This Says It All

A mid-day quick hitter. Yesterday's Daily Oklahoman Online had a Q&A with incoming kicker (and fellow Tulsa Union alum) Tress Way. Here's the second question they asked him, and pay close attention to his answer:

Q: What's it been like starting school this summer?

A: It's tough but I love it because I wake up every day a Sooner. I've truly been blessed to be able to be a part of this football team and in the spot I'm in.

"I love it because I wake up every day a Sooner." Oh yeah. What more is there to say?

Some Random Thoughts For A New Week

I don't know why ESPN is pushing soccer so hard these days. America has plenty of sports; we don't need to import another boring, useless one. Their top story on last night's 10pm Eastern SportsCenter was...the Euro 2008 final??? YO, ESPN!!! WE DON'T GIVE A **** ABOUT SOCCER!!! SOCCER SUCKS!!! STICK TO AMERICAN SPORTS! This indicates to me, more and more, how ESPN continues to go downhill.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I realized something on our trip to South Dakota a couple of weeks back, and it was confirmed by something I saw in our neighborhood. Remember how you have to have a Germanic-sounding name to succeed in truck-related industries? Apparently, you have to have a goofy pun name to succeed in small-scale cargo trailers. The ones I've seen to this point: Wells Cargo. Lode Runner. Haulmark.

Ugh.

Heidi and I watched the end of North and South this weekend (you know, that miniseries from the mid-80s with Patrick Swayze). I always enjoyed that, but it took a little doing for Heidi, as she's not much of a Patrick Swayze fan. Anyway, watching it always boggles my mind to a degree, and perhaps more so today, because the portrayal of the political turmoil of the 1850s leading up to the Civil War/War Between The States. I can't even imagine how it must have been. We have a pretty crazy political atmosphere these days, and it has been particularly bad since the 2000 election, and yet, no one talks about secession. Lots of liberals threatened to move to Canada, but even in today's poisoned political atmosphere of "no compromise, no retreat, no surrender" and continuing balkanization of everybody-vs.-white-America and splitting people out by ethnic background or whatever, there is no one pushing very hard to just split the nation up and let the chips fall where they may. Honestly, though, I think there are lot of folks, both on the coasts and in the Midwest, who would be happier and who believe in their hearts that things would probably be better for everyone involved if we were just to acknowledge that we can't live together and separate everyone out. I would personally be in favor of splitting the South and Midwest out from the coasts.

That might be a little simplistic, though; I think we're beginning to see more effect of the nihilism that is bred in the cities, leaching into the suburbs and countryside through the mainstream media. I remarked to Heidi just last night, after seeing a book at Barnes and Noble called "Skinny Bitch in the Kitch", that our society has become so crass. It is that very type of urban, me-first, nothing-is-sacred, obscenity-sells attitude that has poisoned civility and individual freedom in America, because it has destroyed the idea of personal responsibility that we claim to stand for. It has leached into everything in American life, and it continues today. In fact, I posit that this overriding concept that has removed the cultural identity that forced the South to secede nearly 180 years ago. They saw their Southern way of life under attack. Considering the United States was nearly 80 years old when the Southern states seceded, the fact that their cultural identity trumped their national identity is fascinating. They still saw themselves as Southerners first. Our American way of life has been radically altered over the past 40 years, but it has occurred so slowly that we have hardly recognized it. We have permitted the minorities (not just ethnic minorities, but political minorities) to negate or marginalize America's core values, while claiming to be upholding them. Maybe one day we'll stand all together again, and say, "no more."

I'm not holding my breath, though.

For some reason, I've been very excited about baseball lately. It's not that I've suddenly fallen in love with it again or anything like that. I have been thinking a lot about going back to umpiring, though, and maybe that's what's driving me in that direction. I watched the Cubs-White Sox game last night, and listened to it on the radio while I cleaned out the garage, and I was thoroughly engrossed for the entire game. That's a good thing (sorry, Martha).

Chong is off in Israel for a brief "vacation", but bless him, he's been checking the blog regularly. Hi, Chong! I hope you make it back in one piece...that's kind of a...umm...volatile area you're visiting. Keep your powder dry.

I've been getting a lot of search hits that past few weeks, for three different topics/terms:

1. Horatio G. Spafford
2. Zeroscaping (actually, xeriscaping)
3. What's the first thing you know?

Search for these here on the blog to find why I keep getting hits for these. Seriously, I get 3-6 hits a day just for these three terms. It's very consistent.

Well, time to sign off for now. Thanks for reading along.

The Height of 80s Geekdom

I'm currently watching WarGames on AMC. Nothing like it. 8-inch floppy disks, wardialing with acoustic coupler modems, voice synthesizers, stealing 6-character passwords, black-and-green screens and dot matrix printers, global thermonuclear war...ah, the technology of my youth. What a great movie...it embodied so many fears of that time. The emergence of computers in high places, mirroring what would eventually become the computer-driven doomsday scenarios that led to The Terminator. Nuclear war, the ever-present geopolitical demon of the Cold War, as evidenced by the classic The Day After. It's on AMC again tomorrow night; check it out for a blast from the past.

Even the scenes with Matthew Broderick hacking are pretty realistic. He finds his target, he does lots of research, performs some recon, and makes his attempts slowly and deliberately. That's the way today's best attackers still do it.

Great line:
Ally Sheedy causes Matthew Broderick to lose his game of Galaga.
Matthew: "You owe me a quarter."
Sheedy: "Sorry you lost your game."
Back when they were only a quarter.

Speaking of Ally Sheedy, she was SO hot. Too bad I was only 10.

"Greetings, Professor Falken. Shall we play a game?"

Flash-forward to my future with Broderick's line: "I don't believe any system is totally secure."

Waiting For The New Arrival

NOTE: I had this post ready last night but didn't post it...I got distracted. In any case, here it is, if a bit late.

I hadn't announced it yet, because given the way things have kind of gone for us lately, I'm a bit skittish. However, I wanted to officially announce that Heidi and I are expecting again. We'd been trying for a few months, and things finally came together for us a few weeks ago. Heidi is already experiencing morning sickness, which actually seems to be all-day sickness for her. Oh, and the best part is how Heidi told me. She called me from the guard station at my office to say I needed to come get her. Now, I'm already worried because why on Earth would she come to my office? I go down to get her, and she has Owen dressed like this:



Quite a surprise, but a good one. I'm getting more excited now, though, as we talk more about the baby. Heidi is convinced that it's twins, which would be fitting, I guess. We have a different ground rule for this one, too; we're not going to know if it's a boy or a girl until it's born. We decided we don't want to know, so there's no disappointment. We were hoping initially that Owen would be a girl, and it was a bit hard to take at first to find that he wasn't. Not that we're at all unhappy with him, of course, but you parents out there might know how that sort of thing can be. You kind of get your hopes up, thinking how nice it would be...then it doesn't go that way for you. We want to avoid that situation altogether, this time. I think that this time, our expectations and hopes are different, anyway; this time I think we'll definitely be happy either way. We've been working on baby names, because we're trying to name the baby somehow after Heidi's family (Owen got names from my family, so it's only fair to go the other way for this one.) We have some ideas, but it's been difficult to decide so far. Heidi's sister Dari has been very helpful in providing some positive direction for this endeavor.

Heidi's first post-test check is tomorrow, in fact, to see how things are going; I'll provide an update then. Thanks for reading along.

Renewable Oil?

You all know I don't post much during the work day, but I saw this and couldn't resist. THIS is where our science should be looking; how innovative, without being ostentatious.

Scientists Find Microbes That Eat Garbage, Excrete Crude Oil

I'm not saying abandon other forward-looking ideas like hydrogen fuel cells or advanced solar or whatever, but let's face it: those technologies are still years or decades away from being self-sustaining and productive. Ideas like this one could provide a helpful stopgap as we continue to wean ourselves toward cleaner energy sources (or at least, making this particular energy source cleaner). If this could hold itself up, it could become a boon for the entire world. Imagine: petroleum could become so plentiful, it would become almost meaningless. Heating oil, gasoline, jet fuel, all those costs would plummet, making the prices of nearly everything go back down to reasonable levels. Seeing as the article references agricultural waste, farmers would have yet another source of income that could offset the government subsidies they continue to receive. Third-world farmers could sell their waste to the oil "producers," further enriching themselves.

If someone takes this idea further and finds a microbe that eats crude oil and excretes high-octane gasoline, we're all set.

Have A Nice Trip, Black Hills Edition

We went to South Dakota this weekend, and here are a few thoughts from the trip:

The Black Hills are beautiful! We stayed in a small cabin at a little campground just south of Deadwood. It was very much the kind of country that was often the setting of Louis L'Amour's stories.

Mount Rushmore was awesome...seeing those giant faces, representing four of America's greatest presidents, is almost enough to make you believe America works again.

I don't know what Wyoming's state tree is, but I'm guessing it's the snow fence. I saw more snow fence structures in a few hours' driving in Wyoming than I had seen in the rest of my entire life.

Don't try to find a store that's open anywhere in the Black Hills after 9:00pm...even on a weekend.

If you're ever in Lusk, Wyoming, don't try to eat at the Subway there, especially at 1:45pm on a Sunday afternoon. That's when all 1,500 or so folks in Lusk go to eat lunch.

Another thought from this weekend. Tiger in a playoff at the U.S. Open, against another semi-no-name who has never won a major? Yawn...either we have another one-off winner, or we have Tiger. Way to go, USGA...further proof of how "compelling" your little tournament has been the past several years. I'm glad I didn't waste any time watching it.

I've Known Too Many

Barack Obama and his promises of change makes me think about the scene in The Princess Bride, where the Man in Black is climbing the cliff wall as Inigo Montoya (yes..."Hello...my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.") waits at the top for him. Inigo hates waiting so he offers to throw down a rope and pull the Man in Black to the top. However, the Man in Black refuses, knowing that Inigo is waiting to kill him. Here's part of the exchange:

Inigo: "I could give you my word as a Spaniard."

Man in Black: "No good...I've known too many Spaniards."

Mr. Obama would like us to believe he's going to change everything about our country and turn it into some sort of utopia. When we ask why we should believe him, his message hasn't been much different than Inigo's: "I give you my word as a Democrat."

Well, Mr. Obama, I've known too many Democrats.

Thanks for reading along.

Another Reason To Not Buy An iPhone

"Hip" and "underground" meets Big Business. Like I would EVER consider going back to AT&T/Cingular, anyway, but now I have one more reason not to. As for The Lifestyle, Apple talks big, but when it comes down to it, they just want your money. Notice how quickly they knuckle under to the demands of their "partners." Don't you think that, if they really wanted to, they could just say, "our iPhone is open and we will offer a version to work on any provider"? (What, you mean like Palm has done with their smartphones for the last 4-5 years? What a revolutionary idea!) I wish more of you Apple-heads would understand and admit that, rather than working tirelessly to make others feel badly because they don't bow to the Apple God, as you do.

That "Cheaper" iPhone Will Cost You More

Thanks for reading along.

Clash of the Titans

Phil and Tiger are paired up for the first two rounds of the US Open this coming weekend. That's right, starting Thursday, two of golf's biggest names will be playing together...for TWO DAYS. Imagine THAT crowd, eh? This enormous mass of humanity moving over the course, following these two studs. I bet the astronauts call from the International Space Station to ask about this dark, moving blanket they've spotted moving slowly across southern California, roughly in the vicinity of San Diego.

Even more amusing to me are the stories about Phil and Tiger playing lots of rounds at Torrey Pines over the past few months. In fact, Phil has played it at least every other week this year, because though he spent a great deal of time on it and won several matches and even the Buick Invitational there one year, it has had some redesign done. Torrey Pines is a public course, so anyone can play it. But can you just imagine the guy taking tee times in the clubhouse? Here's how I imagine it happening:

RING...RING...RING...

"Torrey Pines, may I help you?"

"Hi, I'd like to reserve a tee time for next Monday morning on the South course."

"I've got a 8:30 am open."

"That works."

"How many?"

"There will be three of us."

"Your name?"

"Mickelson."

"......yeah, sure."

"No, seriously, Mickelson. M-I-C-K-E-L-S-O-N."

[chuckling] "OK, Mr..." [snort] "Mickelson, I have you down. See you on Monday.

"Thank you." [hangs up]

"Hey, Bob, some guy just called...claimed his name was Mickelson. You'd think these guys could be more original..."

RING...RING...RING...

"Torrey Pines, may I help you?"

"Yeah, I want to reserve a tee time on the South course for next Tuesday morning."

"No problem...I have slots open every 10 minutes from 7:00 until 8:20, and also 8:40."

"How about 7:00?"

"Yes, sir. What's the name?"

"Just put it under Tiger."

"Right, right...seriously, what's the name?"

"Woods."

"Sigh...If you insist. Make sure Ernie and Sergio check in 10 minutes before your tee time. See you next Tuesday, Mr. Woods." [hangs up]

"We're getting nothing but pranksters today, Bob."

Thanks for reading along.

Big Scares and Bad Days

A report has come out saying that the big AIDS scare for heterosexuals was just that, a scare. There was never any explosion of cases in straight people, as the scientists and journalists said there would be. Personally, I enjoy what James Taranto in today's Best of the Web Today over at WSJ online:

The AIDS epidemic that wasn't is one reason we are skeptical of global warmism, another purported cataclysm that is supposedly just around the corner, that is purportedly based on science but about which one may not ask questions, and that dovetails conveniently with pre-existing ideological agendas.

Ten or 20 years hence, will we be reading articles about the U.N. admitting that global warming wasn't all it was cracked up to be? Let's hope so.

Of course, now thare's a huge gap to be filled, so a new scare has emerged:

Study: 1 in 4 Adults in NYC Have Herpes Virus

Ugh...what's sex without a little fear, eh?

On the other hand, you could this guy:
















I saw this on my drive home this evening. You know it's a bad day when your tow truck needs a tow truck.

Thanks for reading along.

Wow, What A Surprise

I don't normally post during the day, but I had to comment on this one.

A basketball playoff game, with complaints about the officiating ruining the game? Say it ain't so.

Yet another example of how basketball is just one level above WWE for me. It's just starting to get too fake. Thanks for reading along.

Oklahoma Chiggers

It's summertime, and that means quite a lot if you're an Okie, like me:

1. Lots of swimming and time at the lake
2. Lots of ticks and chiggers

Everyone knows about ticks, but chiggers don't get quite the same kind of coverage, because they don't carry the same kind of diseases that ticks do. But they are a huge problem back home, because they are one of the itchiest, most annoying things you can pick up, especially if you spend any time in the woods/weeds (golfers, hikers, and kids all apply). The summer between my 7th and 8th grade years, I spent three weeks at my Grandpa Mallow's house out at Lake Tenkiller. I spent most of those weeks riding my motor scooter, shooting at squirrels with my BB gun (that's quite a feat, actually hitting one, let alone bringing one down...a good .22 is the weapon of choice there), and generally messing around in the woods. Every night, I had to do a tick check, during which time I think I removed 4-5 ticks. I also liberally coated my ankles, knees, and other areas with Campho-Phenique (TM). Chiggers don't like that very much, and I tell you what, they sure do let you know. If you've ever done this to get rid of chiggers, you know what I'm talking about; you get the idea that maybe using a flamethrower would be less irritating and painful.

Anyway, happy summer to all, and especially to my Okie brothers and sisters back home. I'm only going to get less than two weeks back in the glorious Oklahoma summer, in early August, so get in lots of good lake time for those of us who can be there only in spirit. Thanks for reading along.

Red Earth, and Unpredictability

The annual Red Earth Festival opened on Friday, and it concludes today. I have never been to Red Earth but I would love to go. I love powwows, always have. I love seeing the beautiful regalia of the dancers, hearing the chanting and the drums, and watching the exquisite movements, especially of the really polished and practiced dancers. Red Earth is one of the country's biggest Native American dance festivals and hundreds compete from all around the country, with many thousands more attending. There are also crafts, a 5K run, and other Native American activities. It's in Oklahoma City every year in early June, and if you've never been, I highly recommend you try to make it, at least once.

Except now, Ticketmaster seems to be handling their ticketing. Bummer.

Heidi was talking to me last night about how she is for me, and what our relationship is like. I've been having some trouble with our vehicles lately, so she put it like this:

"You never know what I'm going to be like. I'm like the truck. You never know if I'm going to start up right away, or if you're going to have to coax me a little to get me going for the day, or if I'm just going to flat-out not run at all."

She really does come up with some gems. It IS good that she keeps me on my toes.

Thanks for reading along.

At Last, Some REAL Spring Weather!

The past week or so has really been like Heaven, for weather. I don't say that lightly, because you all know how I feel generally about Colorado, but I have to admit (as much as it hurts) that Colorado has really come through with some good old-fashioned springtime weather recently. Last week and last weekend were HOT! I'm talking up into the 80s hot. That's a wonderful start. Then yesterday and today, we got......THUNDERSTORMS! Real ones, with thunder and lightning and hail! On second thought, I could do without the hail. Last week, we even had tornadoes, though I hesitate to mention it because that particular tornado practically destroyed a good-sized chunk of the town of Windsor, up close to where Heidi's parents live up in Loveland. Tornadoes are wonderful and terrible things. They're kind of like 14ers; some folks are obsessed with seeing as many as they can, as many times as they can, as closely as they can. We Okies fully know and appreciate their power, since we have them all the time in the spring and early summer. Colorado doesn't get them quite as regularly, and the Denver area and Urban Corridor don't see them much at all, so there's a lot more terror than wonder when they come around here. In fact, that's what makes all of this weather so noteworthy. Usually, the weather gets all broken up because it's coming over the freak currents generated in the mountains, so the storms we get are typically somewhat tame. It can't form the really awesome thunderstorms that I prefer until it moves further east, where the uniformity of the plains, with its convection currents coming off the flat, hot land force the air upward and build the giant thunderheads. In fact, I have been able to watch the lightning way off to the east the past few nights as the storms have moved away and built their strength.

While I'm talking about weather, I have two absolute favorite websites for weather: WeatherBonk, which provides real-time conditions tracking on Google Maps and lets you look at forecasts from various sources, as well as web cams from areas you choose. Then, for good forecasts, I typically go to The Source, the National Weather Service site. Of course, they take information folks like the National Severe Storms Laboratory, which is in Norman, of course. Always good to support the folks back home.

In any case, I'm going to enjoy this while I've got it...it almost feels like I'm back home. Thanks for reading along.

A Few Favorites

We went to Cracker Barrel tonight for dinner. It's fairly inexpensive and we wanted to celebrate some big news from today...but I'll talk about that later.

I love going to Cracker Barrel, mostly because it makes me think of home. It bills itself as a "country store" and it always has a HUGE front porch area with lots of nice rocking chairs. Cane-back rocking chairs, like the old Southern classics made by Brumby, are the order of the day, with some all-wood models as well. The food is standard Southern fare, "ordinary but delicious" as Katie likes to say. Tonight, Heidi and I started with a cup of tortilla soup each (I'm a real sucker for a good soup, especially tortilla soup). Heidi had the beef stew with corn muffins and applesauce. I had Momma's Pancake Breakfast: three pancakes with real maple syrup (Cracker Barrel claims with pride to use 6% of the world's annual supply in its stores nationwide), thick bacon, and two scrambled eggs. Oh, and I wanted a pork chop, so I got one on the side. Owen and I wrapped up with a test drive of one of the aforementioned cane-back rocking chairs.

On the drive home, we got another treat. Sirius Radio has a channel called Kids Stuff, dedicated to kids music of all stripes. At 9:00 pm (well, 9:00 pm Mountain time, anyway), they have a segment they call "Big Kids Stuff" where they play older stuff for all of us older kids. The Flintstones Theme, the Jetsons, Underdog, Pink Panther, Schoolhouse Rock, Ren and Stimpy, all of the old classic kids' tunes we grew up with. I love Sirius, and I've had it for several years now, but I still find new and interesting things that Sirius offers. I can't wait for the XM merger to go through, also. That will make their offerings complete. You can get a free trial to listen to their content online, to decide if it's for you. I recommend you check it out. Satellite radios are getting pretty inexpensive now, down to around $40, and the service is about $12 a month. Also, they always have good deals on radios as incentives, much like the cell providers with phones. If you've thought about satellite radio before but haven't taken the plunge, now's a great time to take a look. Sorry for the shameless plug, but getting Sirius was seriously one of the best decisions I've made regarding entertainment content, and I highly recommend them.

Thanks for reading along.

Deep Thoughts

No, my "Deep Thoughts" probably won't be as funny as Jack Handey's always were, but they will cover a few things that I've been thinking about recently. (And some of them MIGHT be funny.)

I prefer the SOUND of the music to the CONTENT of the music. Heidi and I have been having this debate obliquely for quite a while...almost, I'd say, since we first met. Heidi is very much a lyrics person. She's totally fine with the girl-on-piano-with-microphone or the guy-at-mic-strumming-guitar sound we've had for about 3000 years. In fact, I can envision a caveman standing up in front of a bunch of other cavemen, all of whom are inhaling some sort of smoke from weeds of various sorts and drinking some kind of early brewed beverage, with the standing caveman grunting and plucking some early stringed instrument, and all of the inhaling/drinking cavemen (and cavewomen) are furrowing their gigantic brows on their huge cranial ridges meaningfully, because that caveman's grunts really speak to them. Ugh.

I'm not into that. I want music that sounds good. This is probably primarily why I am not a concert person. It's all too common to go to a concert and have the sound totally suck. Maybe the performer is sick and not 100% with their voice. Maybe the sound crew screwed up the mixing and you can't even hardly hear the music because the bass is so loud. Maybe the acoustics are horrible in the venue and the sound crew has the music up too loud overall. I've experienced all of those in the few concerts of various genres I've attended. I prefer the clean sound you get out of the studio, because I want to hear the music in its most perfect form. Don't get me wrong, I've been to a few good concerts (Jon Bon Jovi on his Bounce tour at Pepsi Center a few years back, and the Chris Isaak show that Heidi and I went to both spring to mind). However, there are just too many variables, and you only get one shot. (Besides, I've discovered that most folks go to concerts to self-medicate, anyway; Heidi and I were offered pipes and other "paraphernalia" no fewer than 3 times on the way in to see Dave Matthews Band a couple of years ago.)

I also have always preferred instrumental work to vocal work. I think this is why I tend to prefer electronica; not a lot of lyrics in that genre, and what you do get is humorous or cool samples of movie lines or other talk that is spoken, not sung. There are some songs that I really like, where the lyrics are meaningful to me and really do enhance the song. Paul Simon's work, or Sting, or Chris Isaak, and a few others, can all hit that mark for me, but it's difficult to find that with consistency, even for those lyrical titans. It's a very delicate balance, and too many "musicians" focus too much on lyrics, when what they really should do is just write poetry. They spend more time trying hard to make their lyrics ironic or provocative, and not enough time making the music sound good. Any joker can write a poem, then set it to three chords played over and over again in 4/4 time. I know this because I've done that very thing, and I don't consider myself much of a musician. Using interesting chord structures or time signatures (like 5/4 or 7/4 or 6/8, for example), changing chords at musically interesting or meaningful points (or actually changing keys at all, for that matter), incorporating unique rhythms and beats, or displaying amazing virtuosity with a specific instrument...those are the parts of music that REALLY spark my musical appetite.

This all might come from growing up with the mic-and-guitar or mic-and-piano sound, as my dad did that very thing for a long time, singing folk gospel at various churches throughout the state of Oklahoma. I guess it never moved me like it seems to do for so many others, precisely because I have heard it for so long, and it was so close to me all the time. It also probably comes from performing vocal music myself from the time I was about 7 or 8 until I went to college, and even then I still do impromptu performances when asked. I love to sing, and I love to use my voice, but the same old sounds all the time bore me. I bet this also explains why I prefer all-male choirs to mixed or all-female choirs; the all-male sound just appeals to me more, because it isn't quite as common as the others. And of course, these don't hold true for me all the time; there are many times when a full mixed choir, or a singer-and-piano song, or even a check-your-brain-at-the-door driving rock (like Andrew WK's work, for example), really appeals to me.

WOW, how did that last one get so long? I wasn't planning on making this an all-day affair.

I love working on cars, and I seem to be thinking about it a lot lately, but there's definitely a difference between working on a car because you want to, and working on a car because you have two days to get it in good running order before you have to drive it to work on Monday. I much prefer the former.

We watched Better Off Dead last night, and if you haven't seen it before, or you haven't seen it in a long time, go watch it. It's a classic 80s film, but it transcends some of its time and it is SO funny! I always enjoyed how well the teen POV is portrayed. The scene where Lane's mom (Lane is the main character) makes dinner after "improvising" is a wonderful example. The pages of the magazine containing the recipe she used ran together in the rain, and she couldn't read some of it. So she used her own creative ideas and ended up with this snot-like concoction "with raisins in it...you like raisins." She spoons some out and it oozes off the spoon onto Lane's plate. As he listens to his dad lecture him about a car he purchased months before, Lane pokes and prods the mound of green goo, only to watch in horror as it crawls off his plate! Priceless! Not only could you imagine that very thing happening yourself before it happens, but how many times were you in that situation as a teen? Not necessarily something your mom made, but we've all been somewhere that provided food that really looked like the most disgusting thing you've ever seen.

Owen has been sick lately and we haven't been sleeping very well. Heidi has it worse than me; I tend to sleep pretty heavily and usually end up sleeping through some of his crying. Heidi ends up getting up with him quite a bit, though. He had been doing well with sleeping through the night but the last few nights have been very difficult for us all. There's nothing worse than your baby being sick; they just get so clingy and it's so pathetic. You really feel for them and you just want to hold them and do whatever you can to make them feel better.

I'm tired of letting life get me down so much. I'm going to work much harder to be positive and constructive again. Long-time readers remember that I used to use that as my mantra, but with everything that's been going on the past several months, I've really lost my way. It has truly tested my faith and has battered me about terribly. But it's time to turn the page now, and I plan to do that.

That's enough for now, I think. Thanks for reading along.