Just a simple comparison

Hey McCain

How's that De-Regulation stuff going for you? Dumbass....

Put On Your Best Shoes And Lock The Kids In The Closet

IT'S A WOOT OFF!

We Report And Look At Things From Only One Perspective, We Know You (Like Us) Already Have Your Mind Made Up

I love when people think fox news is "fair and balanced". Notice anything on nearly EVERY article and headline on the front page of the politics page of Fox News?

WE REPORT (positive things about McCain),
YOU DECIDE (if Obama is a muslim!!!!!)

Something Shared, Something Compared

Maria and I were sitting in church listening to the sermon. Reid was talking about how Jesus picked somebody seemingly totally unprepared for the job to be his right hand man (so to speak), then went on to compare McCain selecting Palin as his running mate (and it was a good comparison... totally)

And I would feel much better about Sarah Palin.... if John McCain were Jesus.

Cat Owns A Printer

As you can see below I'm easily amused...

Walking The Boards...

We hardly ever go to OC in the summer... the fall is so much more enjoyable.

Love This Song

Making Ends Meet

It been a rough 3 or 4 months around the Stewart household. I don't know if it's the increased cost of groceries, or gas, or __________ (fill in the blank), but we are really maxing out our budget lately. We are never late with a payment, and everything gets paid for... we cut WAY back on using credit cards and the like... but it seems like we don't have the buffer we used to have (when I made a little less). I got a raise at work in June, and it still seems like something is out of wack.

I guess my raise has been gobbled up by the increased cost of living over the past year. I was talking with an old friend the other day and he told me too how they are just barely getting by... I guess it's a little re-assuring that we aren't the only ones just treading water here lately. It could be worse, way worse... like losing a job, health concerns or home foreclosure. We have a house to live in, food on the table & the water and lights are still on... but it sure would be nice to go out and have a little family meal or go out and get pizza or Chinese a few times a month.

A lot of this is caused by only me working, but it makes no sense for Maria to work basically to just pay for daycare. I also have the side business that I need to get off the ground, but time is short (like always) and I have started making more videos to sell (and that business is starting to pick up a little bit). But I don't do any sort of advertising or do anything to get my name out there yet. I guess in the evening I just want to unwind from a day at the office and watch a football game or play with the kids instead of sitting at a computer till the wee hours.

I just want enough to pay all the bills, put a little in savings (besides the 401k) and have some leftover for something special like once a week...Maybe that's asking for too much?

History Channel Special

I missed the actual show, but someone clued me into the website the other day... truly chilling stuff. I dare you to watch one and not be able to watch them all... it's impossible. Each little location bubble over the buildings is a video when you click on them. Truly amazing footage from random people in New York during 9/11.

You have to copy and paste the link.. for some reason I can't link to it

http://www.history.com/genericContent.do?id=60326#/home/

Back To The Grind

And not happy about it. Went out to get in my car to come to work and it wouldn't start (battery dead.. not sure why) and some drama around the workplace.

Boo

I Need An Obama Yard Sign

Are You Kidding Me?

It's becoming more and more obvious to ME that the party more closely aligned with "God's Will" is certainly not the GOP.

Certainly God wants you to pay less taxes (so you can spend more money on your self) and He certainly wants us to start as many wars as possible (He love the smell of Napalm in the morning). He really doesn't want poor families to have any health care, that would be crazy. And you know He wouldn't have any problems with big corporations raking in billions upon billions of $$$ a month only for the Republicans to give them huge tax breaks to pay less in taxes that in the end would help those less fortunate folks (who GREATLY outnumber the rich folk).

Being raised in a staunch Republican household I never dared to step back and see the big picture. I have more to add, but for now I have work to do. I leave you with some music on the subject.

Google Chrome

Some people won't know what this is, but it is Google's new web browser to combat Microsoft Explorer & Mozilla Firefox. I currently love me some Firefox(open source 4lyfe), but I have given Chrome a download (i'm posting using it now), so far i'm very impressed for this being the very first beta release. It's super fast and so far stable. It needs a lot of features added (you have to dig and check an option just to show a "home" button.. sheesh) but I have a feeling i'm going to start using it quite a bit.

Google wants to take over the world.. and for some reason i'm OK with that

The Festival Is Upon Ye

Had quite the action packed weekend. Took Friday off because I went to the Ravens game on Thursday night (thanks Shani!) and the weather held off and the game was pretty entertaining. Friday we sort of just hung out around town, did a little shopping and it rained most of the day.. which was ok, it was our "down" day anyway without anything really we needed or wanted to do.

Saturday we went to the Renaissance Festival, which is quite a slice of awesomeness. On the way there is was fairly cloudy and looked like rain.. but once we got there the clouds parted and the sun came out... and it got pretty hot. Really hot (to me). We haven't been to the Renn Fest in a few years, but not much has changed. Lots of creepy guys wearing full body armor (lots of guys were wearing like black security shirts with a kilt... don't know what kind of club that is, but it is one I don't want any part of.) Lots of umm... "plus size" women with "plus size" boobs trying to see how close to their chin they can shove them with their girdle. And a lot of them tended to put like random crap in between them.. like a flower, or a fake knife or something.. I guess it kept me entertained as I was looking. Maria probably didn't notice them, but being a guy and seeing boobs hanging out with crap in between them I couldn't help myself.

Overall though, it was a blast... other than us magically losing $20 before even walking into the door. I swear that's why I never carry cash on me.. you lose it that's it... no recourse, I only had the cash on me because most everything there is cash only. It took a while for Maria to cool down about losing the money (I'm pretty sure she lost it paying for the tickets... I gave her my whole wallet.. which I'm used to by now.)

We also went to the beach on Monday and it was packed. Everybody getting in their last beach weekend of the year... hopefully we can go one more time.. but you never know. Hanna is looking like it's going to come up the coast, so we'll have to see how that plays out.

Reminds Me Of Most Christians I Know

It is sobering today to find Christians choosing the political strategy of the crowd instead of that demonstrated by Jesus. It will cost us more than we realize. If we choose to defend our religion rather than seek the whole truth, we will lose three very important capacities: (1) We will lose our ability to see God outside of our own tradition; (2) we will lose our capacity to influence people in any positive sense toward God; and (3) we will lose the opportunity to grow in our own faith.

When voters choose to limit themselves to the singular strategy of defending a religious tradition, they minimize their capacity to positively influence other people toward God. When we are so narrowly focused upon our own concerns, we cannot expect others to truly hear us.

(Edited for content)

Taken from here

Minefields

So Maria and I are on the *new* school year schedule. Holden has his first day of Pre-K at the "big boy" school right up the street from us tomorrow. As a part of our new schedule Maria got up when I do to get herself ready (while I make the kids waffles, french toast sticks, or cereal), so in turn she would have enough time to get the kids ready while I took a shower a bit later.

We have a new puppy, her name is Nina, she's a black lab... about 4 months old. Her and Lucas (our other dog) have really bonded and are having a lot of fun together (as much fun as biting each others tails and ears can be). Well Nina is not housebroken yet, so we keep her and Luke locked in the kitchen to make it easier to clean up any accidents Nina may have. Lately she has been doing really good, I think 3 out of the past 4 mornings have been mess free. Just as I think we've turned a corner, I come downstairs this morning to a veritable diarrhea minefield in the kitchen.. with a bit of cat food throw-up and peed-on doggy bed to act as the cherry on top.

Probably took me about 25 minutes to clean it all up.. and even after that I wasn't satisfied and pulled out the mop & bucket and went over it a second time with that.

I think I'm going to invent a doggy diaper and all my problems will melt away like snow. On a brighter note, only 33 days till Dexter season 3 premiere.

September 28, 2008

OMG I can't wait... love this frickin' show!

That's The Point

The other day I overheard someone say they didn't like blogs because "people can say whatever they want to on them" and while yes, not everybody is nice and posts everything that is good and wonderful about the world... nobody is making you go read them. While it is easy to stumble upon one that might not be your cup 'o' tea, it's not that hard to hit the back button and stick to blogs you like, you know? Or maybe don't read them at all if you don't like people voicing their opinions.. just because you don't agree with them doesn't make yours any more valid.

I just found it funny.

NFL Experience

So I went to a Ravens pre-season game this past Saturday evening. It was a perfect night weather-wise and I was took a buddy of mine that I work with that had never been to an NFL game up until recently (he went to the Redskins/Bills game at FedEx the week before). We left the house around 2:30pm to give us plenty of time for travel and so we would have some time to walk around the stadium and take it all in.

We hit the road for the 2+ hour drive, get up to Baltimore to get our tickets... pick up the tickets and head up for the Cromwell station light rail parking lot. There were a surprising amount of people already waiting for the train.. I don't have a Ravens jersey yet so I felt a bit left out, but I'll get one eventually (not before I get a Chiefs one though.. Ravens are a close #2). Get on the train for the ride and by the time we hit the stadium it's packed.

So we get out and bam, we are right there in the shadows of the east side of the stadium. We get out and a short walk later we are in. So we get in and since we are a little early the concourse isn't very crowded and it's pretty easy to get around. We walk around for a bit and check stuff out.

Then we peak out one of the tunnels leading out to the field and we see a bunch of players signing autographs and warming up. We venture about half way down but don't go all the way down.. and the ticket check guys at the end wave us down.. so we go on out and down. Pretty good crowd of people already down there oogling at the cheerleaders and getting their autographs. Some players are signing as well.

We figure we should find our seats, so we go find them and we still have some time to kill, so we head on out to grab a sandwich & drink ($32). We come back out and the seats are really filling up.. it seemed like it was going to be fairly roomy around us, but it filled up pretty fast. We sat down and we have some really loud guys behind us. They hate the redskins and we sit down right in the middle of a big argument of how bad FedEx field is (my buddy that I brought is a redskins fan, but likes the ravens too). He's the quiet type and didn't say anything of course.. but I thought it was hilarious the beating he took from them.

OK, game is over and we stuck around to watch Phelps go for his 8th gold.. that was pretty cool. Watching that with like 15,000 people going crazy was a trip... it was easily 10 times louder at that point then at any point during the ravens game, (yes, it was a preseason game though). We left the stadium and we couldn't go through the east side, so we were forced out to the street on the south side. We were heading down the street then all of a sudden the road is barricaded because the players are leaving. We don't feel like waiting so we cut through the crowd and keep on going. Before you know it we see a crowd of people behind a fence yelling out for Rex Ryan (Ravens Def. Cord) and before you know it I turn around and there he is right behind me. The guy right in front of me was proud that he got Ed Reed to sign his jersey and wasn't shy about showing it off. So somehow we got into an area we shouldn't have.. in between players and some of the coaching staff.

A few other players were milling about, but with us staying and watching the race and it being really late with a long drive ahead of us we knew we needed to get on our way. Well, we ended up getting on the wrong train (heading north) and proceeded to get off at the next exit. This was actually a great strategy as it got us up to the next station before and got on before the throngs of people could heading south.

It was a good time, seeing the Phelps thing was pretty cool in a crowd like that.. that alone almost made it worth it. Some pictures of the trip.

Canada

The other day I got upset when I thought about Canada. I was worried that they might try to overtake the United States and force us to like polar bears, molson ice & hockey. Canada is a big country and they sit on top of us.. like that fat kid that sits on you on the playground and makes you smell his feet.

But then I looked at the medal totals at the Olympics and I realized Canada wasn't really worth worrying about after all. They are sort of like a colder version of France.. except they don't try to talk a bunch of junk and get pwnd.

Home Depot = American Idol

So I was in Home Depot the other day on a mission looking at some plumbing supplies. The in-store music was blasting.. well, not blasting but it was fairly loud. I feel like a tool for even knowing what song it was and looking it up on youtube (and listening to it while I'm typing this).

I'm not sure if it was a customer or an employee of Home Depot.. but somebody took the chorus (1:18) and proceeded to shred the song.. sang nearly the whole chorus very loud and surprisingly well. It made me LOL right there in the store.

You so want to hear it right now, so here you go... taste the best (WTF?)

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

Love It

If you've seen more than 50% of the original youtube stuff in this video consider yourself a huge dork (like me... I think this video is hawt)

Won't Allow Embedding.... GRRR....

One Of My Favorites

I Love me some of this. I haven't had any for 4 days...might... have... to... pick... some... up...

Coffee doesn't do anything for me in the morning.. but give me a 16oz Red Bull on an empty stomach and I'll show you what it's all about!



















And on another note, Holden got a bitchin' new waterpark from his Grandad for his birfday coming up in July. The kids love it. I'm not sure where Larry is in this pic, didn't want anyone to think we didn't let him play in it too. ;)

Don't Be Such A Winery

I got to go to a winery today that we did the architectural design for.. but the contractor (and the owner) decided to change things on the fly and built a lot of thing differently than the county had approved. So I had to go down there today and measure, take pictures and just look around to see what didn't match up.

It's quite a nice little place.. already open for business and the fancy interior and whatnot will be completed before the fall. And his house on the other side of the property is amazing, might be one of the most beautiful houses I've seen in person (yes, it is that nice). I think I see a fun little Saturday excursion for Maria and I to taste some wine in our future.

I was hoping to get a bottle of wine to try out (my boss said he gives them away all the time to spread the word), but I guess he just figured I wasn't a "wine man" (if there is such a thing... well, I guess he is..so..yeah)

Owned

Calling All NFL Fans

I just created a Fantasy Football league in Yahoo! for the upcoming Football Season. I had a great time last year being Commish and if you would like to be a part of my league this year reply to this post and if I like you I will send you the info to join. The winner of my league recieves (1) new in the original packaging Chia Pet

These Would Be Pictures From the Missouri

Smokeyness

So Maria and I woke up to some funky smoke smell in our bathroom on Saturday. We looked around and didn't think much of it, as the bathroom window was open. Must just be a fire nearby or something. Then later that day I went outside and there was a definate haze in the air and a pretty strong burning smell. Turns out there is this big wildfire down in North Carolina and it is smoke from that... I had no idea.

(another listing under the "smokeyness" category... just for you baby)

No Father's Day Would Be Complete

Without beer. Maria got me 12 pack of a new beer I've never had for Father's Day (Getting me beer is the equivalent of me getting her flowers).. and the kids made me a hand flower which I love and will go up on my wall at work, and the cards we great too.

Tomorrow we are doing nothing but going to Church, then we are off to The Beach for the rest of the day. Today I spent most of the day finishing our privacy fence in the backyard.. and it turned out really good! Only got one more side to do then the kids kennel is complete! I like th!s type of punctuat!on!

Happy Father's Day to all those Dads that read this... you rock harder than Zeppelin in their prime.

And The Reviews Are In

I work for a company that is very good to it's employees. This is the first job I've had where they actually give you a performance review every year, then a subsequent raise depending on how the board votes (without having to ask... how refreshing!).

Well I had my 2 year review today and it went fairly amazing. You sometimes don't know how these will go, and this one was basically 100% positive.. a bit of a surprise. I was floored by the scores I got in a lot of areas, not that I didn't think I made some good progress this year and that I didn't work my tail off.. I was just surprised by how high some of my review scores were.

Part of the fun (if you can call it that) of our reviews is the fact that we have to critique ourselves, tell the reviewer what we feel we deserve, then he/she tells us what the average of our 3 reviews was. On a scale of 4 (1 being "you're fired", to 4 being "you're the new president of the company"). My overall average is just short of "exceptional".. a 2.79... my average last year was a 2.38. So this is a very nice bump up and I am waiting patiently to see what happens to my next paycheck.

Is This Even Possible

John McCain said he is going to veto every beer that comes his way. Can he actually do that? I like to have a beer every once and a while, so no way in hell he's getting my vote. And I bet his wife is pissed off too... owning a beer distributorship and all.

Now: Sunny, 97 Degrees F

LOVE THE HEAT OF IT ALL. IT'S HOTTER THAN A SACK OUT THERE RIGHT NOW, AND WHEN I GET HOME THE HOUSE WILL LIKEWISE. I'M WAITING FOR BOB VILA TO SHOW UP AND PUT IN CENTRAL AIR AT MY HOUSE, I WOULD THEN LIKE HIM MORE THAN NORM ABRAM. IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHO THOSE PEOPLE ARE THEN YOU SHOULD JUST LEAVE NOW AND TURN ON PBS.. I'M SURE ONE OF THE TWO WILL BE ON THERE BUILDING SOMETHING, OR AT LEAST THEY'LL AT LEAST BE WEARING PLAID. SORRY FOR THE YELLING IN CAPS, BUT IT'S SO HOT I HAVE TO STRAIN TO MAKE MYSELF AUDIBLE OVER THE DRONE OF AIR CONDITIONERS. GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR

Something I Need To Fix

I procrastinate... a lot. I used to do it even worse than I do now, but I have several things on my plate that I have either wanted or needed to do for a while now and I just always find a way to put it off till next week, or next month, or next year.

I thought adulthood would fix all of this... but too often I take the easy excuse of being "tired" to make me feel better about my lack of focus and fear of change.

The Great Adventure

We are back.. back home from our cross country (half of it at least) to Missouri. We went, we saw, we got stressed, we relaxed, we took pictures, we visited, we laughed, we drove, we walked, and we walked and we walked.

Visited the Zoo (and yes, we saw the baby zebra), Powell Gardens, Crown Center, Union Station, Holden, and a few other spots I can't think of at the moment.

We took a ton of pictures with the Xti (over 800) so we will have much to discuss and look at in the near future. Let me just say, that traveling through Chicago O'Hare with 4 kids, 3 car seats, 1 stroller, and 4 carry-on bags was quite a debacle at first. On the return trip (through O'Hare again) we had quite a system figured out and could could board a plane pretty easily. One thing that blew our minds was the fact that United DOES NOT PRE-BOARD FOR PEOPLE WITH CHILDREN AND THE ELDERLY ANYMORE! We couldn't belive it, so we just waited until the very end and got on the plane last... we got the hurry up treatment from one flight attendant and we shut her down with the fact that if they still did pre-boarding it wouldn't be such an ordeal for us to board.

The weather was pretty wacky in Chicago on our way back. Our flight out of KC was delayed by about 30 mins, then as we approached Chicago we had to circle the city for about 45 minutes until the tornado warning was ended. We were a bit freaked because we only had a 45 minute layover and we were still in the air by the time our plane was supposed to leave! But luckily when we landed we found out that our other flight was delayed and our great flight attendant called ahead to the next gate to have them hold the flight for us. The flight from KC to Chicago was great, it was probably a 150-200 seat plane with no more than 15-20 people on it.. it was so empty it was scary. We got great service from our flight attendants, they all fawned over our kids and played with them and took Lila around the plane to meet everyone. It's funny cause the Flight Attendant made a comment that Maria found to be very rude (I thought it was funny), but it was funny that she ended up being really great and made the flight fly by (sorry for that bad pun).

The flight from Chicago to Baltimore was kinda bad.. at least at first. We were stuck on the runway for 30 mins in a hot plane.. and Lila would not stop crying.. I mean like the really bad crying.. arching her back and screaming louder than she ever had before. We couldn't get her to stop, we tried everything... people kept looking at us and you knew we were the talk of the plane. We were those parents with that baby that cried for 30 minutes. But as soon as we put her in Larry's car seat and the plane started moving she finally fell asleep and stayed that way until we landed.. then she picked right back up where we left off.

I have tons more stories and funny/exciting stuff that happened that I will expound on, but for now I must get back to work.

A Simple List

Ok, I know I will get some grief for this and that's ok... I get grief for a lot of things so this will be nothing new. But with the trip to Missouri coming up I feel like something important I will need will be forgotten. I have (at times) let Maria pack for me.. and she often forgets something that.. while usually not important... drive me crazy.

Random things that come to mind that Maria has neglected to pack for me (over the past 5 years)

Underwear
Deodorant
Toothbrush
Socks
(Will pack the razor, but not the shaving cream?)
Qtips

I always say "That's it! You aren't packing for me anymore!" but my lazy side wins out and I just let her pack for me anyway... not bothering to check if she forgot anything I might need or might think I might possibly could need.

RANDOM THOUGHT SECTION
One thing I need to bring is my cell phone charger. Today I spent some of my lunchtime getting a haircut (actually I got them all cut.. HAR!) and I had a fantastic stylist named "Baby Joy". How much do you tip when you are throughly pleased with your haircut? I gave her $4... thought about $5... am I in the ballpark? I also stumbled across some blogs of people I "know" and it's pretty wild how many people you know or knew in a past life now take part in the blogging universe.. it's bigger than any of us realize.. we are the internet

OK, mood recovery mode for the significant other... I loved our little slow dance last night in the kitchen.. the best use of that under the cabinet radio yet. Someday I will burn that CD of NPR Podcasts you have stockpiled. I will also buy you flowers again someday for no other reason other than being mad crazy in love with you.

There... I feel like I finished pretty strong there... dog house averted... (I hope)

I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast

I've been playing in a Softball League again this year... and we are even less competitive than last year. Actually we've had a lot of close games that have been pretty fun, only last week wasn't as fun because we lost like 21-2.

But I had fun if only because I hit my first Homerun... albeit with the bases empty and albeit being down 21-1... so celebrating wasn't really an option.. but it still felt good. It was funny.. people were like surprised I hit one... I actually was surprised myself that I haven't hit more by now. Being 6'2" and 230lbs, I should be Cecil Field'in the ball more often.

Not Turning This Into a Food Blog

But like Maria said, my mom out of the blue has now offered to watch the kids for about 2.5 hours every thursday (awesome). So today we went to Saladworks and had lunch... and while what I had today was mearly a salad, it was a mightily delicious version of a salad... greater than any mortal salad could hope to be (do people actually feed each other in public like this?). I like that they toss your salad (get your mind out of the gutter) in a wooden bowl.. only to pour it into a big ass upside down firehat of a bowl. I was excited that I might actually get mine in a wooden bowl.. so I was a little sad when it was not. And we had some super obnoxious douchebags there who didn't get along talking about work... one guy was talking about "The Office" and said he didn't find Michael funny.. that he offended him more than anything.

But it was fun to have a nice lunch with the wife and a more than decent meal to boot. Looks like we have a new Thursday mid-day date from here on out.

Maybe I Just Have Bad Taste

Panera keeps discontinuing my favorite salads and sandwiches. Just got word today when I stopped in the get my free lunch that they were not going to have the "Fuji Apple Chicken Salad" anymore.

I cried a little bit into my Smokehouse Turkey Sandwich. :(

A Shirt For You Baby

I saw this shirt today and I thought of you. I know you can relate to it on so many different levels. First would be your overwhelming support for the union worker. Second would be your insatiable appetite for the glorious game of bowling. See you at the lanes hottness.

Gather The Children

And Clap Yo Hands to This!

Not Becoming A Music Blog

But when I find something new (to me) that I really like I'm going to post it here. Found this band out of Denver called the flobots that I really dig. Very political and very much I like. I would say it's a mix of Cake, Emeinem (but better) & RATM (if only for the political part).

watch the whole thing, makes it's point towards the end
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuK2A1ZqoWs

another song I really like (no video yet, but a fan made one)

So I Found This New Band

Called MGMT... for some reason I really like their songs. I went to youtube to see if they have any videos...they scare and intrigue me all at the same time. "Time To Pretend" is their most popular song, but I like the song "Kids" better(although the video isn't MGMT.. it's a fan made video)



Here is a real video by them (they have disabled embedding for some reason.. and NO IT's NOT A RICKROLL)

click here

Testing

Read above, this is just a test to show you that hyper linking works just fine

and this don't forget this

The Great American Lawn

My neighbor just returned from over 1 year in Iraq, while he was gone his wife did an admirable job maintaining the house and yard last summer. Well since returning home he has proceeded to kick his lawns ass. He cut down all these nasty bushes in the backyard that Maria was trying to get me to cut down, (even thought I told her they were not in our yard, she still wanted me to do it!). I had just cut our yard a few days previous.. but he cuts his down to about half the height of mine, in the process making this house look like the house of a slob who is lowering standards in the neighborhood.

So you know what I did about it? I got out our new Craftsman LT2000 Lawn Tractor w/ 42" deck and cut my effing lawn down to bare dirt in the front yard... that'll show him! You may be a real American Hero "Mr. Neighbor", but I'm ready for you!

*Pumps Fist*

Keep Your Eye On The Ball

So our softball team had it's first game last night.. in near freezing temps. Actually it was in the low 50's.. but still, that's pretty dang cold with a stiff breeze. Had the game tying double late in the game... but we lost in the bottom of the 7th to a walk off 2 run homer. It was a very fun game though and I'm looking forward to playing with the guys & gals on the team this year. Last year we had a lot of cocky loudmouths who kinda pushed the limits of what is expected in a church run softball league. This year should be a whole lot more fun.

Holden & Larry start tee-ball next weekend, should be fun. Although lately Holden has shown little interest in practicing his batting and even less interest in fielding. Larry hasn't quite grasped the art of swinging yet, but he seems to really enjoy it when we are out in the backyard practicing.

Best Damn Show Going Right Now

Only Dexter could make a normal morning routine seem so... murderish? Is that even a word? Seriously though.. this is the best show on TV right now... it's not even close.

Season 3 starts in October.. so you got plenty of time to rent/buy season 1 & 2 on DVD... or just watch it on Showtime On Demand (like we do).

A lavishly groomed Moustachio

Maria made the comment "Guns don't kill people, people with moustaches kill people" and then we (I) got going on a diatribe about how people with moustaches really aren't all that good at killing people because they aren't as aerodynamic.. "top heavy" if you will.

Guess you had to be there

Zoolander

Pictures at the Zoo on Earth Day 2008.

Woot Makes Me Sad

Dear Woot,

I ordered the screaming monkeys at the end of the last woot off. I was sent a confirmation and the subsequent tracking information, no problem. Followed the progress of my package through the normal route, then it seemed like my packaged has been lost or vanished. Now my tracking info has started over (from Dallas, TX.), so I assume a new order is being sent out? It was been several weeks now and I just was wondering if I am correct about the original shipment being lost and that a new one is currently being sent in it's place. All my info is below for the original order.

Thanks,

Chad


Woot Member Services to me

Reply

It appears both items were returned to us for unknown reasons by the USPS. We can, however, have the items reshipped to you but we need the complete physical address you would like it shipped to. Please advise. Thanks for Wooting!

Riley

Not sure what to make of this... It's not like I haven't ordered close to 20 things from you already! I guess this isn't your fault woot, but the postal service's. I will vehemently dislike the postal service from now on, but woot is too dear to my heart for me to be mad for too long.

SADFACE:(

Need vs. Want

OK, we have a semi large yard that needs to be mowed quite frequently. We have 2 banged up mowers both Murray (went out of business about 5 years ago). We got the push mower free from family and it works well enough, but then we bought a Murray riding mower last year for $100. We bought that mower from our Church's yardsale and the money went into building a church down in Guatemala, so really the mower was a bonus. Well, I finally got the chance to work on it this past week and got it running pretty good and the deck engages and it's ready to cut... only problem is the damn mower won't shift into any gears.. just stuck in neutral.

So I NEED a riding lawnmower to cut my yard... my busted up rider NEEDS a new transmission.

I want THIS

We have a sears card with plenty of credit and would have until next April to pay it off. I would make room in the big shed to park it after every use. This post is an attempt to convince my boss to let me get one and sell the red abomination in the driveway. Help save me from push mowing the whole yard for another summer... Help me convince her~!

OH, and guess what... the monkeys were lost in shipping and new ones have been dispatched to take their place. Thanks Justin for rhymin' and stealin' my kids toys!

Condition: Screaming

I am bummed that the 3 screaming monkeys that are on the way have been delayed by a day. I cannot wait to get these monkeys and launch one up on stage this Sunday during the sermon. And shoot one over my supervisor's cubicle at work. And over the dog. And over the house. And over my neighbors house. And over the rainbow. And over a copy of Radiohead's "in rainbows" cd laying on the ground. And.. And...

Kansas Is For Lovers

Or at least I love them, since they just won me some cizash in my work pool. Yay

Before We Went

Some pics we took before a night on the town

1825 Days

43,800 hours
2,628,000 minutes
157,680,000 seconds

I couldn't come up with a better title for this than you already have baby... 5 years. These past 5 years have been the happiest and most joyful 5 years in my life. You are the perfect partner for me to share my life with. I love coming home to our busy house with the choruses of "daddy! daddy!" and as much as I complain about being worn out by the kids, I can't imagine our life being any different.

I love how much you care about how my day went and actually pretend to be interested in what I actually do at work. It makes me laugh how worried you can get about your body image, I think you look amazing. I love how well you take care of the kids, people ask me how you do it (manage with 4 kids) and I never have a good answer... maybe I should tell them "because she is SO money"?

I knew from our first official "date" (first night Annapolis) when we both sang along to Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me" in the car as loud as we could that I had found the one. I'm finding it's hard to write this in the short amount of time I have here at work today without things sounding cliche or from plagiarizing your blog too much.

I love that you think my farting is funny.
I love that you laugh at my dumb jokes when no-one else does. (you love to LOL)
I love that you want to have 23 children with me cause you think I'm that "money".
I love that you are the whitest person I know. (and I am possibly the nerdiest?)
I love that you care deeply for other people, like.. more than anyone I know.

I love you baby for all these things and so many more. I love you more than this blog post traveling through the inter-tubes could ever convey. I can't wait to see what the next 5 years have in store for us.

Love,

Chad

New Hotness

Maria and I bought ourselves a nice, new, digital SLR for our 5th anniversary coming up in a few days (April 5th to be exact). We take a ton of pics and just weren't happy with the quality of our point and shoot.

Some pics taken with the new hotness (click for large version, blogger dosen't support the insane resolution these are at, but they get the point across).

This One is For You.. JH

Even though I don't shop at Walmart

I'm going to buy laundry detergent there from now on

OMG, WTF

2DAYWOOTOFF

PRODUCTIVITY AROUND THE OFFICE DROPS 37% DURING FRIDAY WOOT OFFS. EVEN THE BOSSES GET IN ON THE ACTION.. AND THE LOLCATS ARE NECESSARY IN TEH MESSAGE BOARDS.

IT'S EPIC I TELLS YOU, EPIC

Hey There Delilah

Mr. Ed Was a Hoarse

Just like my voice is today. I had no voice at all this morning when I woke up, and slowly over the day I can make enough sound to be audible (barely). I can whisper what I'm trying to say louder than speak.

And yes, I still came to work today. I'm pretty hardcore like that.

I'll Take 2

If I could have any car in the world at the moment it would be the one pictured above. A Nissan GT-R (Also known in other parts of the world as the SKYLINE). It is going on sale in the U.S. this June 2008 (just in time for my birthday, hint, hint).

0-60 in 3.3 seconds
1/4 mile in 11.6 seconds

If you are reading this Maria, I would like a black one.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

I always like to at least stay within earshot of the cutting edge when it comes to electronics and geeky stuff, it's what I like. I have been wanting a HDTV for a good while now, and while I understand that since we have cable we don't need to upgrade anything to get ready for the digital switchover, that doesn't make me want one any less.

A few days ago I ordered this for my PC, a HDTV Tuner Card that will allow me to watch digital tv and analog tv right on my computah. I had to go dig out my rabbit ears last night and try this puppy out. I couldn't find the power cord for my old aplified tv antenna, so my signal was dropping in and out, but once I found a nice position I got about 5 HD channels over the air. Watched a bit of Jericho.. then my jaw really dropped when I watched some Letterman. It was just so damn sharp and clear... looking forward to watching some sports on it later in the year.

I think down the road I am going to build a home theater pc and it's going to use one of these cards.

College basketball is in full swing now.. the glory of the bracket. I'm in a large work pool for this... Kansas and UCLA FTW!

Camera Phone

I got a new Phone. It has a camera on it (rare, I know). Here are some pics I took from this past weekend.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

So, it's official. The Maryland contingent of the Stewart family is heading West for the green pastures and cow patties of Missouri this summer. We are going to be in Warrensburg and the surrounding area from May 31st to June 7th.

Looking forward to seeing everybody (Tember, I'm sure you're the only one out there that reads this.. maybe Jenna too, can't wait to see you guys.)

And flying with 4 kids with a layover in Chicago should be interesting to say the least. And having to buy 5 full price tickets is fun too... we will be starting a telethon soon to help keep us out of the poor house.

That's a lock

I think we might need to put a padlock on everything. Clothes dressers, closets, refrigerator, bathroom, bedrooms, beds... everything. Maria and I are finding out firsthand how destructive and messy 2 & 3 year old boys can be. Pearl isn't totally innocent in this though, she did paint that nice mural on our upstairs hallway.

If you have a lot of little kids, don't bother buying anything nice for the house until they are old enough to grow a beard and vote.

OH... almost forgot. My bag of crap was really a bag of crap. I got an atomic wristwatch (not sure if it even works), a clown punching bag, reel butler, & digital camera bag.

CRAPTASTIC! DON'T GET THE CRAP YOU WANT, WANT THE CRAP YOU GET!