What are the odds?

I got to work pretty early today. Judy was right behind me and was wearing a green shirt... I make a comment to Judy that we match today.

1 Minute later in walk Greg & Eric... both wearing green. I yell to Judy to look at them and we all start laughing.. what are the odds?

A few minutes later we are talking and are like.. there is no way Mark will be wearing green... but would it be crazy? What do you know.. in strolls mark wearing green.

We go up front and 2 more people are wearing green that come in the front entrance. 7 of us out of like 18 are wearing green... totally by accident! One of my bosses insisted on taking a picture to capture the total randomness of it all.

Reel Big Fish

I took Holden fishing yesterday in a monsoon. It poured when we loaded up into the car, and the entire drive over the the fishin' hole. We stopped and got some worms & a few more hooks for Holden's spiderman fishing rod he got for his birthday. He was excited mostly when we got the worms.. holding the worms was a big deal.

We get there and the rain has stopped.. the sun has come out and we got to work. Holden was very good at ripping the worms apart, and he was cool about letting me put the worm on the hook.

We have been practicing casting in the yard, so he already had a good grasp of how to cast. Mrs. Mary was out there watching us and had no idea... Holden pulled the rod back, and flung his hook and bobber about 20 feet out into the water. "Wow.. he casts better than me!" is all she could say.

After about 5 minutes of nibbles and bites Holden hooks his first fish.. a little Sun fish.. Holden laughed and giggled as he reeled it in and was very proud of his first fish of the day. It was pouring down rain at this point, but Reid was there and brought an umbrella out for us to keep dry (sort of).

Holden caught 3 fish total.. one got off the hook as soon as Holden started pulling it out of the water. It was the biggest fish of the day, but Holden was just happy to be out there casting and playing with the two monster horse sized dogs that were next to us. We had a blast though.. I think this fishing thing is something we are going to start to do more of.

Let's Kick The Cat

So I was coming down the stairs and I saw Otis at the landing.. he meowed at me (like he does, he's the noisiest cat around) and challenged me to kick him. So I skipped a couple of steps to try to catch him off guard. All this really accomplished was me drop kicking the corner of the wall and possibly breaking my 3rd toe from the big toe. I like to think of myself as being "agile as a motherf***er".. but I think old age is starting to set in.

It's still very tender and sore. I also purposefully told Maria I merley "tripped down the stairs" because I was embarrassed that the cat made me look so foolish. Actually.. posting this on my blog... probably did a better job of that now that I think about it. Oh well

This is an infinitely better story than the last time I broke my foot. (maybe God is telling me to stop kicking things?)

The Stock Market

The stock market fascinates me. I have been investing for several years now, and i'm just kinda dumbfounded at how the whole system works. But it seems the more I dive into it the more it seems like it's ALL speculation and what have you done for me lately.

One day you'll hear the market was down big because existing home sales are lower than they expected, and then the next day it's up big on good news about new home sales... (but what about the existing home sales that had you pissing your pants yesterday?) The market to me seems like 4 year old who can't make up their mind about anything. I have my portfolio setup with Google Finance so I can see the daily fluctuations (i.e. me losing lots of our 401k monies lately.. well not lots.. but it's in the negative ytd). I just need to stop looking at it and go with the flow.. or so I'm told.

I guess it's just tough for some people to ride out the rough patches. I haven't been pulling money out of any funds or accounts (like some of my coworkers).

SO... AND UM.. YEAH

So I sat here at my posting page for my blog wanting to say something. So here goes...

It's been opressively hot around here lately.. we have a kick ass pool in the backyard, but you can only go out there and play for only so long. I had the big kids (everyone minus Delilah) this past weekend and it went pretty well. One thing that Maria always tells me (and I carelessly would refute) is that Pearl is a diva.. and OMG I experienced it first hand.

I retired the old machine and got a new Quad Core, 4gigs ram, Vista 64-bit edition doozy that should "hold it down" for a good while. It's not like I ever have any time, but when I do I'm going to do big things with it for the company. It's already a tax deductible item.. so.. yay for that.

Just found a band called "rouge wave" and their song "lake michigan" very cool song.. need to check this band out a little further.

Maria just called me.. the boys just broke the light globe on their ceiling fan. That's the only downside to rowdy boys.. is they tear the ass out of your house. I guess it dosen't bother me as much as it used to.. find me a house with 4 kids in it that isn't somewhat worn around the edges. Maria does an admirable job keeping the house together during the day, but you feel like the minute you pick up some mess and turn around to clean another.. they just undid the mess you just cleaned up.

It's a vicious cycle.. but it's worth it. Kids are awesome. The end

ciao

Built to Spill

Been listening to them a lot lately.. my zune was on random yesterday here at work and one of their songs came on. I then switched over to just play BTS songs and it's carrying over to today.

If you've never heard them I suggest you check them out.. very chill and laid back, and very good. Probably their catchiest song (I like it, not my favorite though)

I like their song "You Were Right" a lot.. it's the catch phrases from a bunch of classic songs.. can you catch them all (a pokemon reference??? lol)

So, whadda ya think?

I've had a lot of Computer Repair business lately.. enough to basically pay for a new Quad Core rendering/editing/graphics machine. I haven't done much with growing my company this year as most of my work comes by word of mouth through friends and family. No advertising... yet.

I had someone ask me the other day if I had any business cards, so without further adieu.. here is my first stab at one. Let me know what you think! Is it too busy? Too much info? Not enough? Looks like poopy? Don't hold back, constructive criticism would be most appreciated.. I'm a big boy, I can take it.

And before anyone asks... I do not have a web presence yet. I have hosting setup through a friend and I'm getting ready to lock in a few domains. I will add the website address when I get that up and running. As I come up with alternates I will add them to this post.

"I'll take two... to go!"

Wonder why us Americans are a bunch of big ole fatties?














This is the "Lady's Brunch Burger" (what type of "Lady" would eat this at a brunch?) If you can't tell from the picture, here is what this bad boy is made of

1/2 pound ground beef
1 tablespoon freshly chopped parsley leaves
1/2 tablespoon grated onion
House Seasoning, recipe follows
1/2 tablespoon butter
1 egg
3 slices bacon, cooked
2 glazed donuts

I know what I'm having for dinner tomorrow night!

You Know You've Had Too Much When....

So we were hanging out with some friends that we hardly ever get to see... and we had a great time. We brought a bottle of wine that we proceeded to finish off so they got out a bottle of theirs. About an hour later Chuck comes downstairs with two Light Sabers and gives one to Holden and they start to battle. I took some cool low light pictures, but I left the camera in Baltimore... so you'll just have to take my word on it for now. His light sabers are actually pretty awesome. They are very heavy and make very realistic sounds (as realistic as a fake sword can sound). And before anyone asks.. he has the RED & BLUE ones

We had a great 4th though... actually saw fireworks on the 3rd and I'm glad we did, cause I think a lot of displays were delayed due to rain up in Baltimore. And today at work everyone told me about how bad the storms were that night and a lot of people missed out on the fireworks because they had to shoot them off early to beat the storm. I bet there were a lot of pissed off people sitting in their cars seeing the fireworks going off like WTF! It's not 9pm yet!

Ciao

ROFL

Genialer Spiegel Streich - MyVideo