The Blarg

I despise facebook because it allows people to limit their thoughts to ONE sentence. And it’s oh so easy to put down one thing, without elaborating, and be done. BLOGS FOREVER!

I only have to see students for two more days. Heading to Knott’s Berry Farm on Wednesday. I plan on taking a DS to entertain myself. Very much looking forward to this summer. I have dreams of redoing a bathroom, but that’s on top of wanting to start a new book, convert old family negatives to digital, and I already have a small list of home repair projects. The upstairs screens have big holes in them. Remarkably, one of the holes spans the entire width of the screen, but is only about 4 inches high. That’s because a sparrow can’t reach any higher. Apparently ripping off pieces of screen is a favorite activity of the sparrows.

I’m almost 30 hours into Final Fantasy VII for the original Playstation. It’s fun, and I’m finally getting to parts of the game that I don’t remember from my first play through (I got far, but never beat it). I’m not speeding through it, but I don’t feel the urge to uncover every single secret and side quest. I have VIII, IX, X, X-2, and XII all lined up (in that order) to play through next, so I should be busy for a long time.

For father’s day we got our dads meat from Omahasteaks.com. We bought ourselves some too, and while we haven’t eaten any of it yet, I must say it’s super cool to get food in the mail. It comes in a styrofoam cooler with dry ice, and each meat is packaged in a separate box, and each piece of meat is separately vacuum sealed. Place it in the fridge the night before, and you’ve got thawed out meat to throw on the BBQ. The top sirloin looks awesome. I’ll be sure to report back on how it tastes.

And finally…I have a quick story that I think is pretty cool. On the way home from my parents we stopped behind a newer corvette at a red light. I remarked at how bright the 4 big tail/brake lights were, but a moment later the rear lights flashed briefly, and the tail lights dimmed. The man had put the car into park while waiting at a routine red light, and I could only think of one reason: he knew his brake lights were bright. I know, this seems minor, but the more I thought about it, the more impressed I was. Here was a guy who had gone to the bother of putting his corvette into park for a red light he knew wouldn’t last more than another 30 seconds or so, just because he didn’t want to blind us in the car behind him. How thoughtful is that? Most people would never even know they were bright, let alone go to any bother to look out for the people who would have to stare at them. Kudos to you Mr. Red Corvette guy. And even if that wasn’t why he did it, I’d like to think there are people out there who are thoughtful enough to do that for someone else.

Well, I made it over a week and I’m still going! I’ve had soda twice over that span, but I was good and had sprite. I’ve still been tired at times, but it’s more like a natural tired, not a caffeine crash tired. I’ll definitely keep it up and see how I feel over the next couple weeks.

I’ve got the first paragraph of my next book, and no, it’s not a sequel to the first. I want to do something completely different and stretch myself. It’ll probably be a lot shorter than Terra Nova, so you might not have to wait as long. All I can tell you is that it’s about an old man.

We’ve only got four weeks of school left, and for this I am excited! The last week is mostly babysitting, and we have Monday off, so that’s really only 2 and 4/5 weeks.

In the mail the other week I got my invitation to my 10 year high school reunion, but I don’t want to go. Recently I’ve seen a few people that I graduated with, and I realized I have no desire to see or talk to those people. I still keep in touch with a number of friends I graduated with, so maybe I can convince them to do something, but the people I haven’t seen in 10 years? I could go another 10 probably. I don’t need to pay close to $100 to force myself to have conversations with people that I barely know anymore.

Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day!

My caffeine intake isn’t insane like some people. I’ve read about people that drink like 5-10 diet cokes everyday and crazy stuff. I usually do a cup of coffee in the morning, and that’s usually it, unless we go out. At a restaurant I can easily have a cup or two of soda. Lately I’ve just felt really crummy, like I’m constantly tired, and the only way to perk back up is a coffee or soda.

I woke up on Saturday, and instead of my normal coffee or mountain dew from 7-Eleven, I decided to drop it cold turkey. I’ve read that it can take anywhere from a few days to two weeks to get over the headaches and other withdrawl symptoms, but I’ve also read it can take up to 6 months to get back to normal! Hopefully since I wasn’t a super caffeine addict (just a small one) I’ll bounce back much faster.

Today is day 3 without caffeine. Back in ‘07 I got to at least five days, but I can’t remember what happened after that. Obviously I didn’t stay off of it. Hopefully this will be good for my overall health. I’ll promise to keep you posted (and I’ll start a counter in the top right to keep me going).

This is a very special post, because it is number 1000 here on the blarg. Can you believe it? One thousand different posts in just under five years. I’ve certainly slowed down now that I have Luke…but still, that’s hard to believe. Since it’s such a monumental post I thought, what better to write about than our family’s future.

I don’t know about most of you, but I try and strike a healthy balance of planning for the future, but enjoying the present. If I spend all my time thinking about the future, I won’t enjoy the awesome moments of life right now, but if I only live in the present, I might not be adequately prepared for the future.

A person could go nuts checking home prices everyday and recalculating projected savings. Throw on top of that planning for future children, if we’ll have enough room for them, how old we’re getting, and it’s all a lot to think about.

We know we can’t stay in our current place forever, but in the meantime it’s great. It’s just the right size for us, and we could probably survive here with a second child for a while. But eventually we’d like to move areas…perhaps to the Los Alamitos or Cypress area…or Huntington Beach or Fullerton if we wanted to go farther. Just like my parents moved us to a better area when we were younger, we want to do the same for our kids. It’d be nice to be able to park a car outside and not have to worry if something will happen to it, or live in a district with public schools we’d be happy to send our kids to.

My guess is another three years or so and we’ll be able to do that. It’s hard to say with such a crazy housing market, but that’s what patience and prudent saving are for. For now though we are making sure we enjoy the life we have, and all the wonderful things we’ve been blessed with. Today we celebrated what an awesome woman I am married to, and our son is a constant reminder of how lucky I am to be raising him with her.

Here’s to another thousand posts…

I’m voting no on all of them. Tom McClintock has his thoughts, Kurtis has his, and John and Ken.

My main reason is…I don’t want higher taxes for the next two years. Screw the state government. Our state budget has DOUBLED since the late 90’s…and for what? What the crap are we getting now that we weren’t 10 years ago? Jack squat. Those idiots in Sacramento can LOWER the budget, and LOWER my taxes thank you very much.

About a year ago I bought my first Sigg water bottle, and today I bought my second!

I bought my bottle a year ago to replace taking plastic bottles…but what I’ve ended up doing is taking my Sigg bottle and one plastic bottle. Turns out one wasn’t enough to get me through a day, so with this second one I should be plastic bottle free (and save money)!

Right now Sigg is having some really good deals. I got an email with a $5 off coupon. The coupon is SIGGEARTH. Only requirement is you spend $20, which is easy because the smaller bottles (20 oz) are $21.99 and the bigger bottles (1 L) are $24.99. In addition to the $5 off, they’re also having free shipping on orders over $50. The cheapest shipping I see on one bottle is $9 via USPS Priority…so even with $5 off you’re looking at about $25 for a small bottle.

I’d been meaning to get Stacie one, so this was a good opportunity to pick up a couple bottles, get $5 off, and free shipping! Here’s what we got:

The butterfly one is for Stacie, and she liked it because it came with the sport top. The “kit” is cool because you get a lunch box, bag, and a small bottle for only $35. The box and bottle only are over $50 separate. I like the bottle, but I got a screw top to go with it. It helped us go over the $50 minimum, and Stacie can use the lunchbox!

The one thing I’m a little disappointed in is that you can’t pick your top anymore. When I bought my first bottle, after you added the bottle to your cart they asked you what top you wanted. Now it appears you’re stuck with whatever is pictured (which I guess could be good or bad).

If you take plastic water bottles to work everyday, eventually this will save you money, AND you will look super cool. My bottle I’ve had a year has one little dent where I dropped it, but it’s doing great. If you’re looking to get two bottles and go over $50, I recommend the cleaning brush. It’s a little pricey, but I got one and it should last a very long time. You can visit them at www.mysigg.com.

Ever since the boy turned one I’ve been promising my thoughts on being a father, and I’ve finally been motivated to do that.

This morning I stepped onto our small back porch to water the few surviving green plants of winter. As I did, Luke crawled out onto the prickly mat just outside our sliding glass door and stared up at me. I walked over with the water nozzle spraying and sat down next to him. He stood up, held onto my shoulder, and grabbed the handle with me. We stood there, watering the backyard together, and it was perfect.

While a lot of work at times, I wouldn’t trade this time for anything in the world. Watching Luke grow and do new things is priceless. It gives me an appreciation for life and family that I otherwise wouldn’t have. I get to see how loving and caring my wife is, and what a great mother she is. I now understand the joy my own parents felt when I was a child, and what it was like from their perspective as I grew up. I realize what an important task God has given us as parents to raise and nurture our children. I’m sure it will be tough at times, but it is all worth it.

Being a daddy is awesome.

Went to see Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman tonight. Stacie heard about it on the Fish, and thought it would be fun, so we went with her parents. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot, but it was actually really good. They did a lot of worship songs, and some touching stories. I can’t say I was really in the Easter “mood” at all, but it was a great reminder of what this weekend is really all about.

Hope everyone has a great Easter with their families, and has a chance to reflect on what an awesome gift we’ve been given.