Oh, the Ironing

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for Google's adsense. In theory, you can use your blog to generate some income by having people click on ads placed on your page. Of course, in order for that to work, you need traffic.

I don't get much, save my small band of friends and lonely web surfers looking for animal fuckers.

The main reason I decided to sign up was because the adsense is supposed to scan your posts and place ads based on your blog's content. I thought it might be amusing to see what might show up.

It has indeed been amusing. Now, though, I'm annoyed.

The ad that is currently showing on my blog (as of this posting) is for Thomas the Train Engine toys. Why would this annoy me? As I posted a little while ago, the toys are very expensive. I'm looking for discount prices because I want to get them for my son.

So here, right on my site, is a link. I can't click on it, though, because adsense monitors your ISP when you sign up. If they catch you clicking on your own banner, you get booted.

So, if any of you get bored, go ahead and click on the Thomas ad, and let me know what you find.

Dancing Izzy

Thanks to Molius for the GIF.

My little gal

That's the girl who will someday break my heart. You can check her out here

I stand corrected

So, as it turns out, spending the afternoon walking around the mall was good for getting the baby moving.

At around 1;30 Monday morning, KG shook me awake. She was having contractions every 5 minutes. I got up, put on some coffee and called my Mom. We got to the hospital around 3.

They got KG set up, gave her an epidural. Not long after that, her water broke.

At 8:31AM, Izzy was born. She was 8lbs 2oz, 20" long.

Whew.

You have got to be shitting me

KG and I decided to head down to Kingston today and pop into the Independence Mall. It's a good mall. Has a big ass Target , a Newbury Comics, and it's usually not very crowded. I stumbled across it last year when I did very special troop last year.

Anyhow, we were hoping all the walking around would help expand KG's cervix. So far, nothing note worthy.

TKJr had a pretty good time. We couldn't leave Target without buying a Thomas the Tank Engine toy. He's really into Thomas right now. Target doesn't carry the wooden "railway system", only the die cast. Those don't fit on his tracks so well. He really liked a large Thomas shaped carrier, but again, that was not designed for the wooden "railway system." Whatever. I managed to find a push along Thomas that plays the theme and makes train noises. He was thrilled.

A little further into the mall we came across a store called "Wicked Cool Toys." Indeed, they had some cool shit. They also had the wooden Thomas "railway system." Infact, as we walked through the back of the store, TKJr spied a Thomas table with a whole track set up and a bunch of engines. So we let him play with it.

I wish I could describe the look of happy contentment on his face. As I watched him, I decided to find the Thomas display so I could gauge how much the tracks, playsets and engines cost. I was thinking of replacing his current Brio playsets with the official Thomas ones.

I was in for a nasty surprise. $20 an engine. $15 a car. $50-$100 for the playsets. The fucking table was almost $300! I did some quick math and determined that the set up my son was currently enjoying would cost me the same as 2 sets of stormtrooper armor.

What the flying fuck??? My son deserves to be happy. He deserves to have brightly painted chunks of wood with wheels to push around a track if it so pleases him. But come on... Christ on a cracker. They are toys. Toys!

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I am sick and fucking tired of overgrown asshole children who buy "collectable" toys. I have had it out the ass with "Limited Edition" and "retired".

THEY ARE FUCKING TOYS. Toys are for kids. Toys are for playing with.

If people want to collect them and keep them in there friggin boxes, so be it. But when my 2 year old can't have his favorite fucking steam engine because his parents either can't find him or can't afford him, I get pissed.

Stupid fucking DVD-R vs DVD+R

I finally decided to break out the manual for our recordable DVD player tonight. I bought it a while ago with the intent of making DVDs of our home movies. Now that TKJr wants to watch his own home movies every day, I figured it was a good time.

So, I read over the instructions. Hooked everything up in the bedroom, broke out the package of recordable DVDs I bought when I got the player. Cued up a tape.

Invalid disc. What the frig? I look at the instructions. The model I bought only uses DVD+R or DVD+RW. I have a package of 5 DVD-R.

Fuck me sideways. To further piss me off, when I googled "recordable DVD", I found a FAQ page on about.com. Seems most recordable DVD players and all PC DVD burners use the DVD-R. But... there are some recordable DVDs that only use the DVD+R format. And that's what I got.

So, I packed everything up again. Thankfully, tomorrow we're going to the Kingston Mall for a Target run. I'll pick up the right freaking discs then.

Right now, I'm going to shut this sucker down as well, resist the urge to bitch about my wireless issues first, and go fuck my wife. It's not going to be easy or fun. We're trying to trigger contractions so we can have this damn baby already.

Later, gators.

No baby yet

KG is still at 3cm and not happy about it. We should be getting a call today to schedule her for induction. If she doesn't go into labor on her own, or her water doesn't break (neither of which seem likely), we'll be having the baby either Monday or Tuesday. If any of you out there are praying folks, pray for Monday. I don't think the poor girl can take much more.

Me, I'm just tired. I want to sleep for a day or two. That'd be nice.

I just picked up a bottle of the new Coke Blak. It's pretty good. Small bottle. I was hoping for a regular soda with coffee flavor. Whatever. It's not bad, and I have a feeling it'll join Pitch Black as a short lived obsession.

Time for a shit, shower and shave. Y'all be good.

Piggyback this, fucker!

When I bought my wireless router at BestBuy a while back, they wanted to charge me $150 to encrypt it for me. I passed on that offer.

Now, thanks to my IS buds CC and Molius and a helpful MS site, the ass clown who was kicking me off my own network can kiss my encrypted ass. Woohoo for WPA!

So, no new developments on the baby front. KG hasn't popped yet. She had an ultrasound on Monday. We got some really cool face pics of my daughter. Today KG had a non-stress test. Everything looks good. She has another NS test Thursday, and they scheduled yet another for Saturday. She has an ob/gyn appointment on Thursday as well, and we were hoping they would decide to induce her on Friday. The folks today thought they would do it Monday.

Anyway, after much talking with KG about what's left to do before the baby arrives, I've decided to start my LOA on Thursday. I'm only taking 3 weeks, so I've been trying to save it until the baby arrives.

However, one to many dumbasses at work have asked me if she's had he baby yet. I've had my fill.

So, tomorrow will be my last day for a fortnight and a half. I have a feeling I'll be returning to one hell of a cluster fuck. W00t.

It is accomplished

It's Good Friday.
1,973 years ago a bunch of paranoid Jews talked the Romans into nailing a young radical to a cross. So the story goes.

This time of year I always find myself thinking deep thoughts about JC, religion, god, all those good things. I can't escape it. The passion is deeply ingrained in me. I am the son of a preacher man, after all. I spent my formative years heavily involved in the church.

As a young adult I remained involved. Acolyte. Lay reader. Youth group leader. I even considered the priesthood. I've felt the calling, but I was never really sure what to make of that.

I fell away from the church. Ironically enough, it was the intensity of my faith in Christ that drove me away from being a Christian. It's been a long time since I've read the Good Book, but from what I do recall, there's very little in common between what JC preached and what exists today as Christianity. I had a problem with that.

There were a good number of years where I really struggled with my faith. Then my mind opened to new perspectives. That allowed me to gain an understanding of faith, of JC, of mythology, of life.

It doesn't really matter if Jesus was divine. It doesn't even matter if he was real. What does matter is it's a good story. A good example to live by.

Faith doesn't have to be blind.

This year, once again, I meditate, mull, ponder and bullshit about matters of faith. I may not go to church on Easter, but I think god would be pleased that I'm thinking. I have a personal relationship with what passes for faith with me. I don't mindlessly recite text while dressed in a suit. But, I am conversing with, at the very least, myself.

I'm 33 this year. That gives me some pause. Jesus and I are the same age. I have a hard time imagining myself in his shoes. Then again, I'm not the son of god. Still, me... hanging on a cross to save the people I see every day?

I'll say this: Jesus, I don't know if you were the son of god or not. You might have been the messiah, you might have been a mere man. Either way, you were the fucking bomb. To believe enough to die for the fuckers on this planet called people, that's something else.

I salute you, dude.

Stop me if you've heard this one

Jesus and Muhammad walk into a talent agent's office. Jesus says, "We're a family act, and we'd like you to represent us."

The agent says, "Sorry, I don't represent family acts. They're a little too old-fashioned."

Muhammad says, "But, this is really special."

The agent says, "Okay, well what's the act?".........

South Park tonight was brilliant. Great job, Matt & Trey. I fucking love you guys. Seriously.

Say it ain't so

Yeah, Bickford's Braintree has shuttered it's doors and slipped silently into the night.

I drive by the damn thing every day and was totally unaware until my mother mentioned as we drove back from ikea last night. I feel like I've lost a friend.

True, the place has spirled away from what I remember most fondly. First, they changed the interior from 70's orange vinyl and dark wood paneling to a fancier green and white. That was years ago. Then Braintree went no smoking. I always loved the Big B because the smoking section was the man part. The non-smokers were confined to a small space way in the back.

A few years ago they became Bickford's Grille. I stopped going, as it was putting on airs and was too far gone from what it was for my taste. But it was still there.

Now, the windows are dark, the seats are empty. There is a For Sale sign on the door. Anyone want to buy it with me? Eh?

So many nights spent drinking cup after cup of coffee, smoking butt after butt and talking about everything and nothing at all. Mycalls and I became best buddies there. As did Dude and I.

No matter where I was living, no matter what I was doing, who I was fucking, Bickford's was a homebase. A place to reconnect.

In the grand scheme of things, it's not that important. There are other places to meet. But it's been a personal landmark for a large part of my life, and I am grieved by it's loss.

I have my momentos. A coffee cup, postcards, the old school "Late Night Menu", the regular menu. There are pictures. And memories. Many, many memories.

Guess I get around

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

I can't really figure out how, if I've been to 25 states, it comes out to 49%. Further proof that Rhode Island is not really a state.

Dust in the Wind

Bickford's is gone.

You rearrange me til I'm sane

Holy shit.

I just finished listening to Dark Side of the Moon in Quad, man. It's late, so I'll redirect you to Molius for the details.

Suffice to say I am blown away. I wish I could have cranked it a little louder, but I didn't get started until almost 11PM, so I had to mantain a reasonable volume.

I'm going to need to hear that again. And again. And again.

Oh, and thanks for the short cut, Mole. It's a thing of beauty. Now to figure out those chords...

Fucked

KG and I received a nice surprise kick in the figurative balls today.
She went to pick TKJr. up from daycare and had (more or less) the following conversation with our daycare provider:

Daycare: You stay home after baby born?
KG: For a few weeks, yeah. Then I have to go back to work.
Daycare: Who watch new baby?
KG: Stunned silence. Um.... what do you mean?
Daycare: I have no openings.

Apparently, it never occured to this woman that we might want to have both our children in the same daycare. Or maybe she thought my company was going to double my salary as a reward for adding to the overpopulation of the planet. Neither KG or I thought to ask her about, as we (wrongly) presumed it was a given.
The result, the dumb bitch didn't leave an opening. She told KG that one of the other kids there has a new sister on a waiting list.

Not only is this news to us, it's news to us TWELVE FUCKING DAYS BEFORE OUR BABY IS DUE!!

So, KG is in an evil, inconsolable mood. We're in serious trouble. Obviously we can't afford for her not to work. If we could afford that, she wouldn't be working now. She doesn't slave away at BifDis for the fun of it.

We're not going to be able to find daycare, let alone reliable daycare in 12 weeks. The reason we ended up with our current daycare provider for TKJr. is because every other place had a six month waiting list. Not to mention every other place costs twice as much.

Neither of us has a friggin clue as to what we're going to do. We're screwed. Seriously. Fucked. Buggered.

Our daycare provider has been a blessing in many ways. Affordable, and TKJr. has been very happy and well loved there. He's learned to speak Cantonese. She has been a reliable, trustworthy caretaker.

She's out of openings? Well, there will be one before too long. We're not going to send our children to different daycares. That's lame.

What are we going to do? I have no god damn idea.