A Page From Ragged

I need to take a page from Raggeds book and point out all that I am thankful for. Thanks Ragged for helping me understand what I need to do.

Here is the list:
1. A healthy family- a year ago we did not have this and for this I am unending grateful, optimistic and keeping my fingers crossed just in case the sunny outlook don't quite cut it.
2. A wonderful wife and kids- they are who they are no better or worse but always in my eyes wonderful to whom with my heart and soul is dedicated and will NEVER deviate. Love ya Brando, Yuri & Yin.
3. A wonder wealth of family and friends that I can rely on.- I can't think of anyone in my family or friends that wouldn't take the shirt off their back to help us if we needed help and if the tables are turned and I put in the same situation I hope I am held to this regard also.
4. A home- Not just a shelter that covers my head and not a 40 room mansion but a true home that I can't wait to get to after work or any other travels that we may take. I think Love can even make a cardboard box a home.
5. A job- Not the best job in the world but definitely not the least and I have been blessed with the wisdom to know that even on my worst of worst days that there is worst out there and to stick out the hard times swallow my pride to support my family. These days you are truly blessed if you have a job.

I would like to thank all my family and friends for there work and effort through the Holiday Season. I know that it is not easy to take time from your busy schedules to spend time with us and I am truly blessed to have the family and friends that we do.

I have heard several at my work say that they dread getting together with family or in-laws or what not and I can't really say that I have ever dreaded this and that is something to be thankful for also.



On a religious note I also would like to say that I am so thankful that God loved a sinner like me enough to sacrifice His one and only Son so that I have a choice to one day make it to heaven. I know that I am not perfect and I know I have a long way to go and all of us is sinners from the very get go but for someone to give His life to give me a chance........ I am truly blessed.

What Now???

While I was running up town to take my tire to get patched, I noticed that the city had the road blocked. When I returned home, I went inside to notice that we had no water. Holy crap what else can stop working. The only thing that has not been disrupted around here is the natural gas. Knock on wood. I am sure that it will crap out sometime this week.

Out of the Dark Ages

For the last 2 days we have been with out a phone. We have resorted to using our cell phones for everything. Also this early morning around 3:45 am some yaahoos slammed their car into a utility pole at Kings Hill Road near us knocking out power to 2 small towns. Ours (Poe Dunk) and the one to the East.... We will call it BFEville. The power was supposed to be restored around 8 am but didn't get back on until till about noon. Someone said it was a couple of girls that stole a car for a joy ride. You know women drivers.../cringe for the slap from Brando.

It was hell without power. I mean like we couldn't sleep because the fans wasn't running, the alarm clock didn't give me that warm glow to check the time every 10 minutes or so, we couldn't get online to check email and blogs, Brando couldn't harvest her farm on Face book, the chickens couldn't lay and the toilet wouldn't flush. Damn those electric toilets!... and whats with those chickens??? Oh well we got home with a dial tone in the phone and some spark in the wires and we are back in the 21st century.

Now if I can figure out how to get my stupid alarm clock to quit blinking 12:00 I will be set.

Have a Happy New Year!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

On my Christmas break, I have enjoyed a great many things. First we went to Kentucky to visit my folks and also spent some time with Pilot, Needles, Ragged and Kdense. Thanks for all the gifts. They were very thoughtful and nice. It was really nice to catch up with family.

While visiting my folks I made sure to take along my Christmas movies that are a must for this time of year. I took Snow Day, Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story and Christmas with the Kranks. I think I finally got my fill for Christmas Movies this year.

Christmas morning was a big hit for the kids. I think that Santa was right on the mark with all of his gifts. Yuri asked us how Santa knew he wanted a castle when he didn't even tell anyone he wanted one. I told him that Santa has been in this business for a long time and is good at his work.

Yin got a Leapster and has had her head buried in it since we turned it on this morning. Yuri also got a computer game that he has been playing for a while today.

We didn't leave the house all day and our friends down the road dropped off our gift which was a custom made calendar of my yard haunt and a big plate of homemade candy. I'm gonna be as fat as a cow when I go back to work.

I was really good this year because I got a nice hooded coat, sleeping pants, clothes, a drill and light set, money and season 7 of Scrubs on DVD. I must have been very good to get this stuff. Brando will post what she got for being a good girl this year.

Ho Ho must have done a really good job this year because both kids have basically vanished into their rooms toys in hand and haven't been heard from since. Brando not being one to let the tree set there with nothing under it yelled, "TIMBER!" after the tree was robbed of its ornaments and promptly shoved back in the box for next year.

Merry Christmas everyone.

READY OH SO READY!

I am ready for vacation. I am suppose to get out of here at 3:30 pm but the way things go you just never really know. I don't mind working over if I have to but I hate hate hate the call-outs. Officially my vacation does not start until 11:00 pm Sunday night so they can call as much as they want to until then. However I have been called out on vacation before and was stupid enough to come in thinking they would be thankful and greatful for me giving up a couple of hours to help them out. That will never happen again.

I am ready to head South the my folks house. I hope we get Yin well enough to travel. She has been suffering from a very colorful stomach bug. She showed us her digestive pyrotechnics last night twice in the van, once in the hallway and a couple of times on the couch. Brando called and said she seems to be doing better.

We have cleaned all the stomach paint that was so artfully displayed all over the house with towels. I think we are out of clean towels now. Lets hope the onslaught is over. If she has the same thing as a fellow co-workers child had we are in for a second wave from the other end.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. This is a very stressful time for most but I know I put a lot of stress on myself from stuff I can not control and in retro spec really don't matter too much. I have been trying to remind my self to ask myself a question when I find myself obsessing over something. I ask myself will it really matter a year from now? If the answer is yes then continue with the obsession but if not try to drop it from your thoughts. I know....Easier said then done.

Laughed Out Loud

My wife Brando watches a slew of TV show that I would just normally flip right by. She watches The Big Bang, Two & A Half Men and How I Met Your Mom. Since she watches these shows sometimes I am forced to watch them also and most of the time I am glad. They have some really talented writers and actors on these shows. And what I mean by talented is that they have the same F#$%ed up since of humor that I have. Therefor I was rendered laughing most of the night out loud.

On How I Met Your Mom a Character named Barney made up these songs about his friends sister while looking at her picture in a Christmas Card.

2005 (to the tune of "Jingle Bells"): "Pulling down her pants, yanking off my own, underneath the mistletoe I'll make your sister moan..."

2006 (to the tune of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"): "I wish I could see her naked, I wish I could see her naked, I wish I could see her naked and down on all fours."

2007 (to the tune of The Dradle Song): Ted has a little sister, gets hotter every day. And if I ever I meet her, with her boobies I will play. Everybody! Sister, sister, sister..."

There were a few more that I can not remember but unfortunately for my wife I can't get these out of my head. So now when I am around her I can't help but sing them.

My marriage is just strong enough to manage The Christmas Story but this jumps it to another level.

Finally

I finally watched A Christmas Story for the first time this year. Yes...I know it is hard to believe but it is true. I gave specific orders for it not to be removed from the DVD play for subsiquent veiwing. I threated to watch it everyday from now till Christmas but I dont think my marriage is that strong. So for everyone who likes A Christmas Story and drinking games make sure and watch it and take a shot everytime them say or make a reference to the Red Rider BB Gun......Holidays are cool!

Christmas Times a Comin

I am ready for vacation. I want so much to get away from work. I just really cant wait. Wish I could take about a month or two off. But I am sure that I would not want to go back.

Christmas Party

Tonight we had our Christmas Party for work. Last year I was unable to make it due to turnaround but we made it this year. We got our normal pewter work logo ornament and set down to a nice salad placed at the table. We arrive with some good friends so we got to choose a seat at the table with them.

This years party was a murder mystery Christmas party so while chatting the night away we polish off the salad in about 5 minutes and they came to usher the dishes from out table. We waited patiently for them to release us from the table to go through the buffet line for the meal. 20 minute rolled by and nothing but pleasant conversations with our table mates and rumbling tummies. Then 40 minutes passes still nothing.

Then about an hour into the party the two actors for the murder mystery part started their opening act and all I and anyone at the table can think is when are these two yahoos gonna be quite and let everyone eat. I mean the actors were entertaining and funny but rather hard to hear over everyone elses growling stomachs.

Finally an hour and a half after the salad was scarfed they realeased us table by ever so slow table to make our way to the feed troff. It was really really good but I know my hunger played a part in how good it tasted. I also like to mention that the women folk at our table asked me to steal the salads off the vacant tables so they wouldnt starve to death. Being a total gentleman I only had to punch out a lonely couple at one table for the salads.

We left early before even knowing who dunnit. I feel bad for the actors because they were really good but just a victim to bad planning and or timing.

(Insert radom thought here: They had a dish of butter on the table with absolutely no butter knife to spread in on the nice warm rolls except for everyones salad fork that was dirtied from eating except for one that didnt eat the salad. Go figure.)

I WON I WON I WON!!!!!

Yesterday was the feed put on by a contractor as a thanks for my works business. They had noodles, mashed potatoes, smoked pork chops, seven layer salad, rolls, green beans and desert. It was pretty good.

After we all set around beltching our lunch, they had a drawing for about 10 brown sugar hams that they gave away. If you know me then you know that my luck is crap. I have about a 1 in a 100 chance in a drawing with 10 other people and every ticket but 1 with my name on it. That is just how my luck goes. So when they called my number for a ham I nearly shit a brick. I mean I felt like I had just picked out the million dollar suit case on Lets Make A Deal.

I walked up to claim my million dollar ham and tried to walk back to my fellow co-workers without much ado. I felt like pumping my fist in the air and thrusting my pelvas in the faces of all the pain in the butts around me and screaming YAHOO!! CAN YA FEEL IT? HUH? CAN YA? but I walked quietly to the fridge to put away my brown sugar beauty.

Far being it of me to gloat, I sneaked the ham into my car and took it home. When Brando or someone in the family prepairs it I am sure I will stand over it and watch the whole time. It is because for me, it is my leg shaped lamp. A wonderful prize that I WON I WON I WON! Not like the bowling alley that Shawfenhoffer won over in Terra Haute. Yep you might as well have sent it in the mail with FRAGIELEE (thats french) spray painted on the side of the box. I just hope that it dont get broken while Brando is watering the plants.

Yeah the neighbors might think I am a bit strange having a 7 pound ham wrapped in lights displayed in the front window for all the passer-byers to see but to my friends they all know that is pretty much normal. I mean it is a MAJOR AWARD.

Bummed

I am already bummed about next Christmas and this one isnt here yet. My work is completely stupid when it comes to trying to get your vacation in. We have a quota and several people in the shop have 5 or more weeks of vacation to get in. Well you black out 7 full weeks for turnaround and volia, you have a headache trying to get you weeks in when you want them.

Our shop accepted a shop policy that states that if your vacation, when first issued for the year, lands in the first three months then you get first pick. These three month rotate to be fair some everyone eventually will get first pick. Well this worked well with about 15 to 20 people in the shop but now we have about 36 people in the shop and I must admit a bunch of crybaby whiners than want to throw a monkey wrench into this policy if they dont get the weeks they want.

The problem is that corporate policy states first come first serve and if there are more people than weeks available then draw names from a hat. But in the hope to guarentee people the week they want every once in a while we adopted the shop policy.

This year I get first pick and if memory serves then this is the first year I have had first pick since hired back in 1999. So everyone in the first 3 months submit there vacation and then after that is locked down then everyone else can jockey for theirs.

Haveing bad luck really sucks and getting screwed all the time when trying to play by the rules really blows too. Some people slipped in their vacation changes in to where instead of only about 6 people putting in for the 6 person quota there was about 12 so the office drew names and guess who got screwed out of next years christmas when it was guarenteed to be mine by shop policy. I also got screwed out of Thanksgiving week too.

The bad thing about this now is that there is nothing I can do and if the Shop forman tries to do anything it will prove that we are going against corporate policy and get his ass in trouble so his hands are tied. The other thing that pisses me off is that one of my so called friends screwed me by getting the Christmas week and when I told him that he screwed me he said, "Too bad for your luck!"

The good thing is that one of the people who also screwed me for Chirstmas week and honestly didnt mean to do it said that when all this crap is over and everyone is settled that he would give me his week but still I am really mad at my so called friend. If he would have offered to make it right I would not have even let him do it but his comment really went through me like a knife. I hope in the near future he does not need me to do anything for him. I will eventually forgive but I WILL NEVER FORGET!!!!

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!!

Christmas Light Show - Amazing Grace Techno

This is what I hope to have next year. Ha ha ha.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas...

I was in the festive mood set by the season so I decided to do a little decorating. Brando was responsible for inside while I worked on an outside display. I hope you like the pictures. I hope it helps get you in the mood.

(Brandos Christmas Tree)

(Brandos Snowman Street Lamp)

(My House Decorations)

(My Lightshow)