Year: 2007

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My Wife’s Not-so-special Birthday

Cathy and Molly

This past weekend my wife had her birthday on Saturday and Mother’s Day on Sunday. I let her down. I'm spackling, go away Cathy says this picture is how I looked all weekend; she wrongly assumed I was mad at her. Deadlines have loomed and accounts were drawn thin. In an attempt to make everything come together I tried frantically to get work done while squeezing in lawn mower repair and drywalling; if money didn’t work out, at least I could give Cathy a nice lawn and finished bedroom for her birthday. Unfortunately, nothing worked out. My grandiose plans were falling to pieces. I had failed to get the children to make gifts or collaborate on handmade cards or even buy her a present from the children (much less the same for Mother’s Day).

Fortunately, the grandparents opted to take all five children for Friday evening and most of Saturday! Cathy and I had a relaxing evening together but I did not slip away to get her a card or gift. Saturday I tried to get yard work done and the mower ran for 2 minutes before declaring it was dead dead dead. Dead lawn mowerI spackled but the joint compound I am using takes 24 hours to cure each coat and I cannot sand if Cathy and Evan will be in the bedroom within a couple of hours of sanding. the ol' pry open the door and use a coat hanger trickWe shopped but Cathy was always by my side. Finally we decided to go to the mall and I knew I could slip away but we opted to pick the children up first and I failed to find a good excuse to be away from Cathy and the children. Bad dog I tried slipping away with the children but Evan made shopping impossible. In desperation, at the end of the day, I asked Cathy if she wanted to be involved in her purchase but all I did was upset her.

For Mother’s Day, we spent the day at Cades Cove. The day was a blast despite ending with the keys being locked in the van in the middle of the wilderness and Molly eating two sets of $50 blinds.

Next holiday I’ll do better!

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Bored? No glue? Got some change?

No glue

As a child, I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by creative people who always had a challenge at hand. Naturally, I didn’t have hand held video games (well there were those led football games dweet dweet dweet), iPods, and other such fancy things to keep us occupied. So, when we found ourselves with a long wait, like at a restaurant, I would be handed 65 cents and challenged to balance a nickel upon a quarter then a dime on the nickel and finally a second quarter upon the dime. This challenge still amuses me today and I find it both relaxing and rewarding to succeed with the balancing act.

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Rezoning continues…Feeder schools

I had a call today and had the pleasure of being interviewed by Gordon Boyd of WVLT regarding the next phase of Knox County Schools rezoning, feeder schools (ie. Middle and Elementary). If they use my footage, it will air between 5:30 and 6 today. I enjoyed the interview and afterwards thought many wonderful ideas and tidbits of information I could have shared and probably could have talked another 15 minutes. Of all this school rezoning stuff, I have really come to respect the quality of our local reporters. Regardless of station, they are professional, courteous, well informed, and very friendly. I am very unimpressed with some of our school board members and hope that they will never again run for office unopposed! That said, Cindy Buttry, Robert Bratton, and Thomas Deakins did their jobs very well, deserve commendation, and should be re-elected. I cannot speak much one way or another for Rex Stooksbury or Jim Williams. I was terribly unimpressed with Sam Anderson and do not think he holds office with an open mind. Karen Carsen needs happy pills and to not hold office. I thought Indya Kincannon was going to be a good board member but in the end I think she is just a good politician. I felt she played both sides of the fence and at the last minute chose the side that benefited her the most. Dan Murphy is a self-serving, arrogant ass and should be booted out of office today.

Update: Here’s the article with a link to the video.

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Absentee Blogger Minded

So Cathy noted that I haven’t blogged since Thursday which is uncharacteristic of me. Seems the tenants in my head have been having some heated debate over the direction the next chapter of my life must evolve.

The loudest tenant seems to think that we have some opportunities in front of us in the form of 8am to 5pm employment which could greatly change the level of stress this body carries, reduce the chance of heart attack, provide some stabilization of historic cash flow issues, and provide other stabilities to our family. That tenant seems to think that blogging "Seems the tenants in my head…" could cause a literal minded human resources person to circular file our resume.

Another tenant is claiming that we have a good situation with a small company in town and although it does not pay that much does provide flexibility and predictability. That tenant admits the small company causes some hardship for the family and is hindering getting some high risk/higher reward work completed. This tenant believes we should maintain the status quo.

Yet another tenant points out that the status quo is not being entirely fair to the small company nor the higher risk/higher reward company. That tenant suggests we let the small company go and put all eggs in the high risk basket. And also points out that developing a cash cow of our own, which brings in some predictable revenue, would reduce the risk.

A tenant with a nervous, squeaky voice suggests a merging of status quo and high risk by bringing on some staff or contractors.

The lunatic tenant in the bunch thinks we should spend all of our time on the house and with the family and seriously expects money to fly out of our butt.

The cacophony between the debaters makes thinking about anything very challenging.