August 25th - Sept 1st

August 25th

Lisa's mildly p.o.'d at me (what a novelty, eh?) because she dyed her hair a deep, dark red at my request. Uh, a) she doesn't listen to me about anything else, so y start now? b) it's not *half* as dark as I had hoped, so it's not like she 'caved' to my demands c) it looks hot against her pale skin. C'mon - I work hard to look THIS freakin' hot for her, it's only fair she returns the favor. ;)

Lemon law - it's gonna be a thing! - How I Met Your Mother's Barney

August 26th

Ok, saw the Percy Jackson movie and thought it was top notch. The kids enjoyed it a lot but I don't dig PJ murdering his step-dad after the credits rolled (WTF??- glad my kids had already left the room; don't need them getting [more] ideas). Also saw JLO in "Back Up Plan", which was entertaining and featured a fine supporting cast. Easily her best rom-com since "Maid . . ."

It [Marc Cohn's Listening Booth 1970] is a mighty fine album. Pick up a copy.

For no good reason I was up until 5 a.m., then woke up for good at 9:30. It is now just shy of 1 p.m., and I am already a right mean bugger. It's gonna be a doozy of a day.

A Muslim soldier who enlisted in 2009 is refusing deployment to Iraq, citing a conflict with his religous and ethical duties. No comment.

August 27th

WARNING: All my kids have Pillow Pets, courtesy of the various grandparent's, but it turns out that Grace's is a *knock off* , sold fraudulently at a kiosk at Southridge. We'll be contacting the mall officials tomorrow. Despite what the workers tell you, they are NOT pillow pets.

I have come to the conclusion that the sight of a woman wearing capri's and open toed sandals is a gift from God on par with sunsets, kittens, and Oreos. Well done Lord, well done.

August 28th

[Following news of yet another Mexican atrocity] Mexico is a good and proper mess right now, and it's only going to get worse. BTW, the State Dept has ordered the children of American diplomats out of Monterrey citing the danger in Mexico.

Lisa purchased, transported, and set up a twin bed set for Ginger today while I was at work. [thanks!] That means we have a) no more bottles b) no more diapers c) no more cribs [the last of which was converted to a toddler bed for her a year and a half ago]. All milestones, & all good news - but I must admit I got nostalgic walking thru the baby aisle at Pick 'N Save today.

August 29th

It is now 403 am. If I am not hungover in the morning, then I did something wrong.

August 31st

This record [John Mellencamp's "No Better Than This"] is growing on me. "No one cares about me" is a memorable song, and there is, to my ears, a mature Buddy Holly vibe to some of the album.

Finished " The Automatic Detective" by A Lee Martinez; a fun read. I finished it here in a dr's waiting rm on a Nook. Answered several ?'s about the unit. Think I sold one, actually.

[this one only makes sense if you know the kids true names, but it's sooo cute] True story: As you know YaYa is my oldest, but her younger brother doesn't quite grasp the dictionary meaning of her name. When I said the Hail Mary with Smiley the other day, he balked at the traditional wording and came back with "Hail Mary, full of Smiley . . . "

September 1st

It's 3 in the morning and me, Lisa and her friend are sitting on the front porch watching the rain come down.

YaYa's 4th Grade School Picture

A Dance Intensive

 Grace is up in Wausau at a two-day dance 'intensive', a seminar that includes a solid 6hrs of dance tomorrow. Pics of her departure were posted earlier. Here's an email from her to Lisa (I didn't warrant one apparently

" hi mom we're at the motel, havin lots of fun.... syl !!!! love u gracie i would write more but only got 20 mins!!! your daughter gracie/gracye"

nervous much Grace? LOL....the kid peed three times in 15 minutes!- Lisa

The Dead Path by Stephen M. Irwin

I finished "The Dead Path" by Australian writer Stephen M. Irwin. It's a ghost/horror novel reminiscent of Straub's "Ghost Story", and it's quite good; intelligent, well written, and disturbing in all the right places. BTW, I first saw the book advertised here, on FB, on one of those sidebar ads. So I guess they do work sometimes :)

Splice

I just finished 'Splice' , a horror film about a genetically engineered humanoid. It wasn't terrifying, but it was intelligent & raised some valid concerns about that line of research. It also featured the oddest sex scene I've ever seen in a mainstream film. BTW,  I found the female researcher morally repugnant, start to finish. In another life she would have been sewing kids together in a concentration camp.

"Little Lisa's" 1st Day of School Ever!

On September 1st Ginger, our youngest, had her first day of K3. After trying (and failing) to get our first three children accepted into a Montessori program, Ginger got the nod. :) Note that she looks apprehensive in some of the photos, proof that sometimes a still image lies. She was happy and very excited that day, and never showed a whiff of fear or trepidation.

Toy Story 3 and The Girl Who Played with Fire

In non election news, Toy Story 3 was great, if a wee dark for the younger kids. Kudos to Pixar for crafting a fine trilogy. 

Later Lis and I watched the Swedish film  "The Girl Who Played With Fire". Bleh. It was so slow we didn't even watch it clean through. Weird - the bk was better than the over-hyped Dragon Tatoo, but the movie version of that blew this sequel away.

Family Night

Family night in progress: pizza and garlic bread, followed by homework and a rental of Toy Story 3. YaYa and LuLu are even getting along, chit chatting, helping each other with chores and homework and standing up for one another. That last bit just isn't right. The world seems somehow . . . off.

Voting and a Playground Visit

Our polling place is at the park pavilion . . . 

The New Brewers Manager

The Brewers have hired virtual unknown Ron Roenicke as their new manager. Roenicke was the bench coach of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. There are rumors that he got the job only after $ caused talks with Bobby Valentine to break off, but the club denies that they wanted anyone else. True or not, best of luck to him.

Another Nightmare

Yet another whack-a-doodle nightmare last night.

I was living my current life, with the kids and Lisa and a house of our own (although it seemed to have the layout of the upper flat of my Grandma's house). There was a mishap with our national defense, some minor but fatal flaw that allowed a enemy nation to invade us from the South. No, it wasn't Mexico. If I remember correctly, it was an Arab nation located in Latin America.

Don't ask.

Because of this flaw in our defense the invasion was succeeding, and it soon became obvious that Milwaukee would fall. I began to make plans to evacuate and head up North but Lisa pointed out that all roads out of the city were hopelessly jammed. I thought of of using our bikes and the bike stroller, although the thought of making all the way to Lisa's friend Jolene's house was daunting.

Then another shot to the heart: Jolene refused to house us, even if we brought a tent and stayed in the yard. We were stuck in the city.

The enemy arrived. Reports came that they were on 7th and Center, then 16th and Greenfield; ridiculous, as both locations imply invasion from the north. Anyhow, the clincher was when local radio station 102.9 changed it's frequency to 106.9 - for some reason, going up on the dial was a clear sign the city was doomed. Reports were coming in that every house was being searched, ransacked, and worse.

Lisa and I were a lost cause. Even my friend Tre, with his additional cash reserves, couldn't find a way out and was running out of time.

I piled clothes in the front closet, piles and piles of clothes and told the kids to hide behind them. I handed them bottles of water and some food, and begged them to be quiet. At the last moment I handed YaYa a hammer with a prybar at the end - a tool that I inherited from my paternal Grandfather in the real world - and told her to use it to defend her siblings. If the worst comes to pass, and all hope is lost, I said, use it to spare the kids from the horrors of capture.

There was the sound of boots on the stairs, and I woke up.

Yeah. Not a restful night of sleep.

Quotes, books, movies, and kids

August 20th

‎"(he) realized now that a man can be free as a wolf, yet unable to do what he wants at all."

‎"(he had) some idea of taking something of hers w/ him, as if 4 company; but he stopped himself . . .I got these hands she used to hang to, he told himself. I don't need nothing more."

"It was singular how often people found themselves searching for things they dreaded to find."

- The Searchers by Alan LeMay

11:26 pm:

off work and at Kopp's, waiting on a do-over of a burger that was served bloody.

August 21st

An episode of The Cosby Show was just on, one from a later season where Theo was already in college. Within the first ten minutes the characters used a typewriter, a record player (!) and had to rush home to use the phone. Savages

My Dad's always said The Searchers is the best western ever made, and I've never found a film that proved him wrong. I just finished the book that inspired it (by Alan LeMay) and it was just as good - in some ways better. Many of the quotes you've seen here recently are from the text, and I think the ending (while more or less the same) is more powerful in print. Very highly recommended.

I use Google Chrome as a browser but use Bing for searches. Go figure.

August 22nd

Watching The Killers in concert on Palladia. I miss cable.

‎"Nooo. . . No u may not use the term 'finger-bang' in your status. Do not make me hit you." - Lisa, minutes ago

August 23rd

We had a busy/great weekend. On Sat we drove up to Red Granite WI for a corn roast at a tavern owned by the parents of a friend; my girls got up and did karaoke for the crowd- they're a lot braver/better kids than I was @ their age. Afterwards we drove 3.5 hours in the other direction and spent the night at my buddy Erv's house in IL, arriving at 10 pm and leaving ~ 7pm Sunday. A great last summer hurrah.

I just finished 'The Ghosts of Cannae' by Robert L O'Connell, a GREAT non-fiction work on the famous battle. Having read it, I say screw Hannibal; give me Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus any ol' day.

8:33 pm Driving w/ the family on dark country road near Union Grove, returning from an errand [buying a cell phone for Lisa off a Craigslist ad] in Burlington. Justin Beiber's "Baby" on the radio & everyone singing along.

Watching 'Dating in the Dark' on ABC. Man I love reality tv!

August 24th

While I was at work today Lisa brought the kids by to visit, then took them to the mall and treated them to lotion, necklaces & amusement rides before going out to dinner w/ them w/ some of her State Fair earnings. Since Smiley was excluded from the lotion/necklace party, he got a dollar store snake that will grow to 6X its size when left in water.

[on this day the incredible ordeal of 33 Chilean miners broke on the news. Trapped in a cave-in, they were located after 17 days underground. At this point in the story, it was believed they could not be extracted until close to Christmas!}

This is nuts. Say a prayer for their physical - and mental - health.

‎"He was looking anxious & worried, like a man who has done the murder all right but can't think what the deuce to do with the body." - PG Wodehouse

11:52 am - These kids are weird.Ginger keeps trying to play leapfrog but insists on saying 'oink', and Smiley is eating a hoagie roll stuffed with summer sausage, cheese, and whole strawberries. *I should mention that within minutes of this post Lauren was in the backyard pool in a bikini . . and bicycle helmet.

YaYa and I stopped at a lemonade stand out of sympathy for the kids - no one ever stops and buys any from my kids, may all the passerbys rot in hell. Anywho, it turns out it was run by, the son of a friend of ours. I greeted him with "Well if it isn't YaYa's little boyfriend" and thereby ensured me bitter stares & silence from her the rest of the way home.

The chesnut tree Anne Frank wrote about in her diary fell today.

40 years on, the FBI is still hunting Leo Frederick Burt. In 1970 Burt bombed the UW campus to protest the Vietnam War, killing a man in the process. It was the largest act of domestic terrorism ever, prior to the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.

LOL - I was just watching a music video and a gorgeous lady shook her behind to the camera. Smiley had just walked into the room, and seeing the woman on the screen he tugged on my shirt, & with a huge grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye said "Me like that a lot. Play it again."

Big fan of Kate Miller-Heidke's new album. Go out and buy a copy!

Bud Selig will be remembered by history as the most influential [baseball] commish since Landis, and almost certainly as the most innovative. I'm proud to say I've met him. Meanwhile the haters hate, because that - and not a sport - is the true National Pastime.

Election Day - My choices, my opinions

Tomorrow - well, today, as it's already past midnight here - is Election Day. According to most pundits, the GOP will retake the House, and fall just short of that goal in the Senate. That's music to my ears, but I'm not as gung-ho about it as I would have been in the past. I've seen too much to believe a GOP victory will mean the dawn of a stunning new era in politics, any more than I bought into the media hype that 2008 was the death of the Republican party.

Sure, if the GOP takes the House I believe this country will come out the victor. But even with the best of intentions, they willl still be facing a Democratic Senate, a President with a suspect agenda, a news media manipulated from within by the Left, and the momentum of the last two years.

It's a long road back to sanity. Hopefully we'll have enough time to make the trip.

Plus, let's not forget a midterm election defeat could give Obama new life in '12. {shudder} The 1994 midterm debacle forced Clinton to move from the Left to the Center. That, along with a new foe to blame ("Look what Congress has done to my agenda!) gave him six more years in the Oval Office.

But that is then, and this is now. Here in Wisconsin there are three major contests that have drawn my attention.

First, the race for Governor between current Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D), and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker (R).

I think both Barrett and Walker have a genuine love for Wisconsin and have its best interests at heart. Unfortunately, in his time as Mayor Barrett seems to have done a whole lot of treading water, and little else other than raise property taxes each year he's been in office. If that seems like a political tagline, save your voice; my taxes have soared in the last three years, even while the bottom fell out of the housing market. It isn't easy to make a living here in Milwaukee (one City employee, a Democrat to the core, told me we are ranked behind Detroit and Buffalo in economic health), and Barrett's done a lot to ensure it's not easy to own a home here either.

I'm not in 100% agreement with Scott Walker, and I find the crisis at the County Mental Health complex an abomination (forced integration of the sexes, leading to assaults and rapes that were marginalized as 'acceptable risks'). I'm not claiming he should have known of the day to day events inside the hospital but I do wish he'd cleaned house sooner, and with more gusto, once even a hint of the allegations came to light.

I think he's done a fine job of restoring integrity and respect to the County following the pension scandals of his predecessor. While I disagree with some aspects of how the County is run I acknowledge it is a cumbersome, largely underfunded behemoth and I believe he's done as well as anyone can given that fact.

I don't have to agree with him on everything. The only time you should agree completely with a candidate is when the name on the ballot is your own.

He's got my vote.

I'm also voting for Ron Johnson to replace current Senator Russ Feingold. Feingold, a self styled maverick' has voted the party line far more often than not. When he's stepped outside the lines, such as on the Iraqi War vote, it was done for effect, knowing his vote wouldn't decide the outcome.

If you want any more evidence that Feingold has gone native in D.C., note that his political ads have become more and more aggressive and bitter. Change was the buzzword in '08; true change will come in 2010 by getting Feingold out of Washington.

In the 4th Congressional District I'll be voting for Dan Sebring, the friend of a good friend of mine. I've met him, and while he's far and away my choice over incumbent Gwen Moore, Sebring's campaign is underfunded and largely ignored above the grass roots level. I wish him well.

If I was in State Assembly District 20, I'd vote for Molly McGartland, the mother of one of YaYa's classmates and the only candidate to have their sign on our front lawn this fall. In State Assembly District 19, please vote for Krista Burns, not because of her party, but because a district that encompasses Bay View should have a rep with an address in, gosh, I don't know, BAY VIEW.

{btw, at this hour I truly can't remember if the Sheriff's race is on the ballot. If it is, my vote will go to incumbent Democrat David Clarke}

Lastly, I'd like to express one last opinion: except in cases where the obvious exceptions apply (illness, travel, deployment, handicap) absentee voting is absolute BUNK. Getting off your butt & showing up at the polls is a sign to the world of how much you value YOUR voice being heard. It's also a great way to teach kids the same lesson. If you reduce the act to something akin to filling out a sweepstakes form or voting for American Idol, all the more shame on you.

Random Pics

My Thoughts - Voting

Except in cases where the obvious exceptions apply (illness, travel, deployment, handicap) absentee voting is absolute BUNK. Getting off your butt & showing up at the polls is a sign to the world of how much you value YOUR voice being heard. It's also a great way to teach kids the same lesson. If you reduce the act to something akin to filling out a sweepstakes form or voting for A. Idol, all the more shame on you.

Yesterdayt

Yesterday was a long day. I took Lu to church to sell candy w/ her Brownie troop (my rare contribution to her Scouting; Lisa's one of the leaders), then went off to work before returning at halftime of the SNF game. Meanwhile Lis took the kids trick or treating again (Milwaukee has different times than Bay View) and ran the show at home. Another long one ahead of us today . . .

Worth Dying For by Lee Child

I've finished "Worth Dying For" the latest Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child. 'twas a time, a few yrs ago, when I thought the series was going to hell, and quickly, but he's turned it around BIG time with the last 3 bks. Very enjoyable. Book geeks - who'd win a three way fight: Reacher, Joe Pike, or Spenser?

The Start of the School Year - Group Shot - 8/31/10

The kids leaving for the first day of the 2010/11 school year yest -Smiley's first day of K5 & his first day at his new school. No, Smiley wasn't scared. . This was the second or third shot I took, and he was getting antsy.

Layover in Dubai by Dan Fesperman

I've finished "Layover in Dubai" by Dan Fesperman, a non-political thriller set in the Middle East. The plot was . . . well, there wasn't much of one, but the setting was rich and detailed and the two main characters were well developed. It held my interest. B.

Hell's Kitchen

We just finished watching season one of Hell's Kitchen. Great show. We used to watch the F Word and Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America, so we came into it w/ respect for Gordon, but of the three I think this one is our fave. Time to put season 2 on our Netflix queue.

Halloween Treats

I'm on the front porch w/ the kids, passing out Halloween candy.