a contrast of styles

Rylee... would just assume to sleep with no clothes on, with no covers, with the ceiling fan blowing at top speed...hanging her feet off the side, inches away from falling off the side of the bed herself (which she has a couple of times already) Ian... sleeps with wool Spiderman pajamas with socks, a sheet, blanket, comforter AND his now favorite blanket that he got from Grandma a while back, with 2 lights on generating heat, his trusty light saber at his side, his favorite S.P.D. Power Ranger Megazord asleep beside him, 17 hotwheels, 1 schoolbus, and a Helicopter from Thomas the Train all right beside his head while he sleeps on his back with his arms crossed his chest. And dont try to move any of that stuff. He awakes immediately...but yet you can go in, cut on the TV, play Rap videos...and he dont even stir. Try to move MegaZord...eyes pop wide open.... Go figure.

Still havent figured out why...on Monday thru Friday, if I go in at 6:45am to get the kids dressed, they whine and wont wake up. On Saturday and Sunday, when I wouldnt care if they slept till 10:00am, they come running to our bedroom at 6:50...WIDE AWAKE.

future plans....

Its kinda hard not to watch as Rylee plays on her little marimba imagining that she will be on the sidelines for the Cadets of Bergen County in the ...well...not really so distant future. Or Ian playing Soccer for Clemson. By the way, Ian scored his first goal the other day in an actual match. But it is still early on in tryin to figure out what they will do. We havent pushed them at all in any direction...be it music or sports. But they they have shown ability in so many directions....

i saw this on Yahoo....

...and I was amazed that there are pictures of this on the web... this is a sculpture of Britney Spears supposedly getting ready to give birth, or something.... honest

Luda

so...Ludacris was "OK" on SVU. But he seemedto be gettingbetter at the end. probably has a learning curve like Ice T.

Frat put on the SED convention this year. the Frat did great. the guests, especially from the HBCU's were less than adult like.

Election time is here...means the gloves come off in discussions again....

random

Listening to talk radio...the right says the media is to blame...the left says the media is to blame....the center says the media is to blame.... ?????

We have found a miracle, and it is called Magic Erase. Imagine coming downstairs and finding that Ian has decided to use the walls to color, with a dry erase marker he found. but, alas...Magic Erase.

Sopranos

So..our digital cable box has been kinda out ever since I thought it would be a good idea to connect a space heater to the extra power outlet on the old cable box. Anyway, after replacing that box, we got one that was nothing but problems. I finally was able to wedge in going back to Charter this morning on my way to work. Oh, wait a minute.... Is that LUDACRIS??? I see who is going to be on the next ALL NEW SVU-LAw and Order? LUDA?!?!?! squaring off with with ICE-T, er..I mean Finn? Wow...this fool Ludacris is going to just might make an actor of himself and get out of the rap world. Wow.... ok, anyway, get the new cable box and put it in this evening. Voila!!!!, nice clear picture, etc. And I of course take the time to scan up all the channels and what do I see.... HBO, Showtime, TMC, FLIX all in the clear. WHoa... now, i am not sure if this is a mistake or what, but, a quick check of the guide shows me that the Sopranos is re-running tonight. , wow, what great timing this is. Jessica says that it is some sorta free preview thingy. I dont know. Rarely do ALL the movie channels go into the clear. As a matter of fact, all the channels ae in the clear, except the par per view stuff. Hmm...not sure what is up with this, but I will sure as hell make sure to keep an eye on the bill.... watchin Enshlich Premier League Soccer right now till Sopranos comes on.

I actually broke down and investigated Outlook today. The new work place uses it and we are not allowed anything else...we got roamin profiles and all that jazz..havent dealt with those since Clemson. The new place is also very paranoid about security.

Ian running with his kite at the soccer fields

Rylee and her first kite

Erik Browns people and...the KKK

Yeah..thank you Korea..then screw you, Mexico. whatever....

For the most part, i hardly ever think about racial stuff. i was raised pretty much in a household where it was a non issue. Occasionally though, i do think about it...for a few minutes.... then i move on to the Braves score, or who won the race, or what else silly is going on on KKpsi. but recently I have had several observations regarding racial stuff....

1) When i go to Ian's soccer games, i am struck by the fact that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people on the playing fields. And I am probably more correct with the "thousands" mark, with kids, parents, grandparents, etc. And out of all those people, i can count on ONE hand the amount of black people i see. I am struck by this because I guess all the black kids are out at the park trying to hone their games to get to the NBA...snicker.... And i know that to make that generalization is way off base. but sure does seem that way.

2) Today, we went and flew kites ( or tried to...the wind was not helpful...or should I say LACK of wind) and afterward Ian and Rylee are playing on the playground thingy. Some guy pulls up in a car with his daughter, and she gets out and comes running over. She's there like, maybe 25 seconds before she goes cowering over with her dad. I kinda notice that but i was busy putting the kites back into the Explorer. All of a sudden, i look up and they are back in their car and leavin. i'm like thinkin "what the hey?". Surely, there wasnt some sort of racial issue there, was there? their loss, I say.

3) I am working in a new place now. And the environment there is SO much better than anywhere else i have worked. I enjoyed working for my boss at Furman, but the climate there , other than her, was so sour, it was pathetic. But where i am now, while it is definitely Corporate, and button down, the culture is light years better. And i am making more money than i was anywhere else. But the biggest thing i have noticed is that there are a significant amount of black peope working there. And they are not the food staff in the caferteria, or the custodians emptying the trash or cleaning the toilets. They are the people working in the tech positions and management positions. No, it isnt a "black owned" company... actually, far from that. But they do beleive in a diverse workplace, and i am in an environment where I can look around me and see black, white, hispanic, asian and women all working together as equals. And as i think about it, i realize that the custodians and caferteria workers are all white. hmmm...maybe this IS a Saturday Night Skit with Eddie Murphy.... maybe it is....

...watchin the Knicks play my Miami Heat. Need to track down that Heat t soon.

thank you, Korea

...for the love of all that is the 37th parallel, thank you Korea for taking out the Japanese. might cant beat them on the iron Chef, but now...now...all we have to do is give a little payback for that ugly Alamo incident from back in the day, and we advance. Thats all...its simple. Win...and advance.

wow

..this new place is FAAAARRRRR better than anywhere else i have been. Far better.

Team USA crashes again and now we have to rely on beatin the Mexicans... again.

Now...THATS!!! what I am talkin about...

TEAM USA takin South Africa out behind the woodshed, baby. 11-0 already in the top of the third. bet they wish Apartheid was alive in well in the USA now, dont they.? Heh, heh, heh.... I love this Country vs country world competition thing. Alll sorts of new trash talkin material can be brought out for this stuff.... Everytime we score, we can say this one is for Tutu, or this one is for Mandela...or whatever. Who's next? Korea?...yeah, we kicked their asses back in the late 40's. Japan? opened a big can of whopp ass after they sneak attacked us..... but of course, those teams could easily beat us...then they can talk about out inferior cell phones and DVD players, or worse yet, how they are kickin our tails in automobiles or something.... all in good, tasteless fun, i say.

...wait...now its 16-0!!! they will have to invoke the mercy rule. i thought that only happens in Jessica's kids softball league these days...WOW!

what the hey?

this morning, I'm helping Ian get dressed. he suddenly says, " I have to talk to you in Spanish." I kinda chuckle to my self. He adamantly says" I have to talk to you in Spanish!" And then he starts talking a couple of sentences in Spanish. I'm like..."What?" he repeats what he said...something I recognize is Spanish but have no idea what he said. Rylee saunters in in her usual "I'm a Diva" mood, and starts talking in Spanish too. And then, she starts saying words, and the English translation..."Spoon"..."Cuchara".... "cup"..."copa".... i am kinda floored by this. Ian strolls off still muttering in Spanish. I knew that they should understand Spanish, but they have never acknowledged that they did, here they are obviously aware that they know two different languages, and can go back and forth whenever they want. I ask Rylee to recite her numbers in Spanish. She sighs, rolls her eyes... and walks off after Ian.

ehhhh....Gringo...???

How 'bout them Mexicans???!!!!!! Since the USA baseball team went down in flames to the Canucks, we had to pull in a marker or 2 from the Tex Mex crew and have them make sure to score more than 3 runs in their win. of course, they owe us for the Alamo deal and all that, so i figure we're all square now, Si? Compredez? ...whatever....

ok..i've calmed down a bit....

I think I now now what it is like to be Brown and be a Yankees fan and have that feeling that you have the best team and you are supposed to win, but yet you dont, and its like, kinda embarrasing, because you are supposed to win, yet..it isnt an quarantee to win, but yet...well... it sucks....

can somebody please explain?

how it is that the US FRAKKIN A can lose to CANADA IN BASEBALL??????...AT THE WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC????? WITH OUR BEST PLAYERS?????? WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON????? THIS WOULD BE LIKE, SAY, OUR BASKETBALL TEAM LOSING TO ARGENTINA!!!!...wait...oh, yeah, that already happened.....anyway, sigh...

still a tad down

..after a crappy weekend of feeling bad, i think I feef a little better this morning. Stil think one more night of good sleep will get me over the hump.

and my Heels got it done against the weeny Dookies this weekend. cool.

Quote of the day

Wow..I heard from Kristen today while I was at Ian's soccer match. It is kinda weird how we always seem to call each other right after one of us is thinking about calling the other for some reason. Yep...kinda weird....

Quote Of The Day

"One thing I think hip-hop did, for good and bad, was to kinda blur the line between music producer and music consumer. Unlike many forms of music that preceded it, the rapper didn't have to know music, per se. There were no notes to learn, no instruments to handle, just some words and a mic. Now the DJ and the producer, they might have had some musical background, but the MC didn't have to. And as the medium grew older and got more exposure, more and more people thought they could do it too. And so they did. At first, the goal was to get on the radio. Then, nevermind the radio, the goal was to sell it to people around the way. That kind of do-it-yourself-ism is admirable. But at the same time, it definitely contributed to the glut of mediocrity or worse that plagues the form now. Cuz some of these cats, I swear I don't understand how they got a deal. The most lasting legacy of hip-hop, I think, will be its tendency to be miscast. Both lovers and haters of the genre tend to paint it in broad, hyperbolic strokes. Hip-hop ain't some secret code that Black folks got of communicatin with each other. There may have been certain albums within the genre that were particularly effective at conveying a certain political message, but the genre as a whole? Come on, now. At the same time, hip-hop ain't the cause of the decline of whatever-whatever in Black life. Just like funk wasn't. Just like jazz wasn't. Just like the blues weren't. It's a genre of musical entertainment." — Avery Tooley, moderate-conservative blogger

oh...this cant be good...

...me thinks I am getting flu like symptoms. I am sitting here with my Braves jacket and ski cap in my office, with it 72 degrees in here. And aching...and wishin I could just ...leave for the day.

FINALLY!!!!!

...i think I may have turned the corner...Finally!!!