I realized last night that I hadn't kept people in the know for a while now, so I thought I'd better get updating. Since there's not a whole lot to discuss at this point, I figured I'd give an itinerary for the coming month or so.

- Right now: Concentrating on getting packed and getting stuff boxed up and ready to go. Have so many things to make sure are all in order I don't care to list them again here. I'm sore already from moving and hoisting and running around. Still have another week of it to go.

- July 29th - Derek Richards' Bachelor Party - God help me, especially in light of...

- July 30th - Big group roommate house-cleaning. 4 guys, one house, a couple of hours. Voila. Done and ready for inspection that Monday.

- July 31st - Pat checks out of the old house at noon. Off work that day. Hopefully we'll have our keys for the new place by then, and can be moving stuff in. Probably will be late that evening that we get to start moving stuff. Fortunately, we're on the middle floor with no stairs in the apt building.

- August 1st - Full-on move-in action. Off work today as well. Mary will be getting into town for the shower as well, and will be over and helping with the unpack. Hopefully my staging plans will work out so that it will be a smooth transition into the new place.

- August 2nd & 3rd - Situate, arrange, and unpack. Probably some visiting with Mary in the mean time. Erin won't have to work anywhere anymore, so she'll be pregnant, bored, and alone at the house. I suspect dinner will be ready at 7:30 sharp. Getting the house ready for family for the shower. Mom, Granny and Crew will be beaching themselves in our free space on the floor and couch.

- August 4th - All the family to dinner the night before the shower. Ever seen About Schmidt?

- August 5th - Baby Shower - 2PM Saturday at the Train Depot. Food, fun, and piles of baby stuff. Hooray storage.

- August 6th - Family disperse. I don't exactly know how this is going to go, actually. This is a play-it-by ear kind of thing, I'm guessing.

- Mid August - Erin leaves me for a week to see Lea and her family. Hot Pockets of the world should run for their collective lives.

- August 17th, 18th & 19th - House guest in the form of Carl Stunkel. He'll be back to grace us plebians with his presence to help in Derek and Cory's wedding.

- August 21st - School starts, and Erin begins what should be her last year of her Bachelor's Degree in Education.

- August 31st - My birthday. I don't know what the plan is, but it's the final birthday *I* get to look forward to. Now it truly is just downhill from here.

- September 6th - Leave town here at 7; get to Tristan's about 9. Sleep for a few hours.

- September 7th - I have to be at KCI at 4AM to check in. Flight leaves at 6AM off Northwestern to the East Coast. A connection in Ohio, and I'll be on the island at Martha's Vineyard by 11AM.

- September 8th-9th - Preparations for Glenn and Julie's wedding. I'll be go'fer and bartender.

- September 10th - 12:01AM - Free man to do what I want for the rest of the time there

- September 11th - I'll be on a plane leaving the East Coast on the 5-year anniversary of the World Trade Center towers dropping.

- All of September - Hoping Erin doesn't pop while attending birthing and breast feeding classes.

- October 2nd - If you don't know this, you're obviously not paying attention.

- The rest of my life - Getting used to being called "Dad". Having a whole new set of birthdays to look forward to.

Hope you're all well. We'll see you all soon.

Brighid's new baby

our new baby,
originally uploaded by howhowlz.

My sister, never to be outdone, has decided to one-up me with aquisition of a new two week old baby kitten. Her name was preliminarily Murder (yeah, it's my sister, what can I say?), but they've since realized their haste in such a...recalitrant... name and are considering something more befitting a kitten rejected by her mother two days after birth.

My best to you, fair kitten. You're in good hands.

Sesame Street Aliens!

Remember these guys?!

Zen, The Salty Dog

...except that he's a cat...

[18:13] trippstorm: oh... second funny story... so Zen has got 8 lives left and he has gained the rank of salty, salty sailor....
[18:13] thegrio: pray tell...
[18:14] trippstorm: I'll tell you the quick version now, and the extended one later...
[18:14] trippstorm: he followed me to the kayak launch spot, and I told him that if he did that, I was gonna teach his furry ass a lesson and take him kayaking...
[18:14] thegrio: ahahaha
[18:15] trippstorm: so he did, and I did... and he was enjoying himself, looking out of the kayak, and sitting on my lap...
[18:15] thegrio: then the kayak rolled...
[18:15] trippstorm: I paddled into the local harbor, got caught in a swift current, got pinned against a skiff, started to get sucked under, then the kayak flipped, I grabbed for Zen, missed him and went under... came up, he was gone...
[18:16] trippstorm: found him two hours later UNDERNEATH THE DOCK on a pile of stones...
[18:16] thegrio: wow
[18:16] trippstorm: he had gotten sucked under a 27 foot yacht, and somehow found his way to dry land...
[18:16] trippstorm: so... salty, salty sailor... 8 lives.
[18:16] thegrio: Yup
[18:16] trippstorm: *whew*
[18:17] thegrio: 8 to go. =)
[18:17] trippstorm: anyhow, I'll give you more details later... peace out
[18:17] thegrio: sounds good. Have fun.

Jon Sends His Love

Jon's out, playing Army all summer in Northern Washington State. He was supposed to be back sometime next week, though running into Frank at Target (his Dad) revealed he may be gone until late Sept.

Well, either way, a small note to say he's alive and well, and blowin' schtuff up all in the name of God, Liberty, and The Persuit of Happiness.

Or, you know, just an excuse to blow things up and learn new and interesting ways of killing people.

What ever settles better with your nightcap.

Goodnight.

Note: Anon commenting now available

I don't know if you weren't aware, or just never cared, but commenting is now available anonymously. That being said, registering would obviously be the preferred method, as I could credit your lovely comments to the people.

That being said, back to trying to get Blogger to post my camera phone pictures.

Why?

I don't understand.

Why does Anti-Semitism exit? How was Israel formed? Why do Arabs so despise the people who are living on that little strip of land? Why does the US give such support to the Israelis? Is there something we can do to stop this landslide of anger that will sink us into another war of global proportions? What's it like to live in an area where you or your family could be killed at any moment from hatred? Why would any one group of people live to tolerate this? Why? Why? Why?

Israel apparently carpet-bombed Lebanon today, disabling Beirut and killing an estimated 120 people in the process. Everyone but our country condemned the action. Times like these make me upset to be an American; fat, happy, overfed, living in my luxury and my sin, enjoying the freedoms that living in Rome can afford me. At the same time, I can't begin to imagine life where I worry that at a stop light gunmen will run up to my vehicle, drag me out, and shoot me and my family in the head in broad daylight, and get away with it. These are fears, that as an American, I don't have to worry about. Our men and women are out there defending those freedoms I take for granted every day. They're operating behind the scenes, working for me, the fat, complacent writer. What do I do? Hate the freedom I've been so lucky to be afforded, yet cling to it like a lifejacket if it was ever taken from me? Speak angrily at the leader of my country while failing to recognize that I've been given that right to do so only by the blood, sweat and tears of people whom I'll never meet? I hate being an American, or iconosizing what Americans are, yet I can't imagine being anything else. Does someone in France hate being French because their government is the world's wuss who gets beat up? Do they care? Is there a man in the Arab world who hates being of Arabic descent because of the actions of Zarquari? What about these foreign presidents? Don't they realize that all this escalation is exactly what the terrorist movements want? How do we appease these people and stop the death and dying? We all bleed the same blood, but we just look different on the surface...

I'm getting impassioned and loosing reason as I type. Anger and emotion are getting the best of me. I hate not understanding the fight that may drag us all in. I wish I knew more about why things are happening the way they are. Hell, bin Laden was financed and trained by the US in the '80s, only to attack us in the two decades. Why?

I was getting really upset about this at work, but I couldn't find the answers I needed, so I went outside and took a breather. I was graced by something bigger than me to find peace in a simple little family of birds. Quick thinking allowed me to snap a picture off. They apparently grew up in a nest on the telephone pole, and apparently had just hatched. These files may take a moment to load, but here it is, my moment of Zen:

Me, You, Classic Pooh, and Ava Too

Erin's going to kill me for this, but it's the only thing I really care about in the whole nursery.

Classic Pooh. Has simple charm, mellow colors, and the huggable, lovable, honey-bear Pooh.

Erin's not a fan; I LOVE this stuff. So, anything you want to get concering Classic Pooh, I promote whole-heartedly.

• Target's got some.
• A List of Online Retailers who sell Classic Pooh.
  

4th of July at Lake Elbo

I love this picture. And to think we were 50 yards from that. We were sitting on the dock where this picture was taken. The owner of the business I work for was the one shooting these off. Every year he goes to a training session for firing commercial fireworks. Each year the Lake Elbo community drops about $4k on the festivities that last about 20-30 minutes. And, amusingly, another 5 when they find the explosives that didn't go off. That was the second year I had been out there, each year, chillin' on Jim's dock, having the cardboard casings from the fireworks landing on us. Hope we can keep up the tradition for a while.

Cribbin'

The crib a coworker was generous enough to let us borrow for a couple of months.

Baby Registries

There is some apparent confusion about the baby registries at Walmart and Target. I'm not sure why they're not coming up when you're at the store, but if you want to print out the tops or the first page and take them to the store, I'm sure the barcodes should find what you're looking for.

Otherwise, I'll be setting something up in the next few days to make life all sorts of easier pertaining to the baby shower. I'll make the announcement once things are in place.

In the mean time, here are the registries, which will be modified here shortly:

• Walmart
• Target

TTFN!

I Am My Father's Son (?)

Dad and I had a good conversation the other night; something like 3 hours worth of discussion about his life starting from about 1972 until about '84. Another item of interest was his relationship with my Mom, which I'm not going to go into here, but we jokingly laughed that Dad wasn't my Dad. Whaddaya think?

Edit: I just realized two things: One, these pictures aren't at a high enough resolution to really judge, as well as being too dark. Also, I don't have a pic of Mom up that could be compared against. I'll get something up to run by folks. =)

Save Lewis!

Clicking on the link over there in my sidebar --------------------->

should tell you everything you need to know.

Save Lewis!

Ecto

Listening to: Cant Get You Out Of My Head from the album "Cant Get You Out Of My Head" by Kylie Minogue
I've finally discovered the software I was looking for. It's called Ecto, and it appears to be everything I was hoping for and more in blogging software. I can insert photos, what I'm listening to from iTunes, what book or movie I'm watching from Amazon, and do a number of other features that I knew could be done, but I didn't have the resources to take advantage of.

And now, I do.

Number of things to do tonight. Stop by Jayson's, grab the camera, stop into Rockabelly's and grab my hummus and summer beer. Then off to O'Malley's, Fat's, and home just in time to feed my babies. Jon's off in training, and I'm stuck here to do Wednesday nights on my own, so I'm going to take some pictures of our Wednesday night shenanigans, sans my drinkin' buddy, and send them off to him so he remembers what he's fighting for. That, and to make him viciously jealous. Definitely moreso the latter, as I get to sip on my Summer Beer while he plays in the mud.

Hmmm, Wonder where I'd rather be?

What File Extension Are You?

Yeah.

I'm a big dork. I know.


Which File Extension are You?