420 Summit

Country

24 days ago

It's a new day

Lookee here, it’s five-thirty in the morning. That means it’s time to get up and seize the day; carpe deim, baby, that’s my motto!

I’m not really a morning person, I just fake it to annoy everyone else. It makes them crazy and there is nothing like waking up to Dad belting out a cheerful ‘My Sharona’ to get the day off to a positive start. Then again, by the time I get to, Ooh you make my motor run, my motor run, the fun is over and we’re scrounging in the laundry room for clean drawers.

Kids to school (four and three, respectively) and J (I needed her truck) to work in Albany. Back to two schools (lunch money and bookbag). Then it’s off to the ‘hood to change locks and look for my boss. I never did catch up to the little weasel, so I came home. To a grouchy mom and a busticated refrigerator.

Yank out fridge, start to wish I hadn’t yanked out fridge and start cleaning. Ignore web client (you know who you are and I already confessed) on phone, mess with gasket and put fridge back. Start Googling GE parts.

Then ten minutes of some crazy bitch Nancy Grace on TV.

Now it’s off for the little guys at school (two of both) and my nephew to the sports medicine guy for the possibly blown-out knee that might be really bad. Then J at work (it is her truck, you know) and feeding time.

There was also some ugly talk about an iPod and an Apple store. I think they said, the word: mall. I sure hope they have a parenthesis store; I’ve used all mine up and could use a few dozen.

How was your day?

317 days ago

Cut nails

My kids tech teacher is making me crazy.

My son brought home a simple HTML assignment — generic old “Hello World” stuff — requiring that they use several different text colors. When I looked at the examples he provided I was surprised to see stuff like:

<FONT COLOR="BLUE">Hello</FONT>

So I gave him a quick lesson in CSS (which he got instantly) and he went ahead and gutted the deprecated <font> tags. I also mentioned that he might be better off sticking to lowercase in his markup and that a DTD was a good thing to have.

He turned in a perfectly sound page that validated and received a ‘C’ because the teacher felt that he hadn’t demonstrated a mastery of the <FONT> tag.

He’s got these kids building sites like it’s 1999.

335 days ago

School daze

Wow, what a week.

We survived, but just barely. Three kids in three schools spread over two districts makes for a grouchy Dad, frustrated kids and a whole boatload of chaos. It doesn’t help that, collectively, we seem unable to read a school calendar — then again, what kind of school district schedules a half-day, on the first day, starting in the afternoon?

I expect that things will settle down, but boy, was I confused.

348 days ago

Can it get any better?

Mom and niece at the airport. Now they are here. The silverware is in the wrong slot and we managed to lose a plant. I’m doomed.

Two kids at camp — when do they come home? I should find out. A good parent would know.

I’d also love to find out why Marxist t-shirts are running thirty bucks a crack. I sure hope Che’s family is getting a cut. In the meantime, I’ll just keep throwing away money on worthless crap to tell the world that we don’t spend money on worthless crap. Maybe I’ll start hawking “Fuck Big Oil” buttons down at the gas station.

Unemployment looms. The downstairs shitter has shit its last shit. I have twenty-eight bucks for the week.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to school shopping.

Update: The Travers is tomorrow. Things are about to get much better… or much worse.

364 days ago

Old Timers

I only know/knew a few of these people. That’s not a bad thing.

372 days ago

Miners... forty-niners

My cousin recently provided me with a slew of photographs from my mother’s side of the family. I don’t know who many of these people are — we’re not exactly a close family — and, frankly, some of them scare the crap out of me.

I’ll throw them up in a gallery sometime soon and you too can marvel at the creepiness of my family.

372 days ago

Ohhh... pictures

Try and contain yourself. We all know how much fun it is to look at other peoples snapshots.

Now the real reason I wrote this post: I managed to totally creep out a houseful of kids. I’m so proud of myself.

They were watching some dumb movie with ghosts and I told them that ghosts were probably just invisible people living amongst us. You know, your invisible and need a place to live so you move in with the most chaotic people you can find. Your civilized, so you try and keep a low profile, but sometimes you screw up and leave something out of place or drip your way out of the shower.

It could be true.

373 days ago

The eyes, they tell

379 days ago

Dear Pie

F. Scott Fitzgerald to His 11-year-old daughter in camp:

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions…

Source: NY Times

380 days ago

Food for thought

The airport, the Albany airport, is probably not the best place to mention that your return flight arrives in Conneticut.

Who the hell books a return flight to an airport 250 miles away?

383 days ago

Huh... what happened?

I have no idea where the summer went. I’m sitting here watching back-to-school commercials and I haven’t even picked what school the kids are going to. The children are all transitioning so it’s a great time to get them in better schools — except I haven’t a clue where those schools might be. I’d love to discuss it with them but I don’t see very much of the little darlings.

Between Florida and various relatives I figure I’ve had about six days with them since school let out. I know that I haven’t seen much of them because I miss them and that doesn’t happen often.

The Bazoomi and the memorial service is over. We made it.

The Bazoomi rocked and the memorial service was brutal. Pretty much what I expected and while it was hard I’m left with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude to the dozens of people who pulled together for my family. They made music, they cried with us and laughed at our silly stories. They oohed and ahhed at our fireworks and forced food on us when we needed it.

Thank-you. I love you guys.

This weekend, it’s me and the boy. My kids are still gone and my mother and J. are flying to the west coast for a bit of vacation. So, I find myself in charge of a particularly active sixteen-year old and the football team that lives in the garage. I’m a little nervous — the fellows pulled out the furniture and pressure washed the floor of their drug den clubhouse. I think they have some plans.

386 days ago