I've been very anxious about my previous blog posting. My first photo blog and I was hoping it would generate a flood of comments. No such luck. I continue to blog in relative anonymity. Who cares!! The blog must go on.

How many times are we going to go to Ikea?
We were talking last night and on the bright side of things is that we have actually graduated up to Ikea. What I mean is that when we were living in L.A. and buying most of your stuff used from yard sales and such we had heard about Ikea and its low prices. We'll we decided to check it out and "Oh my God!" they call these prices low. $500 for a couch how dare they! At least we have come to realize that this is a very cheap price and with Ikea it can sometimes mean it is very cheaply made too. We do love Ikea but the old saying "buyer beware" needs to be applied liberally when shopping there.

We did finally reach the ultimate goal at Ikea: One hour of free day-care. They have a huge fish bowl area where the kids can play while highly monitored. Anyhow, The Kid managed to lie about her age and act like a 3 year old so she could go in and play. There she was in a 20x20 room filled a foot deep with colored plastic balls. Each ball a carrier of 50 to 100 different strains of the common cold, what could be more gross. The important things is she was safe, she had a blast and she didn't seem to get sick. Thanks Ikea, we'll see you soon, I don't know why but we'll have a reason.

-----THE RED ROCKET-----

We'll miss ya :(

Kidney car finally came and towed this bad boy away. There were a lot of memories in the little red car that could. I don't miss it as much as I thought I would but out of respect I think I should list some of the great accomplishments it made (in order of importance):
1) The Boston to LA trip.
-You laughed at Pikes Peak; where was the challenge you wondered.
2) The L.A. commute.
-50 miles one way everyday for three years. You did it with out breaking a sweat.
3) Your week as a food delivery vehicle.
-Without my knowledge you took it upon yourself to help a friend in need and you performed with flying colors. Three cheers to Raymond who knows how to get the most out of his friends cars.

You provided me with many solid safe miles Red Rocket and you did it all with zero accidents and only two speeding tickets. Thank you my friend. I salute you......

Lunch time at work. Seems like a good time to blog. I generally eat at my desk doing work or surfing the web.

"Urgent action is needed to tackle the alarming increase of obesity levels..."
"European legislation would be needed to impose an effective ban on junk food advertising..."

I just pulled those two quotes off of the web from Google News. This whole obesity epidemic is very interesting to me. It seems that news about obesity is everywhere. I hope this is the first step in conquering this problem. Ever since I read Fast Food Nation I have spent a lot more time thinking about what I eat and getting grossed out by it. I think a lot of my blog posts have shown this to be the trend. It just seems wild that we as humans are eating ourselves to death. It's gross. I seem to have specific weaknesses like potato chips. If they are in the house I'll chow down. Thank God they are hardly ever in the house.

I remember in high school it seemed so important for me to know my favorites. Such as: my favorite band (U2 at that time), favorite movie, favorite food etc... It was as if I didn't have a favorite then there was something wrong with me. Why were we so passionate about things like this back then? What the hell am I writing about this is ridiculous. I think I have writers "blog" and I'm just writing for the sake of writing. Probably not a bad thing.

I can't get rid of this damn cold. I played basketball yesterday because I couldn't resist. Man was I bad, I'm blaming it on the cold. Anyhow, I don't think it was smart to play because my nose seems more stuffed up than yesterday.

We have been trying to plan to get back east for my grandmothers 90th birthday celebration in mid August. It doesn't look good. I think we have decided on going back for Christmas, when I have to take the time off anyhow and when there are possibly more flights available.

We still have pictures floating around from the failed adoption we went through recently. I've finally become pretty detached from that nightmare, thank God. I look at the pictures and it is like it was a different lifetime. Maybe we should throw the stuff out. Anyhow, as far as an adoption goes we are still waiting it out and believing that the right thing will happen someday. What we do know is that the next time something happens we need to trust our instincts.

I think I hear The Kid rousing. Man is she cute. Sometimes I just go into her room while she is sleeping and watch her. It would seem that there is not much to watch but when she is awaking she is just a blur of motion so seeing her resting so peacefully is a joy. Eating is currently our biggest problem with her...

The Kid is up!

I was recently viewing one of my favorite blog like web sites it is joshmadison.com. Who is this guy. He has created a great program called convert that I use almost on a daily basis at work, it is for converting between different units of measure.

Why is there no good pizza on the west coast. This is what we must spend about 10% of our time talking about whenever we get together with fellow east coasters. We are stranded in a vast pizzaless desert. What's so hard about a good pizza people?

We'll I've got my airline tickets and I'll be off to see my sister get her Doctorate of Philosphy. Wow, she has been in school a long long time. It has got to be a little scary to be leaving the student life behind. I'm really looking forward to meeting my sisters friends and seeing where she lives. I've created a pretty solid image of her living space in my head and I'm dying to see how it compares to the real deal. It has always been said that fact is stranger than fiction, that remains to be seen.

A rare moment of pure stillness. The dogs are out on the porch napping. The Kid is asleep and my wife is out at the hardware store. A friend from work is coming over for dinner tonight with his wife and two kids. We need to have people over for "formal" dinner parties more often. It forces us to clean the house, or to at least make it look presentable.

Wow, was it fun to have The Pistol out for a visit. My absolute favorite moment was watching The Pistol and The Kid dance around the coffee shop to the piped in music. Neither one of them having any inhibitions and The Pistol with his shirt on inside out, I mean, he might as well have been one of The Kid's age appropriate playmates. It seemed in that moment that life had gone full circle for him and he had or maybe has recaptured the beauty of living life like a child.

Sometimes we feel that The Kid may be missing out on a lot by not living so close to all of her Grandparents. The idea of moving back has never died. Who knows what will come of where we live. Neither one of us ever thought we would live where we now do. I still sometimes ask myself "what am I doing here, how did we get here, what is this strange city."

It has been a very eventful few days here. I have lots to tell and currently so little time to tell it. I'm going to try and do a quick brain dump of hi-lites right now.

Pistol Pete:
Dancing in the Coffee Shop.
Wearing his shirt inside-out while out and about.

I'm back from a 5 min. interruption.

Wow, I've just run out of steam.

I feel like I'm going to collapse. Too much wine and cheese tonight. Or can you really ever have too much wine and cheese. I think not.

The kid is going to bed.
It's a late one.

The Pistol bolgs:

The kid up at 7 we are at the park at 8 45 minutes later -- must cut out visit the big B talk about ID design with the R. Little kid runs around crazy for an hour. The kid and I spend the day on life's larger issues face painting ? what makes rain? What is a post office and what shall it deliver ? We develop a new theory --- life should be simple bugs are important. I'm introduce in the store as P when ask again as to what my name is she shake her head and responds louder with the P. The kid has the answer to life's questions---- the question is do we want the answer We close the night off with a reading.

"The Kid Is Up!" She stayed true to the mantra by spending half the night awake crying because of her stuffy nose. I maybe got a total of four hours of sleep, that's fun.

The Pistol is enjoying himself with The Kid. In some critical areas they are like little mirror images of one another. They can't find their shoes, they take things out and leave them all over the house and the mess that they can both create with food is amazing. The dishwashing skills of Pistol continue to amaze me. I believe that the legally blind would be able to see the food particles left on a Pistol qualified clean dish. The other one that is amazing is how he handles a cup of tea or coffee. He's the Exxon Valdez of mug handling.

biG, if you read this, have my wife log into her Ofoto account and check out the two latest albums I posted. Pictures of Mom and her State of Clay show and pictures of The Kid and The Pistol. Thanks.

I don't think I'm going to have Pistol post a blog. He may not totally appreciate my witty comments above. Maybe he wont mind. I'll think about it.

The Pistol arrived and the kid was very excited. She was in shock actually, she couldn't say a word but you could read it on her face that she just couldn't believe that her Papa had finally arrived. At the airport she proudly put on her new baseball hat, which last night she had to sleep with, grabbed her Papa's hand and walked with him to the car. She held his hand the whole way. When we got home she ran around the house saying "Papa look at this, look at this...." She showed Papa all of her stuff and amazingly went to bed with only minor complaints.

Today all of us are going to The Kid's music class. Then after that there are really no plans but I'm pretty sure The Kid will tell her Papa exactly what she wants and he'll be more than happy to comply.

It has been a slow week for the blog. However, I believe there may be good things to come soon. The Pistol arrives tomorrow evening and "my contention is that he'll have a good take" on things when he gets here. So I'm hoping he'll honor biG's idea and post an entry to the blog. Lets keep our digital fingers crossed X.

It's a whole new look today.
I look professional now. There is even a new commenting option. I think it may be improved for those of you who like to ramble on a little bit (Ka).

So, this past weekend we went to Breitenbush Hot Springs (breitenbush). It is very Oregon. We spent one night there in a little cabin. The deal is that the place is kind of a get back to mother earth spa. They hold workshops and classes on Love, Sex, Spirituality etc... Alright let me cut to the chase they have like 10 natural hot springs on site and your are allowed to go in naked, this is the option that 90% of the people choose. So I wasn't sure what my choice was going to be then I just decided to go for it. It was fine. The real problem I had wasn't whether I felt comfortable with my own nudity but was that I wanted to relax and sitting in a small hot tub with 6 other people was not my idea of total relaxation. I want to be alone. What I realized is that I need physical space to truly ground myself. That is just how I am. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy myself. I did, we all did. There was plenty of nice trails to walk. Some small meditation sanctuaries. Also, there was a mothers day weekend retreat going on and there were kids everywhere so Daisy had a blast. The food is provided as part of your stay and it is all vegetarian and all organic and was very delicious. The big problem I have with the vegetarian diet is the gas. After two days of eating this stuff I was a methane balloon ready to burst.

The kid is up.

I'm still out here thinking of doing a blog post, haven't had time yet. We just got back from a weekend trip to a hotsprings spa. Lots to tell.....

Back soon.

Last night would have been a perfect night to kick of a meat free week. I sat down at the table to eat my beautiful veggie meal, I looked down at it and thought "let me just reheat that left over sausage that will go great with all of this." It was delicious.

The Kid spent her first night in a big girl bed. We'll she really didn't spend the night there because at about 3:15 am she decided it was time to wake Mom and Dad. After a few failed attempts to get her back into the bed she walked down the hall and joined us at 4:00 am. We try again tonight!

The Pistol is on his way out here soon and I'd love to complete a lot of projects that were unfinished when he was here in February. If we could just finish a damn project.

I keep meaning to add this link I came across one day.
I was reminded of it when biG was thinking of developing a fragrance.
Check it out. I plan on buying all of my bathroom products from here someday.

www.anthony.com

Places like Taco Bell and McDonald's are just beyond my abilities for food consumption. I don't know what I have a bigger problem with the industry that runs the place or the kids that serve the food. I once worked a summer as a grill cook at a pizza joint. I was 18 years old and I remember exactly how I handled food. My filthy hands were all over the food. I mean I would bet that 50% of teenage boys don't wash their hands after they pee. Teenage boys are gross.

I've started playing basketball again, twice a week during lunch. I'm glad I started up again. I had missed enough games in a row, do to work, that I had started to forget how much fun it is to play.

The kid is getting funnier every day. Last night we had a fork fight for the last cube of watermelon. She was cracking up and then when we let her win she stuffed the piece in her mouth, pointed at me with her fork, looked me in the eye and said with a big stuffed face smile "Daddy's piece." My favorite thing that she is doing currently is her suggestions. We'll may ask her if she wants to read a book and she might say "how about.... go to swings and slides, how about that."

In the recent past I would look at the slides at a playground and think how boring. Not able to give the slide any perspective. Now when I see The Kid on a slide I think how exciting. The slides may be about ten feet long that is like five times longer than her. If I could go to a park with fifty foot slides I think I would have fun too.

Some comments regarding recent comments:
Fast Food Nation is the reason I keep toying with the idea of giving up meat. Everything about the meat producing industry was disturbing. I have trouble explaining to people what is so bad about the industry because it would take too long. It is better just to say "read the book."
biG: Any luck selling the house?
Ka: A meat free week sounds like a good idea but since I do about 1.5% of the cooking I'd need my wife to buy into it. That's just an excuse, I'm sure she would.

The grammar free zone still gets my interest in one of my recent blog's I wrote "I look forward to me free bagel...." Call it a typo or really bad grammar but I like how it sounds, very caveman or maybe it is more like what an Irish Jew would say.

I'm getting a laptop from my company so I'll be able to work from home. I'm kind of mixed about this. I do want to be able to work from home so I can reduce staying late when I've got a lot of work. However, the down side is now I'm working outside of work. Is this the beginning of the end. The reason I requested a laptop was so I could have more flexible hours and support my wife's needs while she works. Overall I think it is the right thing to do.

Our poor dogs. They need more walks. This is a discussion we constantly have:
"They deserve at least one walk per day."
"I know they do"
"We'll we should do that"
"Yes we should"
"It only takes 10 minutes to go around the block"
"You're right"
"OK"
Then we don't do anything about it.
I'm going to take them for a walk now.

Let me try and respond to some of the comments made to the prior blog.

Readers: Ponder on that sentence for awhile. The kid is up.