Author: djuggler

Late afternoon spent talking on phone to people about a job

Evening spent feeding kids, changing diapers and chopping wood.

Late evening spent searching for Wonka Valentine’s cards.

Left undone: resume and cover letter for another job possibility (one that sounds promising!) and php

Considering it was a pretty day outside and calm winds, I had a brillant idea and thought that I could pull the three hollow headed 7 year olds from the Playstation 2 and the Gameboy SPs (note: this is significant, my boy has the Cobalt Gameboy SP but as the child with the Flame Gameboy SP explained, the Cobalt Gameboy SP does not have as much power because red means more power. My child accepts this at face value.) At the same time I figure I could make my boy a hero amongst his friends. I pulled out his Christmas present, a Tyco X.F.O. (Extreme Flying Object)! Basically its a styrofoam helicopter. The boys reply “we were going outside anyway.”

It takes 4 minutes to charge so friend 1 and friend 2 are outside on the porch, their thumbs never ceased to be pushing keys on the Gameboy SPs. Their eyes never left the screens and my boy was looking over their shoulders. As the XFO became charged my boy and I take it out the the street followed by 2 zombies clicking away on little plastic boxes. My son turns on the propellers and immediately launches from the street up to the height of the power lines. I cringe waiting for the inevitable and the wind shifts sending it towards the trees in our yard and the lines that connect the telephone phone to our house. This flying thing is about 25 to 30 feet in the air and somehow he gets it over the lines and brings it psuedo-gently to the ground where it flops around like a fish out of water as he learns to turn it off. This display actually brings the zombies out of their gameboy stupor for a portion of the flight. After several other exciting flights my son and I rush back to recharge.

During the recharge I ask, “Do you want to let your friends try?” He replies “yes” I say “ok. But the first flight from the recharge is yours.” I say this for a reason and that is the first flight is extra high and extra strong. He immediately offers the first flight to his friend. I respectively intervene and give the first flight to my son and it goes very well. He almost hit the power lines and in maneuvering about the lines he managed to get some exciting action on the flying machine sending in a large, controlled circle. After that flight he allows his neighborhood friend to try (immediately grabbing the Gameboy SP his friend had and losing all interest in the flying machine) and I give him his instructions on safety and how to land. Allow me to remind you that these creatures at 7 years old have removed their brains so the instructions are specific. This child launches the flying machine. It goes up 20-25 feet and exercising great judgement he turns it off at the peak of the flight dropping it straight to the ground shattering one stablizing wing in the process. My boy looks up and says “I don’t want to fly it anymore.”

In a matter of minutes, both Gameboy SPs and 3 children were back in the house near the Playstation 2.

Note: I forgot to include this all important comment on the original post.

        

I’m home alone with 3 7 yr old boys. I think I’ll hide somewhere. 3 capable brains all failing to think at once is entirely too much. How does a 2nd grade teacher manage!

My mother-in-law referred me to a job that pays $7/hr. My father-in-law referred me to a job that pays $55k/yr. So, which one holds me in higher regard? 🙂

* Ok. So I went and voted in the preliminaries. I would feel good about myself if it wasn’t for the fact that every time I step into a voting booth I realize there is so much more about politics that I really should understand. It makes me wonder that knowing what I know, how many people vote with no knowledge at all? “That names sounds similar to my uncle; he must be a good guy.” “I saw him on tv the most. He’s the guy!” It’s frustrating because I’d like to run out there and shake everyone and say “Do you know what you are doing?!” By pushing those buttons in the voting booth, we are deciding the future of our children’s lives, their education needs, our whole way of life; and they expect only 17% of registered voters to even bother showing up. It’s scary when you think about it because at some point it becomes an issue of economics and buying the right percentage of voters.

Wow! Makes you appreciate what we pay for a computer now-a-days. Let me re-iterated: 1989, 2 MB RAM, 256,000 Colors (wow! 18 bit)!

Spent the morning blogging, surfing, setting up Act, composing a letter to a friend in hopes that he can help me find a job and taking phone calls.

So I’m confused. On election day, we close the schools because we don’t want strangers walking around the campus with our innocent children about. It’s a safety issue. BUT today, for the primaries, the schools are in session and the same voting machines are in the gymnasiums and the same strangers are mucking about. WHY?

Isn’t this the same category of stupidity as we see at the airports when they confiscate your nail clippers at the security checkpoint then behind the secure area they sell you the same nail clippers at the gift shop?

Driving to school I was thinking about my lack of effort at finding a job, the baby was crying and the 13 yr old was babbling and we nearly had a headon collision.

Being one of the 43 million uninsured families, this scared some reality into me! Additionally the baby still has a lump on her left breast that we haven’t had checked out for fear of getting labeled a ‘pre-existing condition” and becoming completely uninsurable.

The baby is a joy. She holds her head high and is so confident. She cried in the car because her milk was stuck between her and the seat. After that was resolved she talked and talked and read her book.

This morning when I changed her, I found 2 pacifiers in her pajamas!

Stress level is high today but in check.

Baby is screaming. I should have had her up 20 minutes ago. Got lost on the computer. Bad dad! Bad dad! Time to take the 13 yr old to school. I guess the baby is coming along.

I found it interesting to note that the employment section of Sunday’s paper is no longer called “Careers”; it is now called “Jobs.” That says a lot!