Thursday, June 19, 2008

Nominate

I was watching a show with my wife last night when I realized that I dressed quite a bit like the dorky guy in the show. I pointed this out to Jennifer and instead of reassuring me about my style choices she whole heartedly agreed. Unfortunately most of my style sense was formed by a private school dress code. Jennifer has tried, and succeeded to some extent, to change the way I dress, but I suspect I need radical help. There is a show called What not to Wear, I have never actually seen it, but apparently they do style makeovers on people. To get on the show you need to be secretly nominated by someone. So why don't you click on the link and nominate me (but you cannot tell me you did so), because I may have already nominated you.
In fact I think it would be funny to nominate various people for different reality shows. Who wouldn't want to see Joel and Leslie on Wife Swap or Mike on Survivor?

FYI: I am not really all that worried about how I dress. I think I look fine most of the time, although I will admit to the occasional fashion faux pas. For instance a few weeks ago I tried wearing hats. I wore one to the office and when I left work two hours later with Jennifer to go to Tessa's kindergarten graduation I was informed the hat had to go. I haven't worn it since.

What not to Wear

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Owls v. Crazy People

Okay, apparantly I am supposed to call "morning people" larks not crazy. Whatever. I am not morning person, I have never been a morning person, I don't particularly wish to be a morning person. At various times in my life I have been an early riser for work, school or kids, but it is not what I really like to do. Every few months there seems to be articles on how to "become" a morning person in some major publication or website. The thing is, it is not really that hard to be functional in the morning. You just go to bed earlier and get up earlier. You might have a tough time for the first few days, but most people adjust fairly readily to a new schedule. (I know some people try to speed up the transition with sleeping pills, but if you give me an OTC sleeping pill I will still be groggy three days later.) Getting up early on a regular basis doesn't make you a morning person, you are also not a morning person if you attach a caffeine drip to yourself first thing in the morning-you are a junkie with a stimulant habit-or possibly you just like coffee, springing out of bed happy, perky and productive makes you a morning person. My mom is a morning person, my grandma is not, I am not, I fear that at least 2 of my 3 kids are. What does this mean? Well when your kids jump out of bed happy, wriggly and ready for the day it is not really fair to them to greet them with sullen functionality. So I guess I have to make the effort to try to become an actual morning person. Bummer.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Father's Day

Another Father's Day has come and gone. It's a weird day for me in some ways, my parents divorced when I was pretty young and my dad moved out of state. This meant that I never personally celebrated Father's Day until I had kids. I still don't really know what to expect each year when this day rolls around.

I found out what my Father's Day gift was this morning when Tessa told me the shoes I had on for church weren't cool and that I should wear my new sandals. She quickly told me I had to forget what she had just said. When I assured her I had already forgotten she got annoyed and wanted to know how I could forget what she had just said. A little FYI for everybody, don't tell Tessa about presents unless you want the recipient to find out what they are early. She gets way to excited and always slips up and tells. The new sandals were sweet because I destroyed my old ones last Sunday at church while walking to the nursery to pick up Isabella (about twelve people last week commented about me not having shoes on after church). Luckily I was able to wear my new cool sandals, and look good on Father's Day.

It was a good day overall. Joel preached a good sermon (I really have to remember to bring paper so I can take notes). Then after the service I was put in charge of the grilling at the church BBQ and was able to turnout some fairly yummy food. Joel is also owed an apology. When Mike and I found out that Joel hadn't marinated the tri-tip or brought any spices besides BBQ sauce we gave him a bad time about it. I admit I was completely wrong. The BBQ sauce was delicious and the meat could not have tasted better. Tricia's turkey dogs were apparently really tasty, we were barely able to save one for her to eat, and I had to turn down multiple requests for more of them. Later in the day we went to my in-laws and had some fish my father-in-law had caught. I then fixed their gas grill by replacing the burner (I spent a good portion of my day involved with a gas grill in one form or another). After that I got to go home and watch the Lakers finals game a had DVRed. I cannot say I enjoyed the game, but I enjoyed the win. They played a lousy game on offense and defense, were torched by the Truth, semi-screwed by the refs and they still managed to put up their highest point total in the Finals so far and win the game.

I hope everybody else out there had as good of a day as I did. Happy Father's day to all the dads. Look forward to the coming week, and add up your point for the blogging Olympics (Jennifer tells me I have 68 which might be enough for the win).

Game Five

At 6:00 tonight we get to see if the Lakers are going to roll over and die, or if they can put forth an effort that gets the series back to Boston. Currently the Celtics have a 3-1 series lead. In the NBA Finals I don't think anyone has ever come from behind 3-1 and won the championship. So far the past ten days have shown Phil Jackson unable to get his team motivated for a full 48 minutes, a team of guys that can't keep their heads together for a Finals game and the only victory came when the Celtics best player had to sit with foul trouble. In other words the Celtics have come to win and Lakers came with no idea of what to do.
Lakers can win tonight if Luke, Vlad or Trevor can effectively guard Pierce, Kobe hits the pinch post jumper, Lamar controls the defensive rebounds and Gasol finishes around the rim. If they don't the leperchauns get to celebrate on our home court. (Yeah, I said "our" I have been a Lakers fan for life and I am a part of the team as their official future team chiropractor.) Hopefully the Lakers Sunday whites bring some luck.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Tessa said I need basketball and flowers on my blog.


What did you say?

When I am in the bathroom in the morning getting ready for the day I tend to talk to myself. It is basically just a rambling stream of words that comes out with even less of a filter than I typically have. I don't even pay attention to what I am saying, and even if you asked what I had said nine times out of ten I wouldn't be able to tell you after ten seconds. This can occasionally lead to problems if Jennifer happens to "hear" what I am saying (I put hear in parentheses because the words all come out in this sub vocalized gibberish).
Last week I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth while Jennifer was taking her shower. I proceeded to give my typically morning series of random words while I put toothpaste on my toothbrush and turned it on (it is one of those oscillating ones). All of a sudden Jennifer pokes her head out of the shower and demands to know what I just said. Luckily she caught me in the first ten seconds so the words were still in my short term memory. I had said "I need a nap." I wasn't quite awake yet and was wishing for a few more minutes in the land of Nod. Jennifer said okay and went back to her shower, but I knew that based on her reaction I really needed to know what she thought I had said. She laughed and said "I heard 'I need a blonde.'"
For the next several days I managed to say or IM to Jennifer at least once a day that "I need a blonde". I encourage all of the married guys out there to do the same with whatever hair color would be inappropriate. It almost always earns a laugh and a punch.

Something for the kids

Apparently Tessa liked the Three Little Pigs entirley to much for Jennifer's taste. I had to take down the video to ensure domestic tranquility. It probaly wasn't exactly kid appropriate anyway.

Booze

If anybody out there would like to try a delicious cocktail I would suggest an old fashioned whiskey sour. Place 3 oz of bourbon, 1/2 oz of cherry juice, 3/4 oz of sweet and sour and two dashes of bitters into a shaker with ice and shake. Pour the resulting nectar of deliciousness over ice and enjoy.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Veggies

This is the first year that I have tried to grow a garden on my own. In the past I babysat my Grandpa's garden when he worked out of town, but he had done all of the initial work and I just had to water, weed and pick the goodies. I planted tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini and yellow squash. Currently everything is growing and alive. The cucumbers and peppers are even flowering. The only problem is that all of my plants are half the size or less of my Grandpa's plants. I actually planted the exact same tomatoes as my Grandpa (he grew them from seed), and his are at least three times as big as mine. My Grandpa has spent the last several years perfecting his soil with a combination of loam, goat manure and special ingredients that he won't divulge. If anybody has a magic fertilizer, drop some off at my house and I will happily repay you in super vegetables.

Fledgling: A Liaden Universe Project

Fledgling: A Liaden Universe Project
Here is an example of space opera. I actually have not read this book, but the same authors wrote Agent of Change which is widely considered one of the best "space opera" style books.

Reading

In his book Glory Road Heinlein had one of his characters admit to an addiction that was harder to shake than drugs: reading. This might seem odd to some people, but most of my family is composed of people who get the shakes if they enter a room without a bookcase. In the past couple of years I have dramatically reduced my reading due to kids, work, life, etc. I still enjoy a good book (or a trashy space opera) so I am presenting my top ten fiction authors in no particular order. Please note that this is a current list, it most likely would have been different last week and will surely change by next week.




  1. Glen Cook


  2. James Michener


  3. Terry Pratchett


  4. John Ringo


  5. Thorne Smith


  6. James Clavell


  7. Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (husband and wife team)


  8. Carl Hiaasen


  9. Lawerence Block


  10. Robert Aspirin


I have no idea why anybody would be interested in this list, but there it is.

Competitions

I admit it, I essentially started this blog in order to compete in the blogger olympics. For some reason if someone (usually Mike) suggests a competition I always want to join in. Unfortunately I am not taking part in the other contests right now such as weight loss and etc. I think the reason I have avoided the other contests is that while Mike's favorite team, the Giants, is mired in sucktitude my favorite team, Lakers, is in the Finals. Basically I currently have other things to do, such as swear at the referees, yell at Odom and beg Walton to finish around the rim. Good luck to everybody in the blogger olympics and may the newest blogger win (if I win, I swear I will start my victory post with "First I need to thank God and my family ...").

Name that blog!

When starting a blog the first step is to come up with a name that hasn't already been used by some 14 year old kid. I choose the name Jotted, Edited and Disseminated. The first person to correctly guess why I choose that name wins an attaboy. All of you veteran bloggers out there are shaking your heads thinking that starting a blog with a post that requires comments should be a recipe for sadness and despair. Luckily I have a secret weapon: the Blogging Olympics. Basically I am depending on people trying to score commenting points to keep my initial post from being a heart rending failure.

What in the name of all that is unholy just happened?

The Lakers blew a 24 point lead and lost game 4 to the celtics. This has ruined the joy of the blogger olympics.