful job decorating the wedding and reception area; and one of my best friends Melissa as my maid of honor was doing some last minute running around. Even though Eric and I had known each other for around three years before we got married in the back of my mind I was worried that he wouldn't show up; maybe get cold feet. No one was with him at the house to make sure that he came to Ledges which is where we were married. Eric and I did not do the cannot see the Bride before the wedding tradition, he saw me that whole day before I left to go to Ledges, and I think we are doing great. I told Eric the other day that I was envious of Rob and Amanda, because I miss my wedding day. It was so much fun, and one of the best days I have ever had. So Amanda I hope you enjoy your day when it comes as much if not more than I did. Of course you already did the hardest thing: finding the perfect man;)

Caitlyn is doing well, however I am not too happy with her doctor's office. I had made her two month appt. on the day of her two week appt. so needless to say that was around a month and half ago. I go there yesterday to her appt. and they had no record of her having an appt. for that day. Aggravated was one of the things I was feeling. So we had to reschedule. On to happier things, my beautiful little girl is smiling so much now! I love just to see her change and grow. She is so much aware of everything. She is also teething. If you are going to tell me that babies don't teethe until they are four months or older then save your breath, I know she is teething. She is not sleeping through the night yet, no surprise there, however she is getting pretty close I think. She stills balls up into my chest when I pick her up, which is great; I love it when she does that! Eric was on spring break last week and I believe he enjoyed his extra time with her. It worked out quite nicely actually because my store manager was on vacation so I had to work more than forty hours. It was nice to leave her with daddy on the days I had to work ten hours.

One of the things I worried about when I was pregnant, and even before I became pregnant was that mine and Eric's relationship would be put on the backburner, or suffer in some kind of way. I do not feel that has happened. Caitlyn takes up so much time from both of us but I feel we are handling it. We are not perfect by any means however I don't think we are forgetting about each other. I think that is very important, yes Caitlyn means the world to us both, but we are there for each other. He helps out a lot with chores around the house and he takes more midnight feedings then most guys ever would. We also have a good balance, which I think is because we do love each other so much. Just like everyone we have our rough spots but we get through them and I know there will be more to come however I am happy to say that Eric once again put my worries to rest.

Well that is it for now from me. As usual I have rambled on and on, hopefully there is some type of method to my rambling, and I hope you enjoyed it but if you didn't then to bad, I have enjoyed writing it and in the end isn't that all that matters.

Excellent news!

2008-03-25T21:01:00.002-05:00

The government finally determined that Social Security is financially unsustainable! If only we'd known that 15 years ago!? Oh yeah... we did.

The best news? It'll expire in 2041...

2041 (Social Security gone)
-1980 (my birth year)
--------
61 years... yeah that's right, I'll be 61 years old when SSI gets bankrupt.

That means, essentially, that since I've been paying into Social Security since I was 16 that I'll have accrued 45 years worth of payments into the system, and will get 1-2 years out of it -- if'n I'm lucky...

The government can't manage anything.

Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

On the upturn, only two of the last 12 years that I've been paying in, have I worked full time. So at least that's some measure of preemptive revenge for me.

2008-03-19T09:34:00.003-05:00

Tummy time

2008-03-01T20:34:00.002-06:00

We've been practicing crawling... does it show? The videos are not posted in order, but they're numbered more or less accurately.

(In case you're curious, that's "Dinner: Impossible" in the background.)

Tummy time 2

2008-03-01T20:22:00.003-06:00

Tummy time 3

2008-03-01T20:19:00.001-06:00

Tummy time 4

2008-03-01T20:17:00.001-06:00

Tummy Time 5

2008-03-01T20:14:00.002-06:00

Tummy time 1

2008-03-01T20:03:00.004-06:00

WTF...

2008-03-01T07:10:00.003-06:00

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/02/29/holocaust.bookhoax.ap/index.html

Did none of her readers, who felt "betrayed," find her claim of being raised by wolves odd? How the hell did anyone think this was nonfiction?

Idiots.

Renee's Rambling

2008-02-28T21:25:00.002-06:00

Last Saturday was a nice change of pace for us. Eric's Mom and Dad came over for a visit. They grilled steaks (which are always delicious) and made garlic bread, scallop potatoes, and for dessert Eric's Mom brought brownies. It was nice to see them; they had not seen Caitlyn very much so I'm sure it was nice for them as well. After they left we went over to Breck and Natalie's house. That was a great time. They have a daughter named Adaya who is 6 weeks older than Caitlyn. We had a lot to talk about, and of course we swapped baby stories, and played a game. Next thing I knew it was 12:30 in the morning, which may not sound late for some people but when you have a baby that is not sleeping through the night it is EXTREMELY late. I know that Eric and I were dragging ourselves through all of Sunday; I hope Breck and Natalie fared better than us.

In other news I return to work on Sunday. I am not looking forward to it, but then again my job may surprise me and suddenly become rewarding. However I am positive it will not be long before my 8 hours turns into 9 or 10. Although, it's not just that, I will be leaving Caitlyn for the first time. Before her those 9 or 10 hour days (sometimes longer) didn't really seem to bother me. They wore me out but as I told Eric countless times that's my job. Now I know as soon as I'm scheduled off I'm going to be counting the seconds until I walk out that door. The thought of leaving someone so helpless with someone else makes me want to cry. I have been taking care of her for the last 6 weeks, I know her cries, I know her, and she knows me. I am very thankful that my sister will be babysitting. It makes me feel a little better about the whole thing leaving her with someone I trust. I am even more thankful that Eric does not work weekends and she will be safe at home with daddy.

I thought I would only be at my current job for one more year, now it's looking more like two. It's better for our family though so I can put up with it. My goal is to finish college and get a human resource position. It will be nice to have a job that I won’t have to fight to have holidays and weekends off. Being home at nights will be a plus as well, especially as Caitlyn gets older.

That is more then enough for now, other ramblings will have to wait for later.

Family update

2008-02-12T14:45:00.000-06:00

We went to my nephew Anthony's birthday party on Sunday. It was at InPlay. We enjoyed ourselves, as did all the kids but that goes without saying. The family is becoming so big. We have 10 grandchildren, 12 mommies and daddies, and 2 grandparents on my side of the family. It felt crowded even though the place was huge, but I enjoy that feeling. Shaun (the brother of the birthday boy) decided to do the rock climbing wall. He made it a little more than half-way up and had to let go. He did a really great job. It was neat to see him up that high

. Caitlyn slept throughout the party, which was a pretty good accomplishment because of how noisy it was. Then again Caitlyn will sleep through most anything. Her diaper rash is getting a lot better. The home remedy the nurse gave us is working nicely. She is still keeping me up all through the night and day, so no sleep for mommy. Yes I Realize that this is what babies do. Anyway besides that not much has changed, she is still being a sweet little baby, I am still trying to get caught up on homework, housework, and dreading going back to work, and Eric is still being Eric. He'll say he's busy but we all know that's just a lie. ;)

That's it for now.

Caitlyn update

2008-02-09T20:05:00.000-06:00

As Renee mentioned in her earlier update Caitlyn was having tummy issues. Namely, the issue was gassy. She does well with nursing, but when I feed her (or Renee's tanks are running low *grin and duck*) we use formula. Specifically, we'd been using the free samples of Similac that the hospital and pediatrician gave us. We were using the regular and that was exacerbating the gassiness. Caitlyn also had minor diaper rash.

So on Caitlyn's two-week check-up, Renee inquired as to the doctor's opinion. He told her it might be a lactose issue. So, Renee quit eating dairy (per the doc) and we put Caitlyn on Soy formula. The soy took care of the gas issue, but the extra... efficiency of lower intestine caused by the sormula, Caitlyn's diaper rash got considerably worse, "vicious" might be an appropriate description. We put in another call to a nurse and got a rather convoluted recipe involving zinc oxide, several other topical rubs and Maalox (for reasons I'm still not clear). We also decided, without the professionals, to take her off of the soy formula. The regular Similac still gives her gas pretty bad, but the free samples (lots of free samples come with babies apparently) of Enfamil seem not to cause the gas -- odd since their ingredients seem to be very similar -- and seems easier on Caitlyn's tooshie.

Whether it was the additional efficiency of the sormula, something in the formula that was upping the angriness of the rash as it left her, or pure coincidence, I don't know. But she does seem to be crying a lot less, so I'm considering it a victory. The diaper rash is still really bad, but it does seem to be getting better. If its not improved by Monday, we'll be taking her back for consultation on the rash. It's really *that* bad. It's painful to look at. :(

Pics!

2008-02-05T08:29:00.001-06:00

Caitlyn

2008-02-04T22:32:00.000-06:00

Caitlyn's first appointment went well.

No shots until her next appointment in about 6 weeks. That will be her two month appointment. Hard for me to believe that it's only 6 weeks and she will be 2 months old!

She is now 8lbs 3oz. and 20 inches long. The doctor said that she looks great from head to toe. Except for a little bit of a tummy problem she is completely healthy. She is beginning to focus her eyes more, and she has new facial expressions daily.

Everyone that knows me better than Eric says she looks more like me, and everyone that knows Eric better than me says she looks like Eric.

Eric and I both agree that we really don't see just me or just him in her, but just Caitlyn. Besides she has changed so much in the way she looks since she was born I think it really doesn't matter anyway.

That's all I have for now.

2008-01-30T19:38:00.000-06:00

I told you Guiliani wouldn't win the Republican nomination (he withdrew today, in case you're not following stuffs).

I still think there's a fair chance to have Romney and Huckabee run as Pres and VeeP. Though, I think there's a moderately better chance of having a McCain/Huckabee ticket.

2008-01-22T16:44:00.000-06:00

She's a double-sneezer, just like her dad :)

A Tale of Three Gookins (and the tails of Cooper and Zoe)

2008-01-20T18:06:00.001-06:00

January 18, 2008

So, Renee was having troubles sleeping on Thursday evening. It was her last shift at work and, officially on vacation, she was looking forward to a peaceful evening. She had been having sporadically-intervalled contractions, same as the last couple of weeks. Around 1:30 a.m. (or so) her contractions had gotten stronger and considerably more consistent. Her contractions had had a habit of being within the "call us" category (according the doctor's advice sheet that we received), only to subside within 45 mins, thus leaving us repeatedly short of the hour we needed to drive the hospital. That early morning, however, they never stopped. So at 3:30 a.m. we decided she should call the office and talk with the on-call doctor.

"… and my contractions have been strong enough to wake me up, so my husband and I were wondering if you thought we should come to the hospital."

"You could, or you could wait until the contractions are 3-4 minutes apart."

So much for the vaunted on-call helpline.

"So," Renee says, "he said we could come in now, or wait until they're 4 minutes apart."

"Well," I replies, "if we leave now, we can beat the traffic."

And we were off.

By the time I had taken the dogs out for their morning urination and gathered the requisite goods it was about 4:10. We arrived at the hospital at 4:30. After an hour-plus wait and check-in procedure, they hooked her up to a few different machines and monitored her contractions and the baby's heartbeat for a while. Both were signaling that something was happening. They checked her cervix and estimated her to be at around 1cm and 50% effacement.

"Walk around on this level for an hour or so and we'll check things out again and see where you're at. You can go any where here, just don't leave the floor."

So about 5:30 we started the first of many laps around the maternity ward floor. An hour and 11 contractions later, we met our nurse back at the triage (that's what it was labeled anyway – I know because I read it no fewer than 11 million times this weekend) room. They put her (Renee, not the nurse) back on the machines and it was steady. The walking had upped the intensity of the contractions, so they turned us back out to walk some more. An hour after that we met back. I informed the nurse that the contractions are lasting longer and coming slightly quicker. Now 8:30 a.m., Renee was rehooked to all of the cool-looking line graphs and after a few minutes Dr. Garner (who was the OB/GYN on Renee's last appointment on Monday the 14^th) joined us. He inspected Renee and confirmed she was about 1 cm and 60% effaced.

"Who ever you saw on Monday said they were going to induce you on this coming Tuesday. Since your due date was this last Tuesday, we'll have you walk for another hour and see how you're doing. If you look like you're making any headway we'll go ahead and break your water and get you goin'."

So, full of cautious and guarded hope, we set off on yet another set of laps. Keep in mind that at this point each lap was interrupted by 3-4 contractions, and now they were strong enough to make Renee tear-up (not an easy thing to do). After the hour we met back up with the doctor and Renee's dilation was pronounced as, "one and a wiggle."

Then he broke her water.

And low and behold the fireworks (and phone calls and text messages) began. From 9:30-1:00 was fairly slow going, but she was dilating a centimetre every two hours or so. Between 11:00 and 1:00 she was about 2cm and they hooked up the epidural. After everything was good and numb in went the internal contraction seismometer and a slow drip of some hormone that started with a "p" to get things moving along more quickly. And quickly things moved, by 1:00 she was at 3-4 cm and at 2:00 she was five. By 4:00 she had popped up to 9 cm and hard labor (pushing) started at 5:03pm. At 6:05 Caitlyn Veronica was born. Oh yeah, the calenders in the rooms at Methodist announced January 18th as "Winnie the Pooh Day." Classic Pooh is the theme of the nursery (pictures of which I still need to post).

Well that's the Reader's Digest.

We're all home today (much to the relief of our dogs), and resting. I'm fi'n' to cook up the T-Bone steaks my parents got us for supper as soon as I copy and paste this from Word to Blogger and upload a few more pictures (and yes, she's wearing baby blue in some of the pictures. We don't subscribe to traditional gender roles... also, we don't like the color pink) ;p

Thanks to everyone who served one another with photos and updates. We are both humbled and flattered that everyone was so excited for us.

Love,

Caitlyn, Renee and Eric

Cooper and Zoe.

3Gookins and 2 dogs

6 Hands, 5 heads, 10 legs, 30 toes,

24 fingers, 6 thumbs, 2 tails,

And a whole lot of appreciation from all of us!

Grandpa and Grandma Gookin -- first-timers

Grandma Baker and Cousin Angelina -- G.Baker is one-half of a ten-time grandparent combo

Going home I

Last day at the hospital

First-day, cuddle-buggin' with mommy

Napping at home.

Cousin Angelina christening the baby

Promise update

2008-01-19T20:02:00.001-06:00

Renee and I and Caitlyn are expecting to be home tomorrow (hopefully in the a.m.).
I promise more pictures at some point tomorrow.
This week I hope to keep as downtime for mom and baby, just at the house with scant visitors. However, viewing season will likely be opened in the next week. Drop me a line if'n you want to make an appointment.

Lotsa weird stuff going on out there

2008-01-09T17:54:00.001-06:00

Man nukes his hand, after seeing mark o' the beast.
Lazarus incarnate.
Kid killer.
Kid Slayer.
Another one involving the death of juveniles.
More death and the threatening of another child's death.

World's ending, think I'll go hide.

Abbreviat'd Update

2007-12-28T10:25:00.000-06:00

'Twas a good XMas. N'thin' too fancy, just the normal stuff. XMas Eve was spent at R'n's 'rents, XMas itself at mine.

Thought the baby was coming on XMas, lots of c'ntract'ns. We were only @ my 'rents house for about t'ree hrs then they were consistent 'nough to head back to DSM -- y'know J.I.C.

K, that's annoying, no mas abbrevios.

We got back to Ankeny and they subsided. The rest of the week, the contractions have been here and there, but nothing sustainable enough to demand we head to Methodist. However, Renee has an appointment today at 2:00. We're hoping they'll take pity on us and induce labor. The new year is coming up and, with it, new deductibles and such. It would be best if the baby was born before Tuesday. You'll be notified should there be anything substantial.

So, yeah that's all I got. I do got pictures (of the nursery and of how the ice storm raped my parent's yard a couple of weeks back) but I forgot to transfer them on my flash drive so I could upload them from work here.

Classic (no counting involved)

2007-12-05T20:31:00.000-06:00

http://www.queerty.com/humor/sherri-shepherd-revises-world-history-20071204/

CNN/YouTubeDebate analysis

2007-11-28T21:20:00.000-06:00

I just finished watching the CNN YouTube debate and I now know four things about next year.

1) Ron Paul will be the third-party candidate as a Libertarian (and was the only one who seemed honest) with his "grassroots" structure.

2) Guiliani's insistence on SCOTUS' authority as lawmakers will not win him the Republican vote and should be running with the Democrats for this part of the election. He's an idiot for running as a conservative.

3) Huckabee and Romney will be on the Republican ticket.

I'm planning to post pics of the nursery at some point... some point.

2007-11-04T08:04:00.001-06:00

You, dear audience, are serving as my warm-up. I have in the neighborhood of 25 pages worth of quasi-scholarly papers to write. Since it is only 7:30 Sunday morning, you will be my foil. I’m doing everyone a favor and leading with baby stuffs and spin things downward toward the less captivating school-related stuffs.

Renee’s (finally) starting to show. She’s a little more than seven months along. It’s only been over the last couple weeks that one could tell just by looking that she’s pregnant. The baby, heretofore referred to by the initials: ER/KVG (more on this momentarily), has spent the last two-three months training for Beijing next year. I figure s/he’ll enter in the kickboxing tournament.

We’ve been, as yet, unable to nail down the sex of the baby. Actually, the first ultrasound cost us $250 out of pocket, we’re curious about whether we got a boy or girl, but not $250-curious. So, unless the doctor orders an extra one, we’ll probably just go these last couple of months without knowing. We have, however, isolated baby names. If it’s a girl, she’ll be named Caitlyn Veronica. If it’s a boy, Elijah Ray got the nod. Veronica and Ray are family names (her grandma and my grandpa, respectively).

The general consensus at Renee’s work is it’s a boy (go me). That’s also my general consensus, but being only one person, she doesn’t think I should qualify as a consensus. We also think is that the baby is coming early. We’re expecting an end-of December birth. Her mom is convinced it’s coming early and so are we, she’s carrying it low and the baby is far too active. S/he’ll not spend anymore time in there than absolutely necessary me thinks.

In preparation for the baby, we’ve killed out internet and satellite. Well, really, we just severely maimed both. Dish Network has us on some sort of budget-billing plan until February. The channel offerings are pretty lousy, but it’s only $15/month and we avoid paying for the reinstallment of the dish once the baby is here. My internet connection exists in the form of other ppl’s wifi that my laptop can grab. Mine is a tenuous existence at best these days… ;p Luckily, we get high-def over-the-air, so the football games on the weekend are a high spot.

Next Saturday is Renee’s babyshower. A quick check of the gift registry list on Target’s website leads to disappointment. Either people are getting us stuff and not getting it marked off, or no one loves us. You make Baby Gookin sad. :(

Just for the collective inattentiveness to my the baby’s presents, I’m not going to update about school.

For shame.

Psychic Hopis

2007-10-01T19:19:00.000-05:00

http://www.cracked.com/index.php?name=News&sid=2391&pageid=3

Hiliary Clinton

2007-09-23T09:19:00.001-05:00

So a couple of weeks ago Renee and I cut our satellite service down to a bare minimum while we're saving up some money. Internet, too. Don't ask how I'm working my magic now, though.

Anyway, as a result of our money-saving efforts, I have been relegated to watching news shows (ick!). This morning Fox News Sunday happened to pop up on the screen when I turned the TV on. Not wanting to bother looking for the remote control because even if I do find it, hey there's nothing better on. It's all partisan garbage. I digress.

So, I'm sitting here for the better part of 20 minutes listening to her call for immediate pullouts from Iraq and how it was a mistake and blah blah blah. She shouldn't have voted to put us in there for 15 years, if she didn't want us there.

But then, and here's the thing, then Chris Wallace asked her about whether Columbia University should rescind its invitation to the Iranian president. She gave a good answer saying it should be left to Columbia U. Good answer. It's voluntary to send your kids there, or to choose to go there. It is their decision. (Although just now Bill Kristol has decided that inviting the Irani to speak is somehow anti-American. More to the point that it somehow makes the guy more "legitimate." He's the freakin' President of Iran. An asshole, likely. In favor of genocide and mass killings, yes. Delusional about the Holocaust, absolutely. However, the US granted him a visa to speak at the UN and Columbia is a private university and if they want to be friendly to an antisemitic then that's their prerogative.)

But anyhow, back to Clinton. So she's making this big deal about how we shouldn't be in Iraq and we should be pulling out. Wallace asks her about the Iranian President at Columbia, gives the good answer about it being their choice. Then she goes on to announce that we have a difficult time with Iran ahead and that the US has "outsourced" dealing with the hostile "regime" instead of dealing with it first hand.

What the hell is that? Iran isn't any more likely to listen to the UN than Iraq was. There's only one way to remove hostile regimes and it involves military force. Typically asshole-regimes stay that way because internal change can not be facilitated. So then, like Iraq, a larger power has to go in and remove it for the sake of the people and the world. Frankly, it's something that our Department of "Defense" should probably not be dealing with in any matter. Iran or Iraq.

Idiots. I hate politicians.

2007-09-22T21:57:00.000-05:00

Renee had another doctor's appointment this last week. Everything is looking good. Baby's heartbeat was at 148 bpm. She's doing well also. So well, the doctor said we might not need to have another ultrasound. Bad news because we want to know boy or girl. So, we'll get it, even if we need to pay out of pocket. Estimated birth date: January 15-20.

Erm, I don't have a whole lot more. Zoe was doing really well not peeing on the floor, until this week. I think it had something to do with Renee being on vacation. Normally she's (Zoe, not Renee) locked up all day.

Classes are fine, so is work and tutoring. Tutoring is more of a challenge than I thought it might be, but I'm adjusting to it. Nothing terrible.

So, yeah. That's my update.

Ciao.

2007-09-03T19:02:00.000-05:00

Renee's baby shower is coming up. If you've not received an email, you'll probably be getting an invitation.

Because we're so high falluting we registered at Target.

Here-ish

Things I learnt at the doctor's office today

2007-08-22T20:30:00.000-05:00

Here's all the news we have from today's visit:

1)Our doctor's name (on this visit) was a Dr. Siemon (yes, pronounced like that). Rather poetic for an Ob/Gyn, no?

2) We will see as many as eight (8) doctors over the next 21 weeks. We were told the reasoning behind this was that there's no way to tell which doctor will be "popping his head through the door and it's best if you can at least recognize the face."

3) Renee is ~19 weeks, for you math majors and people who didn't read all of my last comment, there's 21 weeks left: think Jan. 17-24th-ish. My dad's birthday is 1/21.

4) Both mom and baby are doing good.
4a) I witnessed my first pap smear.
4a1) Guys, try to avoid this experience as much as possible.
4a1a) Don't make any jokes about congratulating the doctor on getting further with wife/girlfriend than you have. -- I was told it's not funny.

5) Baby's heartbeat is at 140 bpm, sounds like a drum solo. Apparently this is good. (Still could have used a guitar melody in there somewhere, though.)

6) Don't preset your list to 10 bullets if you can only make five points.

7) Doctors and nurses seem skeptical if you tell them you didn't realize you were pregnant for five months...

8) ... or have never had surgery.

9) Dr. Siemon didn't seem bothered by the fact that Renee had lost 25 lbs on Weight Watchers before realizing she was pregnant, but did seem somewhat impressed that she had.

10) Renee is pretty.

2007-08-18T09:15:00.000-05:00

I put off updating as long as possible, to gather as much information worth writing about. Somehow, however, there still isn't a lot.

After an absurdly long wait, and several (supposed) forthcoming calls had not forthcame, Renee finally managed to scream over the phone at someone long enough to get her first doctor's appointment. It's Wednesday.

I survived Statistics and am now preparing for fall semester.

Last night we chilled at Breck and Natalie's. They first asked us a year ago and we managed to avoid it as long as we could. ;p A good time was had by all. Natalie is also pregnant -- a mere month ahead of us, give or take.

And so, yeah... that's all we've done this last two weeks. Go us.

Baby's first photograph

2007-08-02T18:54:00.001-05:00

-Somewhere around 16 weeks along, due date mid-January.
We know neither the sex nor the name.

-That is all.
(No really, that's all we know. You can ask, but I'll just be all like, "I dunno.")

2007-07-23T18:54:00.000-05:00

The Summer’s To-Do List

Paint the house – Both bedrooms have been painted, nothing else
~~Take a Stats Course~~
~~Don’t drop out of Stats Course~~
Pass Stats Course – Almost there!
~~Submit five~~ stories for publishing – 2/5s done
~~Start comic book collaboration with Breck~~ – if, by “start” I meant prepare to start (close enough)
Get both novels (both untitled as yet) to ten chapters – Five on one, three on the other
~~Go camping with Shaun~~ – done, hoping for another one in early autumn/late summer
~~Read through GVC’s student literary magazine to prepare for Editorship in Spring~~
~~Run Renee’s degree audit~~ – She’ll be a December ‘07 graduate of DMACC
~~Convince Renee to go to GVC in the fall~~
Write at least five other short stories for submit during fall season – started three, like two of them, none are finished
Take Clep to test out of computer science class this fall – tentatively scheduled, but not completed
Don’t quit job without finding a fall-back position – so far, so good. But I’ve been tempted several times
Revamp résumé, predicting upcoming school year – thought a lot about it, no action taken
~~Avoid blogging~~, - using lists, videos and other miscellaneous distractions, as needed
~~Make baby with Renee~~

He'll save children, but not the British children.

2007-07-19T21:04:00.001-05:00

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1696935

Gearing up for the first camping trip of the year

2007-07-08T11:16:00.001-05:00

Unlike Rob's back hair, this is going to be an unimpressive feature.

So, it might be a little tardy for a first trip of the year, but since I never top more than two trips in any given year, not a huge deal for me. As usual, I'm taking nephew Shaun, but it will also mark the first camping trip for his little brother, Anthony. We're not getting very adventurous. I've opted to take them to the good ol' standby down in Hopeville. My parents' property is straight across from the park, so they'll have some (crappy) playground equipment and plenty of area to run around in. Plus it's 15 minutes from my parents in case of an inconsolable Anthony, or monsoon. I've earmarked Saturday and Sunday as our days out there, but I might bump it up to Friday and Saturday, so I have a day to recover before work. That is, provided I can inspect my tent and stuff today and prepare accordingly.

Okay, gonna go do something else now.

Out of protest

2007-06-23T17:55:00.000-05:00

I'm only updating at the behest of Kara. She seems to think I should have something worth saying. I really don't. I wish it was a lie and that I was hiding something even remotely remarkable to talk about... I don't, really.

Renee reached her 10% weight-loss goal and received her 16-week Weight Watcher's pin. She's sexier now, remarkable as I thought she was hot before.

Zoe and Cooper are getting along good now. They play a lot and Cooper even occasionally lets her lay next to him. There are pictures below. Our house smells like dog pee now. She's getting better, but the other day she peed all over our couch; I was displeased. Still am, really.

Summer class is going well. We just found out Renee (probably) only has two classes left at DMACC before she makes the jump to a four-year, too -- likely GVC, just like me! So long as she doesn't cramp my style, it's cool. ;p

Enjoy the doggity pics below:

Rant about something no one else will care about

2007-06-07T08:38:00.001-05:00

Earlier this week Gary Sheffield, baseball player for Detroit Tigers, made a stupid comment about how Latin American players are "easier to control" than black players and that is why there are more Hispanics in baseball than black players.

The comment was a fairly dumb. Baseball is low priority for most of the population in America, especially the kids. It saddens me to say that baseball is the least popular of the big three, probably about as popular as soccer (on a whole level, though very probably less popular with the youngsters), and only more popular than hockey. In Latin America, though, it's a very popular sport and the only way a lot of them can get out of poverty. I don't really care about his comment though. What bothers me is that I was watching Mike and Mike in the morning on ESPNews and Greenberg asked an even dumber question of their Hispanic guest (whose name escapes me).

Greenberg asked, "Should [Sheffield's] feet be held closer to the fire on this one?"

What the hell does that mean? You can't seriously ask that. Either Sheffield's comments were out of place and pissed a lot of people off and they'll "hold his feet to the fire" themselves, OR not enough people will care and nothing will happen. If the guest, who said he was pretty close with Sheffield, wants either of the two, then he should campaign for it. Being prompted like that by someone who calls himself a "journalist" is bad. So very extremely bad. Reporters, journalists other news-type people who claim to have some sort of duty to the American republic to involve themselves in the news are bad.

If they want to be advocates or opponents, they need to leave the news business and go form or work for non-profits or other entities in those sorts of capacity. Journalists are supposed to be disinterested parties who tell us things we might otherwise not know about, not to influence public opinion. They can have their own opinions, but it's immoral and inappropriate for them to use their positions to do so.

It's different if they're like O'Reilly or Larry King who act as commentators not as reporters. Greenberg, in this instance, was somewhere in between. However, he routinely characterizes himself, on the show, as a journalist and is therefore abusing the "public trust" that journalists' and news organizations' are supposed to have. The idea of a public trust for journalists is laughable anyhow, but if they're going to claim its benefits they should at least have the decency to treat their positions with the sort of respect and responsibility that comes along with such a post.

Back-to-back Sunday updates

2007-05-27T07:31:00.000-05:00

I'm working all weekend long -- which is one of the reasons I'm up at 7:00 on a Sunday. Not that it makes a huge difference; even when I have the weekends off I'm generally up by 7:30. Today, though, at least have a reason. Also, MSNBC is on my television. I didn't turn it here, I picked it out so our dogs would have something to listen to while we're gone. The anchor is an idiot. She has mispronounced five or six words in the 15 minutes I've been watching her. This is why I don't bother with news reports anymore. They're all stupid.

My President's list notice finally came in the mail. It was an utter disappointment... some cheap-ass card. I was expecting (for $18k/year, mind you) some sort of a certificate on cardstock. Preferably with a seal or one of those metal stamping things that crimps the words (like what notary publics use). Weak.

So Cooper and the new puppy, Zoë, are doing okay together. We got her on Wednesday. The adoption and turn-over papers say she's a beagle, but I they're lying. Her face is too slender and her legs too long to be of the beagle flavor. It was touch and go for a while between her and Cooper. She's not a terribly quick learner. She's pretty good with potty training and sitting for treats, but not with Cooper. I'll upload some pictures over the next couple of days. In case you're curious, she's four months old.

Renee and I are in a bit of a cash-crunch. Actually, our cash is fine. It's our credit that's being crunched. I had to pay out-of-pocket for my books and summer class. I used a credit card to pay for it and am going to pay it off with my check here on the 30th. I'm much better at managing credit than I am cash. It's so much easier. I'm not sure why. Principally it's the same thing. Prolly has something to do with the fact that neither Renee nor I like to spend credit. I feel much better about spending cash, so I think I'm a little less disciplined about it. I'll have to make a note to work on that.

I gotta get ready for work. I think I'm going to write some. I've promised myself that I was going to get three short-stories sent off over the summer and so far I've only written ones that are part of my larger projects, and others that I don't care for. Class starts on Tuesday, so I need to get in gear with the time crunch upcoming.

Latah~

2007-05-20T12:53:00.000-05:00

Busy busy busy, that's what we've been.

We left for South Dakota on the morning of the 9th. We had decided to take Cooper with us, we figured he'd be happy to be out of the house. Family bonding, if you will. It's about a nine or so hour drive to the Black Hills, specifically Rapid City. We arrived more or less on schedule, got ourselves a room at a Super8 that had a fantastic pet fee, only five dollars extra. Normally pet fees are upwards of thirty or so, which, for the rooms we stay in, is almost half-again the cost. So, while it was very long car ride, it started off reasonably enough.

The next morning, Thursday, we made off for Rushmore and to get further into the Black Hills. We found out that, on arrival, that the fee to get into the Mt. Rushmore visitors' center and parking lot was $10/car. Fine enough, except that they don't allow dogs, any pets really, into Rushmore's park. We could have left him in the car, but that'd have been in poor form. So, making use of the many brochures the hotel made available we called some other places we had intended to go. Among them, a series of caves and other various tourist traps that we thought might be cool. None of them would let us bring Cooper in with us. How's that? For a state whose GDP is made of 10% from tourism to its parks and rec areas, in excess of $2 Billion dollars, you'd think that they'd want to make pets feel welcome there.

We spent the day driving through the Black Hills and Custer State Park. Cooper barked at the Begging Burros and the Bison that we drove past and none of them seemed interested in anything he had to say. It was gorgeous country. I took a lot of pictures. (Pictures that proved that I have little business with a camera in my hand. They're free of odd thumbs and headless bodies, but they're still not good.) So, we decided we'd come back that night. Cooper hated the hotel room and I don't think he got much sleep. Every time there was a sound out in the hallway he walked over to investigate it. He didn't really bark though, so he was good that way. He mostly laid down in his dog bed that we brought and stared at the door. Figuring there was little reason to spend an extra $60 on a restless night in the hotel, we opted to just come back. We got back about 1:15 a.m. Friday morning. We did, however, decide that we'd save up a little extra money and do it again a year from now, sans Coopstar. There was a *lot* to do out there and we figure we'll dump Cooper off at my parents for a week or so next May and let him play with Digger (their dog).

The this last Wednesday (the 16th) we went to the dentist. It was my first trip to the dentist since 2002... not having insurance makes dentists trips very expensive. The dental hygienist worked me over good. So good that on Thursday my teeth and gums killed me and I had to miss work. Friday there were still tender but better.

Then yesterday, Saturday, Renee and I had a "work day" at her parents'. I spent half the day under the house, jacking it up to level and patching the insulation under it. I give myself too much credit. I did a lot of it, but we had quite a bit of help from sisters- and brothers-in-law. It was an all-day affair, but it was gorgeous enough for it. We all got sun burnt and I must have tweaked my neck at some point yesterday. All night I tossed and turned with no more than about 40 minutes of rest between tosses and turns. It's slightly better now, but still sore.

Okay, I'm tired of writing. Consider yourselves satiated.

Gone South Dakotain'

2007-05-08T16:38:00.000-05:00

Well, as of tomorrow we will have.
Around 8-ish Renee and I (and our Cooper) are headed to the Badlands and Black Hills of SD. We'll be back after a couple of days so no one try to steal any of my stuff. I'll kill you.

2007-04-29T07:30:00.000-05:00

My classes are done with, well most of my classes. I still have one evening class that doesn't finish until Tuesday evening. Short of a catastrophe Tuesday, I will finish the semester with a cool 4.0. Renee's last class is on Wednesday. She's taking the week of the sixth off, it's been five or six months since her last vacation. She needs it badly. We're *finally* gonna get around to painting our bedroom. We've only been planning it for two years, so we figured it's time to commit to it. We're going paint shopping after she gets home this afternoon. We're going with a deep reddish purplish plum-ish color.

This fall I'll be working evenings at DMACC and spending the better parts of the day time at GVC. I'm taking somewhere in the neighborhood of 17 credits, plus I'll be a writing tutor. Then in the Spring, Dr. Brooke offered me the editorship of GVC's student-submission literature magazine. I'll probably take it, it sounds like it might be fun.

Renee's plans for fall are still up in the air. Her company is hurting for store-level managers and she might very well end up as store manager before then. She doubts it, but I would bet they'd probably offer it to her. Had she not just transferred, I think they'd already have been talking to her about taking over Norwalk. She deserves the shot, but I've told her if they offer it she needs to make some demands for compensation because she'll probably have to put school on hold for a semester. Certainly, she won't be able to continue at half time, she'll have to drop to at least one class. 'Course since she'll be a store manager she'll have greater latitude over her hours.

Anyhow, that is that. I've got some serious writing to do and a dog who is also quite serious about what he needs to do out-of-doors.

~Later

Half-hearted update

2007-04-24T11:22:00.000-05:00

So yeah. I'm going to post a new entry without actually updating.

Renee's store switch has gone (fairly) well.
This fall I'll be a writing tutor at GVC. It doesn't pay well but at least it involves very little to do with computers. I'll be keeping my spot at DMACC because it does pay (comparatively) well.

Renee and I found out some terrible information this weekend (nothing involving us directly). And due to that news, I no longer wish to know anyone's secrets.

The drug thing last fall broke my heart and this new thing (totally unrelated) has nearly done the same to both Renee and I. If you're someone I'm fond of, I don't want to know any more skeletons. (Rob excluded because he's obligated to tell me. ;p)

I don't care if you're the head of the local KKK chapter. I don't care if you're a post-op transsexual. I don't care if you're an alien who has invaded earth -- unless you're planning on leaving and would like to take Renee and me (and our dog) with you, in which case call me.

I'm much more content to wander about my naive little world and think everything is normal with everyone I care about.

**Unrelated side note: My grandma was taken to the hospital last week for something resembling pneumonia. She's doing much better and was scheduled to be released yesterday. I wasn't able to get a hold of mom to find out if they did release her or not. I may update later when I find something out.

That maniac in black, Mr. Snoop Eastwood

2007-03-14T19:09:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the non-sequitor title, the phrase has been running through my head for the last three days and I'm not sure why. In fact, I'm not even sure which of Snoop Dogg's CDs it originates from(really, I'm not even sure it is a Snoop album, it might just be on a song he collaborated on).

But I do go on.

Renee's been harping at me to update... well harping is a bit of an overstatement, but she did mention once or twice since I posted the pictures. Not a helluva lot to update about, though. The new nephew is doing well. I've not seen the tyke since the hospital but Renee's been over there a few times.

Renee got transferred out of nice, rural Norwalk and into the ghetto at East 33rd (Hubbell Ave and Euclid). That becomes official Monday. Really, it's for the best, she's being reunited from the first manager who she served under as a salary manager. Most importantly she got transferred away from an increasingly ugly situation in Norwalk. They have a good management team, so I'm sure they'll pull out of it, but at least she doesn't have to deal with those particular headaches. Due to privacy restrictions, I can't go much more into it than that. East 33rd has its own set of headaches...err challenges, but it's a lot closer to Ankeny and they have a real good team there to turn around the store again, so it'll be good in the long run.

As for me, it's the same old things. Working is unpleasant, but I can't seem to convince Renee to let me retire yet. And school is good. I have a number of side projects I'm working on. Breck (http://www.atomicillustration.com/) and I are in the early stages of creating a graphic novel (read: comic book). I'm trying to get some more promotion for Danny's Boy Scout Anthem: "Hikin' Trail." A number of other projects I'm doing on a personal basis. And I just got a letter in the mail today notifying me that my creative writing professor, Dr. Brooke, has apparently recommended me for a writing lab instructor. He is impressed with almost everything I've turned into him this semester. It means quite a bit coming from him... ya know, beings as he has stuff regularly published in poetry publications, and other various spots.

So, yeah, trying to keep busy and pretty well succeeding.

P.S. Baseball season starts in less than two weeks.

Baby pictures

2007-02-19T09:44:00.001-06:00

Within a few hours, Renee and I will have a new nephew.

Pics later.

~~~ Update ~~~

Soon-to-be Big Sister Angelina getting ready head out to the hospital. She's two years old (1/31(ish?)/2005), but has the stature of a three-year-old. Even the nurses and doctors think she's three. She gets her height from her dad.

Waiting for the doctor to bring little brother back to her and mom after lil' brother's first check up.

Alexander "Young Padawan Luke" Lincoln, meeting Grandma Baker and Big sister and Aunt [Renee] Lynn. I still think naming him "Eric" was the way to go. ;p

Proud sister trying to take a turn holding all 8 lbs, 2.7 oz.s, 21 3/4" of Youngling Luke

Big huggles from Big sister

Helping Grandma out with the baby.

That's all I got for now, Renee and I both had to work today, so we didn't get a chance to take many pictures before we left.

BTW, now Renee and I were going to use "Alexander" if we were ever had a boy.... now we gotta think of something new :(

I'm back, baby

2007-02-13T18:24:00.000-06:00

Word.
So Renee pointed out to me the other day it's been a month - give or take - since I've updated this here thingamablogger. I found it hard to believe since I spend, well most of my time on the PC typing one thing or another these days. I do most of my whining, bitching and crying these days in various essays using fancy words to disguise pointless rants as well crafted, fact based arguments. So far, no one has figured out that's what I'm doing -- or they have and just don't care.

School's going well; though the combination of bad weather and a bad cold these last couple of weeks have given me cause to rethink that a couple of times. However, whenever I return to class it doesn't seem like I'm behind on any of the material. I'll write that off to less-than-brilliant students in most of my classes. It really feels like we're moving too slow through a lot of the subjects. I kind of understand why Mrs. Ratashak used to call Grand View, "ISU for slower, richer students." Though, in reality it's not really a true statement, I can see where a visitor who spends only a few hours at the two schools could come to feel that way. I can comment more on that another time, though.

I don't really have a lot to say, but I figure I'll run down some things quickly and ramble for a bit.

First thing, first: Renee (and I in a non-vicarious, but still very imaginitive way) has joined Weight Watchers. She attended her first meeting last night (Monday) and brought us home all sorts of propaganda. Tonight we swing back into our evening/nightly trips to the gym. I want to try to get back into running again. If you'll recall in late spring/early summer last year I managed to wreck the entire summer's worth of running by over doing it early.

In an attempt to avoid that problem this year, I'm going to take it much slower. Hopefully by dropping five pounds or so before I begin to actually run. I'm going to stick with the gliders for a while and build up endurance that way. Then as soon as it warms with any frequency I'm going to start off by walking, then running. A novel idea, I know, but it seems prudent. Slowly, I'll blend in running with the walking and hopefully by late May or early June I'll be able to run a mile or so without nagging injuries. My goal is to be able to run five miles by the end of the summer without stopping and only the minorest of pain. That will be the real trick. I'm a little concerned about how my knees will take the news that I'm going to start running again. So, for now I've decided not to tell them. I'm going to wait, slowly work it into a conversation with my knees at some point. For for now, I'd appreciate no one else telling them either.

Renee's store manager has been transferred to another store. They're closing the McDonald's in Clive (the one by Ryan's) and that store manager is coming to her store in Norwalk. Renee's old manager is going to the McD's at 6th and University. The former manager there was 'canned for sexual harassment. The rumours going about are that Renee is next in-line for her own store. Whether Javier (her new boss) gets moved out of Norwalk and she takes over that store, or she gets transferred to the next opening directly, hasn't been revealed. In fact, all of this is unsubstantiated rumour, but Javier is basically going to sit back and let Renee take over most of the operations in her store. So that's kind of exciting -- or at least it would be if it were more than rumour.

As for myself all I got is classes. Well, I did get a new boss, but I'm not sure how much he likes me flexing my hours like I have. I take great liberty with my hours and do so intentionally. The only reason I really keep the job is because of that. I hate the work. I've hated the work for several years now, but I always had a super flexible schedule and I intend to keep it that way. The new boss is trying to add structure to the schedules, which is fine -- as long as it fits what I need it to do specifically.

Classes, as I said are good. I'm reading/just finished reading a fascinating book, "Crimes Against Logic" by Jamie Whyte. And other than the pretentious spelling of his last night, it's a romp. It's a hard book to explain, but definitely worth a read. I don't know how many of you would actually like it. My gut feeling is maybe only Rob would like it. Kara didn't seem to enjoy it. Whyte breaks down common phrases and misconceptions in what, essentially, become lessons on both logic and semantics. I get the impression that Whyte has become frustrated with the imprecision of the common use of the English language. There's a lot in the book that deals with strictly with false logic but chunks of the book are dedicated to common uses of words that have been corrupted, which has in turn corrupted the search for truth. Fascinating and very humourous.

Okay, that's all I care to type for now.

G'day.

Writing my way out of a funk

2007-01-20T17:17:00.000-06:00

So, I have two essays due this coming week. Three really, but only two that I've been trying to work up the energy to type up today. Our house is currently serving as a the hosting locale for my sister-in-law's baby shower. The lil' tyke is due sometime in February. I'm assuming they'll be inclined to name him after me, but that's strictly conjectural at this point. Anyhoo, since our house is under the occupation of a bunch of females, I've retreated to the office. I was here at 8:00 this morning after very little sleep. Saturday mornings have become my "hang-out" day with a bunch of guys who work and/or congregate in the computer lab. So I come in in the morning and hangout with them until I get bored and decide to go home. Today, I was here until 11:00-11:30 and then I went back home and had a minor part in readying the house for the party. Actually most of my time was committed last night to knocking out some of the dishes, laundry and cleaning up the nursery -- which has been serving as a storage area.

So, I came back up to the office around 1:00. It's now about 5:30 and I've not accomplished much. I did find a couple of interesting job leads, but I don't know if I'm in the mood to go through the interviewing process. So it might be considered to be a complete waste. Karen was here and we spent most of the day discussing the state of DMACC. With all that talking I've not done much typing. So, here I am writing this in the hopes it'll wake up my creativity enough to churn out a couple of papers. Thus far it's been a moderate success. I'm not convinced that it is enough to bother trying to start my papers. If I get off to a bad start today then I spend precious time tomorrow trying to figure out where I was going with what. However, since I think the party started only an hour ago, I figure I have at least another hour before I should go home. Not that they wouldn't welcome me, but I have little interest in sitting through hens clucking about babies. Another of Renee's sisters, Ronnie, is pregnant. She just found out this last week. It'll be her third. She has two boys right now. Ironically, this will be Renee's first chance to show-off her nursery to most of her sisters. Ironic, of course, because two of her sisters are pregnant and have no such dedicated rooms.

One of my essays due is on the topic of the management of my workplace. So, in away, my discussion with Karen wasn't a complete waste of time. I had her also fill out the questionnaire that we're using as a guideline for the paper. I'm sure hitting the five-page minimum will present little challenge. It rarely does, but something this rich with material should be a slam dunk.

My other assignment has to deal with the class Kara and I are in together. That won't be much of a problem either. Over the course of the last couple of weeks I've decided that, hands down, we're the two smartest people in the class. Or at least, the most well-rounded thinkers in there. There are, arguably, a few others worthy of mention. Since, I don't know their names, they'll go without mentioning. Most of those in the class seem to have a distinct lack of historical or cultural perspective and some have what seems to be an almost complete lack of logic. Guess my time spent in psychology, history and anthropology classes did me some good after all.

There is one guy, who sits in the back of the room and sometime says a lot and other times says very little (which is what I tend to do based on the leadership of a given conversation), who I think is probably on the same tier as Kara and myself. There is another guy who talks a whole lot and puts up some decent points, but ultimately strays away from logic to the point of making what he adds have minimal (meaningful) impact. Though he can ramble on.

I managed to do this myself on Thursday. It was a long conversation, in which I probably had close to 1/5 to 1/4 of the input. One of my more critical points (which I'm not currently posting in too great a detail because it's going into my essay, which I'll probably repost here for the hell of it) dealt with the idea that not all dissent toward the state is necessarily good. Apparently I was the only one who felt that the government should always reserve its right to bring into the open what people might be saying in contrary to its practices. The instructor asked me to clarify, which I tried to do, but since I thought my first explanation should have been sufficient, I was caught off guard. I ended up rambling for several minutes and I think I managed to hurt my case as much as I did good for it. But we'll have those moments. I had been forced to give a shortened history lessons and to enlighten my classmates throughout the class before this and was pretty well thinked-out. Tis early in the semester yet, sure to work out the kinks, I will be.

All right, I think I'm ready to write some papers. But first, a phone call to Renee to see if I have the time to start them.

Good night.

Recapping Grand View

2007-01-12T21:45:00.000-06:00

I confess. I intentionally skipped last week’s update. But, rest assured my loyal readers, I have my reasons. Mostly, I skipped last week so I could have something substantial to write about this week. Not that last week was an unending carousel of eventitude, but still had I written last week, I’d probably not be writing this week, when I have a helluva lot more to say… well maybe not helluva but definitely more this week than last. I think the best way to structure this would probably be by class. However, first is first and I wish to address my sweetie first.

Renee be doing good. This week there is considerably less news on the potential baby situation than there was a couple of weeks back. She went to the doctor this week and had an official pregnancy test, it came out negative. The doc said there’s a good chance that her body is still recovering from being on birth control, hence the upsetness of her tummy and other pregnancy-related symptoms. But take heart, we shall continue our dances of love until we conceive… or until we become dehydrated and need to take a break. (Yes, that should be substantially more than people really wish to know…)

Speaking of my baby, she’s taking a comparative religions course and an accounting course. The former was the class that made me realize that I am far closer to having Chinese virtues than Occidental ones. The latter, well she’s mostly taking it for her job. It’s very handy now that she’s moving on to concerning herself with profit and loss and cost accounting than she had previous – where her only true concern was managing people.

Now for a topic of which I have not only expert qualifications in speaking about, but also an immense interests concerning: Myself.  I’ll go through my classes in the order in which I had them. I do intend only to summarize each of my four classes en totale.

First, the drive was a lot better than I initially feared. It takes me about 10 minutes to get down there using E 14th – so far the only route I’ve taken which,h because of some rather infuriating incidents this morn, I never intend to take to GVC again. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it before, but I’m a Grand Viewian Norseman now.

Secondly, some generic thoughts on GVC itself: I like it immeasurably more than I did ISU. I don’t necessarily feel like I belong there, as yet. However, I don’t have the feeling that I made a huge mistake this time around. Thirdly, it seems fairly similar to DMACC, only with advanced classes. It’s nice to feel a connection with my instructors. Alright, there’s more “Eric’s personal feelings” stuff to come, so I’m going to move on with my classes.

Creative writing: My professor for this class is a fellow called Dr. Paul Brooke. If the name is familiar it’s because you are odd and follow the arm-wrestling championships. Personally, I’d never heard of him, but apparently he is a former arm-wrestling champion. It would seem that he injured himself last year and was unable to compete, however, he has assured our class that he is at 100% and intends to return to competition and regain his lost title this year. I told you that because I find it amusing that my Creative Writing professor is an arm wrestling champion, and no other reason.

Our first assignment for class was to take an epiphanical moment from our lives and turn it into a one-page memoir of sorts. I wrote mine on my time out in LA. It was a… difficult time for me. I don’t think there are more than one or two people who know even the summary of my time out there (though now there are 20-some strangers who know). It wasn’t a particularly happy time for me. I decided that the topic fit for what the memoir called for. Primarily, it is damned good reading. Also, it’s something that I’ve thought about often, but never really saw the necessity of telling anyone I knew because it’s not a time that I’m particularly proud of, even if it did help to shape my current self. I have strong feelings about my time there as well as what led up to it. It was difficult to pare down the story to one page and I’m not thinking it’ll be much easier to sum it up in three pages. That, however, is the next project – due on Wednesday – and I intend to finish off the three-page version either tonight or tomorrow. BTW, I’ve decided to furnish anyone with a copy who might want to read it. Send me an email (also, we’ll be getting new cell numbers the middle of next week. We’re jumping on the Cingular bandwagon, so email me for that, too.)

I told you that, so I can tell you this story. Today was our first workshop. Since Monday, the good Doctor, had been telling us that the memoirs were due on Wednesday and he’d choose one to workshop on Friday. I tell you, with no false humility whatsoever, that mine was the one chosen. There was high praise rained down upon me, as well as some productive criticism levied my way. My ego aside (for at least a moment), it was nice to be chosen first and lauded in the manner that I was. Mostly, I’m proud mostly because of the praise that the instructor cited about it getting the class off to a good start for the semester. (Ego back in the picture) I’ve been told by several people that I have a talent for writing, but it feels nice to be recognized for such in such a manner. This is one of those classes that, like my Comparative religions course, will hold a place of high regard in my memories.

Next we have my “Money, Banking and Financial something or other” class. This one is taught by a guy from somewhere in the former Soviet Bloc. It sounds Ukrainian to me, but that might be because I used to work with a guy from the Ukraine. It’s definitely Russian-esque (I’m somewhat embarrassed I don’t know the specific ethnic name for such things). In this class our major project deals with giving a presentation on something that has to do with the financial industry. Normally, I’d turn it out with little fanfare. However, this is a group presentation and since I didn’t know anyone in my class (and everyone else seemed like they did), I didn’t have a group for awhile. On Wednesday that changed. We were paired off in groups for a different reason and I pan handled my way into a group with two females who were in this other group with me. They seemed hesitant, but I made the comment that I was “reasonably intelligent” and it appeared to calm them. Although one of women still seemed resistant. Today, we had an extra person join the class and the one who was still unsure tried to pawn me off into a group with the new guy. Ho. I’ve had to work with this girl twice in three days worth of class. She should be begging me to be in her group, not fighting my presence. She and her partner were bound to give an “okay” presentation. My additions to the group will secure an A – I’ve rarely been so sure about other things. After consulting with my better half, I’ve decided that my best option to gain the ho’s trust is to produce an outline with my ideas this weekend and give them an idea of what I can offer come February 26th. So that’s my mission, along with the minor changes to my memoir, for the weekend.

My management class is taught by a pretty cool guy. He’s older and conveys a very relaxed demeanor and a subtle, respectful wisdom. I’ll have a lot to learn from him and look forward to this class most behind my creative writing class. ‘Nuff said.

Lastly, and most surprising, is my capstone class. Imagine my surprise when I’m sitting there, the second day of class and not feeling well, and Kara walked in. RahRah! To be honest, I’ve not done her enough justice as yet. First off, I was shocked that she was in the class. I thought that I might perhaps see her on campus at some point, but never did it enter my head that we’d be in the same class. I have, unfortunately, been rather self-absorbed this week. I owe her an apology for that, which she will get this weekend in an email. As a matter of policy, I try to hold women in my life in the highest of regards and, thus far, I’ve failed her on that note. My own concerns have come before that of Kara’s, which is not only morally wrong, but incredibly selfish. I don’t think I can endeavor to explain my feelings on that in this post, maybe I’ll try in a subsequent email. Suffice to say that my general hierarchy goes (Renee Mom female in-laws and Mom2 female friends (a small group indeed) my brother (Robbystyle included)  myself everyone else). In fact, I have several emails I need to send out in that vein.

I’ve not a lot more to say about this class (or in this post, period) except that it’s a seminar class and I think that both Kara and myself will both be surprisingly reserved. Oh and at some point Kara’s going to realize that I’m a poor public speaker and she’ll see my face and ears turn read from the attention – something I’m not sure she’s prepared for. ;p

Gutten Nacht.

2006-12-31T11:23:00.000-06:00

Happy Gregorian New Year!

Christmas was fun, we did the usual Christmas Eve-at-Renee’s-Parents’-and-Christmas-at-my-parents’ thing. And then, well I’ve pretty much spent every day since then (and so has Renee) at work, including today. Not the most exciting of things, I know, but it gets the bills paid.

My boss is officially retired. I’m waiting for them to hire her replacement so I know how early to go into my periodic desperate hunt for a new job. With some luck I’ll just be able to ride out this next semester as I please and without much hassle from the new boss.

Le’ssee, in other news, Renee got a surprise when she came back from her sister’s place in Cedar Rapids. I had converted the office into a nursery (no, there’s no news, just a preemptive strike). It’s light blue and Class Pooh-themed. It’s not without its flaws, but certainly above my usual handyman efforts. She was near tears and has been bragging about it – more than it deserves, I’m sure. The room is currently messy because we got new bedroom furniture and shifted everything into it on a temporary basis.

Oh and I’m off soda again. Haven’t had any colas or citrus beverages for two weeks now. Granted, I’m not caffeine free, yet. I’ve switched over to tea. My favourite you ask? Earl Grey, hot – although green tea is not without its charm. I’m planning to phase out caffeine, after figure out how much decaf tea changes its flavour. If tastes pretty much same, I’ll probably start full phase out sometime in February.

Yeah, so that’s all I got. Renee and I will be celebrating the coming New Year doing her end-of-month inventory counts. Party on!

2006-12-21T13:26:00.000-06:00

It's a good day to be a headline writer for ESPN....

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/bowls06/news/story?id=2704157

2006-12-14T20:05:00.000-06:00

I was going to update, but I had also planned on getting out of this stinkin' lab early -- since its the last day of night classes, I figured it'd be a ghost town. Unfortunately it seems to be far busier than I had hoped. This has depressed me and I no longer wish to update. Look for one mid-to-late next week.

2006-12-05T21:09:00.000-06:00

Yes, well I could have swore I had updated last week. So sure of it am I that I suspect blogger crapped out on me at some point and I just hadn't realized it. Funny, perhaps even ironic, considering I chastize people all the time who call us begging to help them with a message in their online class because they closed a window or clicked on a link that replaced their current window. I tell them they should always write the message in Word or some other such application and then copy/paste into the window so they don't lose their stuff. So I suppose I have no one to blame but myself. But here I am this week in spite of the unforeseen loss of an update.

Not a helluva lot going on. Renee's cousin is coming up from Florida in a couple of weeks. They pretty much have the whole thing planned out and Eric'll be sleeping alone as they go on a whirl-wind Iowa tour.

This coming weekend Renee's company Christmas party is goin' down. Hotel Fort Something-or-other. We were there last year. It was okay. Mostly I tolerate it for her career. ;p At least this year I have a spiffy collared shirt I bought at Target for a wedding in early November. No sweater for me... score. I didn't mind the sweater, but it was warm last year and seemed like overkill. I chose the sweater because I wanted to wear my mandarin-collar shirt so I didn't have to wear the tie. This year I've negotiated for a tie-less evening with the collared shirt. Renee's getting grief for not tucking in her some of her shirts. They're fitted shirts that are supposed to be worn sans tucking. It's been a battle. I'm sure they're appropriate business attire because our female business instructors here at DMACC -- who are required to wear business attire -- wear them quite freqently. They're simply nice looking shirts that don't require a tucked state to look nice. Renee looks fine in them and there's not reason to change. We decided a while back to have some taken in to be pressed for events like big inspections and classroom settings and meetings and such. Then we just stopped thinking about it and here it is 6 or 9 months later and we still haven't done it. So I gotta find a dry cleaning place here in Ankeny for us to use.

On my front, next week is my last week of classes here at DMACC. I have an A assured in my Insurance course and I'm hoping about a C or so in my Income Tax class. I'm still waiting to see who is replacing my boss to see if I should bother with returning here for work in the spring.

2006-12-05T20:52:00.000-06:00

2006-11-19T12:27:00.000-06:00

Well for those of you whom are curious, or interested or just happen to be reading and are therefore a captive audience member, tomorrow, Monday, is my birthday. My 26th birthday to be precise. As usual I've spent the last couple of days retrospecting over the last year (and sometimes further back than that), and also looking forward and making plans and such. I find using my birthday for this instead of the more popular New Year's Day to be more personal and effective. I'm quite pleased with how the year has gone for the most part. The only real downside being work. Most of the disappointments came as external events and were things I had either very little control over or none at all.

Next year appears as though it will be equally as good. Again the big question mark is work. But, there's little use to worrying about it right now. They haven't even hired anyone to replace my boss yet, so fretting about it would provide little.

On Wednesday I got enrolled at GVC, finally. Knocking out the last of my generic requirements in the spring. Nothing too hectic, but a full class load. I forget how many credits I have, but I remember thinking it was fewer than two full years, so that's good. If I can find a job during the day, I think I'll do the accelerated program. Bu that won't be until next fall. So, again, there is little use in overthinking it right now.

I'm bored, gonna go do something else.

2006-10-30T18:30:00.000-06:00

I had been under the impression that my interview had went really, pretty, fairly well. However, I got the phone call this morning telling me that they had offered the job to someone else and that the person had accepted. I didn't ask for more details. I was pretty well shocked, actually. Shocked and disappointed. More disappointed than I had been for a really long time. I had let myself get excited over the weekend with the prospect, and then it was yanked straight away. Normally I try not to get my hopes up too high. Now I'm just disappointed. It wasn't that sweet of a job, even. Pretty much the same I do at DMACC, but with more hands-on work and less telephone. I would have liked the fulltime pay and the benefits and the vacations and stuff. I wasn't really looking forward to the hours, but it would have been nice to be the primary bread winner - if only by a range of a couple of hundred dollars.

The change of scenery would have been an undeniably good thing, and probably the single most important thing for me. I was really pleased at the prospect of being able to go in and make an immediate impact, for people who might actually notice. C'est la vie. I'll learn to deal, I suppose.

2006-10-24T22:23:00.000-05:00

Well I have a few minutes and I figured I owed an update. Been a busy couple of weeks. I've been, essentially, training my replacements at work. I wouldn't normally care, but my status with DMACC is up in the air at the moment. My boss is retiring and her replacement has not yet been named. Word on the street is that big changes will be made after she leaves. I don't know what, if anything that entails. At this point, its still largely rumours and unsubstantiated ones at that.

I do have an interview at Norwalk Community Schools this Friday. A little early for me (and sushi) at 8:00 am, but probably doable. I have recently found out that I have my entire Grandview bill paid for in the spring. This may adversely affect any chance I have at the Norwalk job. However, we've decided to let my interviewer decide that. I'll fill him in on Friday. Probably early on in the interview process. This way we don't waste any major time if they are unable or unwilling to facilitate my school schedule. I have to go during the day to continue to qualify for my scholarships. I've not bothered to work out the evening costs, but I really kind of need to find out what sort of classes are offered in the evenings before I get too involved in converting to night school. I have an idea of the costs, just not the classes offered. I'll worry more about this as Friday approaches and I get a feel for how the interview went. As it is I'm planning on attending GVC dayside and adjusting workplace and hours from there.

Renee, after a week of driving me nuts while she was on vacation, is back at work. She's feeling rejuvenated by her break seems to be in better spirits. Life goes on.

I have an idea for a couple of philosophical blog updates, but I have no idea when I'll get around to posting them. I have a feeling most people skip those updates, but I rather enjoy talking my way through and figuring out things about myself as I write, so I'm less concerned about people reading them than just being able to think my way through the subjects.

Thing I hate #12545236.1

2006-10-05T21:39:00.000-05:00

The three @55#0|€5 here in the computer lab who sit on myspace.com, typing their inane messages back and forth to one another, at 9:35 p.m. when I'm walking around the room, turning off monitors in an obvious bid to go home early.

Just turn to freakin' person and *speak* to them. They're sitting right THERE!

Bastards.

2006-10-05T19:38:00.000-05:00

I know it’s been a while. Still not a helluva lot to update about. Renee and I joined the Snap 24/7 fitness center in our backyard. It’s not really in our backyard, but it is a short 3-4 minute jaunt from our front door, which is our only door, really. Last night, Wednesday, we maxed out. We’ll probably hit a light workout tonight, (then binge on fried chicken tomorrow) and take most of the weekend off. Mostly this has to do with an upcoming Full Operational Review (FOR) for Renee’s store on Monday and that I have to help Rob move. I managed to get the weekend off. Still have a buttload of homework to do, but I figure what good is one’s advanced skill of procrastination if you’re gonna do it half-assed. Renee will have to spend a good deal of time at the store this weekend on her off hours to clean for the FOR – I can do the homework then.

In other news, we’re still not terribly close to redecorating. Other bills and stuff have popped up. I still plan on starting and finishing by the end of the month. Renee goes on Vacation next weekend and I’m sure we’ll at least purchase the paint then. The tiling of the place might have to wait until we have some extra cash. With that idea in mind, I’ve started to look [somewhat] earnestly for a new job. I figure if I’m truthful with myself the only shot I have at being decently paid is to fall back to helpdesk garbage. Not terrible, but certainly not terribly helpful when it comes to a career change. ;p

I’d like to avoid sounding like I’m whining, but I don’t think that’s very likely. I’ve been struggling with the idea of looking for a new job. It would seem I’ve become complacent. A bit hypocritical considering it was only a few short months ago that I was counseling Rob on the virtues of not staying one place too long. It’s my first rule of job security, and I’ve smashed it to bits. Honestly, given the nature of employment in America, one needs to be constantly moving (or at least keeping one’s eyes open to the opportunities to move). It’s the absolute nature of the beast. Companies can’t afford to have reservations when they need to let people go, (fire, layoffs, etc) and neither should workers. It’s one of those words that has escaped my thoughts. In order to have job security, you’ve got to keeping looking for new jobs. Yet, I’ve been here at work for three years now. And, rather unhappily so for about a year and a half. So, I’ve cornered myself in a position that I’m not particularly happy with (although it does have its perks which will be hard to let go of), and all because of complacency. Sure, I do a lot for DMACC. I’m the only one anyone can count on to be here on holidays and on mid-term weekends like last weekend. No one ever remembers past Monday, though. Well, they remember the next time they need someone to stay late on Friday or over the weekend, but no other times. I give and sacrifice and have paid for it. All because I quit looking for a new job. Renee’s seen it and hates it.

Renee doesn’t have this problem at work. She’s happy with the way her career is progressing. She has identified what she wants and is pursuing it. She makes no excuses, shows up and does so unwaveringly so. She has earned what she has and is constantly earning more. She has the respect of her bosses and employees and whenever either of those groups screws up, she moves in and fixes the problems and moves on. She doesn’t gloat about it. She doesn’t go out of her way to draw attention to it; she just does it and doesn’t expect to be patted on the back. She’s rewarded in multiple ways for it. And she’s building equity with her bosses. They all know she’s good and they all wish there were more of her. They’ve told her as much. They’ve shown her as much. She’s got most of the responsibility for the FOR.

I read an article a few months ago about showing appreciation at your business. How do you let your employees know that they’re important? The article had a quote from an employee at some customer service center. She commented that she was asked to take a particularly difficult customer complaint. She said that afterwards she had received a pair of movies tickets and a nice letter from the center’s manager after resolving the customer’s complaint. What really struck me, though, was that she said that the tickets were a nice gesture, but the award for doing her job well was the phone call itself. She said she knew then that the company valued her. That’s what Renee gets. That’s also what she gives. I’m not allowed to go into detail for reasons of maintaining professional distance (a huge issue at her store over the last few months – hopefully I’m allowed to say that much ;p) from anyone from her store whom might read the sight. That’s also the reason, she rarely updates, in case you were wondering. Alas, I’ve digressed.

I sort of get that I suppose. I get to deal with the Health Services Building (bldg 9) – that’s more to do with the fact they hate everyone else and no one wants to take their calls. In this case it’s more of shoveling what they think is an unpleasant situation off on me. I personally don’t mind Bldg 9. I work with them enough that they trust me to do what I say I am going to do and fix whatever problems they have. I suppose that could be construed as an award from Bldg 9, but I’m not employed by Bldg 9, so its gratification wore off somewhat quickly. But enough complaining. I’ve taken steps to try to fix it (finally), so that’s about all I can do. Everything else is out of my sphere of influence.

I’ve looked and applied for jobs before, but I seem to be more focused this time.

And I grow weary of writing anymore at the moment.

Baseball update. Personal update to come eventually

2006-10-03T00:06:00.000-05:00

So apparently the baseball regular season ended two days ago. Been too busy with work and class to notice. Cubs ended in the basement of their division - no surprise.

In lieu of a real update I'll give my predictions for the post season

Tigers d. Yankees, Twins d. A's, Cardinals d. Padres, Dodgers d. Mets.

Tigers d. Twins, Dodgers d. Mets.

Dodgers win World Series in 6 games.

In related news the Cubs decided not to renew their manager, Dusty Baker's contract. They should have given him a one year extension. It's not his fault his team fell apart because of injury. Fire the trainer, fire the team doctor, not the manager. To their credit they didn't institute a fire sale. They kept most of their key players for next year. Slightly renewing my confidence for next year. I have decided next spring I buy two hats, one Cubs, one Dodgers. The Cubs and Dodgers have swapped a lot of players back and forth the last couple of years. Chavez Ravine is like Wrigley West now.

Go Dodgers!

Times, they are a changin'

2006-09-17T18:56:00.000-05:00

For quite some time, I've predicted that we'd soon be able to turn the corner and really start to make things happen for ourselves. After three or four times of having to delay our celebratory proclamations, we've finally been able to pull a little further ahead of the game. Renee and I have refinanced some of our personal debt to a far lower interest rate. Among other things, we also paid off my bill to ISU and we shall shortly have my transfer stuff headed out to Grandview and from there I can get on with the final 50 some-odd credits of college.

In celebration of this and our anniversary (on the 5th), we're headed of town on Tuesday for the evening. We tried to do it this weekend but many things we awry. Topping them off was a faulty projector at the theater today during our screening of Talledega Nights. About halfway through the movie it got blurry and apparently a belt on the projector break. We got free passes to any other movie, so while disappointing, it was at least not a total loss.

After our halfa movie, we went to Barnes and Noble and bought a couple of books about Tuscany. We bought said books because shortly we're planning on redecorating the house and want the house of have an Tuscan-like feel to it. How much, we've not decided, but we'd like the whole house to have the feel of it. I think I'd like to have paintings of Italianesque landscape. I did decide today that maybe shelves would be nice to have. The pictures we have include a lot of statues and such.

Welp, that should do for now. I really only updated because Renee got tired of the other one.

2006-09-10T19:26:00.000-05:00

Well, I suppose it’s about that time. We all know there are a few days in any given year that necessitate a blog entry about them. As expected, this one happens to be the five-year anniversary of the terror attacks. And, since I’ve had to change this entry considerably since the original draft because of keen similarities between this and Mom2’s Cold War-related entry, it may be a bit unpolished. Now, I’m not terribly interested in examining the day itself, as much as I my interest is in society as a greater whole. Not being a sociologist or anthropologist, and not having done any actual studies, I am forced to rely on my own observations and draw my own conclusions.

After the 2001 events, I made a LiveJournal entry about various observations I had then. Most striking was the way the country united. There were claims from various sources our newly discovered reliance on one another wouldn’t end. I mentioned then that I thought it’d not continue past Christmas. It didn’t. If I recall, it barely lasted into October. There were also claims that we’d not be able to recover and our country would never be the same. More B.S. It was a series of events over the course of one day. No nation or society ever makes wholesale changes because of one day’s events. They were indeed tragic events, but that’s not enough. I also made mention that the terrorists did little more than evoke a national need for vengeance. I believe I made the “sleeping dragon” analogy. Sure enough, we’ve blown-up a couple of different countries since then. We also made it okay for Israel to defend itself. Or rather, the terrorists made Israel’s self-defense less of a political action and more of an inborn right.

The Taliban got exactly what was coming to it. Iraq is a completely different story, but that’s a topic for another update. We came back and put on a small show of force and ousted the Taliban and its terrorist camps from Afghanistan. Then we stalled out when we decided to bring in other nations. We did it because of the need for the Republicans, specifically the White House, to attempt to build bridges with its evil twin on the other side of the aisle. The Democrats, doing what they do best, came back and decided to try to make themselves look more sophisticated and world-wise by impeding the Republicans, the Administration and making Bush look even less competent. So by October, and the initiation of the “War on Terror,” our nation had started to split open again. Unfortunately, the Democrats wanted to pretend to be hawkish, so before they split they gave Bush carte blanche to carry out the vague “war” that we’ve been in for five years. By 2003 popular opinion had turned against Bush and he decided to invade Iraq in time to score points before the re-election. Downside for Bush was that we ran over the Iraqi army in three days and captured their capital in less than three weeks; their armies were scattered, their planes in ruins on bombed airstrips, yet our declaration of victory took several months. In short, we united, activated our army and then turned on one another. Nothing has changed, at least for the better.

After all, it’s nearly impossible to fly anywhere. Gas prices have sky rocketed – though this should really be viewed as a market correction for almost 10 years of stagnant prices at the pumps. About the only thing that the last five years have really allowed for are a widening gap between the US and other occidental nations. That’s really the only thing that has changed. Internally, politics remain politics. Democrats claim to be the savior of the little guy, yet won’t put forth a viable candidate in a national election. Republicans write themselves into the role of defenders of liberty, but seem happy to hand the Office of the President more and more power to take away civil liberties. One of the main reasons I voted for Bush in 2000 was his claim not to be a nation builder. But that’s the only thing he has done since taking office. Every chance he’s had to invade a nation, he’s taken. I really am surprised that we’re not rebuilding Cuba. The only thing I can figure on that is Cuba is a sparkling example of the grand failure that is Communism – that or he’s reticent to get into a thing with China. And, he has dodged the whole Taiwan independence thing since taking office.

As for impact on our daily live, other than interrupting my normal cycle of TV shows every September, and the complete absence of wanting to deal with the lines to fly anywhere, I have to say there’s been almost no impact. Much like after the bombing in Oklahoma City, 9/11 was a singular day. There is no larger enemy. It’s not a Pearl Harbor event. The attack was organized by an individual and carried out by individuals. The only similarities between it and 9/11 was that they were surprise attacks. Granted, I didn’t know anyone in the attacks and don’t particularly like New York or Washington. I do know that I’m tired of listening to vague threats from even vaguer enemies. Mark this post because it’s the only permanent change that we’ll have to deal with from here on out. An invisible enemy, who strikes at will with no outward cause or intent has the capacity to be an excuse for the removal of all rights. The war that we are fighting now is an excuse to deploy American troops anywhere. If we wanted to put an end to the greater existence of terrorism, we could do it and we could do it swiftly. There are only a few major heads of terror calling for the attacks and Israel would be more than happy to take up any we didn’t want eliminate. But a never-ending war has great political opportunity attached to it. As do the promises to withdraw and the convenience of discovering a new threat to our future.

Of course, if we’d simply use our power to open-up world-wide free trade and allow the importation and exportation to all dominions, our enemies would disappear because it would usher in unprecedented wealth across the board – the only true way to help nations help themselves. Giving money to nations to temporarily alleviate their problems solves nothing in the long-term. In fact, all it does is give hate mongers excuses to perpetuate terrorist attacks.

Simpsons are on, I’ve lost my line of concentration.

Ugh

2006-09-02T21:58:00.000-05:00

Another day, another waste of time. This entire summer has evaporated before me. I didn't do a damn thing this summer. We didn't go anywhere. I didn't get anything accomplished. I managed to put-off camping with my nephew because I couldn't find the time. Nothing. Well, I did the class thing, but that torched my GPA, so it was more or less a waste as well. And now it's all gone. I figure I still have a couple-three weeks of decent camping weather, but I fear that that might slip away as well.

I've been working a LOT these last couple of weeks. Well a lot for me. I managed to work a lot of long hours too. That's probably the worst part, truth be told. Only one or two of the days went quickly, the rest were filled with bitchy people yelling, or otherwise complaining, at me over the phone. It wouldn't have been so bad but our web developers screwed up, among other things, a simple redirect page to a new version of online classes. Some of the other things they managed to screw up, you ask? About half of the people were loaded into the 4.0 version of WebCT, the other half, or so, were put into the 6.0 version. The reset/search-for-i.d. functions on the website were set-up to email the people at their DMACC email addresses -- the very addresses they were searching and resetting their passwords for. There are links linked to the wrong pages, typoes, et cetera ad nauseum en masse. Improper Latin is fun. Back to my point: Our Webguys suck. It's not even that we run some highly-modified web programs. Everything we run is vanilla, so there's no reason anything should be screwed up. I think I could do a better job drawing pretty pictures on the sidewalk in chalk.

So today, this weekend actually, I had a lot planned to do. I went to work this morning from 7 (yes, AM.) Trust me, no one is more impressed than I. I left around 11 o'clock. After that, instead of working on my list, I watched the Hawkeye game. Well, technically, that was primary on my to-do list, but it wasn't terribly productive. I waited until around 4, when Rnee left before I really did much of anything. It's just easier to move furniture and make big changes, when she's gone. She doesn't like the way I rearrange furniture, it takes her a couple of days to warm up to it. In a couple of weeks, we'll be starting the redecoration of the office to a nursery. We're wanting to get at least that much of the house painted and such before I knock her up. *grin*

I am hoping to have all the walls painting before October. Afterall, we'll need to air out the house as we go. So, in anticipation of the general move, I dragged the L-shape desk down here. Now instead of being in the way when we paint the office, it's added nicely to the clutter down stairs. The real unfortunate thing is that we have the same amount of stuff, with one less (fewer?) room. Eventually, we'll move the loveseat upwards as a sort of sitting station. There's not enough room for it down here. But that's not going to happen until after the tile is down.

About the only thing I did get accomplished was mixing and baking the apple cupcake things for Sunday. We are going out to Rnee's parents. Her paternal grandmother and uncle and aunt are up from Texas. So, tomorrow nothing will be accomplished. I have to go into work for a few hours, after we return. Then again on Monday. At some point in time I need to finish putting back together the desk down here. I also have a hefty bit of homework to deal with and it would be nice to relax for a couple of hours.

Well, I'm gonna watch a little TV, then head to bed for the evening.

2006-08-29T18:59:00.000-05:00

Well enough with the sad. It's downright depressing everytime I open my blog and I see that still up there.

Classes started yesterday. More fun at DMACC. I spent almost 13 hours on campus. 10 hours on the phones and three hours in class. Joy is me. By the end of the day I was ill, physically ill. My headached and I was sweating a type of cold sweat. I figure it was a combination of exhaustion and a lack of solid foods. I had breakfast about 10:00 am, a ham and egg and cheese on an English muffin. I also had a Dr. Pepper and Taffy. It wasn't really any more or less than I eat or do on a regular basis but my stomach and head didn't seem to care.

This morning, after a few hours bordering on restless sleep, I was feeling a little better. Actually, after I threw up around 1:30 last night, I went downstairs and took out some porkchops. I fried them up after I got out of bed this morning. Not a bad breakfast. Renee looked at me in disbelief when I offered her some for breakfast. She's really more of a cereal kinda gal. Much to my surprise, she did eat one. I think she mostly did it in an attempt not to feel guilty. I ate the remainder for lunch today.

There was a martial arts theme on the Discover channel today. I watched about 45 mins of it, I've seen all of those episodes before. I mostly watch for the fat Aikido instructor. It's amusing to watch him take down black-belt after black-belt student with a flick of his wrist or a twitch of his elbow. Good stuff. Although, the ninja with a Scottish accent is always worth a chuckle.

I'll write more in the near future. I got busy at work and couldn't finish this.

Sad.

2006-08-19T13:19:00.000-05:00

I had hoped not to be the first one, aside from Mom2, who updated on the subject. I had hoped that either Kara or Rob would at least mention it in their blogs before I did. If you don't know to what I'm referring, then it's not important that you know.

It's been a weird week. I didn't find out about the situation until Monday, when Rob told me and I read Pam's blog and email. Since then I've struggled to comprehend the gravity of the situation. Actually, I struggled to understand the facts behind the situation in the first place. A crank addict? Wow. I was thinking marijuana, but nope. She's a tweaker. Wow.

Marijuana wouldn't have surprised me in the slightest. Afterall, her Myspace page has a comment from one of her friends (paraphrased): Too bad you're in Des Moines. Now I got no one to smoke with.

In the past, I've known other crank addicts. Sad, pathetic individuals. There's a chance my uncle is on the garbage. He lives in a camper down in Hopeville on my mom's land. A former coworker of mine was too; every time he left the office he moved 100 mph. Could barely hold a thought for more than two minutes. His eyes were constantly darting back and forth. He lost his family and his house. And his teeth, eventually. When I first met him his teeth were only partially eaten away. The teeth automatically made the suspicions cross my mind. Fucked-up teeth is an auto-flag. But those two were different. I never had any personal feelings towards either. Both were barely more than acquaintances.

She is different. She is an important player in my past and my character. I've only really been able to formulate a single thought about her situation:

Sad.

So much promise, so sweet, so much compassion for the downtrodden. Surely she'd make a great mother one day. I was excited when I first learned she wanted to be in the nursing field. It seemed like a perfect fit for her. But then in my mind a lot of things seemed like a perfect fit for her.

The last time I spoke with her in person, I mean really spoke with her, we got into an argument. That was a long time ago. Far too long. She told me that I had no right to insert my personal opinions, that it was her life and she was not the innocent little girl everyone wanted to believe she was. I guess she was right. Over the past few years, I've thought about that night. Wishing I had handled it differently. She was and is, as I said, one of the major reasons I'm the person that I am. Through mistakes I made in the past in the way I treated her, in school, after school, various other places, I learned to be a better person, a better man. There were times I ignored or downplayed my various levels of relationships with her, something I never should have done. In essence I had betrayed her. Hurt her. I realized I was wrong and have since always sought to improve my behavior towards all people, and especially women, both friends and strangers.

Even recently, I've discovered imporant personal lessons from her. I contacted her via email. I touched base with her first, before anyone but Rob, about Rnee's and my plan to have a baby. I did because of her past influence on me. I wanted a chance to get to know Lilly, too. I spent this last summer babysitting for my lil'est niece, Angelina. I enjoyed my time with her immensely. I liked feeding her. I liked the idea of having a role in her life. I wanted the same chance with Lilly. A chance to know someone I identify as a niece. Something I should have done a long time ago. But time has a funny way of escaping a person. Much like with most of my nieces and nephews, I thought to myself, "This really isn't a very good time. I'll be able to do it next time." And next thing I know my nephew Anthony has aged five years and is starting kindergarten. The same had started to happen with Angelina. Then I got to spend some serious time with her. Then Renee and I started having serious talks about having one of our own. Something that alone has changed a lot of my outlook on things in general.

One of the things that I started to think about were the people who influenced my childhood and my life. She was among them, I hadn't talked to her since the fight. She was at my wedding, something that surprised me. It was a very pleasant surprise. I was afraid she'd be the one person I really wanted to be there, who wouldn't be. What better way to announce some very happy pre-news, than to let it get out through an old, very good friend? That was just more than a month ago. Among the news, I also apologized to my past reactions to her drama. Yes, I had been critical. I didn't apologize for that. Her actions then, as they are now, were inconceivably wrong. I apologized for being as outspoken about it as I was. But it was a battle, I chose the defense of her mom. Lies and false accusations, specifically designed to injure, are one of the few always-inexcusable actions. There is never a valid or acceptable end to justify such means.

In our last communique, she was angry that her parents wouldn't take her to see her dying great-grandmother. She told me that everyone wanted to make her seem like the bad guy, and for no reason. Normally, any sentence that displays that many absolute values, immediately flag themselves. But, I wanted to believe her. I chose a stance of blatant naivety. I wanted it all to be some giant miscommunication, or caused by confused times and dates, or even an intervening of fate that failed those involved. I wanted it to be anything but a lie. Of course, my wishfulness was that and nothing more.

Now I don't know what to be. I have an idea of what most of her family is feeling. I know what my wife is, disgusted. I would be disgusted if it was almost anyone else. The deception makes me angry, but that's over-rided by something I would describe only as sad. Profoundly sad.

See, Pam is ready to forgive, if not forget. In fact, I'm sure she'd like very few things more. But Pam must have a level of compassion and love that I am barely aware exists. A mother's love, probably. I am not currently capable of such things. I'm not angry so much as beyond belief and sad about the whole thing. I'm torn between two driving personal views.

There are a handful of creeds that I try to keep in mind at all times. The first and foremost is, "Once family, always family." I make very few true friends and view them all as family more than friends. Once I've made the decision that someone is my family, they will almost always be deserving of my near-absolute loyalty. It doesn't mean we always have to get along or agree, but that when things get bad, I'll be there for you.

There's only been one instance that the last creed has been overridden. Minus the details, it was when a person makes a concious decision to break the covenant and then have the adacity to use a substance as an excuse. That time it was alcohol, not meth. That time, I tried to work past it and just never could. That relationship slowly died. I can deal with honest mistakes, stupid decisions and even malicious acts, as long as it's countered with earnest regret.

I don't know what to think of this. Meth is such a dangerous drug. It kills physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. For now I will remain sad. Sad for her family. Sad for her daughter, Lilly. Sad for our friendship. Sad for her.
*On a more personal note:

But life goes on. Renee and I will, god willing, soon have a child (hopefully a boy) ;p. A child who will learn the lessons you taught me, even if s/he never knows you. A child who will never be allowed to know the the person you currently are. But a child who will know about his/her aunt Sandy as my friend and, hopefully, as a strong person who overcame a very bad, rock-bottom situation.

Unfortunately, serious damage has been done. Renee doesn't know the Sandy that I once knew. All she has seen is four or five years of irresponsible and reprehensible behavior and parenting. She had a tough childhood, something she won't allow any of our future children. Any naivety on my behalf will be more than countered by her skepticism and distrust. You may always be family to me, but I doubt you'll ever earn Renee's trust. Without Renee's trust, the kids will never know you as any of those things. I'll make sure they know *about* you, but it will be the *person* they'll miss out on.

I hope beyond hope that this won't be the case. I want my child to play with cousin Lilly as much as I'll want them to play with cousin Shaun or Tori or Angelina or any of the rest of them. But a *lot* of things will have to change before that can ever happen. You don't have to be the "old" Sandy, just a responsible Sandy.

2006-08-12T09:42:00.000-05:00

Well the summer semester has finally ended. Rarely have I been so happy for anything to end. There is bad news wrapped within this glorious announcement, however. Beyond the unfortunate incidents leading to yet another semester at DMACC, is that I didn't do terribly well in either of my summer classes. This is truly disappointing in that I was just offered a scholarship through DMACC of $1000, one that I fear may now be revoked because I've dipped below my B average. I'm hoping that there's a grace period, or something, of a semester that won't immediately disqualify me for it.

If it doesn't, it's not a huge deal because I was only planning to take two classes this semester, and that's my fall back plan. I'm mostly planning on phoning in an effort good enough for a B, if that's the case. The scholarship is nearly enough for a free ride. So, if I did get it, I'd put in a lot more effort.

What a sad conundrum.

In more domestic news, Renee and I are nearly ready to commence painting. Ya know, as long as "nearly" can be taken to mean, "a whole lot of talk and a little bit of actual planning." (Hey, it's only been 13 months since we moved in ;p)

For starters, we're converting the office into a prospective baby's room/nursery/testing ground. Renee can't get on her company's insurance until November or December, so we have a little while, yet. To achieve this, we're moving our love seat and Rnee's glider rocker up into that room. We're moving my L-desk down into the living room. We're getting rid of her Dell computer and converting my desktop to be her work PC. We're leaving at least one of our desks up there, so we have somewhere to work and also as a prospective workstation for when the kid gets older, and so that I have somewhere to work on my laptop, if I have to be in there with the kid at some point. This is going to be the first room that we do anything with. Since its out of the way, we're going to use it as a guinea pig. We're planning on tiling the entire house, and since neither of us have ever done it, we're going to start up there. I'd also like to do some sort of texturing thing on the walls, but we may or may not do that.

We don't like the carpeting. Too much hassle to keep clean -- besides, its imbedded with dog fur. We broke our 'cuum some time ago and its just sort of degenerated down into a compound of fur and carpet threads. It's kinda gross, but far too complex to get it all up. We'd have to pretty much go over the entire area of the carpet with a friction brush to get it up. That's far too much work for my tastes.

Meh, I'm bored, gotta go do something else.

A funny thing happened on my way to...

2006-07-31T23:40:00.000-05:00

... class. So there I was, getting ready for class. I got dressed, repacked my backpack from vacation mode back to school mode, put my backpack in the car and started it. I had forgotten my phone, so I came back in for a minute. I grabbed the phone and the next thing I remember I was sitting in the drive-thru at Burger King with Cooper in the backseat. I guess he was along for the ride. So, now here it is, 11:37 in the evening and instead of sleeping after a fulfilling, guilt-free stint in class, I'm updating this here blog in an effort to purge the guilt of missing class. I don't think it'll work. Worst of all I average about 90 mins/update. This has been an abysmal semester for me. I've not been able to focus (nor care about focusing) in either of my classes. By my approximation there's almost zero chance of me earning a C in either of these classes. There goes the ol' GPA. Ahh well. One of the things about having this many classes is that it takes quite a stumble to do a whole lot to the GPA. In both directions, there's not a lot that'll move it, too far.

As the pictures below might have keyed you off, we went to Omaha this last weekend. Friday was a bit hectic. We mostly played the first half by ear. For starters the day began about 45 mins earlier than anticipated. Renee's sister, Ronnie, broke her car on her way up here to drop off the boys. So, Rnee had to go on a rescue mission. I figured as long as I was awake and the timeline had been screwed up, I might as well take Cooper down to Murray. Originally the plan was to have Rnee's oil changed, pick up niece Jenna on the southside, head to Murray, drop off Cooper, take 34 to 169 to
I80 to Stuart and drop off Jenna and the boys at one of my numerous sisters-in-law. Instead I dropped off the dog and drove back up to Jenna's, rendezvoused with Renee and the boys, dropped off my car for Ronnie on Jordan Creek and headed to Stuart.

From there things went as planned, more or less. We got to Omaha about 90 mins earlier than I thought we would, so we detoured through a casino. I was up about (having started with $5) $35 on the slots (around 50 overall) before I whittled my way back down to being up $11.50 on the slots. I did bring in an extra $20 playing the 25-cent video poker. Renee lost her $5. So all-in-all we finished ahead of the game. It was Renee's first experience in a casino, I've only been to casinos a few times. I rather enjoy myself. The smoke was enough to make us keep our stay short. It was like walking into a methane bar, really. Since neither of us smoke, nor are around smoke a great deal, it was rather overpowering.

Friday was a short night. Something about walking around nekkid for a few hours in a hotel room to tire a fellow out. Well walking and some other stuff, which I shant get into at this point. Use your imaginations. We were up bright and early to meet Renee's side of the family at the zoo at 8:30. Lil' did we know that their part of the plans had mysteriously changed from the orginal, "We should get there right at 8:30, since it closes so early."

They stopped for breakfast. We didn't know until about 20 mins into our wait in line. So after another 30 mins or so we were through the gate and they hadn't left Perkins At least they were in Omaha. We had forgotten the camera and my sun glasses in the car, so we walked around to the other side of the park, fairly close to our car and got those and came back in and watched the polar bears abit. By this time it was around 9:30 and it was already in the low 90s. The rest of the posse showed up around 10 or 10:30. We meandered around the park for a few hours, stopping continuously at the end of the exhibits to let the slower ones wander their ways through. Since Renee and I have been there five times in four years, we inevitably ended up amongst the first to exit all of them. Not a helluva lot changes in that short of a span. The heat compounded our restlessness and we were the first to leave around 3:00 or so. The zoo was *packed* with people. I had trouble wrapping my head around why that many ppl would be there on such a lousy day to bring out one's kids. Yeah, there were lots of crying, screaming little kids. That was also a pleasure. Most of ours were fairly well behaved, albeit somewhat spoiled and messy from melted ice cream. ;p It was ridiculous how many people had sub- five-year olds out there. Too hot for that small of kids, I'd think.

After leaving the zoo, we spent the first 2 hours or so, just trying to cool down. We finally started to cool off about the time we turned on to 169 on our way back to pick up Cooper. Yesterday was spent dealing with my head cold and recovering/relaxing at home.

Today we went and picked up my car with the boys and Angelina. And along with some videogames and rough housing, this brings us full circle. I hope to do an update on some sort of crazy rant in the near future. That near future maybe next week, however. I've got homework due on Thursday and a test to take on Wednesday, so the next few days will be spent on that. This semester, mercifully, ends next week. Now I gotta go locate the class schedule and hope that the test really is scheduled for Wednesday and not tonight.

Ciao.

Zoo pictorial

2006-07-30T08:34:00.000-05:00

I'll do a text-based update on the zoo a little later today.

Cooper, AKA Big Coop Dogg, AKA Coop Doggy Dogg, AKA Coop de Ville, AKA CoopStar, AKA Super Cooper, AKA Who's my good lil' doggie?Coop is, yes he is, he's a good doggie.

The

2006-07-23T14:39:00.000-05:00

Well that's a load off. I've had a fairly productive weekend -- at least by my standards. For starters, Renee's dad, John, replaced my alternator for me. I'd like to say I assisted, but I did little more than a hold a flashlight, charge the battery and bring him his grape-flavoured water. I can't even take credit for getting the alternator or water -- Renee did both. But I did have the foresight to get up in the morning and hook-up the battery charger. Oh and I drove the car into the garage once the battery was strong enough to charge it, so that he didn't have to stand out in the sun to work. I also got my homework for accounting done. Granted, it was due on last Wednesday, but I'm more concerned with knowing the material for the test than I was maxing out the four points for the assignment itself. I wasn't feeling good on Wednesday, so I laid around and did nothing. So, I did the homework yesterday morning before John showed up. After that, I worked on my report for accounting. I finished the report a few minutes ago. It's due tomorrow. The thing was supposed to be about 2-4 pages, I flew by that landing right at six pages. It's notable that the company I profiled was a Taiwan (ROC) company, Acer computers (the very same company whose name is on this nifty lil' laptop I'm updating from). So, there was more I had to allow for in my paper than I probably would have done for a domestic company. Namely, I felt it was necessary to outline that it was a Chinese company operating out of Taiwan and trading on the London Stock Exchange. I also had to disclaim that Acer operates from Republic of China, not Mainland China, and explain that its financials are dictated by the Taiwanese government and are not necessary identical to that of our GAAP. I also needed to do really well on it because of my last test. So, I went all out in writing it. I think I was also the only one in the class whom didn't seem like this was some massive undertaking. But that's the way it usually seems to workout when there's some "major" project due toward the end of a semester that deals with writing or research. In fact, there's been people working on the thing for two or three weeks and were struggling. I started mine this past Friday afternoon and spent a total of about 10-12 hours on it. I figure they freaked themselves out about it early on and weren't yet able to recover. The only thing I'm even remotely concerned about is whether she covered or addressed something specific last week that I missed when I wasn't in class. But I'm happy with the paper and that's all that is important. I'll have to read over it one more time tomorrow and make whatever small changes I need, other than that I don't plan to do anymore with it.

In other writing news, I'm considering beginning a sci-fi story. I probably have half-a-dozen or so stories already started and incomplete in some form or another. Some are written in notebooks (pre-2002), others are sitting on my two hard drives in the office. One is only a skeleton of the world I wanted to create, that was my most recent one. It has notes on people, armies, territories, love interests... A compelling protagonist and an obstacle for him to overcome. There's one that's a play that I was never happy with, so I unwillingly submitted it to DMACC's play contest. I didn't get the time to work on it that I needed and put it off two long and it was about as far from what I wanted it to be as is possible. Most of them are set in a unique fantasy world, actually all of the stories are written like that. I've until the last couple of weeks not really considered a futuristic story. I've read a few, watch them on TV occasionally, but it wasn't until the Science Channel started playing on Dish Network's free preview and I started watching legit outerspace things that really grabbed my imagination. So, I'm just really trying to decide what *kind* of story to write. Should I go post-apoc? Corprocracy? Star-trekky? Decisions, decisions... In case you're curious, I have thought, even seriously considered, trying to finish some of my already-started stories, but that would just be too far out of character for me. ;p

Next weekend Renee and I will be joining most of her family for a trip to the Omaha Zoo. This marks about the sixth time in five years we've been there. It's too small to head there that often. But, I must say I've not so looked forward to getting away from anywhere in a long time. I'm in need of a break. Cooper will be staying my parents down in tha 447.

Well, away to brainstorming.

...And almost as soon as I said it...

2006-07-20T11:35:00.000-05:00

... my plans have been disrupted. I won't be headed to GVC this fall afterall.

A few months ago I decried the business policy of ISU as it comes to the treatment of my account status with them. A quick refresher, last fall I enrolled at ISU. After a rather shabby treatment and an over-all unimpressment with the University as a whole, I withdrew from classes. About four months later they finally send me a letter telling me that not only do I owe the money, but that my account is overdue and has been for several months. That was the first and only notice I received.

So after a few weeks of trading emails with their A/R office, I finally was able to negotiate a payoff schedule.

*Enter my future plans and GVC*

So, I fill out the application and I was dumb enough to put on the application that I had attended ISU for less than a full semester. Well, GVC can't process my application until they receive my transcripts from Iowa State. Iowa State refuses to send the transcripts until I pay off my account with them.

So, since I still owe a sizable amount to Iowa State, I can't attend GVC this fall.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Nothing else has gone my way for a while. I'm not sure what exactly made me think that this would.

I guess I should clarify that, while disheartened, I'm not extremely put out. I was really looking forward to attending Grand View and putting the entire mess at DMACC behind me and suddenly my entanglements to DMACC have been extended.

Signed, a disappointed but hopeful,

~Eric

Irritated

2006-07-18T23:59:00.000-05:00

There's quite a bit I'm irritated about at the moment. Most, if not all, deal with work or some combination of other elements including work. I'm not going to get into it at the moment because none of it is anything I've not complained about in the past, most have been complained about in the recent past via this here blog.

Not all is bad, however. There's a lot that I'm excited or anxious about. This fall for instance. I'll be heading southward daily for college in the fall, Grand View. I'm excited about it. New place, new challenges, and because of the irritation that I mentioned before, might be making a clean-break from DMACC all at once. All of these are good things. It's been a while since I've given it any thought, but I don't tend to do well after I've become comfortable somewhere. I get lazy, then I get apethetic then I get lazy again and somewhere in the middle I stop caring about everything that doesn't include instant gratification. It's one of the reasons DMACC is only one of three jobs I ever had that have last longer than six consecutive months. Sometime over the last three or four years, I ignored the signs and then forgot and accepted that I had a job that I didn't like. Something I've never understood why people do. Most of that has to do with getting lazy and covering it with a veil named "Stability". In reality it had very little to do with stability. It's been a matter of uncaring comfort and a bit of inspired lazility. Sure, the check has been regularly issued by the same company, but I've sacrificed more and made less than I should have ever allowed myself. It's been an uneconomical exercise in futility. I'm hoping between my quiet disdain for work and new challenges at GVC, I'll be inspired to get a new job. Well, I should say that I intend to find a new job, I'm hoping the inspiration will be more in the form of a sense of urgency than anything else.

Other things...... that I hope to be updating about shortly, but not today
1. Why we need more formality, whether traditional British propriety or Confucianist ideals, in this country.
2. More on the GVC thing -- I really don't have a lot of information at the moment.
3. That I've created this update from my new, pretty laptop.
4. Other

Hmm, where have I heard this before?

2006-07-11T16:41:00.000-05:00

Real big shocker: http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060710/NEWS03/60710001

Mayor using police-issued fines to generate income.

Refresh'd, rejuvenat'd and refocus'd.

2006-07-09T15:16:00.000-05:00

Amazingly enough after having only slept fewer (less?) than two hours, I'm feeling much better. I don't understand the way that fate sometimes works, however, most of the time as long as it takes a turn for the better, I'm not overly concerned.

The more than I think about it, I think the bad mood started a couple of weeks ago after I got no sleep one night -- it just peaked over the last few days. So it's only fitting that I even back out after last night's lack of sleep. Time will only tell if I'm just giddy from the lack of sleep, or whether things have turned for me. I do know that things seem much clearer now than they even did last night. Not that any of it was tramatic, I just seem to be a bit rejuvenated and more ready to focus on the things that I need to be focused on. Namely working more and class. Speaking of which I have some accounting to get done, so I'm going to go do that now.

"I'd be apathetic if I weren't so lethargic."

2006-07-07T21:35:00.000-05:00

It's been a strange week or so. I've not felt at all like myself. I've been a poor student. I've also been a poor employee, which means I've been a poor provider and, hence, less than a stellar husband.

It's not that I've been in a bad mood, I've just not been able to muster any energy to do anything more than watch T.V. and play video games. I did go to work, but I left in the middle of that to get a haircut. Tonight, I'm doing this update and drinking some beer. This is the most productive since I last updated four days ago. That update took what seemed like a Herculean effort just to turn it out. To be honest, I'm not even ~that~ happy with that post. I just wasn't feeling it and more or less forced it out so I wouldn't miss my deadline.

These battles with apathy are by no means common place; however, they do happen to me every so often and I'm pretty sure I know what's caused this one: an over emphasized bout of introspection.

See, it is in my nature to analyze, some might suggest overanalyze, whatever might be going on around me. If it is one of my faults, to me it’s one of my least pressing. The analyzation applies as much to myself as it does to external stimuli. And, there are quite a few things that I do that aren’t the way I want them to be. At the risk of sounding like a woman (or, worse, like Rob), I’m at my heaviest point ever. Now, I’m by no means fat, but I’m not comfortable looking the way I do. Secondarily is my hang-up with my education – I’m not sure I’ll ever be comfortable with the time I’ve wasted. Far too many dropped classes, far too little focus. There are a few money issues and other various problems. None of them are serious, just not progressing at a satisfactory rate. The largest downside to having such a personality is that anytime there isn’t instant feedback, the tendency to overanalyze kicks in. I start to think and worry about why there wasn’t something immediately different. Worst of all, my traditional coping method is no longer available to me.

Running used to be the way I’d deal with the stress. A nice long run for my body, gave my mind a chance to take a good long run, too. I could mull over whatever I wanted, for as long as I wanted. Along with the shower, running was my preferred manner of meditation. Now all I have is the shower. Only, I don’t always have time in the shower to let my mind race through what it needs to. When I can’t think it out in the shower (isolate the problem, consider outlying issues contributing to the problem, and form some plan of attack), then I’m stuck thinking about it other times. For instance at work, in class or while I’m trying to fall asleep. None of those are places that allow the proper focus that I need. When I’m out of focus, my concentration drops in everything I’m trying to do. Once my concentration is gone, so is my will and desire to be undertaking these things. Sort of like this journal entry.

I’ll try again tomorrow. I need some quiet-time.

In unremarkable regards to Independence Day

2006-07-03T16:40:00.000-05:00

On July 2, 1776 the Continental Congress adopted the informal and unofficial Declaration of Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

On July 4, 1776 a revised version was officially voted on and passed in the Continental Congress. All of the signors had committed treason against the official government, in an attempt to gain liberty and happiness. They were traitors to government and heroes to their new nation. A monarchy was denied and a republic embraced.

So it is on an average of the two July dates (July 3), that I offer my thoughts on the subject. It is not merely a coincidence that I chose July 3rd. The two dates, along with June 11 and August 10 (the assignment of Jefferson and company to write the Declaration and the date the Declaration reaches London, respectively) are really too close in importance to really choose as the day to celebrate.

I was watching the series "The Revolution" on the History Channel last night and I realized that had I been alive during the event, I probably would not have been a rebel. I'd more than likely had been a loyalist. It wouldn't have been a matter, I don't think, of disagreement with the sentiments of the rebels. It would have simply been too large a risk for me to take. This is assuming I'd have been simply a citizen of the Colonies. Had I been a contemporary or representative to the Continental Congress, I may have well been in the spirit of the rebellion. However, assuming that I'd just been an average colonist (much as I am an average citizens 230 years after the fact), there'd not have been any rhetoric anywhere that'd make lose my mind and inspire me to fight against the strongest nation in the world.

It is during this sort of quiet recognition of my limitations and relative indifference that I realize the staggering undertaking and risks that the revolutionists. Particularly of Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson has, for quite a while, been a personal guiding post for me. When I'm in doubt about anything political I reference my list of Jefferson's quotes and read through them. Rarely do I return from the word.doc without a greater appreciation for his absolute clarity of thought. I also find him remarkable as President. He ran basically for limited government and to attempt to trim down the powers of the executive office (which are far too powerful these days). Yet, once he becomes President, he doubles the size of the US with an illegal treaty called the "Louisiana Purchase" and then illegally commissioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition. I find it fascinating because I too am a strong believer in limited and weak government, yet I always believed I'd exploit the presidency for all it was worth, should I ever hold the office. My goal was to annex the moon and Mars, but mostly that's got to do with a lack of spoken-for land here on Terra. I'd back it up militarily, if there were any other nation to complain.

But I digress.

I first realized that I'd probably have been a loyalist to the Crown five or six years ago. I may have been secretly wishing that the rebels would win (perhaps mostly due to curiosity about what the change would bring), but publically I'd have been a loyal subject to the Crown. I'd like to be able to honestly say I'd have fought to the death for freedom, but I wouldn't have. My first loyalty is to my family and myself, not to any nation or army or cause.

In this respect, I am not a remarkable person. It has been over the last few months, however, that I have come to recognize that as an unremarkable person, it is both my duty, and more importantly, my honor to hold the Revolutionist citizens, soldiers and signors in the highest regard. For they were remarkable. The preternatural ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were greater in their eyes than the natural instincts of self-preservation and survival. They lived, fought and many died for uncommon, greater standards.

The least of which being so that I may live an unremarkable life, in the middle of the American continent, under greater peace than any of them ever knew.

Our News

2006-07-02T20:50:00.000-05:00

I was not expecting this news to get so much attention.

I suppose I have made most of you wait long enough. I am not pregnant; although, I do hope to be soon. We have talked, joked and "what-if'd" it enough that we decided that an addition to the Gookin family would be an exciting one.

I am of course hoping for a girl while Eric insists it will be a boy. Thankfully, we are not the ones to decide this. We have already decided on a name for a girl, and are still discussing boy names.

I hope to be pregnant around November/December for various reasons mostly narrowing down to timing. We realize there is a lot of planning to be done along with a lot of saving so I have to lower my tastes in baby furniture and actually look at prices instead of just looking. I feel silly because I am not pregnant but the thought of having a child is so new and exciting that it's almost all I can talk about.

2006-06-29T20:33:00.000-05:00

Meh, maybe tomorrow or Saturday.

What a complete and utter joke

2006-06-20T20:39:00.000-05:00

I was originally going to write about it. Then, I chose to just try and ignore the whole campaign. Now, I've decided to go ahead and bitch and moan about it because to ignore it would violate my sense of disdain for intentionally misleading statements from the government about its concern for public health.

There is in fact very little concern on the government's behalf about public health. If they cared a lot of things would be different. There are only two instances in which gov't cares about its citizens: 1) When there is a chance to exploit stupid people's actions to increase revenue, and 2) when their power is threatened (or, complementary, when they recognize an opportunity to seize more power).This radio and TV ad campaign about "Seat belt tickets help save lives," is the newest in a long line of nanny-state reactionary and renewed-revenue base instances.

If there is any travel-based law that should not enforced at any time it's the seat belt law. For starters its a violation of what has always been an unwritten category of personal freedom. Much like the personal freedom to have sex with as many consenting adults as you want inside your house. Sure, it's not necessarily written down anywhere, but it's implied. There are zero sound, cogent arguments to support seat belt law. In fact the only one that even comes close to begging for intelligent thought processes is the idea that if you're involved in an accident that doesn't completely stop your car, you have an obligation to other drivers to stop it. This is the *only* instance and only situation that a seat belt law makes any sense in accord to. And that's a stretch for my imagination -- certainly not probable enough to give up another implied right of freedom.

There is no doubt in my mind why this law is suddenly being enforced. It's not to save lives, and it's not to provide protection to drivers, passengers or standers-by. It's simply to generate more revenue. Much like raising the speed limit (yet letting it remain artificially low) while doubling the fines, its done because Iowa is in a budget crunch. We create funds and then we bleed them dry and have to raise fines for asinine traffic violations. The money that it cost to produce these stupid PSAs could have been used for far better projects. I don't have an issue with the state deciding it wants to raise revenue (though I'd prefer them to just cut spending). Raise sales tax. It's the most consistant way to get more money and the way citizens least care about. In fact, we should do away with federal income tax and go straight to a national sales tax. That's a different topic, though.

Unfortunately as a common citizen there's not a single thing that we can do about any of it. Cops get to enforce as many or as few laws as they want. Plus you can't argue with a cop without being tossed in jail. The cop isn't the root of the problem anyway, but s/he is really the only one anyone can actually see in person. Letters don't work unless they're sent en masse and then only if they're unique and not form letters. It's a complete waste of time to be upset as personal liberties are eroded away and the average person has neither time or emotion or resources to undertake the fight by themselves.

Laws are enacted by legislatures and more often invented by the Courts. The cops enforce what they want and everyone else is at their mercy with no recourse without spending millions of dollars. It's a sickening and pathetic government that we live under.

I need new shoes

2006-06-13T21:12:00.000-05:00

I first became aware of my need for new shoes about couple of months ago. I recall it as though it were somewhat less than a couple of months, almost as though it was only six weeks or so. I was working up in Boone and everywhere I walked, my shoes squeaked like old shoes over a newly waxed floor. I did my best to ignore it: successfully focusing on my work that day, as though I was a man who had work he needed to accomplish so he didn't have to go all the way back to Boone the next day. When I walked through the halls that day, it seemed as though everyone could hear my squeaky shoes. Every time I looked up everyone I passed gave me a disgusted look or commented on my squeaky shoes. Even the fat woman with the scraggly facial hair gave me a dirty look. Though, her dirty look seemed much more akin to her discovery that it was a pair of shoes that were squeaking, instead of a helpless robin or cardinal chick whom she could gobble up. But I've digressed. After taking note of my dire situation, and my thankfulness that I wasn't a slice of bacon, I forgot the dispair I felt that day and forgot my need for new shoes.

That is, until last week. The first week back to school. I mosied down to building 8 for my first class and I was stricken by a feeling of deep dejavu: my shoes were once again squeaking as I walked through the halls on the way to my classroom (building six, where I spend most of my time is carpeted). Now everyday I am forced to relive that horrible day and the even horribler (and ugly) fat woman with the scraggly facial hair.

I dearly love my shoes, but it is time I seek out new footwear -- similar to a Sherpa setting upon his trek to the top of Everest, but who got sidetracked and ended up in a shoe store.

Destiny, thy name is sneaker.

2006-06-06T18:34:00.000-05:00

Wowie, another, in a multitude of mundane and boring days, is slowly passing by me. I’m preparing to apply for a bookkeeping position here at DMACC. I’m probably not qualified for it, but I’ll come rather cheap and have both the connections and skills to act as a computer support specialist in a pinch. I think for this reason alone, I may stand a chance at the job. ;p

Now, you may be wondering why I’d choose to apply for a fulltime spot at DMACC. Afterall, I have been somewhat critical about my current position for sometime now. Well, my main issue has been there’s largely been a lack of upward mobility. Given the sacrifices I make (killing holidays, filling in for odd shifts) for the department that’s other than the occasional “thank you,” I’m investing a lot of time only to gain a paycheck. Beings as I’m changing careers, there’s no pay off for the experience I gain. I have zero shot at anything other than mandated cost-of-living raises. Other than the superb flexibility of my hours and time-off for classes, there’s no perks to working in this department.

The position I’m applying for is a fulltime position. And as we all know, state workers have fantastic benefits. Along with the experience, any other unknowns in the equation are miniscule. Hell, the time off alone is enough to negate any lack of promotion or other pitfalls. Also, I’m pretty sure if I need to I can parallel down to the accounting 102 night class, from my day class. Wish me luck.

Inane quizzes won out the day for me

2006-06-01T19:55:00.000-05:00

I've had the following results with quizzes this evening:

I'm Stewie Griffin

Note: I always thought this too.
~~~~
My roleplaying stats are, 10 across the board for (str, dex, con, end, speed and cha) excelling at none and coming-up short with none.

Note: No big surprise there. I’d have given myself a little more for charisma, but I’m not terribly outgoing, so I think I lost points for that.
~~~~
A Conservative
Congratulations! You scored 29%!
You're probably a loyal Republican or an old-style Southern Democrat -- but either way, you probably don't care much for John Kerry and think George W. Bush is doing a good enough job. While you don't necessarily support the Republican Party all the time, you probably vote for Republicans more often than not. You might think the Sierra Club is too extreme, but you probably don't think the same of the NRA. But you're not extreme in your views, and in any case you would probably consider voting for a Democrat. You might have liked Bill Clinton's accent, but you think Ronald Reagan was better; and while you like Bush, you realize that he's no Reagan.

Note: This test was clearly written by a liberal, probably one who thought s/he was a moderate or centrist. Either that, or a poorly educated elitist. It was a bad test. Let me reiterate something that I’ve said for several years now, Bush is *not* a conservative. He maybe Christian and usually morally conservative and he may even be Republican, but a fiscal conservative he is not. Nor is he an International Conservative, he’s expansionistic and overall he’s slowly becoming a lousy president.
~~~~
Liberal
You scored 55% Talk the Talk and 0% Walk the Walk! You have a lot of things to say about embracing difference, but when it comes to living your own life, you keep pretty firmly on the straight and narrow. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - you're perfectly willing to let other people do as they wish, but you know what works for you, and that's a pretty traditional lifestyle. And hey, being open-minded includes being open to more traditional styles of life as well, right? Still, you may want to ask yourself... are you really all that open-minded, or do you quietly judge those around you? If the latter is true, be careful... people pick up on that a lot more than you might think!

Note: This test wasn’t on political compassing, it was on open-mindedness. I’m largely a classical liberal/libertarian. I don’t think the government belongs in your house, or even your yard, unless you’re beating the crap out of something, or s/he is being the crap out of you, anymore than they have the right to spend my money or redistribute it to poor people. While I do believe, somewhat, in a universal morality, it’s more to do with having a familiarity of a large number of cultures having similar taboos and restrictions than anything supernatural or having laws handed down by a creator. And yes, I do judge people, and judge them harshly sometimes. But humans have the ability of reason and if I reason that someone else is a jackass, I’m probably right. At first, I thought this was written by a liberal, but judging on how this last paragraph was written, it may have also been done by a libertarian. Libertarians are big on considering the lives of conservatives as valid and not denouncing them like liberals (or rather as the two groups do to one another). And yes, I’m very harsh on liberals because on scale, I’m far more conservative than liberal. It was also a very humourous test.
~~~~
You scored 20% Hitler, 20% Goring, 46% Himmler, and 13% Gobbels!
Dear cruel and evil Henchman, If you scored the highest percentage on: Hitler You are "der Fuhrer". Need I say more? Goring You are the head of the "Luftwaffe", the air-force that bombed Warsaw, London and many other places during the war. Goring was second in command after Hitler in the Third Reich. Himmler The Reichfuhrer of the "SS", and the head of the "Gestapo". The most feard man in the Reich and whole of Europe. The true nazi pig that caused the holocaust, murder and unthinkable terror of millions, including Germans. Gobbels Dr. Gobbles, head of the aggressive nazi propaganda that brainwashed the entiere people. Thank you for taking the test. I hope that you're not really a nazi.

Note: This test was not nearly as comprehensive as it should have been. It was pretty much like the guy writing it was excited when he first got started and then got bored with it later in the test. Personally, I figured I’d get the propagandist role. Whodathunkit.
~~~
England
23% Warlike, 30% Spartan Living, 28% Socialist

Right-O then, chap. Not incredibly aggressive, you usually like to lounge back on your lawn, have a cup of tea (or whatever), and enjoy a game of croquet and a nice chit-chat. Afterwards, you might enjoy a nice drive in the Rolls. Thankful to be separated by water from the rest of annoying Europe, you only pull out the guns when its time to save the world again. A bit of a control freak, you like to have jurisdiction over things, even when they are at a distance. Overall, however, you are extremely well-balanced. Well, ta-ta for now then!

Note: (Where should you have been born?) This was a test on where I should have been born. Another humourous test, made so by the casual swearing. I was hoping this was going to run considerably longer than the 10 questions.

~~~~
Note: lol, “Do you like to ingest genital fluid?” lol… gold material. That’s pretty much a quiz ending question for me. Nothing like that.

Okay, that's enough fun for now. I took all quizzes at OKCupid and chose randomly.

Between work and a bored place

2006-06-01T19:08:00.000-05:00

So, part of any new semester's influence upon me is that my constantly evolving work habits and schedule get shuffled about. This semester being no different, I am now working Tuesday and Thursday evenings here in the computer lab. As it turns out Tuesday and Thursday evenings are going to be rather slow and boring affairs. Perhaps good for my homework grades (and definitely a bonus to my slacking off time), but somewhat lackluster for my state of mind. Don't get me wrong, I love being around when there's very little going on. However, one of the nice things about volunteering to work weekends and holidays is that I know that I don't really have to put in any more or less quality time with my chair than I want. The downside to working the lab is that, while there's little going on, I am pretty well stuck here until at least 9:30pm. We are scheduled to close at 10:00 pm, and I have closed as early as 9:15, but we were having a lot of snow come down and I used that a scapegoat. **Was distracted for over an hour there, thus some discontinuity is likely**

The weather, on nights such as tonight, don't really ally themselves with shutting down 45 mins early. Though if there is no one here at 9:15, I'll probably just shut it down because it's been so very slow.

I'm debating on whether I should continue to space off and chase after ever gleaming light (or website in this case), or buckly down and do some homework. I know I should do the former, but probably won't. I have my homework that's due tomorrow done for both classes and don't feel like doing anything else.

We're heading down to Murray on Saturday morning. I haven't seen my parents since Christmas and since it is June 1 today, I figure twice a year ain't bad. ;p

Okay, I gotta figure out how not to lose my mind before 10.

Here I am again

2006-05-30T20:18:00.000-05:00

So I should be doing the schedule right now, but that can wait for a little bit.
I am so stressed about work and work, because lets face it that's all I do. Oh well when you don't have kids what else are you supposed to do? I am starting classes in the fall again at DMACC. One is an online class, it's my first online class but Eric will help me. He's a pretty great guy. I'm so lucky when it comes to him.
I have so much to do and never enough time to do it in. Every week when I try to devote time to the schedule at the store something always comes up and of course I have to work on the floor instead. So then when I get home and want to do anything else but McDonald's I have to log into the store and finish the schedule. I also have book work here at home that I need to devote time. So I need to pretty much accept that I have no free time from McDonald's. Even when I do take time to do nothing I stress out because I know what I should be doing. My job is rewarding, just very frustrrating.
I will try to continue this at a later date, however that stress I was talking about is creeping up again....

2006-05-29T14:24:00.000-05:00

Well, well here it is Memorial Day and I'm working. And supposed to be trying to get a jump start on the semester that starts tomorrow, in addition I'm trying to figure out finances and perform a degree audit for Renee. Yet, I still take a break from all of this muy important stuff to update my blog for the second time in three days. You better feel honoured.

That’s right, I’ve worked all weekend. Actually the weekend started for me Friday evening. I was here in the office until 9:30 pm or so. Other than today we had been fairly busy. Today has thankfully been slow and I hope to go home whenever Renee gets back to town from McDs. I’m nearly ½ done with one of my classes. It doesn’t start until tomorrow, but I had the book and it was easy stuff, so I went ahead and worked ahead. I’m hoping to finish off the first workbook completely before I go home (won’t happen). I’m also hoping to get a jump on the “Long-term Liabilities” chapter for accounting 102. It’s the same instructor and book I had for 101. I’m expecting to carry an A in this class. I finished with a B+ for the spring semester in 101, and this is basically a continuation of the course. I scored an A on every single test and homework grade, however, I had missed every single quiz except one or two, which dropped my grade just enough to cost me just enough points to drop to the B+. I have fewer classes this semester and will be getting my car back to running condition soon, so hopefully that will no longer be an issue. As for the other class, being half-way done before the class starts is something I can build off of and hopefully finish the course (except for tests and forum discussions) over the next couple of weeks.

Renee's getting closer and closer to her promotion. It's going to happen; the details of pay and date haven't been ironed out. Hopefully, we'll have some closure on that come Tuesday. She has a meeting with her area supervisor and store manager. Her store manager is in full support of her, which is good. Also, this area supervisor actually likes her (unlike the last one), so that's also good. Last night we discussed the best way t go about pitching her base-level as a first assistant. I think we settled on something that is believable, honest and fair. Her sister, Ronnie, when she was in a similar situation told them that she already had another job offer (lie) for $x/yr. Renee didn't want to take this approach, which is good because I don't think they'd have believed her. Renee is pretty much a "company woman." She likes the company (for the most part) and is well liked by most everyone. So we settled on something more along the lines of, Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in favor of her giving an ultimatum. Now that they're actively talking about her development and future, I'm not nearly as concerned. When she made the decision to pursue a career and shoot for the corporate level at McDonalds', I was skeptical but happy. I knew that she wasn't going to be happy in an office-type of atmosphere. It’s not her style, not yet anyway. I was skeptical because the first thing they wanted was for her to transfer into a different store, a store that needed some serious help. It was a good store (perennially in the top 2-3 stores out of 15 or so), but they were hard-up for swing-level managers. They didn’t really need salary managers. What the store needed was bodies capable of pulling entry-level management duties. It turned out better, though slower, than I had thought it would. I was pretty happy about that. I wasn’t happy with her area supervisor at that store, though. He completely took her off track (one reason I was pushing her to go to Norwalk) and likely slowed her progression by six months (six months of salary, we’d like to have back). She’s back on track now. The last thing I want is for them to corner her in a dead-end position and as soon as I start to get that feeling, I’ll let her know. She’s far too good and smart to let her waste away like that. So in the mean time, we’ve also decided that she’s going to start working directly toward an associates’ in business. It never hurts to have some bookwork to back up practical experience and an excellent work ethic. Plus, as soon as she has it, then she can start bluffing for raises like her sister did. ;p

That’s about it for now. I’ve got emails in the queue I should answer, and then some homework – or at least a degree audit.

A ray of hope?

2006-05-29T14:09:00.000-05:00

From Cubs.com (referring to the team at least sticking together through this lousy-ass year in which the management has done absolutely zero since the season started):

"You don't see guys throwing jabs at each other or blaming the pitching or the hitting or anything," Baker said. "These guys are together, and when you're together, you've got a chance. It's May. Hopefully, we can look back on May and say that was a nightmare we don't want to live again. When you're in it, you're in it. You've got to learn from it.

"The average team would've just thrown in the towel yesterday," he said. "That was a pretty good indicator, don't you think? That's a real good indicator of what these guys are about, what we're about as a coaching staff and what we instill, what we teach, and what we expect."

I'll get back to my normal updating stuff in a little while. I wanted to comment a bit more, but won't on this topic just now.

Soul Searching

2006-05-27T12:15:00.000-05:00

Most of you will probably find this menial and/or boring, however, there's something that I need to address straight away. I'll try and do an update later about things everyone else might find more interesting.

I'm beginning to ponder if my stalwart support of my Chicago Cubs should be suspended. I've been a huge Cubs' fan since ... well for just about as long as I can remember. Easily since 1988. I was eight years old and truly discovered the beauty that is baseball about that time. I didn't fully understand all of the intracacies -- most people don't. If they did neither basketball nor football would be more popular, and certainly not soccer. Baseball is as perfect a sport, as well as a game, as is possible. It's a sport that so perfectly encapsulates the human condition, that one only needs to look to the health of baseball in any given to gain a knowledge about what it is the community values. Case in point: In Los Angeles, strangers don't talk to one another between innings, they watch the Jumbotron for the latest movie releases and pop music videos. They spend (on average) around two hours and then leave. It's entertainment in LA, nothing more nothing less. Much like most things in LA, baseball is a fleeting thought in the minds of the citizens.

Back to my point.

The Cubs have never been a really great team. They've flirted with greatness a few times: 1969, 1984, 1989, 1998, 2003. This doesn't bother me in the least. Baseball, and ultimately life, isn't always about winning. It's not about spending $120 million dollars a year to try to buy yourself victories. Baseball, and (again) life, is really only about one thing. If you don't know what the one thing is, take three hours out of your life and watch a game. If I told you, you wouldn't understand, it's much more something you have to feel. Much like the Tao, it is inescapably beyond words.

Back to my point.

If the Cubs lost every single game in a year, I'd still spend those three hours dutifully watching every game that I could. This year the Cubs have not been a good team. I don't care. But, there's something that saddens me greatly. It's really got absolutely nothing to do with the team itself. My issue is with the owners. The Chicago Tribune (technically Tribune Co.) owns the team. Their behaviour is frighteningly business-like. Now, anyone who reads this blog or is around me long enough realizes that I will be among the last to criticize a business's decisions, as long as they are profitable for the owners (shareholders) and aren't out blatantly breaking the law. In fact, I'd be among the first to say that privatizing police forces would be a far better and secure our neighborhoods and borders. That's a topic for another day, however.

Back to my point.

The Tribune Company is an evil force behind the Cubs. There is a singular fault in all Cub fans. We are utterly devoted to our team. We support it on television and in the stands. We perennially buy new hats and shirts. If we have spare money, we'd give it to Cubs Care, their charity organization. Cubs fans are seen in almost equal numbers regardless what what city they happen to be playing in. If it would support our team and you can say it, it'll be done. And it'll be done, lovingly. Year in and year out, the Tribune Co. feigns upgrading the Cubs. They scour the Minor Leagues and young players on other teams. The sign good, but (almost always) undervalued free agents. However, what they don't do is allow their General Manager, Jim Hendry to sign excellent free agents. Dominate free agents carry high price tags. This inevitably leads to less-than-great teams. Baseball has profit-sharing feature, when a team reaches around $115 million dollars on payroll, they lose part of their profits to the smaller markets (such as Kansas City).

Back to my point.

No Cubs' fan really wants the team to go that far. No one is saying the Tribune needs to open its pockets and let Tampa Bay and KC reach in, but it would be nice if they showed us that they care. Devotedly we buy tickets and merchandise, for losing teams -- increasing the profit margin enjoyed by Tribune Co. There is a rarely a Cubs game, regardless of how bad the team is, that doesn't reach at least 20,000 in attendance figures. There are 81 home games in a season, that's a LOT of scratch. When the team is playing well, or the Cardinals or White Sox play at Wrigley Field, there is always over 35,000-40,0000/game. I understand that to add an additional good player, it’s going to cost $5-8 million dollars, but they just added something like 1,800 seats over the last winter. But at around thirty bucks a pop over a full season it’s $4.34-million dollars for a single season. And it’s just a rough average. Ticket prices depending on where you sit can run upward of $60/seat. But, I guess as long as Cubs’ fans remain the most loyal in any sport, they can cheap-out and fans will still support their (the fans’) team.

There is something remarkably different in the past couple of years. Perhaps it’s the change-up in the broadcast team. No more Steve Stone/Caray (Harry or Chip) combo on commentary. Perhaps, I’m just becoming more aware of the Tribune’s lousy attitude toward the team. There is something is just plain different about the team. I don’t know what it is, but it’s enough for me to question whether or not this should even be classified as one of Cubs’ teams. Is this the same team that has remained one of the few commonalities that my dad and I have had? It’s something I’m being forced to think about.

I watch the games almost daily and every year I buy a new hat in the spring and a new shirt in the winter, I look for new Cubs’ shirts. I carry the same devotion to my team as fans in the bleachers. But, I may have to suspend that habit for a few months.

Will I be looking for a new hat come February or a new team?

2006-05-26T13:49:00.000-05:00

Note to self: Rant about those ridiculous "cops ticket for seat belts to save lives" commericials.

In which I reclaim my title prefix: "In which"

2006-05-24T19:36:00.000-05:00

Ya know for the longest time I've sat idly by and watched Rob consistently and persistently rip-off my title prefix: "In which". But it's gone a bit too far and now Dana is also using it. I just wanted to remind everyone in blog land that I am the one who engineered the "In which" basic title. Yes, I ripped it off of someone else, but that's not important. What is important is that I wanted to draw attention to myself. Now, that I've accomplished that, I can move beyond my whining.

So, I've decided this week, on the back of one of my other updates about hating work. That I need to go into business for myself. The only major drawback is that I don't really have any ideas. I also don't have much in the way of ambition, aside from becoming licensed as a CPA and eventually finishing my book (which has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with accounting). What's more is that I don't have any driving ambitions or competent skills to do anything (career-wise) beyond owning a company that owns other companies. Scroll down a couple of entries to see my ramble on that.

Compounding the basic issue of having ambition but few resources (read: money) and even fewer unique abilities, is that I am surrounded by people who are not lacking in the realm of ability. Rob is starting a company for (eventually) serving people with web design needs. Breck, a DMACC compatriot, is getting together a site for graphic design, as well as more traditional illustration (drawing, paintings, etc) services. (By the way, I wrote the copy for the front page of that site as well as his "About Me" page. Like I told him, it originally looked like an artist wrote it. Now it's far more palatable, IMNSHO.) Danny, also from DMACC, has been awarded an spot at the commissaries at camps Mitigwa and Wappello for he and his son's Scout song, "Scouts Across America, (A.K.A "Hiking Trail". (A very catchy song. It can be played for free there at Rhapsody, and it's really worth the $.99, if you care to purchase it.) He's also going to play at Sec Taylor (or WellsFargo field or whatever it's called now, after the Scout night at the I-Cubs). He's not been signed to any contracts and needs a label, that he can't even really own because of a messy personal situation. And, those are just a start. My dad and brother have enough time and experience that we could easily start a real estate-flipping business (and I think they'd go for it if the money was there to fill in what they make now). That's just a start, Jake has friends who want to start their own mechanics shop. I know people who ultimately want to run freelance nursing operations. Renee's family would love to own a restaurant. We'd certainly have the experience and the managment capabilities, there. Renee and I ourselves have thrown around several ideas for businesses: bookstores, entertainment outlets (family fun centers, if you will), along with some others that I don't recall the details of at this point. It seems where ever I look, there's something I could see being able to eventually exploit, but nothing is falling into line with any of it, just yet.

There are plenty of opportunities to exploit for me, and they've mostly been landing in my lap, but being at a lack of funds and a lack skills on my behalf, I have no way to get started. My credit isn't clean enough yet to get the sort of the money to get anything done. The most I've done is rounded up accounting rights to most of these. And I'm not sure that's even legal. I think it's okay because I know the people in person.

So, I need to figure out how to get myself started. Once I get rolling, I think I can really put together a lot of opportunities for a lot of people, and cash in on all of them myself. Plus, then I'd not have to work at my lousy job. C'est la vie.

I'm off to contemplate my options.

Unfocused

2006-05-23T09:59:00.000-05:00

It's going to be a longshort day. I'm incredibly unfocused. Well, I suppose it's more of just having my focus split in too many directions. For starters, I have the day off. I have to work all three days of Memorial weekend. I want to enjoy my day off, but still have it be productive. I wanted to get in some light reading, watch my Judge shows here in the morning, fill out applications for scholarships, work on my some of my creative writing projects and maybe make time for a game or two before "Deadliest Catch" tonight. I had also considered thumbing through my accounting book, getting a headstart on the summer semester. However, I've decided that can way until this weekend. I don't know how busy it is going to be, but if my past experience is any indication, then the first part of the day will be mostly emails and the latter part will innundated with phone calls. Which means the first part of the days will be easy enough because I can make the emails wait an hour or so before answering them. The phone calls, not so much.

So far it's 10:00 in the morning and I've been up for less than an hour. My neck aches, probably because I softened up my Sleep Number bed. I've had a headache since about 4:00 this morning and I'm just really tired.

So now I gotta wander off and figure out which I'm going to do first. Probably start off with video games for a couple of hours, me thinks. Afterall, Renee's not going to be back until later this evening. I should have plenty of time to work on the rest after lunch.

Oh yeah, my shins

2006-05-21T12:53:00.000-05:00

Since I forgot to finish my thoughts on my shins before I got way off track, I decided I'd come back to it real quick.

My shins are killing me because the running I've been doing are causing shin splints. The only remedies for this is rest and icing the area. (Stretching was also suggested, but it's difficult to stretch the front side of your lower leg, there's only one position I've found that does that, but it requires sitting in a chair which is awkward and feels silly.) I've tried both of these things and neither is working. Rest helps, but only if they remain completely immobile. Once I start to walk again, they get sore again. NSAIDs aren't doing the job either. The ice feels good while its on my shins, but once the initial numbing wears off I'm back to dealing with the problem. I'd rested them for a week or so, before I ran again Friday afternoon. As soon as I started to jog, they flared up again. However, I was determined to run, so that's what I did. I ran for a mile, mile-and-a-half. Now the problem is worse than before. I sometimes used to get shin splints after I ran, but it was never this bad and I always recovered quickly. It seems somewhat unfair, I all I want to do is run with my doggy and enjoy it. It's a bit discouraging that I can't do it.

Bound and determined

2006-05-21T09:39:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm bound and determined to update today. I don't know why or what I intend to write, but I'm fi'n' to. There's really only two things on my mind, so I'll probably touch on those and call it good.

June is shaping up to be a banner month. Renee and I have been pushing to get our credit cards paid off and it's looking like June is going to be a big strike against interest payments. We should be able to pay off all of the little ones and a good chunk of the larger ones. After that, come August/September we should be able to kill off the rest. As it stands all of our "free" money (that's what I call our income that's not spent on utilities/cars/mortgage) is being tied up with credit card payments. We might even be able to take out a sizable portion on my car come September. It'll be nice to free-up some extra cash, even if we don't get my car paid off. It's not been particularly bad, but it's annoying to have to shuffle around money out of other accounts.

About the only other thing (non-work) on my mind is my shins. I've been trying to step-up my activity and have been running off and on. Mostly off. I felt good the first time Cooper and I went for a run. But then we had a stretch of daily rain that eliminated our runs. I have to be careful running when the ground is wet because of my knees. You'd be surprised how little one has to slip to seriously aggravate tendinitis. Tendinitis is the main reason I had to quit running. Once I learned that I could run almost nonstop, it was always one of my favorite activities. I was never particularly fast, but I could run at a decent pace forever.

During my brief track stints, I was always involved in the 2-mile run(3200m), the 1-mile (1600m) and the 1/2-mile (800 m) runs at track meets. Oddly enough, the farther I had to run, the better my split times would get.

400 m - 1:45 (mins:secs)
800 m - 3:10 (-:20)
1600 m - 5:45 (-:-35)
3200 m - 11:04 (-:26)

As you can see there was a little fall off from my best times for the 1600 and 3200, but that's not unusual for best times. My average for the 1600 was usually closer to six minutes and I consistantly ran the 2-mile (for our PT tests for Basic and AIT was a 2-mile run which is a tad farther than 2-miles) was always right around 11:10 to 11:15. My crowning moments and a good piece of the reason I was able to graduate from Basic training on time was due to my running.

See, in Basic I didn't do so well at a lot of the combat stuff. It was by far my weak point. Luckily, being a non-combat MOS, it wasn't a big deal. I could do the field CPR stuff alright, and I could navigate using a map and compass, but setting Claymore mines and things like target shooting (and even cleaning my weapon) were not among my strong suits. In fact, I nearly had my position stripped because of it. Running (and being a non-combat MOS) is what saved me on both issues. Fortunately, Basic training is as much about team building than it is about actual combat training. For our physical fitness tests (PFTs), they broke us down into running groups. The fast runners would run first, then the medium and finally the slow group would run. Obviously the fast and medium runners had no problem passing the tests. However, the slow group risked a lot if they didn't pass. Least of which was having to retake the test if they didn't pass, and then being sent to the Army's version of fat camp (or being kicked out altogether). So I'd run with the fast group, most of them were quite a bit faster than myself and a couple of them held their states' track records for long distance running in high school. Sometimes, during the week before the test I'd sink my times to the medium group if I didn't want to finish last in the fast group ;p. Anyhoo, so after my run, I'd go out and pace the slow runners. There were several runners who we thought probably wouldn't make the time and if they missed it twice, that's when they got sent to fat camp.

It started because my "battle-buddy" (still seems like a gay phrase to me), was asthmatic and didn't tell anyone because he wouldn't have been allowed to join without jumping through a bunch of hoops. So, I volunteered to pace his run. He initially blew me off because he didn't think I'd be able to do it immediately after running my own two miles. (We were allowed to pace runners so long as we didn't touch them). So, he was surprised (as were my drill sergeants) when I showed up after running my own tests. The DS's were pissed at first because they had thought I had missed my run and so I had to run with the slow group. I'm also not sure they believed me when I told them that I had already run because they delayed the start of the slow group to check and make sure I had actually run it and passed. By this time several of the other guys in my platoon from the slow group had also gathered to run with me and Basil (my battle-buddy). After they cleared us to start the run, I found out what the minimum time requirement was and paced their run. Out of the 10 or so runners in my platoon who ran with me, two didn't pass. One of them passed their make-up PFT and the other one ended up at fat camp.

This became a tradition within our platoon and during our practice PFTs I could usually count on two or three other guys to help me pace the runners. There was only one other guy who ran with me the full time, the rest would pace our guys for a lap or so and then drop back out. Which did wonders for me because a 2-mile run is about 8-9 laps around a standard track. So while the other guys jumped in to help pace, I could drop back to the back of the pack and conserve my energy. We were also given permission to go out and run in the evenings during our down time. We did that a couple of times a week. It also became a bit of a tradition to the point where on the final PFT for the slow group, 10 or 15 of the faster guys jumped in to run the final two laps with the slow runners. But the guys didn't just pace the slow guys from our platoon but from the entire battery (company). The pace of the entire group was increased noticably and several guys from throughout the battery had their best times during that test.

This was really the only reason that I was given a leadership role (near as I could tell anyway) and I also think it was my saving grace because while my intention was only to pace the guys in our platoon, several guys from other platoons within the battery ran with us as well. In fact, usually when the other guys would jump in to help pace the group, I'd drop back and invite the guys from other platoons who hadn't jumped in to come up and run with us. So, the Drills from the other platoons started to recognize me -- good thing too, because the Drill in charge of the Claymore mines (which I outright failed), had recognized me and after he verified I was a non-combat MOS, he gave me a passing grade and told me I was lucky I wasn't an 11-B and waved me through. I received similar treatment (given lax work duties and such) from other Drills throughout Basic training. The only other remarkable thing I did was finish the 20Km march with swollen ankles. That's a cool story in and of itself. Though I think I've written about both that and the running before, I'm fi'n' to write about it again, for good measure. ;p

All of this extra running eventually caught-up with me. Aside from having minor case of tendinitis, my ankles swelled up just before the final road march. It was a 20Km march (about 12.5 miles), in full field gear, with weapon. So, I consulted with a couple of guys to figure out what I could do. It was the final week or two and I was going to be damned if I wouldn't finish it. So, we taped up my ankles. We didn't have any medical, and asking for it would have only invited a lot of questions from the Drills, so we used duct tape. We taped my ankles really tight, so they were supported enough to carry my weight, plus that of my ruck and then we sinched down my boots really tight. Then we did the march. We bivouacked that night, taped them back up just before we left and when we got back we were getting ready to cut off the tape and the Senior Drill instructor walked in. At first he seemed none-to-happy with what we did. He told us it was a stupid thing to do, asked why I did it. We told him I didn't want to miss the march; he kind of smirked, and told me I'd be going to the doctor first thing in the morning and walked off. I think he was impressed. While everyone else was preparing the grounds for the graduation ceremony in the 100*+ heat, he had me in the air conditioning in his office, emptying out the current files and preparing them for the next class. I was also slated to leave in the afternoon that day and he came back to give me permission to go wait for my bus and he took the time to chat a bit with me and gave me some parting words that I will probably never forget.

The End.