Published writer, compulsive reader, Old School Whovian, Match Game enthusiast, NKOTB fan, data hoarder, and - surprisingly, given that list - married with four kids. Welcome to my take on life, fatherhood, entertainment, and whatever strikes my fancy. Enjoy!
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Flooding
23 years ago my first job was working for a land surveyor. His day job was working on the Deep Tunnel project, and I remember him telling me it would end the city's sewage and flooding problems. Fast forward to 2013. Today's awful storm flooded the streets from the midpoint of the park to two blocks east of my street, as well as most of the side streets in my neighborhood. Meanwhile, my basement, once prone to routine flooding, survived without a drop, courtesy of the french drain I dug in 2010. Maybe MMSD should call me for some tips.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
A Present for Smiley
I just bought Smiley a Christmas present "officially licensed by the U.S. Army" - 'cuz you know, 99% of all toys for boys must train them to kill on the word of a Washington fatcat - and guess what the back of the box says? Quote: "Designed and built in Canada and Germany".
He's hard to buy for because he doesn't want toys that kill....ridiculous, he's 8 - Lisa
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Ward-Gatti
Yesterday I watched all three of the epic Micky Ward-Arturo Gatti fights. The first one totally lived up to the billing, as did the rubber match, when Gatti fought on after breaking his hand. Match 2 was lopsided and a disappointment all things considered, but round 3 . . . man, round 3 was beautiful. Hollywood Worthy, and arguably The Best Round of Boxing I've ever seen. They're worth a watch.
note: I sat Lisa down to watch the 3rd round of the second Ward-Gaetti fight. Oddly, she did not find it as moving as I do.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Brrr
It is damn cold in this house. Mayhaps I should turn on the heat, or at least pull that last window air conditioner . . .
Monday, November 11, 2013
My Day
Lousy snow. The first of the season and I'm already wishing it was spring. Anyone who likes this stuff should check themselves in at County.
Anyway, I'm at Marquette School of Dentistry getting LuLu an exam.
Later:
Now shopping at Goodwill
Sunday, November 10, 2013
A (Giant) New Pleco!
A productive day. I waterproofed the back porch - and the handprints of the kids we made in the cement back in '07 - then fixed the latch on the back door. Meanwhile Lisa went grocery shopping and made a great chicken dinner. And to top it off, confident that the Ich was gone, Smiley and I went shopping for a new pleco.
We found one. But instead of the 1" version we had, we went home with a giant 8" beast that looks like an aquatic dinosaur found its way into our tank. Heck I was scared to even hold the bag when we left the store.
The best part is, we paid only $4.99 for him. His spine is permanently bent, and so he's gone unsold and unwanted for weeks. It was his disfigurement that sealed the deal, just as GusGus's glaucoma ridden eye made me snatch him up. Yes, I felt sorry for a pleco :)
But, there was more to the adventure. On the way home Parker and I stopped at a store, and when we came back out I noticed the car was leaking onto the pavement. My first thought the radiator went, but no: the giant pleco bag had broken, flooding the backseat and pouring out the door! We managed to save just enough water to cover the pleco and hightailed it back to the pet store, with Parker holding onto him and talking him through the ordeal.
We made it, and this time when we left the bag was securely sealed in a box for transport!
Saturday, November 9, 2013
A great day
A good day overall, and a happy opposite to Friday's misery. Dance in the morning, then a nap, followed by Mass (the priest led off the sermon with a discussion about Aaron Rodgers' injury), then dinner with the family and two of Lu's friends. :)
Friday, November 8, 2013
Phone Problems and the Ick
My phone is acting screwy: text one contact, and another contact replies. I'm sure it's a fluke that can be fixed if I remove the battery, but as a testament to my laziness I'm not about to trouble myself with removing the case just yet. IOW don't count on a text conversation this evening.
Meanwhile, the outbreak of Ick seems to have been arrested in our aquarium, in no small part to my Awesomeness, even in the realm of fish doctoring. We've lost no one in 3 days, and all appear well except the goldfish, who no longer exhibits signs of the disease but never bounced back properly. If there's no further losses before Sunday, I'll start rebuilding the population.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Why? You ask?
Why all the hate towards Blockbuster?
a. they were a monopoly, and the worse kind: a monopoly that used that status to sit on the status quo and treat their customers poorly
b. a barbaric rental fee structure that was properly slammed by the Courts
c. ignorant employees who didn't know their product
d. a lame 'by mail' attempt to compete with Netflix - too little, too late
e. by virtual of their size they drove mom and pop stores out of business. Normally I'd say "eh, free market" but in this case they drove them out WITHOUT providing better prices or service
f. Tre liked them. :)
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Changes at Marquette
Today Marquette took a concrete step towards eliminating the part- time evening program ( I'm grandfathered in). So if you're a working adult hoping to get a law degree, you have only a year or so to apply and get in the final class.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
My Opinion on the Packers
Lets be clear: whatever losses come in the next few weeks can be traced not only to Aaron's injury but the arrogance of the suits. If they hadn't di**ed around on the backup question and cut everyone under the sun before deciding on a has been/ never was, maybe our panic level would be more manageable.
Monday, November 4, 2013
A-Rod Update
The A-Rod story is heating up again. It turns out - and this is in the NY Times and verified by police records - that a car belonging to an employee of BioGenesis was broken into and that medical records were stolen from the vehicle. A prime suspect interviewed by the police? Gary Jones, a man working with MLB , a man whom all parties agree provided the stolen records to MLB.
Want more? Again, in the NY Times and supposedly verified by private voicemail messages: a MLB investigator initiated a sexual relationship with Loraine Delgadillo, a nurse at Biogenesis, in an attempt to procure documents and statements from her against A-Rod.
Still more: another witness claims he was pressured into false allegations against A-Rod after (he says) MLB harassed him and his family endlessly, even going so far as to follow his family when they went on vacation overseas.
And literally hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on 'payments' to various witnesses by MLB.
You may approve of Selig resorting to Hoover-esque strong arm tactics. You may not care that all the 'evidence' in the case is, at the very least, fruit from a poisoned tree. You may be willing to put aside justice and due process because of your emotional dislike of Rodriguez.
I am not. MLB and Selig need to end their witch-hunt.
And A-Rod, in the words of one baseball commenter, needs to "slit MLB's bloated belly and see what spills out."
Saturday, November 2, 2013
First Year Law Student
Dad- thought you would enjoy this, considering you're a big smart law student, too. :) - YaYa
Friday, November 1, 2013
Thursday, October 31, 2013
A Ghost Story
It was three in the morning when the ghost returned to visit Steven.
At first, shortly after his family moved into the house, there was only the sound of heavy, careful footsteps in the night. Alarmed, Steven would leave the imagined safety of his bed and venture down the hall, terrified of finding an intruder. But it was always the same; the kids fast asleep and unaware, the doors bolted, the windows locked.
In the morning he and his wife found it amusing, a curiosity to liven up the anecdotes they told about their new home. Neither, of course, believed in ghosts.
That was how it started.
What followed was a lull, two weeks of undisturbed and blissful sleep. And then, an escalation: the footsteps again, this time breaching Steven's room and stopping just beside his bed. After that the mornings brought no peace. The restless nights made tempers flare, and he grew angry each time his wife dismissed his claims, blaming it all on the shifting frame of a century old house.
Steven, for his part, was no longer sure what he believed.
Soon his wife let the news 'slip' to his mother. "I don't understand why you would worry," his Mom said, over his protest that the whole thing was blown out of proportion. "Our family has owned that house since it was built. The only people to pass away there are your great-grandparents, and even if they could come back, you know they would never harm you."
They were words meant to comfort, but did the opposite. He felt no kinship with a couple dead and gone twenty years before his birth. Nor could he fathom caring about his own descendants, at least those he wouldn't live to see. If there were angry spirits in the house, why would they be obliged to tolerate him? For the sake of a relationship four generations removed?
That was the night the figure appeared. There were footsteps of course, loud enough to wake him but no one else (although, to be fair, he never really slept well at night anymore, surviving on catnaps scattered throughout the day). They came forward slowly but confidently, as if the spirit no longer cared to mask its presence, and again, they paused by the bed. Ignoring his fear Steven opened his eyes.
Before him stood a shadow, a man-but-not-a-man. While there was no physical form, the shifting darkness that was its whole worked to craft an illusion of strength and bulk. Through the pressing, psychical weight of his fear Steven sensed a strange familiarity in the figure. Remarkably, he found himself begin to get out of bed.
Not yet, a voice said, and he had no doubt it could be heard only in his mind. Not yet.
That was the beginning of the end.
In the weeks to come Steven would spend his nighttime hours awake, fighting off sleep with a ferocity fueled by fear. His work began to suffer; his children, sensing something wrong, grew distant, and his wife, concerned, begged him to see a doctor. When he refused all pleas for help he found himself banished to the living room couch. For Steven it seemed a hidden blessing. The shadow man seemed contained to the upstairs level, and his few nights on the couch gave him his first true rest in months.
On the night of the final visit there was no sound, only an icy shiver that wrenched Steven awake with a stunning abruptness. The figure stood at the head of the couch, leaning over and staring - if it had eyes at all - directly into Steven's face.
Now, it said.
The figure began to walk away, heading for the kitchen. Steven's body, his mind, his very soul screamed caution, and he resolved to stay where he lay. It was a surprise to him, then, that he found himself on his feet and following the form. They entered the room together, and in front of his eyes the figure disappeared.
Here again Steven's body reacted against his wishes. His head screamed retreat, and yet he looked frantically for the figure, as if instead of vanishing he'd simply lost sight of him in a crowd. Through the pantry lay the door to the basement stairs, and the sound of the familiar footsteps. He opened the door(retreat!) and began to descend. His eyes had grown accustomed to picking out form and figures in the dark of night, and they came quickly to rest on a figure below.
On his way down his foot stubbed against an item on the stairs, and hearing it begin to fall he instictively reached out. His hand came to rest around a taped handle, and instantly registered it as his son's little league bat.
At the same moment he noticed the cellar door hanging off its hinges, and the glint in the shadow's hand as it rushed up the stairs. Before these thoughts were complete the intruder slammed into Steven, slashing at him in a frenzy. The first blow struck harmlessly against the bat.
A second later the man was on him again, grabbing the bat and tossing it aside before raising the knife for a final blow. Steven's eyes went from the knife, to the eyes of his assailant - and then to the familiar figure emerging from the dark.
Pitch dark arms ignored the blade and encircled the intruder's neck from behind, leveraging him up and off of Steven. It was then, only for a moment, that he saw the face of his visitor. There was no face as we know it, simply the impression of one, but in its imagined features was not one face but many; his great-grandfather and his father before him, his sons and his future grandchildren.
Even in the surreal chaos of that moment he knew in the end the fight would be his own. The intruder continued to struggle and the shadow grew paler, and in the dark Steven's hands found the bat once again.
Now, the shadow said, and Steven knocked the intruder to the ground.
He would see the shadow only once more in his lifetime. Years later, he and his wife would babysit their firstborn grandchild. In the middle of the night Steven stirred and wandered into the baby's room, and sat in the rocker alongside the crib. From the corner of the eye he noticed a shadow distinct from the darkness, but did not turn to meet it.
Together, they were content to stare into the face of the future.
- Me, 2009
At first, shortly after his family moved into the house, there was only the sound of heavy, careful footsteps in the night. Alarmed, Steven would leave the imagined safety of his bed and venture down the hall, terrified of finding an intruder. But it was always the same; the kids fast asleep and unaware, the doors bolted, the windows locked.
In the morning he and his wife found it amusing, a curiosity to liven up the anecdotes they told about their new home. Neither, of course, believed in ghosts.
That was how it started.
What followed was a lull, two weeks of undisturbed and blissful sleep. And then, an escalation: the footsteps again, this time breaching Steven's room and stopping just beside his bed. After that the mornings brought no peace. The restless nights made tempers flare, and he grew angry each time his wife dismissed his claims, blaming it all on the shifting frame of a century old house.
Steven, for his part, was no longer sure what he believed.
Soon his wife let the news 'slip' to his mother. "I don't understand why you would worry," his Mom said, over his protest that the whole thing was blown out of proportion. "Our family has owned that house since it was built. The only people to pass away there are your great-grandparents, and even if they could come back, you know they would never harm you."
They were words meant to comfort, but did the opposite. He felt no kinship with a couple dead and gone twenty years before his birth. Nor could he fathom caring about his own descendants, at least those he wouldn't live to see. If there were angry spirits in the house, why would they be obliged to tolerate him? For the sake of a relationship four generations removed?
That was the night the figure appeared. There were footsteps of course, loud enough to wake him but no one else (although, to be fair, he never really slept well at night anymore, surviving on catnaps scattered throughout the day). They came forward slowly but confidently, as if the spirit no longer cared to mask its presence, and again, they paused by the bed. Ignoring his fear Steven opened his eyes.
Before him stood a shadow, a man-but-not-a-man. While there was no physical form, the shifting darkness that was its whole worked to craft an illusion of strength and bulk. Through the pressing, psychical weight of his fear Steven sensed a strange familiarity in the figure. Remarkably, he found himself begin to get out of bed.
Not yet, a voice said, and he had no doubt it could be heard only in his mind. Not yet.
That was the beginning of the end.
In the weeks to come Steven would spend his nighttime hours awake, fighting off sleep with a ferocity fueled by fear. His work began to suffer; his children, sensing something wrong, grew distant, and his wife, concerned, begged him to see a doctor. When he refused all pleas for help he found himself banished to the living room couch. For Steven it seemed a hidden blessing. The shadow man seemed contained to the upstairs level, and his few nights on the couch gave him his first true rest in months.
On the night of the final visit there was no sound, only an icy shiver that wrenched Steven awake with a stunning abruptness. The figure stood at the head of the couch, leaning over and staring - if it had eyes at all - directly into Steven's face.
Now, it said.
The figure began to walk away, heading for the kitchen. Steven's body, his mind, his very soul screamed caution, and he resolved to stay where he lay. It was a surprise to him, then, that he found himself on his feet and following the form. They entered the room together, and in front of his eyes the figure disappeared.
Here again Steven's body reacted against his wishes. His head screamed retreat, and yet he looked frantically for the figure, as if instead of vanishing he'd simply lost sight of him in a crowd. Through the pantry lay the door to the basement stairs, and the sound of the familiar footsteps. He opened the door(retreat!) and began to descend. His eyes had grown accustomed to picking out form and figures in the dark of night, and they came quickly to rest on a figure below.
On his way down his foot stubbed against an item on the stairs, and hearing it begin to fall he instictively reached out. His hand came to rest around a taped handle, and instantly registered it as his son's little league bat.
At the same moment he noticed the cellar door hanging off its hinges, and the glint in the shadow's hand as it rushed up the stairs. Before these thoughts were complete the intruder slammed into Steven, slashing at him in a frenzy. The first blow struck harmlessly against the bat.
A second later the man was on him again, grabbing the bat and tossing it aside before raising the knife for a final blow. Steven's eyes went from the knife, to the eyes of his assailant - and then to the familiar figure emerging from the dark.
Pitch dark arms ignored the blade and encircled the intruder's neck from behind, leveraging him up and off of Steven. It was then, only for a moment, that he saw the face of his visitor. There was no face as we know it, simply the impression of one, but in its imagined features was not one face but many; his great-grandfather and his father before him, his sons and his future grandchildren.
Even in the surreal chaos of that moment he knew in the end the fight would be his own. The intruder continued to struggle and the shadow grew paler, and in the dark Steven's hands found the bat once again.
Now, the shadow said, and Steven knocked the intruder to the ground.
He would see the shadow only once more in his lifetime. Years later, he and his wife would babysit their firstborn grandchild. In the middle of the night Steven stirred and wandered into the baby's room, and sat in the rocker alongside the crib. From the corner of the eye he noticed a shadow distinct from the darkness, but did not turn to meet it.
Together, they were content to stare into the face of the future.
- Me, 2009
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
RIP Fish
It is with deep regret that I must report that our goldfish succumbed to his wounds mere minutes ago. I have removed him to a temporary morgue (the fridge) until the kids come home; he's been with us long enough to warrant a full Team Slap funeral in the Hallowed Ground (outside the shed) that holds the mortal remains of Billy and Gizmo. RIP fish - against our wishes, we came to love you.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Fish Armageddon!
A tragedy here today: one of the two feeder goldfish that have survived year after year was violently attacked by a rogue Molly overnight. A side fin was ripped clean off and there's a gash along its side. I removed the Molly, and tempering my anger, gave him to Smiley in a bowl of his own.
Meanwhile the goldfish survives, obviously in pain, and much weakened. *fingers crossed* In addition, for three days in a row we've lost fish. A Black Moor died overnight on day 1 (but I had seen the ba*tard Molly attacking it the previous evening). A Beta followed on Day 2, and on Day 3 a red tigershark and a small feeder fish died. Grace is begging me to call Dale Czech for help, but I think that's just because she thinks he's cute. It's fish Armageddon around here!
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