quick trip to the Poconos

...went and saw the Race at the Poconos. Interesting track.... also stayed with Kristen and visited with her family...

Foul Ball!!!

Went to the Greenville Drive game yesterday...always a fun time, great crowd and I'm thinkin that i might try to do a Summer Frat thingy there maybe next summer.... picked up the twins from their last day of school and we went and they hit the McDonalds playground before we went and met up with jessica. Went down by the Riverwalk perused the shops, then grabbed some icecream(more on this coming up..heh, heh). Then we walk to the field and it was a tad hot yesterday. Got inside and we were about to sit when Ryles starts throwing up her Bubblegum icecream. That was quite a bit o drama. And required a brand new Drive tshirt from the concession stand. I noted to self that Ryles does not operate in heat well...and i will make sure to carefully observe this for future summer picnics... Not sure how this is going to play out once band camp starts in a few years...

that sucked...

So, those guys will NOT be getting my business should I decide to go back with VW or goto Audi with my next car. While I am still contemplating a BMW, walking the car lot showed me not a single diesel, and if I dont go BMW, I will go back to a diesel. Plus...they took FOREVER to do a 30 minute warranty/recall job. I guess it was all the time they took trying to find other things wrong with the car, because once the "finished", the tech guy comes and starts telling me the various things that needed to be done...and...how much they would cost... Rear brakes (which I already have the parts for thanks to my Father in law) - $340.00 me..."um...I got that. I "ll take care of it"...Tech guy...Glow Plug system needs replaced - $760.00... me ... (thinking to myself..." i have 2, maybe 4 cold weather starts a year...SCREW THE GLOWPLUGS!!!!) "I might have to come back another day for that one".... funny thing is that they took almost 3 hours to tell me what i knew from hooking my Jet to my laptop. A quick online tells me that I can get the parts for my glow plus for $200.00. Hmmm... wonder which route I am going to take with that issue?.... all that and they still didnt notice that my right tallight was out...or if they did, they didnt fix/mention....

lets see how this goes...

7:30am and sittin here at Steve White Volkswagon because my brake lights are on on my car and wont turn off. So I had to take out the fuse and turn them off entirely. which kinda presents a problem, if you can imagine. Its a brake light switch issue, and while I guess I coulda fixed this myself in the long run, ordering the part, figuring out how to do it and then doing it before headin on a trip this weekend would have been problematic. Lets see how much this costs and where it heads... the ole Jet has 175,000 miles right now...figure to get to 200,000 before i start seriously ponderin another ride, which is probably another year and a half, i guess. But....I have always said, and will probably stick to it that I might ride this car till it blows up, at 45mpg city 60mpg highway right now.

End o year awards....

went to the twins award ceremony this morn...I-Man pulls in a "Top Notch Worker"award and the much coveted "Perfect Attendance For The Entire School Year" award, as well as an Accelerated Reader (Afterschool) award....Ryles pulls in the "Top Notch Worker" for her class, Accelerated Reader for her class (which means she read way above her grade level), the same Afterschool Reader award as I-Man and... drumroll please.... "Best Musician" for her class. The only thing that makes me a little wary is that the perfect attendance thing can become a burden later. The longer it goes, the more pressure there is to kepp it perfect. And it sucks...because if you miss one day and never miss again, you feel cheated in the long run..I missed one day of school in my 12 grades...a day in the 3rd grade when I had to stay at home with my brother... and I was really annoyed when some scrub got that award when I graduated...

at any rate, Ryles gets a music award, which i think is pretty slick...

here we go again...

i say it every May/June...I am ALREADY set for Fall to get here. I really dislike the Summer period. ANd yesterday and last night reminded me of Fall.... Time for October....

musing....

I saw the American Idol final 2 guys on the Today show this morning singing. I am not even sure how some thought it was even close. The Older guy blew away the teen singing this morning. It was obvious he is far more polished and his voice mature. I am not even sure how it was a contest in the first place between these two. Perhaps there were others on that show better than this teenybopper guy?

whole lot of shakin goin on...

Dude...like...Is there going to be anything left of China still standing by the time the Olympics arrive? Seems like everyday there is a major earthquake or aftershock....

tis sad, but true...

Yesterday at work we were talking about how we had to constantly be aware of where our children are, and how so different that was from when we were young. Back in the day, our parents would let us play outside all day long by ourselves. Now, we dont let out kids walk out the door for 10 seconds without us. I was reminded again last night as while I want to leave the windows open on the road side of our house (which in our configuration is on ground level), I am paranoid that someone might view this as an invitation to enter the house... so ...I make sure the windows to I-Mans room are closed and locked as well as the hallway window. It sucks because that changes the cool airflow thru the upstairs at night. SO...with the temp set to reach 87 or 88, I will power up the AC and set the timer/schedule for all that. It just sucks because I remember growing up and having all the windows, as well as the doors open growing up during the summer 24/7.

I've reached the 90's..

..upgraded the lapper from 1992ish (256mb) to 1997ish(512mb) and boy, there is a definite difference. While I'm not doing anything serious on my machine other than remote email or websurfin, i do see a difference...

...went down to help Aunt Ellen move to her new apartment in Lexington. She didnt tell me that she was moving into a 4th floor apartment, but we got it done... but she's got a pretty slick new pad.

...Still no Obama T-shirt....

...but hey, Clinton seems to be putting her foot in her mouth daily now...

Looks like it is going to be time to fire up the AC. I still havent upgraded our heat pump yet and it aint going to get done this summer again, it seems. But I think we are going to try to run at about 75 degrees this summer instead of the 73/74 we have in the past and supplement with small fans in the bedrooms...especially Ryles, who seems to be hot at any temp over 36 degrees...funny, I-Man sleeps with all sorts of blankets/sheets/wool Symphonic Band blankets and duvets every night while Ryles is all sprawled out at the same temperature. Funny how twins can be so different.

...and I still aint falling for the "deer meat chili" ruse again, John....

an update

..tried it again...lay down for a moment this morning, and it felt entirely different than last night. i think it has to do with temperature....

...watched the UEFA Cup Championship yesterday. Manchester United, the soccer team of my childhood...(notice a theme here?)...won in Penalty kicks over the dastardly Chelsea Football Club in Moscow. It was definitely interesting watching and hearing John Denver blaring from the loudspeaker in Moscow at 1:30am!!! their time. "Country Roads, take me Home" is kinda not something you would expect to hear from a soccer match of two teams from England playing a match in a driving rainstorm in Moscow at 1:30am. Yes...they started the match at 10:45pm local time in Moscow and it didnt finish till almost 2:00am. And people complain about the start times for games at Clemson when they start 7:00pm...imagine a 10:00pm kickoff...

...Downloaded Def Leppard songs for Guitar Hero and am going to get the Muse songs tonight. The Def Songs are pretty good, and I was surprised that I knew them as well as I did...

...Gas now at 4.60 a gallon for diesel for the Jet. this is not making me happy. Oh, and I posted on the Barack website about how I hadnt gotten my shirt, and there a whole lot of other people who have had the same thing happen and they are posting too, and stating that this makes them wonder as well.... I am going to dispute the charge soon and get my money back.

why is it...???....

...and I have said this before and I'll ask again....why is it if I lie down in bed at 8:30am and I absolutely must be somewhere in an hour, it feels SOOOOO good, but when I get into bed at 11:00pm, with nothing on the horizon till 9:00 the next morn, it just doesn't feel as good?

the weekend that was...

It was a great time for me in Charlotte this weekend. Saw the truck race on Friday night then the AllStar race, where my guy didnt really ever contend, but it was fun seeing Junior and the fans reacting to him being in front and/or in contention. Harwood got in a scuffle with some dumbasses behind us who had no hometrainin and were slinging beer on him and his wife Jessica. Brandy and Aj arrived on Saturday from some sorta magic wormhole (they just materialized...not sure how they knew where we were parked out of thousands of campers, but...well...it all worked out good)... I am always struck by how I now feel after these types of weekends...I am sad a little bit because I mentally look forward to having a good time, and it seems to go by so fast and then I am all of a sudden back at work... Much thanks for all the Birthday wishes from the FRAT bruhs...and of course Lynn, Kristen, Ellen and Ashley. Brandy gave this card that I thought fit my mood perfectly... It said "Celebrate friends...Celebrate fun...Celebrate joy...Celebrate love...Celebrate life." I think that I do try to do that and I mentioned this weekend that these times grow more and more fleeting. Our budding families and those more important demands make finding time for these types of events more and more problematic. Jessica got me a pretty slick outfit, AXE and tickets to a Greenville Drive game in June. And my Mother/Uncle got me a 500gb external hard drive which should pretty much end any issue with storage space for a long while... next up... headin to Columbia to assist Aunt Ellen moving this weekend...then 2 weeks after that is the Drive game then The Poconos for a race...oh yeah...and a visit with Kristen.

I did not take any pix of the weekend. I am not sure why. And that makes me sad.

Charlotte!!!!

headin out to Charlotte this morn... Harwood and I will be setting up camp midday, and the wives are joining us this evening. Then the Fords are dropping in tomorrow... I plan to get in Qualifying and the truck race tonight and tomorrow is the big event. I still say that if you have never gone to a NASCAR race this is the one to come to... I am going to try to break out the camera a lot this weekend...

well...

..did I mention that I went on Ebay and ordered the exact same Obama T-shirt for 1/3 the cost and it arrived in 3 days?...while there is still no shirt from the Obama camp? I sent them an email and I got this genuine, personal, well thought out reply...

Your item(s) are currently on backorder. As soon as the items arrive we will ship them out to you. We do apologize for the wait.

No signature...no mention of ANYTHING I said in my email....nothing.... despite the fact they charged my card a month and a half ago....And there was NO mention of the item being backorder at the time of my order. I deliberatly waited till that backorder notice went away before ordering... Now...I wonder several things... I wonder how many people who voted for Obama during the Hysteria 2 or 3 months ago would vote for him today if they were voting again (and will they cast that same vote come November?)Wonder if those people in Iowa and other places would cast the same vote again knowing what they know now from what they have seen over the longer haul. This primary thing where people are voting over the span of 6 MONTHS seems very, very flawed. Wouldnt it be better to have 1 day where all the states have their primaries? That way people in Iowa are voting with the same info as those in Oregon? I dont know...It looks more and more that I will be looking at a scenario again like last time where I am looking at who is the best of a sad lot of choices. While Clinton shows some balls and seems to have a better feel for standing up and leading, I have reservations about the underpinnings of what her administartion would have...definitely a more ruthless person...which might actually translate better for that position... MCCain will lose my vote if he goes with Huckabee as his VP. No way I vote for that. Period. That will leave me with Obama. This is starting to look like Bush/Kerry where I simply thought Bush was the better of 2 sorry choices... Will Obama ever show me any sort of hint of masculinity? Is Clinton going to always seem more of a man than him? I just have this mental picture of Obama sitting in the WHite House during a crisis biting his nails whining about wanting to "talk" to everyone and "work things out" while his wife is standing behind him in a leather corset and whip. Yeah..I know...I am probably way off base...but...It all seems to boil down with me that Obama seems..."weak". I guess I gotta decide if I can live with that for 8 years (presumably). I probably can given the other sorry choices I am left with. Sadly, I have no other choices because the system lets a few people in a few states decide who I will get to chose from come November.

By the way...at the race in Darlington, at the souvenir tralers all drivers have a trailer. Dale Junior has TWO trailers, both of which had 10 lines of people 15 deep at them...kinda funny was that Kyle Busch had his souvy trailer parked next to one of the Junior trailers...(crickets chirping...)...I did Ryles a Racegirl shirt and I-Man an M&M shirt (with no mention on the #18 on it, heh..heh..)

Spending the day finishing my project of flipping our bedroom. We have moved the bed to look out over the creek in the backyard. I just have so much crap...

WHew...

Ok...Darlington was a blast...the new track saw far faster speeds and virtually every car had all types of damage from run-ins with the wall...up next?...the All Star race... I still get a rush when the cars fire up for the first time, they roll by on the parade laps and the ground shakes as they roll by and then on the first lap...the sheer sound and power is pretty slick...

Sometimes all this stuff going on EVERYWHERE in regards to the weather makes me a tad leery. Earthquakes...Monsoons.... Cyclones...Tornados...Floods.... What in the world is going on? And we havent even gotten to hurricane season yet....

I thought I was going to be on Dateline or something when Harwood bit into a piece of plastic at lunch on Friday at Texas Roadhouse in his baked beans...

Headin out...

Headin to Darlington today, hooking up with Harwood and Aunt Ellen for the race tonight, then doing the race by myself tomorrow night. Looks like rain will miss us on both evenings so it is all gravy today....

wait a second...

Why do I suddenly see/feel as though Clinton is positioning herself in a place where the DEMs MUST place her on the ticket with OBama if there is to be any hope (hey, isnt that Obama's word?) of the Democratic party coming together to knock off McCain come Fall? And by the way...STILL no T-Shirt after Obama charging my card over a month ago. I might start blowing up his website with negative stuff.... wonder how NewsCenter 4 would like a story during some dead time if I dont get my tshirt. I dont like the fact that they have charged me and used my money but no shirt. Perhaps trivial to some...but 25 dollars "CAN" be used elsewhere...

Frizzy hair day...

Ok..So Ryles was coming off a frizzy hair day on the left...but here are a couple of recent pics. She is wearing her new favorite Hanna Montana dressone the left and is in typical school day fare on right.......

Built Ford Tough!!!!

FINALLY!!!

So...Obama finally does what he should have done in the first place... and holds a presser and says "I don't know what the hell my old man crazy uncle is talkin about, but that aint me, and I'm startin to wonder about the old man"...or something like that. The whispers about Obama not having balls were starting to get louder and I wonder if it isnt too late. Now I guess we are going to see if this starts to go away...my guess is no... because it opens up the question of why did he make a 180 degree turn, and ...why now???? of course, we know the reasons why, but..once again, if you wanna be the big dog, gotta answer the hard questions, even if they are not on point as to the Presidency...
Oh...and ANOTHER THING!!!!! Obama charged my VISA 25.00 on APRIL 1st and I HAVE NOT RECEIVED MY T-SHIRT!!!!!! You mean to tell me you can't have Tommys T-Shirt Hut in Chicago print me up a 2 dollar shirt and get it to me in a month!!!! Wonder if i can reverse those charges....

Ryles had her recital on Sunday. I am always struck by all the people who are there. So many families supporting their girls (and boys) and I am always struck by the grandparents, friends, aunts and uncles who come. I dont know...I just found it interesting.

I dont know what to make of that Reverend Wright thing.... he certainly seems to be making sure he gets his 15 minutes worth.... i tried to call my chief politico E "Dick Morris" Brown but he seems to have gone into hiding in Brooklyn....

I have one more weekend free before I start a 1 month run of 4 possibly 5 nascar races starting with the Nationwide race in Darlington and ending with the the race in Pocono. Then i will probably have my fill till October...

I'll probably have that pic of Ryles up tomorrow night once I am able to get my light kit set back up...

finally...i wonder if Hanna Montana is headin down that Britney Spears road.

a little crack in the armor?

So... I ask the question that is starting to be whispered this morning by Russert and on Air America as I listen on XM..."Why can't Obama close the deal?" He had SIX WEEKS to convince the voters and still lost by 10 points. I think the question that Clinton keeps posing is legit...if you cant win the big games now, how you going to win in November? Because this will still boil down to the big cities vs the rest of the country come November. I think that you are starting to see the luster come off the golden boy the longer this plays out. The "he speaks so well" thing can only go so far, and while i like to think that I can read and comprehend on a high level, I am stil not seeing the substance to his campaign. And the biggest thing that keeps lurking in my mind is...if he was a white freshman senator from Illinois, who has virtually no experience at this level, would he have even gotten a sniff at this campaign? well, that much is obvious...he wouldnt have. John Edwards can make the same speech as Obama and he's sittin at home now. Obama comes along and , because he "speaks so well"(which we all know is code for something else) he's suddenly is our savior? um...No. Unfortunately, Clinton may STILL be the worse of the 2 choices from that side, and I am still wary of Mccain.... This all is starting to smack of what I have seen so many times in sports...the favorite (Clinton) goes into the game against the decidedd underdawg(Obama) and doesnt take them seriously... the underdawg comes out playing hard and gains momentum and the crowd gets into the game rooting for the underdawg... The favorite suddenly realizes (perhaps too late) that they got to get their A game going and makes a run(its the NBA, EVERYBODY makes a run)...and suddenly you see the underdawg with a little fear in his eyes..."Can I actually pull this off?" is the unsaid thing you see in their face. This is what I say to Obama and the koolaid drinkers pulling for him no matter what the warning signs are coming out about him....better win Indiana or I see big trouble....(and no...Brown...i dont think you are a koolaid drinker...hell, i pull for the Braves, so I know what its like to hitch your horse to the wagon and say "Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!!! in a game... i just decided to stay on the sideline till November so i dont have to get all emotonally tore up come November 5th)

its official now everywhere i look..I'm paying 4.00 a gallon for diesel... $4.07 in a couple of places

amusing me...

Whenever I go to I-Man and Ryles soccer matches, i am amused by the scenario that always plays out this season... the other teams come onto the field... all little white boys with blond hair blue eyes (very generalized, but...get the point) with names like Biff and Cody (Ok, so like I have room to talk with my kids...but...lets not get in the way of facts here...)..."Our" team is 1 black kid, 2 interracial kids, and 3 hispanic kids...and i always wonder how the so-called random allocation of kids worked out this way. well... well, again, "our" team crushes the other team and always about half way thru the match , the other team becomes so demoralized by the domination that "our" team virtually starts to score at will.... and what strikes me is the loud Spanish that is being yelled on "our " side while there is virtaul silence on the other.... oh, did i mention that we started the season with 1 white kid and he seemed to be having a lot of fun, but...he mysteriously has stopped showing up.... wonder what happened there??? (see previous posts about kids playing together)...but I have enjoyed the routine butt kickin's "our" team puts on the other teams... I'm sure I can figure out what is being mumbled on the other sideline... but i digress... as it will be interesting next season as a I-Mans first coach wants him back on his team ( at the next level) because of his speed and defensive ability.... As I have said before, I think I-Mans position (if he stays with soccer and doesnt pick up that baritone/tuba) will be on the defensive side of the pitch...

Moving right along...

...didnt post a "today" pic of Ryles...I forgot her recital is next weekend, so i will wait to throw up a pic of her after her dress rehearsal on Saturday. She is actually doing Ballet, Tap and Baton now..so she is in three different things on Sunday for her recital....

...the new FRAT Alumni Sec has created a Blog @ kkykb.blogspot.com for the alumni to access. Its a great idea and I beleive it a further indication of the direction the chapter is heading with its leadership. While it is open to the public, I dont think any "secrets" will be divulged there or anything, not that I have ever been too worried about non brothers knowing the 4 or 5 "secrets" we actually have. Just because you know that stuff doesnt make you a brother.

Actually, the "year" is about to end for the Frat...seems like it always comes so suddenly. I am currently pondering talking to Dr. Spede about flipping the MEP class to the Fall and limiting it to 8 weeks. That way the chapter gets that stuff out of the way sooner.I am still not sure if that is fair to the potential candidates to have to make such a big decision after only about 6 weeks in college, so I am still leaning toward not doing it.... if we did, it would clear up so much time in the Spring for more Service and community involvement for the chapter... the MEP process consumes everything in the Spring right now. Of course, maybe we should look at taking the tightened down MEP and hold to it in the Spring....

Battlestar Galactica is certainly starting to get very interesting....

I think I am 95 percent committed to doing the Pocono race in early June... that will knock off another track that I want to see and leave basically Martinsville and Talledega left..Harwood and I are in tentative negotiations regarding the Fall Talledega race, and it might make it on the docket...

Latest I-Man pix

...I was fooling around with my base lens and got I-Man to hold still for a second.... Who does he resemble more?...me or Jessica?..or none of us? kinda curious what you think and it wont hurt my feelings whatever you answer... I will put up a pic of Ryles in her dance recital outfit Saturday, maybe....

Back home for a little while...

I returned yesterday from the SED convention in Tallahassee. I am happy to report that the chapter received the Raymond D. Shannon Leadership award for the SouthEast District. This is an award given to the chapter that exemplifies and displays leadership both on and off campus. I am proud of the chapter and that brothers within the chapter continue to hold a large percentage of leadership positions within the bands and we have several brothers who are leaders within other organizations on campus too. I take my position as Sponsor very seriously, as I feel that i have a lot of friends who put a lot of time into this chapter when they were here. And to let all their hard work go to waste would be letting them down. So I continue to work to make sure that the Alumni of Kappa Beta have something they can be proud of. Hopefully, another great year in 2009 will see Kappa Beta listed again as a top ten chapter...we shall see....

It was great to see Pam and John again.... the time spent visiting was way too short.

finally... why is it that when I was driving back, I was looking for an Exxon/Mobil gas station that had diesel...and of course, there were none to be found??...eventually i got into my "i better get gas..um..like...NOW" window and stopped at the next exit that showed a BP with diesel. Used up my last 20 in cash and put in 5 gallons at 4.00 DOLLARS A FRAKKIN GALLON!!!!!!!!!!....so...now, a bit annoyed with the price, but not walking down I-75, i continue on back home.... and the VERY NEXT EXIT HAS A EXXON WITH DIESEL.... WITH EXXONS with DIESEL FOR THE NEXT 300 EXITS!!!!! ( or so it seemed )

might have to get a Dunder Mifflin polo soon...

Down in Tallahassee...

..down here in Florida staying with John and Pam. Will also get to the SED convention for the FRAT... nice little cabin they got down here.... starting to think I may NEVER get rid of my Jetta. While I had to pay 50 dollars to fill my tank, I got 375 miles on half a tank to get here. I dont know how much a new engine would cost (im sure my car guru Harwood will tell me), it might be worth it to research that option for the inevitable day that this engine finally starts to break down. No signs of it yet, though

...doesnt this airline thing smell suspicious... all of a sudden ALL the airlines are pulling their planes, instead of 10 planes here or there...

This entire thing of Easter being in February this year has kinda thrown off my mental view of things...used to Easter being in April, which flows all tidy like into May...

tsk..tsk..

Watching the National Championship last night.... free throws. I was having a conversation with friends the other day, and I remembered how i stated that everything stems from free throws. Memphis goes 1-10 of free throws down the stretch last night, leading by 9 with 2 minutes to play. Guess what?...they lost... hit your free throws, you're the champion. Miss your free throws???... you get close up of you crying into your towel... Wonder if any of those guys know how many free throws the greats shoot EVERY day? Jordan, Bird, Kobe, Lebron.... these guys shoot thousands of free throws EVERY day. Why? because it will always come down to them in the end.

ok...so maybe i will comment...

tonight I go to pick up my kids at a Mcdonalds near where I work. Grandma had picked up the twins after school and taken them for a McDonalds treat. (Of course she bought them more little toys to litter our den with..but...well..I dont think I can stem that anytime soon, no matter how much i tell her they dont need anymore toys...but i digress....) So i walk in and I-Man and Ryles are sitting there eating ice cream along with some random little Hispanic girl who seemed to be the same age as them. I'm like "who is this?" and my mother is like this is a girl they met on the playground (her mother was sitting a couple of chairs away) But I was struck with watching them interact as well as when they were playing with other random kids...why is it that there seems to be no problem whatsoever with White, Hispanic, Asian, and Black kids all playing together with no reservation...never met each other before, but had no reservation to go have fun. yeah..i know this has been observed in nurseries and daycares forever now...but i guess I was struck thinking that i bet that there are people reading this right now that if their son or daughter came home talking about playing with my son and daugther, they would get all bent out of shape about it. That if their kids came home and said that they were dating my son or daughter, there would be issues. And i shake my head and kinda wonder why you are reading this blog, and really kinda wish you would stop reading this blog, because even though that scenario isnt likely, I dont wish the inevitable time to happen that will happen, when someone will treat my children unfairly or with contempt simply because they are not white... or hispanic...or heck...black, for that matter. (i guess some will consider them white...some will consider them black, but that is a slightly different discussion). Some of you reading this will teach your children not to play with someone like I-Man or Ryles... and I simply wish you would go away.... because this is no place for you and your backass type of thinking....

...on another note...watching GLORIOUS HIGH DEFINITION TV tonight and it was ESPN and I noticed that they are broadcasting the NBA in some kind of different style..it looks like it is already aged and from 15 years ago... I also took a look at the same broadcast on normal TV and it looks like it normally does so this must be an HD thing....

Oh..and Battlestar was pretty slick....

So Say We All!

...tonight Battlestar Galactica is back on...I now have reason to live.... well...maybe another reason...also, New Kids on the Block are getting back together...another reason, heh..heh... I have decided to ignore the Braves till after the NBA playoffs and I see how far my Celts go... watched David Beckham last night and I think my MLS team is going to be the LA Galaxy because i simply cant pull for any DC team...

40 years ago MLK was killed. It gives me pause to think about things...I dont think I am going to launch into any tirade about anything, but it does make me think...

what the kids are doing these days...

One of the brothers from the Frat posted a couple of videos of the chapter dancing after their little Initiation Ceremony thingy the other night...thought some of you might be interested...

Clip 1

Clip 2

just throwin it out there...

i finally broke down...

...and got a pair of Crocs the other day. Not the genero ones EVERYONE has but these are the off- road-hiking types with boot type treads. Today is the first day warm enough for me to feel like i can try them out without socks...i have been leery because I dont like for my feet to feel sweaty and these crocs look like they will feel that way without socks...but everyone says "they are SOOOOO comfortable..." so I'm testing today...might have to continue the time honored tradition of wearing socks during the summer still if this does what i think they are going to do...

time keeps on tickin....

Tonight KayBee will initiate 17 candidates, by far the largest class in a while. And also there is the usual underlying turmoil within the chapter, most rooted in the extremely close relationships that inevitably grow between the brothers. At any rate...I have spent time this week listening to upset brothers (actives) complaining about this or that wrongdoing by another brother, which in the end are personal situations that should be dealt with between brothers, but spill out into the circle because it is virtually impossible to keep "business" separate from the "personal" stuff.... I have also spent a lot of time remembering the same stuff happening when I was "active", and shaking my head to myself and wondering "how much time did we waste over silly stuff?" It always makes me miss my friends from that time, as well as all of my friends. As I have said before, it seems that my time spent with any friend really seems to be getting more and more less frequent. Jobs....family...KIDS...well, these things certainly become a priority, and idlin time away at Huddle House until 3 in the morning aint going to happen...probably ever again. And it makes me really sad....

...at any rate, the other night i caught the end of Celebrity Apprentice and Trace Adkins sand a song that found somewhat profound, and am going to read these lyrics to the chapter tonight right after Rit... and while it doesnt talk about this type of situation im talking about specifically, I think you can see the analogy.....

She was starin' out the window of their SUV
Complainin', sayin', “I can't wait to turn eighteen”
She said, “I'll make my own money and I'll make my own rules
Momma, put the car in park out there in front of the school”
And she kissed her head, and said, “I was just like you”

You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days
Hadn't gone by so fast

These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

Before she knows it she's a brand new bride
In her one bedroom apartment and her daddy stops by
He tells her it's a nice place, she says, “It'll do for now”
Starts talkin' about babies and buyin' a house
Daddy shakes his head and says, “Baby, just slow down”

Cuz' you're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days
Hadn't gone by so fast

These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

Five years later there's a plumber
Workin' on the water heater
Dog's barkin', phone's ringin'
One kid's cryin' and one kid's screamin'
And she keeps apologizin'

He says, “They don't bother me
I've got two babies of my own
One's thirty-six, one's twenty-three”
Huh, it's hard to believe

But you're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days
Hadn't gone by so fast

These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

You're gonna miss this
Yeah, you're gonna miss this

--Trace Adkins

G.I. Joe!!!!

i just found out...oh my..this is better than Transformers... to me at least...They are making a G.I. Joe movie....I dont know how its going to turn out. it might suck...but...what next? A Sgt Rock movie...maybe bring out the Shogun Warriors???

two thoughts....

The tourney starts today... cant wait to see the game where the "favorite" doesnt put away the directional school and all of sudden some random guy you've never heard of starts raining 3's and you start to see the "favorite" get this "deer in the headlights" look...then its upset city and you get the previously mentioned shots of the cheerleaders and the pep band...or now...the sorority girl in pink school sweatshirt and facepaint, or the frat boy who blew his entire spring break budget to get to the site with this stunned " i cant believe this is happening" look...

..Obama is now officially polling BEHIND Clinton now in the Gallup poll. While I am still leery of polls, i do have a little trust in the Gallup poll. Yeah i know he still has the lead blah, blah, blah..but he has work to do or it will get really nasty come convention...

was that a bullet i just sidestepped?

So Obama made his speech today... no doubt this "episode" has hurt him..polls show it (although i am leery of polls)...lets see how long the press hounds him about it, or if it goes away in a couple of days... my only thing is no matter how much a father figure, friend, whatever this minister is...Obamas prescence in that church gives a tacit approval of that minister's rhetoric. Now...does Obama believe that stuff?..i dont think so. Does Obama not want to blow up his friend?...yep... but... a sitting Senator who repeatedly sits in audience with someone who eschews that type of hatespeak presents a problem to me. But... i know that the church...Church..in the black community is an entirely different animal than most non blacks realize. There is a lot more to it than simply dropping in on Sunday. Its family. And everybody realizes that while you dont always like your family or what they say, if someone attacks them, you will probably defend them fiercely. Its easy for me to sit here and say that i would blow that minister away a long time ago. but...i'm not walkin in Obama's shoes. I say that this is an issue that I am satisfied with his answers...for now. I know a lot of people are not. And i can definitely see that side of things... and I am dissapointed that Obama did not distance himself a long time ago because he has obviously had aspirations for some time now and surely knows that this would come to light eventually...sigh... either the press/media is going to be satisfied, or they are not going to let go, and this might very well be Obama's jumping the shark


by the way, Jessica hadnt ever heard of The Dropkick Murphys either....

Band names...

Names for bands these days amuse me... I downloaded some more songs last night for Guitar Hero and some of the songs are by some band called The Dropkick Murphys. I found that highly amusing... Tigers getting some luv nationally in regards to the tourney...lets see what happens if they dont hit their free throws down the stretch on Friday night.... I remember the last time the Tigers were in the Ncaa's..Chicago... watchin some punk from Western Michigan get his "one shining moment" bowing to the TV, while watching Brown stare at the Stanford tree jumping around as we were ushered out quickly... i will say it again...those pictures of the cheerleaders crying and the pep band members in shock are because they know that in about 45 minutes they will be on a plane back home...it ends very, very quickly... Trust me..I remember all too well a trip to New Mexico where i left on Wednesday night and was back in Clemson in time for 8am classes on Friday...heh, heh..too bad Josh couldnt get his sagebrush on the plane...

is this what I can expect????

WHY THE FRAK CAN'T THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN GET ENOUGH FRAKKIN T-SHIRTS OF THE ONE I WANT THAT IT DOESNT HAVE TO FRAKKIN BE BACK ORDERED!!!!! JESUS FRAKKIN H-CHRIST!!! YOU WOULD THINK WITH THE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS PEOPLE ARE THROWIN AT THE CAMPAIGN THAT THEY WOULD BE ABLE TO SEND ONE OF THEIR DULE FLUNKIES DOWN TO THE LOCAL T-SHIRT SHACK IN CHICAGO AND GET A COUPLE THOUSAND T SHIRTS PRINTED AT 2 OR 3 DOLLARS A SHIRT AND RAPE ME FOR THE 20 SPOT I AM WILLING TO THROW AT OBAMA, EVEN THOUGH I MIGHT NOT EVEN VOTE FOR HIM.... ENOUGH ALREADY!!!???? IS THIS WHAT I CAN EXPECT FROM HIM AND HIS WHACK JOB MINISTER AND THEIR PRESIDENCY??? WANT MY VOTE OBAMA???!!! GET MY DAMN T-SHIRT ON YOUR WEBSITE...LIKE...OH...(and i'm not going to say "sorta"... see the next post...)...SAY.. YESTERDAY!!!!....FRAK!!!...YOU'RE KILLIN ME, PETEE!!!!

the #29 and #20, brackets and the tourney

went to Bristol on Saturday. It rained, but we did see the race that was run. We had even better seats and it was pretty cool... took a look at my man in the #29 and well...he got a little loose in the corner and, as they say... 8 wheels turns better than 4 wheels in the corner...heh, heh... too bad for the #20....

...I am NOT doing a bracket this year because it makes me root against teams i want to root for and changes how i watch the games..kinda like fantasy leagues... and I want to be able to watch and not be pissed when an upset happens that it blew up my bracket. For example...logic tells me that I should pick Villanova over Clemson. I kinda would prefer Clemson win the game. This way I dont have to have that type of conflict... Clemson got kinda screwed in their bracket. they kinda have a gauntlet to run if they want to make a deep run. Plus they have have to be 10 points better than anybody they play because..well... here's that free throw thing again....

...by the way...I'm workin on a post where I use kinda and sorta as much as possible. I will come when you least expect it...sorta....

Bristol, baby!!!!

...well...at least we hope so...rain is forecast in Bristol, and we will be sittin in Harwood's ambulance waitin it out, perhaps. Headin to Bristol for the Busch, er, Nationwide race tomorrow. first in a line of tracks I hope to get to this year...Bristol, Charlotte, Darlington, Pocono, and Talledega. Charlotte and darlington are definite...still in wait and see mode for the other 2....

This is why I get annoyed sometimes...

...Brown sent me this link...click here to see why it is i sometimes seem to take on a "angry, mean black man always talking about race" stance that some of you think I do all the time, which , if you know me well, isn't something i am into. But it's this type of stuff that makes me always know that if you are not black and you are always wondering why black people are always pissed off about stuff...well, its that type of stuff that happened in South Africa that tees us off...

WTF?

in what may go down as one of the alltime dumbass moves...EVER...a 15 year old kid fatally shot his father because his father had cut him off from using MYSPACE online. Hmmm...wonder how much time he is going to get on Myspace now?

frat stuff

The new pledge class is doing some sorta thing where they are making a quilt of some sort out of the family colors of the colony members, if they had any. They have some of them as some lines still exists. But some lines dont and some colonist family letter info has not been passed down. If anyone knows what if/any family letters/colors the following colonists have, let me know.....
Corey Amaker
Kristin Avolio
Alyson Craft
Clair Compton
Elizabeth Fogel
Angela Giles
Danny Goldrick
Scott Hendrickson
Aaron Hobbs
Katie McDowell

I was talking to the candidate who is heading up the project and to hear her mis pronounce the last names was highly amusing. Also telling them that some are married and dont have those last names anymore...you can almost see a glint of confusion... they live in such a different world...marraige,work, kids...they have a hard time grasping the reality of it. But I also remember that i didnt have a grasp of it either...

Its time for a change

well...anyway, I stayed up last night because i was curious as to what was going to happen with the primary stuff. It was interesting, and annoying, to watch MSNBC (which I never watch) and see how they covered the evening. I was watching the realtime vote tallies online, and could see that Clinton was leading in Ohio and Texas, and the vote total was consistently growing in her favor while MSNBC kept saying it "was too close to call". Tim Russert does a very good job at trying to not be as obvious as to where his allegiances are, but Keith Olberman and Chris Mathews have huge Obama pom poms and are openly rooting for Obama. I really have a problem with that and I was wanting to see how Olberman particularly would react once the inevitable "Projected to win" statements would come. Olberman must have said "too close to call" a 100 times, even a minute before NBC called Ohio, then right before they called Texas too. And the look on his face was priceless... I just dont understand why these people keep saying that Clinton should simply get out of the race when the race is still this close. Arent these the same people yelling about disenfranchisement and all that stuff? yet when it could benefit who THEY want to win, suddenly "we are tired of this and its dragging on too long" blah, blah, blah...wait...didnt THEY start reporting on this way before it was necessary? perhaps if they hadnt starting peeing in their pants for Obama way before it was necessary, they wouldnt be openly having to figure out a way to continue to cheer without being blatant. Dont get me wrong here...I'm eyeing this cool Obama T on his website but I just dont feel right with getting forcefed who i should vote for.

On a side note...kinda funny how when you hit your freethrows, you start winning....

22 inches of glorius screen

OK...so I finally got around to hooking up my 22 inch Westinghouse widescreen flatpanel computer monitor. Oh mercy... nothing like 1680 x 1050 of full glorious internet..yeah, I know...I'm gloating, but...frak, this changes how i view the internet, and it definitely changes how i use Photoshop.Many thanks to Aj for letting me use a 17 incher for a good long while when my 15 inch monitor wasnt footing it anymore.

And some thought she would never walk

Seems like this kid thing makes time go by so much faster... I am always reminded to myself whenever it take Ryles extra time to walk down stairs that she didnt start walking until she was 15 months on a regular basis. An today she joined I-Man on his soccer team for the mid season restart, and seeing her un around just emphasized that he started walking at 7/8 months and she was a full half year later. At any rate... I-Man was goalie for half the game -not the gloves- and ryles doesnt have her Uni yet, so she is wearing an I-Man throwback...

"it is what it is"

I listen to podcast from slate on the way to work, and I listened to one recently that was all about the origin of this catch all phrase, etc. All their podcast are in print online, so check this one out HERE

wow

Mucinex...dude...like..if you get congested and are coughin but just cant seem to hack out that crap sittin in your lungs...go get you some Mucinex. Give yourself 30 minutes, get some alone time and you will start to cough like no tomorrow...like NFL lineman coughs, full of that crap. goes on for about an hour...then you are all good for a while. just make sure you have a bottle or cup....

in addition

..oh man...is there anything better than a nice long warm shower after you have been sweating virtually 3 days straight...man, does that feel good or what?....

mercy

I have always tried to keep what some may call "an even keel" and that has become even more crucial once i was diagnosed as a level 2 diabetic. I have noticed that stress affects me profoundly and have made every attempt to keep it at a minimum. But this past weekend has been a test for me and i still havent recovered fully. Jessica had a procedure for her gall bladder, which was a follow up for the proceding week. just so happens that i came down with the flu the same day she was going to her tests, then she found out she would need to spend the night in the hospital. Now normally, if i get the flu, i take some nyquil, hit the bed and the next morning, I'm all good. But it seems that the combination of events dropped my blood sugar so low that i was getting these headaches and fever that wouldnt let me sleep. And this has been ongoing since Thursday. I beleive that i will be totally fine by the end of the day but it has alarmed me that i became sick and couldnt figure out how to stop the wild swings in my blood sugar. It then dawned on me that the swings were being caused by the medicine i take everyday for my diabetes. I didnt take it yesterday and I feel drastically better today. I think I will wait another day before going back on my meds.

But all this accentuated why i have been ridiculed in the past for sweating details so far in advance. the less I have to feel stressed about, the better. I used to print out itenarays for stuff like our little Nascar trips and stuff, but now I just keep it in my head and when things bog down, I offer the "this is what we need to do and when" suggestion. It all comes back to how I feel. If I start to feel stressed it affects my blood sugar, and it can spiral from there.

at any rate, I hope to be able to be back at 100 percent by the end of the day today. by the way, Jessica has come thru her procedures very well.

oh..ok...so let me explain...

got a text yesterday telling me that I am obviously pulling for Clinton. Well, that is certainly not true, but my statements yesterday are a little out of frustration. I simply want to hear something of substance. I want to know how they are going to change the fact that it cost me $3.59/gallon last night to fill up the Jetta (while i certainly have 2 times to 3 times the range in my care and only put gas in my car about once a month)... i am sure that while it kills me to fill my car with gas, I cant imagine how it must feel for everyone else who goes to the pump more often. I want to know how they are going to change the fact that I get a bonus from work in a couple of days and 25% of it is going to the federal government...for what? so people can freeload healh care and a bunch of other services I never use. I understand that taxes are a necessary evil, but i sense in the Democrat camp a feeling that here is their chance to socialize America. meaning i will be paying the freight for other people, who use their money for their own gain.

Gotta hit some free throws, or else dont cry when you are in the NIT again....

I likened Obama's victories yesterday to basketball, in that he has the a 6 point lead with two minutes to go, and all he has to do is run his offense, make his free throws and dont make any silly, foolish errors. That being said, it will come down to if Clinton can muster a rally in Ohio and Texas. if not then see ya Clinton... i still am waiting on Obama to say some other words other than "Hope" and "Change" in his speeches. I still want to know what he is going to do, as in I would like to hear HIM say it, not what his fanboys regurgitate to me. (no, not you Brown). He has benefited from an obvious bias in the overall press, and the priviledged Hollywooders making videos and waxing poetic about him all over the place. "He's going to Change America!"...really...well, exactly HOW is he going to do that? Funny, when the Democrats swept into power a couple of years ago, THEY were going to change things...nothing has changed...still in the Middle East, Gas prices higher, economy weakening...oh wait...its all Bush's fault. OK...well, Bush aint exactly led us into the land of milk and honey so I'm curious to see what is going to be said if Obama is elected and 4 years from now we are STILL in the Middle East, Gas is @ 4.00 a gallon and my taxes are even higher. And while I understand having your wife making speeches for you, and dont have a problem with it, I do have a problem with Michelle Obama talking about how she is only now proud of America...i would think that having had the intelligence, fortitude and strength to graduate from Princeton and Harvard, make well for herself, and get to the point where she is, she would have plenty of things in America to be proud of. For it wasnt too long ago that a Black person, yet alone a Black Woman would have been working only as the maid of the First Lady, not a chance to be the First Lady. I think part of what i dont like about Obama (and there are a lot of things i DO like about him) and his campaign is a sense that "America sucks, and I am your champion to fix it" and that is part of what disturbs me about things...is America That bad? Goodness...

I-Man has started soccer practice again, so let the games begin.... and Nascar and baseball are back on the daily docket till November. Got tix for darlington and the All Star race already in hand and will be headin up to Bristol with Harwood in a month. If anyone wants to go with us, let us know... we go to the Saturday busch race (cheaper, and we can actually get seats) and we can see the Busch (Nationwide series) race as well as the nextel (Sprint) cup cars practice. Its really a short drive (yes, i know..i have mentioned it before) and we usually get there in a bout 1 1/2 hours...

...kinda wonderin how it is that Roger Clemons obviously lies and alot of people are so forgiving...how Pettite can admit he has used HGH and its all good...yet Marion Jones is demonized and forced to give back her medals and money, Barry Bonds is villified and charged. Why is it that these guys are getting the "poor them" treatment yet the others are getting the "kill them" treatment???...hmmmmm???

wasnt it just a couple of hours ago...

... Backyardigans was THE show thet twins had to watch everyday? Now it is Hanna Montana, That's so Raven and the The Stupid life of Zach and Cody...those 37 episodes of Backyardigans are sitting dormant now...so sad... I think I-Man is particualrly enamoured with Hanna Montana, but it is really weird how similar she looks to Miley Cyrus. They sound the same, act the same and you could almost think that they are the same person....its eerie.

why I have serious reservations about ole Huck

I stated that Huckabee is no friend to me or my children, and this is why...he has a known relationship with Americas's largest white supremacy group which is called the Council of Conservative Citizens, a relationship that he has only recently distanced himself from. i guess you cant get elected president if you are sending taped speeches to an organization that promotes covertly and overtly racists acts. The CoCC states in its "principles"(ha!!!) that "We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called "affirmative action" and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races." I dont think I can vote for a ticket that has a person who has had dalliances with a group that feels this way. It amuses me that the CoCC has rebuked Huckabee because he has moved away from them publicly as his bid for president has become more viable. But his message the other week about the Confederate Flag and its blatant appeal to the white evangelicals and racists killed him for me, once and for all. I would definitely not vote for McCain if he is apart of the ticket.

While Obama and Clinton, as well as McCain have their positions I disagree with, I also dont agree with everything Bill Clinton or George Bush spout either. But I wont deal with blatant racism and those types can just go somewhere and die away..please...just go away. the world will be much better when they all die off...

GIMP

...no...not THAT Gimp...but talking about the Tiger Basketball team. I listened to the UNC broadcast of the game on XM and it was startling to listen to the Tar Heel broadcasters chuckling about "same ole Clemson" as they inched back into game watching Clemson miss free throws and seize up in the closing minutes of the ball game...shaking head....

...a quick jaunt into Atlanta last Friday looking for a hotel for the FRAT formal and i took the time to go to IKEA, as I had never gone before. Impressive. But I fear the chapter will have to do some serious fundraising as everywhere in the ATL is expensive for banquets... and I was reminded why I would love to live there yet couldnt stand to live there because while IKEA was cool as hell (well, hmmm...not sure that is correct), the traffic I dealt with on 85 just getting back to the Mall of Georgia was annoying..

...equally as annoying are the events leading to I-man picking his new NASCAR driver... watching practice, I-Man asks where his "Grween car J.J. Yeley" is and I explain to him that the Interstate Batteries #18 is no longer racing, and that it is now a cool M&M's Yellow #18 driven by Kyle Busch. and that he might have to select a new driver. I-MAn ponders for a sec and says " What number is the LOWES car?" ...silence...crickets chirping... (me)"ummm... that is #48 and it is driven by Jimmie Johnson. You sure you wouldnt like the Home Depot car better?" (fingers crossed)... I-Man says "noooo...Jimmie Johnson..yeah, yeah... in the blue Lowes car. THATS my new car!!!!!!"...me..thinking to myself..."DAMMIT!!!!!!!"...silence...crickets chirping... so now as i watch every NASCAR race and have to stomach the Four Eight all the time as my guy toils back in 8th place every week, I will have to suffer with I-Man standing there in his Jimmie Johnson t-shirt jumping up and down in glee...

...and I am STILL glad I live where i do....67 degrees in February suits me just fine, thank you...

Looks like...

...its Clinton by a neck coming around turn 3. No one has gone to the whip...yet. Clinton take the big states and is still leading nationally. Obama is getting the smaller states and the caucuses(which i find suspect for various reason). Had a long talk last night with my politico adviser Brown. I admitted that I am a slight McCain lean at the moment, but am really waiting to see who is going to push me over the edge in regards to the Democrat side. i will definitely NOT be a part of any ticket that has Huckabee, so his rise and possible bartering with McCain alarms me. Huckabee is no friend to me, or my children, based upon his public statements from the past.

...at any rate, I am starting to tire of all this, and I really only started taking notice a month ago. Maybe i will take a break from it until texas and Ohio finish this gig off.

Show me what you got..

..Ok, lets see if Obama is truly going to draw the votes when the curtains are closed on a national scale. If he comes out even or ahead, I think he can ride the wave to the nomination. if he is behind in majority vote and delegates, the cracks and whispers might begin. As far as the republican side goes, i expect McCain to start stretchin his lead today...

..NASCAR THIS SATURDAY!!! then PITCHERS and CATCHERS!!!!!

tsk,tsk....

Brown sent me a text about last nights Super Bowl...mentioned something about VeVickers..tsk, tsk... this reminds me of my sophmore year in highschool...the womenz basketball team was 23-0 and had destroyed every opponent along the way. wasnt even close. I remember driving down with my friend in his old yellow Ford Pinto (actually one of the first times i can remember going anywhere without parent or school supervision, as I think back on it) to the old Carolina Colesium. And, yep....the team got waxed in the Championship game, a pattern I have seen happen several times since then.

..at any rate, I can feel good about the NFL again. And it was interesting to see Tom Brady interviewed after the game. As much as i cheer against him, I was impressed that he stood there and took questions and actually gave considerate, thoughful answers to every question. Same could NOT be said for the best coach/leader/genius (sic) of all time, Bill Belicheat, who simply gave a couple of one word grunts then slinked away. I guess when you dont have film of the defensive teams practices and signals, makes it a little more difficult to predict when the blitzes are coming, doesnt it?

OK...football over, Nascar up...Baseball lurking.. my 2 favorite seasons are about to restart and will last until october/november...

oh...and another thing....

...i think I like Hanna Montana more than I like Miley Cyrus. They are really similar people, almost like alter egos, but i give the edge to Hanna Montana. i know I-Man prefers her... he recently told jessica that one day, when he grows up, he was going to live with a "golden haired" woman. hmmmm????

hmmm

...why is it if i go to bed at 1am, I feel ready for sleep but it just feels...blah... or...if I go to bed at 9pm getting an extra 3 or 4 hours of sleep in, i find it actually hard to go to sleep and end up watching Law and Order and Sportscenter before finally falling asleep at..oh...say...1am??? but yet I can lie down in all my clothes on my bed at 1030am for a quick 30 minute nap and it feels.....SOOOOOOOOOOOO good?

...looks like the choice of President will...after we get past the eventual, inevitable race crap that will spew out from both sides... boil down to if we want a woman in the White House in charge. Now... I dont have a problem being a woman president, just as I dont have a problem with a Black man being president. I just dont know if this woman is one i would vote for. Of course, there are those who wont vote for her simply because... and that is very unfortunate. But equally unfortunate are those who will vote for her simply because she is white. and aint no way i am feeling Nuke Romney...something fishy about him. I am taking a second look at McCain. I listen to talk radio all day at work and I switch back and forth from Orielly to Air America to Hannity to Sharpton to Combs to the lesser knowns on both sides all day long. and it so nagging to never seem to get anyone who isnt screaming about how the other side is SOOOO bad. Either you aint Conservative ENOUGH or you are too much like BUSH (HATE BUSH HAT BUSH HATE BUSH HATE BUSH...enough already., please...that dog dont hunt anymore). Or we need CHANGE and HOPE...well its time to start telling me some substance in your speeches...the flowery stuff makes me sick. its fine when you are announcing you are running. Now...tell me something...I can read the stuff your aides have on your websites...i want to hear it from you. And if you have been telling me, maybe I'm too stupid too understand... well...i guess we'll really start weeding this out on Tuesday, wont we?

...

sunday, Sunday, SUNDAYYYYY!!!!

so ...like...MOnster JAm was in town and we went to see it. I was curious as to how they would do this in a normal hockey arena and it was really entertaining. I-Man's favorite truck GRAVEDIGGER won the show and as you can see, we had virtually front row seats for the event. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a fun family event for the youngsters, and since everyone seems to have had a girl recently, I'll say that Ryles enjoyed the show too. They also had smaller normal size jeeps and trucks racing the course too. There were motorcycles doing huge jumps and stunts thru the air and some guy jumped from the ceiling while on fire. So, there were a lot of things happening besides the huge trucks.

looking ahead...

...since I am no longer in the eternal summer camp situation that is college, I always try to have something that I am looking forward to..planning...some sort of event to give hope in what is the monotony of the everyday work crap we have to do.... First up for 2008....watchin the local muddawgin event at the Sell-Hi Center. The Monster Trucks are in town and I'm takin the twins to see Batman and the Gravedigger go at it. I am looking forward to seeing how they do all that in this arena.... After that is the Spring Bristol Race, then I get to drive on the track at Darlington. Not sure if I will be taking the Jetta out there, but it will probably be the Jetta since Uncle Wes will be out playin Cowboys and Injuns in the woods somewhere. AFter that will be a visit to John in Florida, Frat Convention, Frat Formal in the ATL after which we will be into May... I like having something to look forward to, and something to be planning...

breakin form...

...Ok...I'll break my moratorium for a moment....

Its amazing what can happen when you just hit a few free throws. Dont have to hit them all (like all the good teams do), but if you make most of them, its makes things a whole lot easier, doesnt it Tiger Basketball?

Overheard last night from I-Man as my son was playing Guitar Hero.... "Mississippi Queen - you know what I mean....Mississippi Queen - she taught me everything" Interesting....

Feeling kicked around by XBOX

...I've been playin Guitar Hero 3 some...a sone here or there when I get a chance and have kinda worked my way to the medium level. Now...I am no great player or anything but i did complete Easy finally and worked thru the first section on Medium, which I have benn haveing some problems with...I seem to have a mental/physical thing in regards to how the guitar is played and since this uses 4 fingers on the left hand, I am having problems getting used to it on Medium. I played an instrument so long that primarily used 3 fingers on the left hand, and I only used the "pinky" finger for another set of notes, not in tandem (well..kinda, but..not really...). So my number 2 finger simply keeps not responding. Its weird, but i really think it has to do with patterns and physical memory that is very ingrained in me... so I have reached this battle against this "Tom" fellow and I keep getting my rear handed to me... I am thinkin I might just leave this game to Jessica and the twins and stick with Forza 2. If I do manage to EVER get past this battle, I know i will never get to the next HARD level. That aint happening....

snow?

so...it snowed and as is typical here, it was gone by 5 pm, but the kids did get out of school and all that... then the second part of the latest storm o the century arrived, and it snowed again, but since the first snow was followed by a day of 60 degree weather, the gound was too warm and all the "5 inches of snow!!!" pandalerium did not come to pass...

...And only one more week of thses candidates pounding the tv and radio with ads. of course, we are now hearing that all the candidates are running out of money for ad space...hmmmm...

...went to the Frat rit the other night. 20 people are in the Pi class... and while i can usually eye these kids and get a good feel for those who wont make it thru the process, this class as a whole impresses me.

...Brown wants me to comment on BILLARY and Osama, but i am waiting to see how this Saturday shakes down.

.... hate the NFL right now..it just saddens me...just so damn sad....

Geetar Heeroe

its kinda interesting within the Guitar Hero game, in that you are trying to mimic a song, when in reality, no 2 songs are ever really alike. Even if you play the notes in band exactly the way the music is written, you wont be as soft as intended, or as loud as intended...or are you really playing at exactly the same speed the composer intended. Thats why i get a little annoyed in the game with the fact that I must play it EXACTLY the way it is. Now..understanding that it is a game, I still get a little annoyed when I get dinged for cutting off to quickly or whatever...anyway...

way too much to say

With these candidates here in South Carolina, and the constant barrage of media crap, I'm a little jaded right now about the political stuff. i think I'm more tired of the media (see NBC, MSNBC,FOXNEWS) trying to tell me who the favorite is, who MUST win or quit, who is baiting who and who is being racial or what.... I am starting to see this as the media trying to influence who THEY want to be running...I mean NBC people have admitted that they are pulling for Obama, and i cant watch any coverage now without seeing a blatant bias on their part against Clinton. What?, Clinton didnt give you guys cookies on the plane the other day? While I dont think that anyone, be it Olberman, Orielly, Russert or whoever doesnt or shouldnt have their favorite (everybody has only one vote) person, i do object to their using their pulpit to try to influence the election. After all, is it fair that the networks seem to obviously favor the candidates who have the most money, who can pay the most money to them for Ad space? While I might think Obama is the best choice, (and i have NOT made that decision yet)I certainly dont think it is in the best interest for NBC to be openly pulling for one candidate and everyday talk about the MUST WIN scenarios for all the other candidates...especially since the actual delegates are so close that they all have. February 5th will be a day that will start to weed out some people for real...THEN you can say that some candidates are in trouble. But watch, whoever loses in South Carolina will be declared dead by the media...

I think I am going to just give up pulling for teams until February, when NASCAR fires back up and my Braves start Spring Training...last sunday was a disaster in hopes of seeing any sort of happy ending to the NFL season, and suddenly the celtics are losing, and the Heat...well...they got old real fast. I'm almost afraid to pull out my Tar Heel Blue UNC tshirt for fear that they will lose 3 of 4 right afterward...

Santa upgraded the PC he got for the twins...it now is about 3 times more powerful than the PC i have. This means that Ryles and I-Man should have no problem playing on Barbie.com or Hotwheels.com now...or making sure Webkinz runs fluidly... meanwhile i have to start thinking about bandwidth...potentially their PC, my laptop, Jessica's laptop and the Xbox could all be connected at the same time, along with the desktop in the bedroom. while this would be rare, i am wonderin how this wil go over when Ryles suddenly can't get her Bratz girl shockwave movie to play right...

this is getting silly

...soo...my only real hope for the NFL season went down in flames today. The Colts imploded and the only team with no fear of the Patriots took the gaspipe. Now, Dallas is currently heading down the same street and my hopes for a fun Superbowl Sunday are wasting away...

...It is somewhat stunning to listen to my twins as they talk to each other. I keep wanting to think of them as 2 year olds, not 6 year olds who can now read and spell and carry on intelligent conversations (occasionally). But they really communicate to each other on an entirely different level than they do with me and Jessica, which is to be expected with someone who you have been beside since your creation...

..Guitar Hero 3 has dominated the Xbox since Christmas, and I-Man has started to get the hang of it and can get through an entire song now, putting him along the same level as me, I guess. But suddenly yesterday Lego Star Wars, THE COMPLETE SAGA came back into favor and I-Man is now Indiana Jones in the game. yeah, I know Indiana Jones wasnt in Star Wars, but..well.. anyway....

...the FRAT has 21 candidates this Spring, which is interesting since there are only like 14 active brothers right now. This happened once before and it created a dynamic that I will have to watch carefully in regards to one subsection of the chapter developing a cliche and issues arising from it. yeah, i know...you cant tell people who to be/not be friends with...but class conflicts, be they real or not, have caused issues in the past...The chapter has swung waaayyyy young and tis shall be interesting...

whoa...what was that?.....

siitin here tryin to get the Rylee/Ian computer up and running when i hear this huge crash and thud and felt a slight rumble...I'm like..."what the hey?"...So, I kinda cautiously go out the front door and look around ..nothing... but I hear an engine running, so i walk around the side of the house and what do i see?... there is a truck sticking out from the side of the deck we have on the side of our house. Well..actually...UNDER the deck...I'm like...again..."what the hey???" and so cautiously take a closer look....door slightly ajar but no one there. i'm thinkin "this fool is tryin to run away?"... at this point i look around tryin to see how this truck is now situated under the sidedeck of the house... i see tracks running from the road through the little fence separating our yard from our neighbors yard.."drunk driver?" i'm thinkin... then my neighbor comes out of his house and is like..."Oh my God!!!" and comes running over. Seems he had left the truck idling and went inside to get something, came back out and didnt see the truck, thought it was stolen and ran back inside to get his phone to call the police and came back out and saw me in the yard and then noticed his truck parked in my side deck. needless to say that we will be either getting the deck repaired or doing away with it completely, since we never use that deck anyway. Insurance-his) will be cutting us a check soon, it appears....

clemson basketball

sigh....(shakin head)...sigh....

shreddin...

So after visiting AJ and Brandy and playing Guitar Hero on their Wii, Jessica decided to get the game for our Xbox360. pretty slick game. And I went onto Xbox live online and downloaded a bunch of extra songs... last night I got another gutar controller and now I can play bass and she can play guitar. Its probably more fun than i thought it would be... I can see now why there is always a crowd around the demo in the store...

look...lets just calm down now...

...i mean...I know theres a big primary coming up here in a couple of weeks and all but....goodness..every other commercial on TV today is a candidate commercial. This is already WAAAAYYYY too old. And the first big test of the season for the Tiger basketball team comes Sunday against UNC. I expect this to be a Clemson win as Clemson always plays well at home against UNC, even when they have had terrible teams. So, a team with talent should (key word here..should) fare well against UNC, especially at home.

And...We're off!!!

Ok...lets start cutting the chaff away from these politicians and get down to the serious contenders.... please...these has been going on on since...well...i think it started the day after the last election. Clarification...again: I am not a gays-must-die... abortion-is-sin-guns-are-cool-shoot-to-kill-at-the-border... tax-all-the-poor Republican anymore than I am a pot smokin, tree huggin, lets give everyone everything for free, gay marriage is cool I hate anything associated with Bush Democrat. I am pretty much middle of the road and my vote is there for the taking. Yes, I admit that i lean to the Right in my thinking. But I am not an automatic vote for either side and I think the majority of the country is obviously the same way as me, which is why we keep seeing 51-49 votes in these elections. Bill Clinton has stepped out of the Arkansas woods and sparked the majority's fancy and until someone from either side does that, we'll get another election basically pitting the major cities against the rest of the country, which is how the last 2 elections have fallen (despite what all the "we got robbed in Florida/Ohio/Wherever people wanna whine about).

Anyway...Clemson crashes and burns in the bowl game and that cloud i have spoken of still exist. There is always.... SOMETHING, and this past season fell to missed field goals. Dont have to make em all, but you cant keep missing them, because they will cause you to lose the close games, which is where Clemson football is now. Hit a field goal in the first quarter, and you aint having to deal with overtime 3 hours later. pretty simple, but... lets see where Clemson basketball takes us...team is supposed to be good, but you know...you KNOW... something whacked will happen this season...

2007 we hardly knew ya!!!....

...Ok...this year, I only am going to offer up one public resolution, and it will cover preety much everything i do for the year....it is the KISS principle, or Keep It Simple Stupid or other variations on the name.... from Wikipedia...

The KISS principle (acronym for "Keep It Simple, Stupid") states that design simplicity should be a key goal and unnecessary complexity avoided. It serves as a useful principle in a wide array of disciplines, such as software development, animation, engineering, and strategic planning. Common variants of the acronym include: "Keep It Simple & Stupid", "Keep It Sweet & Simple", and "Keep It Short & Simple". The form "Keep It Simple, Silly" is sometimes used in situations (for example, explaining the phrase to children) where "stupid" is too harsh.

Complexity should, very simply, be avoided: simplicity becomes a goal in itself. Extra features are not needed; an approach that seems "too easy to be true" is in fact the best way; a very straightforward approach may seem less glamorous and less dramatic but that trivial approach should indeed be taken; surprisingly the very obvious approach is often best


I am going to work at simplifying everything in my life, from my daily routine to the kids to my job to everything. Too much clutter...too much extra stuff...all that matters is my wife, kids, family and friends and that is complex enough to keep me busy. At the end of the day, all the other stuff is just clutter and doesnt matter. now woven into my wife, kids, family and friends are things like the frat, hobbies, etc.... so I aint just going to sit at home all the time. But...ya just gotta keep the important things important and get rid of the clutter...

Christmas comes and goes....

Christmas was a good time. Bolted town on Xmas eve and went to see Grandma and Uncle Jerry...xchanged gifts, ate some meatballs, crackers and etc. , then moved on to see Nanna and Papa... exchanged gifts with Aunt Ashley, Uncle Wes, cousin Madison, Aunt Ellen and got ready for Santa. Santa arrived and brought the twins a couple of remote control vehicles, a barbie Guitar, Howheels stuff, Transformers...of course and...a computer. So they did pretty well, i figure.. we then went did a little mud-dawgin in the new 4 wheeler thingy. i also go to see the new jetski..now that should be interesting...
I got a few things...a new video Nano ipod...A cool camera/laptop combo bag...tickets to darlington race...a slick tripod that allows me to place my camera virtually anywhere I can reach...digital binoculars...some other stuff. I am fortunate and for that I am very thankful...

time marches on...

9 years ago we were getting ready for a wedding...today we are getting twins dressed in pajamas for a slumber party at school, warming up the car, packing lunches, etc. I'm not going to launch into my usual rant about people wondering out loud about "what about the kids?" or the wedding invitations being sent back to us rips in pieces by family members... i guess I should conveniently let all that water flow on down the river...or should i? Funny how all the gloom and doom talk has not even remotely become an issue. The ship set sail and there were people on the boat, and some people had to catch a plan to catch up...but at any rate.... i listened to a song yesterday and i thought I'd share part of those words with you...

I set out on a narrow way many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushing through
I couldn't see how every sign pointed straight to you

[Chorus:]
Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like Northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you
-Rascal Flatts

Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me. Until that day accept this justice as a gift on my daughter's wedding day - Don Vito Corleone

They are reporting now that there are more cell phones now than landlines... And I am wonderin when the masses are going to start figuring out that cell phones dont work everywhere, especially in buildings. I mean I have a cell phone and it works in my home. But jessica's doesnt work as well and not at all in some parts of the house. It just amazes me how people buy cell phones and think they will work everywhere. i guess the advertising the cell companies do has worked very well. But I wonder when people will figure out that cell phones are just glorified walkie talkies...