So, as I was saying yesterday, I really was starting to feel like crap. Sunday I didn’t do anything. At least, nothing I could remember. I know I had wanted to work on a few things, but I really just lacked the energy. To the point that Sunday night I was up till 4am coughing up a new lung (or an old one). I couldn’t take much more. Monday morning I called in sick and Amy was nice enough to help me find a Dr. to visit. Of course the appointment wouldn’t be until Tuesday, but it was a start. I spent the rest of Monday asleep or trying to move because my back was hurting. Did I mention that it sucked? I did my best to try and keep moving after a while. I couldn’t sit and focus on the computer and sitting anywhere just hurt my back more. I was able to get some decent sleep though.
Tuesday morning I went to work just like normal, but still felt like refried #%@&. Around 1:30ish I headed out to the Dr. office. Keep in mind, I really don’t like going to the Doctor. There were just too many bad experiences with military docs that just ruined it for me. I got there and of course had to fill out a bunch of paperwork. No, I am not pregnant, I am not allergic to anything, I have never had a hemroidal rash on my inner left butt cheek. You know the drill. Then comes the waiting
And Waiting
And Waiting

I could swear my appointment was for 2pm.
On Tuesday.
In the year 2005
Finally they call for me and the Nurse starts taking my vitals. Then I hear all about how wonderful the Dr. that I am seeing is and how he is one of the best in the practice. You know, things like he can deliver 5 babies while performing heart surgery with his right hand and carving a blowfish perfectly with his left. After my vitals are taken (low grade fever while there) She drops me off in the exam room. Want to take a guess what’s next?
Yup, more waiting. It wasn’t quite as bad, I just wish they had magazines in the exam room as well. All you have to read are the disgusting posters hanging on the wall talking about the horrors of inflated diabetic cancerous kidneys that have exploded. The doc came in just before I was ready to blow chunks on his model display of a human heart cut away to show how termites have eaten away at the floor boards. We run through the routine and he shines a light in most of my openings. He then explains that I have a slight sinus infection and the problem with my coughing and breathing would be due to the bronchitis I have. Wouldn’t you know, he pulls out a little 3D display on what bronchitis looks like! It wasn’t pretty. The nice thing is that he hooked me up with some sample medicine he had in the office. I now have to take 1 inhaler once a day, and 1 giant horse pill twice a day for the next 2 weeks. Wonderful. I hate being sick.
So that really concludes my long weekend. I am already feeling a little bit better. I am not coughing near as much and my energy levels are a bit higher. Of course, I didn’t exercise at all while I was sick. This means that Maya will be yelling at me when I get back. Oh Joy!

So the scuba shop was a bust, but hey, we were still out enjoying the day. One of the other stores we saw in the same shopping center as the scuba shop was a Pet Store. This wasn’t just your standard pet supply store where you buy doggie treats and hamster tubes. This was the full blown, real deal, pet store. Where you can buy all sorts of pets and such. They had the full gambit too, Birds, fish, dogs, etc. One of the things that really threw me off was that they had ferrets. I guess I am just not used to seeing ferrets sold as pets. Don’t get me wrong, I like ferrets. I think they make cool pets. I’m just not used to seeing them in a pet store.
Amy, of course, spent the most of the time looking at the puppies and going “OooOOhhhhh They are so cute!” It’s not that I am against puppies. I wouldn’t mind having one. But we live in a small apartment, and I already have a cat. One of the nice things about this store was that most of the animals were in open topped cages. This meant that you could reach in and pet, or hold, the more docile pets. Things like Dogs and cats were locked up, but the bunnies, hamsters, and…….ferrets, were open to the world.
We spent probably about 45 min. to an hour playing with the hamsters and ferrets. One ferret would get so excited when we walked by he would start jumping at the wall to get our attention. It was amazing. It was kind of like being at a petting zoo, only much smaller, and no admission fee. I think that if we end up getting a bigger place, like a town home or a real full blown house, I would totally get a ferret and a dog. I know the ferrets are not the easiest of animals to care for, and if you don’t get them de-scented, they can stink. But still, it’s a cool pet. Even Andrew started to like them.
Did you ever think that a simple trip out and bout can turn into an adventure? Well I am firmly in belief that it can happen now. After my stealthy trip into Ironforge (read below) we all decided that a trip somewhere out of the house was in order. It started as a drive out to see what was going on down in Fairfax. (That’s the city I live in btw). We stopped off in old town and visited a few of the stores along Main Street. If you have ever been to old town Fairfax, you know there is not a lot on Main Street. One of the stores happened to be a Surf shop. (Keep in mind that Fairfax isn’t anywhere near the water). One of the future projects I am working on for a costume involves a good wetsuit so I thought maybe I could browse the selection there and see if I could find something I could work with.
I would say that it’s worth mentioning that this project revolves around a super hero type costume. You would think that spandex would be the perfect material for a super here costume, but….. having done the spandex spiderman thing I have learned that spandex can be very unforgiving. If you were not on top of your workout regime, you can quickly be portraying the super hero in a much different light. (Beer gut man anyone?) A trick I learned from John Fiorella (creator of the film trailer “Grayson”) A simple wetsuit can be modified to be a super hero type costume. The niceties about it are that neoprene is very restrictive. It stretches, but not much. The entire suit is cut to maintain a certain size and shape. The downsides of course is that you tend to get very, very hot. I have checked into a few different types of wetsuits and it turns out that there is a micro thin neoprene that would still fulfill my needs and not be that uncomfortable.
Even though for the past few weeks I have been feeling a little under the weather, (read as complete and total puppy feces) I still managed to get a little gaming in on Saturday. Something I don’t believe I have mentioned yet here, Opiee the Troll Rogue has come to the end of a very long and arduous journey. I made it to level 60. For those of you that don’t know, in the World of Warcraft game, your character advances in levels. You start at 1, obviously, and gain experience points for things you do. 60 is the highest level you can achieve in the game. Now it’s just a matter of experiencing the different areas and getting better gear. Then of course, there is the expansion pack coming soon. It also lets me help out the others is our group to level a bit faster.
Sorry to disappoint in that the trip went off without a hitch. No grand escapes or major craziness. I had never been to Ironforge so I had no idea about the layout. One of the major things I wanted to see was the underground tram system they have to go between cities. It was pretty damn cool by the way. It goes under water and everything. While in the tram room in Ironforge I did manage to kill a few people that were running by. I also got onto the tram right in front of a night elf. I made it a point to un-stealth and wave to him. After my tram ride I headed back into Ironforge to play around a bit more. In the main area in front of their auction house, a large amount of people usually mill around. The one that were marked for PVP were the ones I was able to play with. I never really attacked outright, but instead I would sap them and walk away (it’s like a stun that I can stay stealthed with). This causes most of them to run around in a panic trying to find me.
It was indeed. Thursday night I came back into work because of some extra stuff that needed to get done. Of course you can’t do major work on production machines during work hours, which means a great opportunity to pull an all nighter! Paul and I took up the charge and stayed until the wee hours of the morning on Friday. Everything went smoothly and afterwards we figured the best way to wrap up the evening was, what else, Denny’s! I have to say, it’s been about 5 years since I have been in a Denny’s (willingly). There is certainly something about the late night Denny’s atmosphere that boggles the mind. I seriously started having flashbacks to my late high school years. Come on now, you had to have had them too. Those nights where you are out hanging with friends. No one wants to go home because that’s where the parents are. The only place open is Denny’s. Somewhere you can sit and talk for hours on end while milking a cup of coffee for about 4 hours.
When I was a much younger lad, somewhere between 18 and 20, I used to work at a Denny’s. No kidding! I started as the Greeter/Cashier type person. You know the person you meet at the door that says “How many in your party?” Then after a few months I graduated to Server status. Since I knew most of the people there, I was always working the smoking section. Did I mention I always worked the Graveyard shift? My friends would always come in to visit and mooch salads and coffee from me. You see, if it can be made without going through the kitchen, the server makes it and it doesn’t “require” a ticket made in the computer. Of course, this was all back in the early 90’s and computers in restraints were still a new thing. (Wow, that sounds really old of me.) There was always a wide variety of people that would come in. We had a bar right across the street, and at 2am they would all wander in for that oh so sobering Denny’s coffee. Ahhh the good old days.
Thursday night (Friday morning) was really no different. We sat in the non-smoking section, but the regulars were still there. We were sitting between two other tables. One had a young couple sitting at it that looked like they just came from either his late night football game/practice, or her drama rehearsal. The other had 3 people, 1 girl and 2 guys. This was the interesting one as it looked like, either one of the guys was trying to hook up with the girl and the other was gay, or it was one of those three some types where the girl likes the gay guy, the gay guy likes the other guy and the other guy is pining for the girl. Either way it made for good entertainment. Straight across the way from us it looked like two “women of the evening” were enjoying an end of evening meal. And every guy in the place knew they were there. I think all in all I only ate about ½ of my Moons over my Hammy, and then called it a night. Maybe if I can dig through my memories of the era, I can come up with some good stories of my time as a Denny’s waiter. But that’s a blog for another time.
Deep within the galaxy of Tempo Senso, there hovers a planet known as Zweitens. On this world time moves very slowly. So slow in fact that if the standard human were to look at this place from a distance, they would perceive that nothing was moving. Almost as if time were standing still. But of course if you were to go there, you would be instant shifted to their time system and see everything moving like normal. Naturally this shift in time would most likely kill you in an instant because your body wouldn’t be used to the pace. Deep in the Capitol City Ora is a laboratory where a nefarious plan is currently being managed. You see the Oraians desperately want to learn about human life. The best place to learn about this would be at a human educational establishment.
There is one major problem with their plan though. Much like how you would die instantly if you were transported to their world, if they were to come here they would age instantly and die. Well, those poor Oraians could just send their observers to their deaths like that. So they invented a device called the Zeit Lent. They would install this device at a school and turn it on from time to time. Whenever they would need to send someone down. Now the major draw back to this would be that time at that particular school would seem to just crawl along with no end in sight. Now, the Oraians have expressed their deepest sympathies in regards to this phenomenon, but sadly there is just no way for them to conduct the research they need.
Since the government wants to keep relations withy the people of planet Zweitens in good standing, the president has allowed for this sort of experiment. The logic behind it was: “well, they are just kids at the school, they wouldn’t even notice!” Some of the government funding for schools has actually been re-routed to the “Oraian Zeit Lent” fund. This is how they are able to install so many devices in so many different schools. Since all the schools are different, they need to learn as much as possible. Odds are that you or your children attend a school where aliens from the Planet Zweitens are watching every move. Don’t worry though, they are friendly and only want to learn about us.
Ok, so where we are closing out week 3 of daddy-hood for me. I have already learned quite a few life lessons. Some of which I already knew, but they were suppressed in that area of the brain where you know stuff, but you really don’t want to know that you know it. You know? Things like:
Deep in the recesses of my brain I am pretty sure that, when I was a kid, I used all of the above listed methods to try and get out of school. (if not thousands more). You will notice that the word try is bolded here. See, my parents weren’t all that dumb either. I was a 3rd child so any and all excuses were already used up by my older sister and brother. Personally, I think they had it easy. My sister being the first born, had the whole “new child” thing going for her, and the whole “girl” thing. Then, my brother worked the “dealing with an older sister” thing and the “first born son” angle. So I really missed out on using any of the gender based excuses. The only one I had left was “I’m the youngest.” But that really doesn’t get you all that much.
Andrew is in a whole new situation though. He’s the oldest of his siblings, and, of course, my only child. He also reaps the benefits of being new to the household, so I think he believes he might be able to get away with more then he thinks that I know he thinks. Wait, did that make sense? He also has another interesting card that, while I haven’t seen him employ it yet, I know its coming. That would be Amy. I like to think that I am pretty tough with the whole parenting thing when I need to be. I keep telling people that I want to model my fathering off of Red from that 70’s show. Something along the lines of…. If your being a dumbass, you’ll know it. Amy, on the other hand, is a softy. I can see where it might be easy to play one extreme against the other. Thankfully, I don’t think he reads this so I am good for a while.
So, getting back to the topic that started this entire tangent. This blog is about me. While I enjoy tales of fatherhood, and will be happy to share them with my reading public, I know it’s not right to start telling about the personal life of my son. He has his privacy. It’s not right for me to start airing his dirty laundry on the internet. (Sometimes it really does need airing out, you should smell it!) From time to time I will try and write up a good story about what we are experiencing, but for the most part I will leave the details of his life out of it. I have been trying to convince him to start up his own blog. This hasn’t worked out too well as he doesn’t like writing near as much as I do.
One of the things I have learned about him is that he likes to draw. This came out in one of the many discussions we have had. He also loves computers. (Gee I wonder where he would get that from.) So, in my infinite wisdom, I have pondered the idea of getting him a graphics tablet. You know, one of those things you hook up to the PC that has a pen and a writing area. This way he can use his computer to draw in stuff. If anyone can suggest a good one that’s not too expensive, please let me know via e-mail or in the comments.


So with the sudden change in family status, I find that my old schedule just doesn’t work with the new life. Not that I didn’t know it was coming, I just didn’t know what to change until it did. With Andrew in school now, I am waking up much earlier then normal. Where I used to be getting up at like 8:30-9am I am now up at 7am to make sure he is off to school. This means that I have about 1 and ½ hours to kill every morning. As a result of the time shift, I haven’t gotten to exercise for the past few days. And don’t think that Maya doesn’t know that too. I was actually doing really well for the past two weeks. I even made it to Silver status! (I Unlocked the Alpine Workout area and some Techno music!)
So I decided to re-arrange my new schedule to allow for me to do my exercises in the morning. I fired up my x-box and there was Maya, except she was crying.
Speaking of getting used to….. Andrew seems to be taking to his new life here rather well. He even has gotten to taking orders from the cat. You see, last night after dinner was done he finished up his homework and we finished watching the last episode of Firefly. (Had to catch him up you know.) Its 10pm, his pre-designated bed time. He heads off to his room and I hear a game fire up.
Well I am back to work finally. Today is my sons first day of school at his new school. Totally new area, new people, heck even a new Dad he hasn’t lived with ever. I know that he is probably going through all sorts of different emotions right now. Never mind that whole turning into a teenager thing! Remarkably, he seems to be taking it very well (probably better than me!) We had about 84 drills on what he needed for school and did he have it in his back pack. 150 times going through what he needs to do if he has to get a hold of me or anyone else. And about 74 times of what he is supposed to be doing when he gets home from school. After all of this there was no “I’m nervous about school” or “I don’t know anyone” talk, instead it was “Can I play WoW?” or “Can I get on the X-box now?” I think he is going to be fine.
Me on the other hand. Sheesh! What a week it has been. Not to overshadow the hurricane crap or anything of course, but I had a fairly busy week last week. It’s weird to think that it was Monday that we picked him up at the airport. We had a whirlwind that carried us back and forth from the school and wal-mart, and target etc. Getting a teenage boy settled in is a lot more expensive that I had initially thought! I mean, I expected to be buying things like a new bike, and the new cell phone (pre-paid). But then there was all of the school supplies, and then going back to get the school supplies that I forgot, then going back to get the school supplies that I screwed up and got the wrong stuff. Then going to the school to make sure I have all the papers I need and finding out that his shot records weren’t transferred like they were supposed to have been! I think what made it worse is that in between all the running around and buying, there were lots of dead time spaces. We did our best to fill it with things together, gaming, playing and the like. Still, when you are used to working every day and suddenly you’re off with lots of free time. I was starting to go a little crazy.
Lastly I want to touch a bit on this whole hurricane thing. Don’t get me wrong here. Katrina apparently did a great deal of damage and I feel for many of the people who lost their homes and their lives in this disaster. Heck, if I had some extra money I would be more then happy to send it along as well (as it is I think I am going on a no food diet so That I can keep everyone else fed.) But here are the things that I just don’t get.
1: The media needs to shut the hell up! These fat corporate slobs that just want ratings are jamming nonstop coverage of, now, Lake Orleans. They aren’t helping people, they aren’t sending volunteers. Instead they send out a news team to video tape dead people floating down the river! SERIOUSLY! I saw one newspaper that ran a picture on the FRONT PAGE of a dead body floating down the water. Then that same news crew is going to sit and have their corporate bought lunch and throw out half of it no doubt.
2: While I feel for a lot of the people who lost homes and family, the people I don’t feel for are the ones who didn’t get the heck out of there! I don’t think it takes a genius to realize that a: your living in an area that is damn well prone to flooding (it is below sea level!) and b: look outside, there is a hurricane coming! These people saw it coming 4-5 days in advance! Grab the insurance papers and pray they are up to date and then get yer butt to high ground!
3: Now that the damage is done everyone wants someone to blame. Gods forbid it might just be chocked up to natural disaster and let’s just deal with the damage. No, we can’t have that. Apparently when something like this happens we are completely freaking helpless on our own we need the government to hurry up and save us! But wait, the government is off fighting a war! Why would they do that when they knew that something horrible like a hurricane was coming! Well, it must be Bush’s fault then! 









