Stay Tuned

Yes, that's right folks. I am going to pick up my blog again. It is going to be a bit different, at least for a while. I would like to do some fun top 10 lists. I have a bunch of categories that I want to use already, but if anyone has some suggestions pleasse let me know. I plan to start this at the start of 2008. I will list out the top 10 items in the category and explain how I derived at each one. Then I can listen to all of you to see if I went wrong or know what I am talking about. For now, lets all just think of some good categories.

SD-6

Once again my buddy Mark recommended a great show. I never watched Alias before, but got the DVDs and started watching them. It is really good and more complex than I had thought. I live the James Bond movies, but I think this is even better. The multiple story-lines from her work at SD-6 to her CIA work to her "real life" to the mysteries about her father to her friend's investigation to her....I could go on for a while. Plus you get the added bonus of cool spy gadgets and watching this girl kick everyone's ass. I am so glad I an watching it on DVD though. Almost every episode ends half-way through a mission and I would have had to wait a week to find out what happens next. However, I find myself staying up until 1:00 or 2:00 am because I can't stop watching the whole next episode and then the next and then the next.....

Fashion Statement

Well, this weekend was a bit rainy, but we really wanted to get out of the house since it had been raining for days already. I went on-line and looked up the location of another letterbox. This one was located about 2.5 miles from any parking spot, but we had all day so I thought why not. It was just misting and was somewhat warm. So we pack everyone up in the car with the stroller, and some water and snacks. Just as we we leaving, it started to rain just a bit. So we stopped at the local gas station and picked up a couple small plastic bags. Amy thought it would help keep Natalie's legs dry as the cover for the stroller was not large enough to cover her legs. So she tied them together and turn them into some pants. I know, what you are thinking, but let me finish. We started our hike through the rain and cold (it was cold now). We walked and walked until we came to the ninth bridge where the letterbox was hiding. We looked under the bridge and found.....Nothing. We checked again and still found nothing. We knew this was the right bridge as it is not hard to count to 9 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and then 9). Some Muggle must have gotten it and didn't know what to do. So we headed back for another 2.5 mile hike. After a total of about 3 hours we made it back completely soaked. Except for one thing that is, Natalie's legs. That's right, the custom plastic sheeting worked perfectly. If you are interested, these disposable waterproof pants are now available from Aabyl's Blog. They come in a variety of colors like White, Green, or Yellow and come with almost any logo you would like. Have a favorite gas station or grocery store, we can do that, just send in $19.95 for a pair today!

Smell of Sulfer in the Morning

Ah yes, the snow is gone the temperature is up, what else is there to think about besides fireworks. It is that time of the year that I start planning my fireworks show for the 4th of July. I like to do a couple shows, one smaller show at my house with just fountains and wheels and then a larger show with aerials and things that leave large craters in the ground. I've been looking for ways to modify the fountains and smaller fireworks to automate the show rather than lighting each piece separately. Remember that maze I built out of PVP pipe? Well, now I have another use for all those pipes. I am going to build a small house like structure out of these pipes. Then, I will take some extra green fuse and tether all the fountains together strapping them all over this house. If it works, I will be able to just ignite one fuse and sit back and watch as my giant fireworks house fountain give us a good show. Yeah, it will probably just blow up, but that will be neat to watch too. Stay tuned for pictures of the giant fireworks house fountain. (yes, I need to figure out a name for it....)

More bathroom humor

You know that commercial for Sprint that has been on lately? It is the one they are advertising the 7pm nights starting time. A guys walks into the sprint store and says, "Hey 7pm, that is great! You guys should be making a big deal about it". The Sprint guy calls over to the corner where another employee is sitting in the corner. The 2nd guy stands up and sings as if he was at an Opera, "Seven P, Eeeeeeeeeeeeem". Well, I think my daughter has been watching too much TV. We went out to eat at my favorite restaurant, (Not Quiznoes), and as we were waiting for our food, she said she had to go to the bathroom. So we got up and I took her over to the men's room so she could go. We entered and B-lined it right toward one of the stalls. She sits on the toilet and all of a sudden starts singing "7 P, eeeeeem". Over and over. And yes, there were other people in the bathroom. I couldn't tell her to stop because all my energy was being put toward not laughing. To make matters worse, this bathroom had an exceptionally good echo effect, which only encouraged her.

Throne Room

It is a sad day here. Today I realized the full effects of living with three women. I sat down on my throne today to do my usual business. I pinched my loaf and reached over for the charmin. But what do I find? What is this? It was not my soft double roll, but a new kind of TP. I grabbed the roll and started winding some off as the little hearts printed on the paper made a path to this cute little puppy. That's what I said, there was a cute little puppy printed on the paper I use to wipe my ass. The last secured room in the house has surcome to the force of females and transformed into a women's bathroom. I'll have to gets some pine scented spary or something.

Letterboxing

We found our first letterbox this weekend! What is a letterbox and why did I go looking for one, you ask? Well, letterboxing started in southwestern England in 1854 when a man named James Perrott hid his calling card in a jar. He gave out clues and encouraged other people to leave their cards in the jar as well. Eventually others started hiding jars and leaving self addressed post in the jar hoping that they would be mailed by the next person to find it. This is where the term letterbox came from. Now, there are hundreds of thousands of letterboxes hidden all over the world, and thanks to the internet, it is easy to find the clues. All you have to do is make yourself a box, a custom stamp, and a note pad. Pictured here is my letterbox with my "ARC" logo and two smaller stamps for my daughters. Then find a clue for a letterbox near you and go hunting for it. The hidden boxes are waterproof containers and these days usually contain a log book and a rubber stamp. You can read the log book and then put your custom stamp into it. Then you take the letterboxes' stamp and put it in your note pad, to start your collection of letterboxes you found. Each letterbox will have a unique stamp in it. Pretty fun and the kids love it!

K'NEX

So there I am sitting on the floor hoping little people around playing zoo with my daughter. I thought, you know, I can't wait until she is old enough to play with legos. Then I decided that she is probably old enough. I took a trip over to the local toy store and went over to the lego section. I thought it would be fun to get a huge set with lots of pieces and build this massive thing. Well the biggest set they had was this airport thing with about 1500 pieces. What sucked though, was it didn't build one big thing; it built a bunch of little stuff. There was a plane, a couple cars, a couple building, etc. So I started looking around at other things. Then I saw K'NEX. There was amusement park rides that you could build, like a pirate ship, tubing, rollercoster, and more. Plus these things actually did stuff. Once you built the coaster you could turn it on and watch them go. I saw a tube ride called that had about 800 pieces and stood three feet tall! Turns out that both Natalie and I like building with it. Pretty cool. There website is under my links section.

Sickness

Well, the past couple of days have been pretty gloomy at our house. One kid gets it and then it is not long before the other one joins in. Natalie is old enough now that she can use a Kleenex and wipe her own nose, however, she likes to wipe only once with a tissue and then get a new one. It is almost like she is making some kind of close encounters mountain in the living room. The other one, is puking:( Yuck. What makes it worse is there is no warning. She will be just sitting there and then, BLAHHHH. Not a fun place to be right now, so everyone who reads this, pray that they get better fast! And if it helps, "If you tell three other people in the next ten minutes to pray that my kids get better, you will receive a $1,000 check by mail".







--Please note: It may take 6 to 8 business centuries to receive your check, if you do not receive your check in this time frame, please wait a little longer. Batteries not included.

Slayer Mom

My mom recently got a pretty nice laptop designed for gaming. That's right, I said mom and gaming in the same sentence. Since then I have introduced her to a few games like Medal of Honor, Starcraft, Simcity 4, and Axis and Allies. She has been doing pretty good at the games. Medal of Honor was her favorite for a while and she even made it through all the missions. (I didn't even do that!) What impresses me the most however is her performance on Diablo 2. She got the game and I help her out with a character build. I gave her a Druid zookeeper. Now, for those of you who know the game, this isn't a very powerful build. I thought, however, that she could summon her animals and stay back out of the fighting a bit. Well, it seemed to work. In less than 2 weeks she has already beaten Baal once and is well on the way though nightmare. She has earned the rank of Slayer and I wouldn't be surprised if she makes it to Hell this week. (Sounds mean, but it is actually a compliment)

Closed Doors

There was this hotel we went to a while back that had "theme" rooms. Rooms like a casino room, cave room, forest room, etc. Everything about these room was based on the theme. The cave room had curved rock walls, floors, and ceilings with a round bed with a bear skin and whirlpool. The forest room had real trees in the room with greenery everywhere. A couple of the rooms we multiple stories. There was a hot air balloon room, that had the bed in the balloon basket floating above the living area. It also had a two-story waterfall going into a whirlpool. There was also a moon landing room. That had an Apollo 11 replica space module that had the bed in it with a tv and video games. This spaceship had its landing gear down and stood 2 stories tall. The whirlpool was stationed right under the ship. We thought this would be a very cool place to take the kids to stay for a night. We called them up to make a reservation only to find that kids a not allowed! Apparently the insurance doesn't cover kids when there is a whirlpool in the room. So I guess the flying saucer, hot air balloon, and Sherwood forest rooms are just for adults trying to relive their childhood. Nice.

Closet Menace

We were finally ready, the color was picked out, the design drawn, the parts picked out, and the kids at the Grandma's for the weekend. Perfect time to redo the closet. We took out all the clothes and piled them up wherever we could find a space. Then I got the hammer out and gutted the closet. Amy started on the primer for the closet, while I went over to the Home Depot to get the paint and custom closet parts. Everything was going as planned until I got to the store. I went over to the flooring department (closet - flooring - ok?) and started looking for the closet unit. It was called the C-12 and it was no where to be found. I wandered around until I found a guy and asked him if they had any. He looked where I did, then said he would check in the back. I waited, and the guy came back out and said they were out and in fact that they we discontinuing them. Crap! I asked him if he could check and see if any other Home depot had some.

He checked the computer and came back and said there was one left in Wisconsin, about 300 miles away. The store he said it was at, was actually only 15 minutes from my Dad's house. I so ok, and left. I quickly called my Dad and had him drive over to pick it up. He got over there and asked them where the C-12s were. They said, "we don't have anymore". So he called me up to tell me this. Oh great I thought, but my Dad stopped my disappointment by telling me that the people at this store said the C-12 was being replaced by the C-26 and it is the exact same unit. Ok, they had three at that store, but we called our store first to see if they had any C-26 units. They said oh yeah, we have 3 of them. So I told my Dad thanks, but we will just get them at our store.

Back to out Home Depot I go. I get to the store and ask them where the C-26s are. "Well", they say, "we can't find them. I have been looking all over my department and don't see them. I know they are somewhere in the store and I am guessing they are in gardening or kitchen. We have had alot of turnover lately and things have been moved around. I got your number and I will give you a call when we find them." Well, there goes the planned weekend. First of all, as a customer I don't really care about your turnover problems. I just want good service and not all this runaround. So we wait about a week with no closet and our clothes all over the house when finally they call back with some news.

"Well, we looked all over the store and can't find them. What we think happened is they tried to put them together as a demo and broke them. But we can order one and it will be here in one week." What could we do, so we had Home Depot order one and we waited another week. The day came that Home Depot said the closet would be in and we gave them a call to make sure. We asked if the C-26 unit was in as we had ordered it last week. They said it had never gotten ordered! What the hell is wrong with these people. They said that they we in the middle of doing inventory and couldn't order anything new. Well, that was all the bull shit we could take, so we called the store manager. We told him the same story you are reading. He said he would take care of it today. He told us that they have trucks coming in everyday from other stores. So all he had to do is call up another store and have them through it on the truck. By the end of that day we had the unit in our hands.

What pisses me off the most is they could have done this weeks ago and we could have had the closet the weekend we had free! Instead we had to go through all this trouble and waiting, and never got a discount or an apology. Just excuses! Well, Home Depot, now the 3 million people who read this blog know what kind of customer service you have.