Peach's first Haircut

Thursday August 21, 2008 - The day Peach got her first haircut. Yes, Thursday was a big day, Sampson started school and then Peach got her hair cut. We went up to the Fiesta in Elm Grove, and Peach was very excited. She had been asking to get her hair cut for a while now and I think she was looking forward to it. Sophie wanted to wait to take her until I was off from work. At the Fiesta the first thing they do is wash your hair and Peach sat there perfectly still and got her hair washed. Then she climbed into the haircutting chair and again she didn't move. It was the longest I'd ever seen her set still while she was awake. Which is kind of scary that she enjoyed getting her haircut so much. Maybe someday her and Sophie will have Mom/daughter trips to the salon where they can be pampered and really taken care of, meanwhile old Dad and Sampson get our hair cut at home. No pampering there. Well I'll post a couple of pictures of the event, Peach looks really cute with her shorter hair.

Sampson's First Day of School

Thursday August 21, 2008 - The day Sampson started his journey into the realm of organized everyday education. Sure he had done the pre-school thing, but this was different. This was the big time. New School, new teacher, new classmates, and he said he had fun. He also said he made two new friends, but he couldn't remember their names. Basically Sophie and I went in with him to the class room and then they had someone come take the kids out to the playground, while the parents stayed in for like an orientation. It was to learn how the teacher wanted to communicate with us and what we had to do for the school year. It lasted about an hour and then we left before the kids got back. Then we came back at 2:30 PM to pick him up. So I think the schedule is like 8:30 AM to 2:30 PM, but I remember when I went to school I went from 8:15 to 3:30 then I had to walk in the snow and it was up hill both ways... anyway I had it a lot rougher. Except in Kindergarten we only went every other day, and I didn't go to pre-school for two years. I went for part of one year and by then my mom was ready to ship me off to school when I was only 4. I think she just wanted me out of the house. Well this is the start of the Sampson school journey we'll have to wait and see exactly where he ends up. Also Sophie didn't cry, I was shocked, I figured she would cry her eyes out. Way to be tough honey.

2008 Browns' Football

Well last night I watched the Browns play against the defending Super Bowl champion Giants and the Browns pretty much look like they are in mid-season form, playing a high level of Romeo ball. That is where you fall behind by 4 touchdowns and make the other team play with a really large lead, before coming back at the end of the game and having a chance to win, but still being able to give up critical first downs while the other team runs out the clock. Yes the Browns pulled it off near flawlessly Monday. They got down 30 to 3, by giving up touchdowns in just about every conceivable manner. First 2 TD tosses by Eli Manning, then a punt return for a TD, then a fumble inside the Giants 10 that was returned for a TD. Then the backups entered the game and came back. I started watching again in the fourth quarter and it would have been nice to have a commentator actually talking about the game, but instead we get Tony Kornhighser or whatever his name is, talking about golf or something. It was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen. ESPN complained up and down about not having competitive games and here is a 3 point game with less than 2 and half minutes and one of the announcers is complaining that if the game goes to O.T. he'll run out of stuff to talk about. Here's an idea, idiot, TALK ABOUT THE GAME!! I don't care what you do in your off time, people don't tune into Monday Night football to hear Tony's whimsical stories of yester year. Just talk about the game, or better yet don't talk at all. Soon enough old Tony will probably going the ranks of Dennis 'nobody understands what I'm saying' Miller as 'former' MNF hosts. Anyway the Browns' starters looked pretty bad, and knowing their personnel and the changes they made this off season I'd say 7-9, maybe 9-7 if they get some breaks.

"Experiment" - Day 11

The swelling is down a lot, but my toes are still really bruised and it is sore whenever I stand on it. I am going to try and take it pretty easy tonight and hopefully tomorrow I can walk on it. I have been putting more and more pressure on it, I just worry that I'll go a little to far and set myself back a couple of days. That would really not be a good thing.

Things that are making me mad lately

Why have a blog if you can't complain about stuff.

1) My ankle for obvious reasons.
2) NASCAR. Maybe I'm just losing interest because I know what lies at the end of the season, but all the cautions for competition and debris is ruining the races. I mean every race it seems like there is a caution with about 10 laps to go and if one of the cars doesn't cause it then there will be debris or some other fantasy yellow. Just let 'em race and who ever had the best car that day is the one that deserves to win. Not everybody wants to see Junior Jeff or Jimmy win every race. I was glad when they wrecked, because I thought we would see a good finish, but lately NASCAR has been blatant about screwing over Toyota. Gibbs put a spacer on their gas pedal so that the engine wouldn't be too powerful when then put in on the dynamo test because the Toyota's had already been penalized. So Gibbs with Toyota can build a more powerful engine, so what. Aren't they already regulated on size and and different parts they can use. Why doesn't NASCAR just build the cars/engines and have the teams show up on Sunday with a pit crew, crew chief and driver to run the races on Sunday. Wouldn't that be a lot simpler. That's enough for now.
3) The women's gymnastics' controversy. Part 1) Granted the scoring is ridiculous, when someone can fall down on a vault and still outscore someone. Now I see why they changed the scoring format to help the high-risk Chinese. Before the scoring used to be out of 10 so no matter how good you did the most you could get was 10. Didn't matter if you did eight triple back flips, as long as you met all the skill requirements the most you could get was a 10. Now you can get a 20 or 30 I guess if you do enough crazy stuff, but it begs the question:Which is truly better - A routine that isn't quite as difficult, but is perfect or a routine that is more difficult, but has some flaws in the performance. Aside from coming out and doing somersaults flawlessly, I would rather see the perfect routine get the higher score. I suspect that the rules will probably be changed again after the Olympics.
Part two of this rant includes the age controversy. I have less of a problem with younger girls competing at the Olympics than I do about the scoring. See Nadia Comaneci was 14 when she had 7 perfect 10s, and Mary Lou Retton was 14 when she won the gold, so having a 13 or 14 year old in the Olympics doesn't bother me. What bothers me is putting an age restriction of 16 in place because 'the girls' bodies are still growing and letting them compete at an early age would damage their bodies.' That statement smells, it is so full of B.S. Do the people in charge honestly think that these girls don't start training until they are 16? Heck there are probably gymnasts that have had career ending injuries before they were 12. It isn't competing in the Olympics that hurts these girls it is all the training they do from the time they are able to walk. Do you think there is a reason none of the girls are over 5' tall? To impose some artificial age restriction to make FIG feel better is crazy. These girls are already damaged, because of the systems they are brought up in. If a 10 year old can win the gold then let her try, then she can retire by 12 and have a chance to grow normally. You know unless she gets screwed by the scoring.
4) AT&T - Give me my Money!

Phelps Wins Eight

I'm sure you have heard by now what Micheal Phelps has done. He won Eight Gold medals in one Olympics, actually in 9 days of an Olympics. He broke the record of Mark Spitz from 1972 when he won 7. I might have bought into the NBC hype machine a little, but this was truly an incredible feat. I had the privilege to watch all of the events live, and I have never been that excited about a swimming race and I will probably never be that excited again. Now that he has Eight golds in one games and 14 overall, what's left. In all of the Olympics, all of the thousands of athletes who have competed he has accomplished something that no one else has. There have probably only been a handful of people who have even competed in that many events. But if the record is ever going to be touched it will probably have to be in swimming, unless there is just some phenomenal Judo/fencing/sprinting/rowing/shooting/archery/badminton star out there. There just aren't enough events in any one other discipline for someone to earn that amount of golds. Does that mean it won't happen - No, but someone will have to come with the determination, and a little luck, that Phelps has had in this Olympics. I have never heard another athlete talk about how much it meant to be an Olympian, but Phelps is truly happy and proud to be an Olympian, not just a swimmer at an international meet. He has pretty much sacrificed everything in his private life to reach this goal and it does show. I don't think he was prepared for the onslaught of interviews afterwards and I'm really not sure he would even care to do them. Other than saying thanks to the teammates that helped him win the relay golds, and telling people to never let anyone tell them they can't achieve their goals. I mean he had already tried this once and failed, if you can call winning 6 golds and 2 bronzes failure. But the way he trained and the 7 world records he set himself or helped set in the relays, just show how determined he was to meet this 8 gold goal. I am truly amazed and hopeful that he becomes a role model for a lot of kids. What a good guy (other than being a Ravens fan), Congratulations Mike.

A Week of "Experimenting"

Well after 8 days of the "experiment", my foot still hurts really bad. I can put very little weight on it, usually just for balance if I'm standing, but it does feel better when I'm moving around if I have my air cast on. It is really bruised, but the swelling has gone down since last week. At the beginning of the week it looked like I had a really bad cankle, but now the swelling looks like it is mostly just in the foot. My toes are bruised up too. Hopefully about Thursday I can start walking without the crutches. That will be Sampson's first day of school.

A slow fantasy Ending

Well I've got one more move to make next Wednesday and then I'll be down to my final move. Dusty Baker continues to refuse to play Jerry Hairston Jr. and as much as I hate to dump him I may have to use my last move to pick someone else up. After my own injury I really care a lot less about the old Ninja Frogs, and just a note: the Ninja doesn't stand for anything related to HIV. At least not for this team it is a direct play on the Ninja Turtles, and Sampson's first Webkinz.

Random Thought #5

I'm in therapy, well not now, I quit because my therapists said I was paranoid. But after she told me that, I knew she was out to get me.

Day 5 of the sprain "experiment"

Yes by calling it an "experiment" it seems I can take some of the folly out of my injury. Obviously this was just a test to determine my healing rate. If a real injury would have occurred I would have definitely let you know. Fortunately the folks at work have no problem reminding me of the fact that I hurt my ankle. Why just today the Safety Health and Environmental Coordinator managed to print out a safety share for things that should be done before enjoying recreational basketball. I pretty much didn't meet any of the requirements for "safe" basketball and I brought the list home for Sophie so she could put it up on the frig. After watching the Olympics I'm thinking I might focus all of my energy on badminton, or cornhole.

Facing the Music

Well today I made my return to work and let me tell you, I think I would have preferred a straight kick in the ankle. Thanks to Sophie's prep work everyone at work was quite anxious to have me back. Oh, there were drawings of a crutched basketball player beating up some kids, along with the expected battering over the radio and someone even brought in a basketball. Well the ankle hurt pretty good this morning and I think the swelling is going down a little because the purple is starting to come out. It will probably be at least until next week before I can really start putting a lot of weight on the leg. Hopefully by then my gold cowboy hard hat will be in at work along with the Reebok safety sandals for playing basketball. Thanks honey. Thankfully my office locks from the inside, only two more days, only two more days.

Vantage Point A Review

I just watched 'Vantage Point' and I think it is everything that Rendition was trying to be. It is of the same mold were they stretch two explosions and an assassination into about 20 explosions and 8 or so assassinations, but it was more of a story than what rendition was. Dennis Quaid is kind of the star, but this is a movie where the sum of the actors is greater than the individual parts. It was like a cross between the 6th Sense and Rendition and the transporter. It is an action suspense thriller and is one of the most frustrating movies I've ever watched. It gives you 15 minutes of movie then goes back to watch it from someone else view and goes a little further and then goes back etc. etc., until you get to the end where it ties it all together. I want to watch it with Sophie to see if she can guess what is going to happen because she always throws out these wild ideas when we watch CSI and a lot of the time she is right. Anyway her and the kids went to Marietta to swim and I will have to let her tell you about that. Overall I give it a strong 4 out of 5 and it is definitely worth the rental fee. The language is a little coarse, but with what is going on in the film I think it is kind of expected, just a warning.

Note: watched the movie with Sophie and she was able to pick out one of the bad guys in the second part. Darn her.

A severe fantasy Sprain

Well I'm down to my last two moves now, thanks to the genius that didn't realize since I was trading him two players for one that he would have to get rid of someone. So my trade didn't go through and now it is past the trade deadline. And now I can't even propose a trade to anyone else and Carlos Lee hit the DL on Sunday. He is going to need surgery so in all likelihood he is done for 7 to 8 weeks, so he got dropped for Randy Johnson. I am going to still make my other move this week, it will just depend on when people start their games. Oh well, I was close, but now I will likely lose my rbi lead and fall out of contention for second on the home runs too. I'll know better next year. Enjoy coming in second Stevie, it'll be good practice for next year.

Only a Severe Sprain

Well the good news is that it is only a severe sprain. I say good news because overall it should be healed a couple of weeks sooner than a break, but because it isn't a break the first week or two will probably be a little worse. No cast or boot I can get around with just the crutches and the air cast, yeah. I'll update as I progress.

Offending Foot

Well I've been off for all of 6 hours and already I want to go back to work, if it wasn't for the fact that Sophie told everyone (well she only told one person, but the person she told might as well have had a bull horn) about what happened. She said she was only doing it so that it would spice up my life a little. So then I got the obligatory phone call from work rubbing it in my face about what had happened. Only the kids had gone from 12 to 8 years old and they were all girls and . . . Anyway here is a picture of the offending foot.


The foot is definitely bad enough that I wouldn't be able to push a tractor up a hill. Especially not a tractor full of gas.

the Olympics

Since my accident Saturday, we have been taking in a large amount of the Olympics on both of the available HD channels. We were watching the gymnasts and Peach was practicing her gymnastics which basically consisted of her running across the floor and jumping on the couch. Meanwhile, I have been fielding a myriad of questions from my 3 and 6 year-olds. 'Daddy, why did you break your leg?', 'I don't know why, that was pretty dumb, I really shouldn't have done that. Please don't touch my foot.'

So far the coverage has been pretty good. But man, should somebody really get a gold medal for badminton. Seriously.

Severe Gaurdian Angel Misappropriation

In case you haven't heard yet I broke my ankle yesterday. Which is pretty fair considering my Nephew Robbie wrecked his motorcycle and for the most part didn't get hurt, meanwhile I step on the old car port to play basketball with some 10 year olds and 5 minutes later I'm laying on the ground with a broken ankle. I blame this on the gross and severe misappropriation of guardian angels. Sure Robbie needs more than I do 90 to 95% of the time, but whenever I step on the old basketball court I need that protection. Seriously that is the time when I most need that protection, well DID need. I probably won't be allowed on a basketball court any time soon. As soon as my recreational inclination focuses on another activity I'll let you know, so that I can be sure to reserve an appropriate number of guardian angels.

A good day with Peach

Peach and I went to the Dairy Queen yesterday while Sampson (AKA Spiderman) went to a birthday party for one of his T-Ball buddies. Anyway we strolled the Dora stroller down and we took turns pushing it and she would walk a little and sit in it a little. Then when we got there she had a starkiss and I had a triple chocolate Utopia. She ate about a quarter of it before it started to really melt and I gave her some of mine. Then we walked back home and stopped at the old school and I let her pick some weeds. She said 'let's sit down (on the block wall in front of the school) and talk, Dat-ta'. It was a good time. When we got home we went out and played on the swing set. Thanks Peach.

Fantasy Update End Game

Well I'm down to my last three moves, and I'm going to have to use one next Tuesday if my trade for Dan Haren goes through. Stevie has dropped out of first and I got within 8 points of first before that happened. Since then my nephew has taken the lead and extended it to double digits, currently the Ninja Frogs reside in fourth. It was almost easier when I was chasing Stevie because I think there were enough points left to catch him, but I don't know if I can win now. Thus my move to pick up Haren for Mark Reynolds and Gavin Floyd. Unfortunately Reynolds doesn't fit in the old lineup the way I have it configured and I'm going to run out of games at third base first anyway, so hopefully Haren doesn't end up on the DL. Billy Wagner is on the DL now, and Harriston Jr. has played very little in the last week, but as long as my lead for saves doesn't get challenged and no one else on the team goes on the DL, Wagner likely won't get activated again. Right now I'm leading in RBI's (or R'sBI) and saves and second in SB. My problems this season have definitely resulted in the fact that I haven't played before. It was a pretty steep learning curve, but now that I know the players a little and have a little better strategy I should be in good shape going into to next year.

Gettin' hosed

I continue to be ignored by blogger and their blogs of note, in favor of the likes of 'hope for Wennie Hong'. That's cool though I'm not worried, someday they'll see the little old blog....