I am Jack’s Good Fortune

The last few days have been great. I feel fantastic, upbeat, better than I have in quite some time.

Here are the pictures I promised you though.

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After




Yesterday I went to the last hockey practice before the league starts. I found out I’m going to be on the Orange team this season rather than the duping ground for new shitty players that is the Blue team. It’s going to be nice to be on a team with decent players this year. I’m really looking forward to the season.

I also decided to go ahead and buy myself a composite stick. I normally use wood, but I’ve been having the blades break pretty frequently and they are really heavy and don’t really have a good snap to them. I got a Mission two-piece with a replaceable blade, so as long as I don’t break the shaft it will be a good for a much longer time. I used it last night and all I can say is wow. I didn’t realize how much better it would be than a wood stick. My slapshot usually sucks balls, but now it’s like a rocket. The stick is like a rubber band launching the puck. It’s sweet.

Also, people say that it’s harder to stickhandle with a composite, that it doesn’t have as good a feel as a wood stick. I didn’t really think this was the case. It definitely had a different feel to it, but I thought in the end it was easier to stickhandle and to receive a pass with.

So I’m on a good team this winter, and I’ve got a kick-ass stick.

Ah yes, I saw the boy take his very first unassisted steps this past week. It was fucking incredible. It blows my mind how little things can be so amazing with an infant. He took four or five steps towards me then fell into my arms, I hugged him and told him how great he was as he laughed and smiled. Life doesn’t get much better than a moment like that.

And here's a picture of the little monkey for ya:

I am Jack’s backed up feces

Nothing like a good political post to get everyone’s tempers flared. All you Bush supports will like to know he’s flip-flopped on Iraq and now is OK with a time table. Do I hear cut-and-run? He also pulled a truly Orwellian move in saying he never had a policy of Stay The Course in a recent interview.

And in case you’re worried about the Democrats taking back the House and possibly the Senate, you can relax.

Anyway, after 13 months, the soft maple tree in my back yard re-infiltrated my sewer system causing it to backup. I called up Roto Rooter, and they came out and cut them out. I must say their customer service has drastically improved in the past 13 months. They’re much more focused on cleanliness than before. They basically send a big drain snake down your main sewer line with a 4” diameter cutting head on it. It spins and flings sewer water all over the place. They have this little cover tent thing now to prevent it from getting all over your basement. They also did their own cleanup afterwards. They pulled out the cutter and it was covered in roots. In a way I was glad to see this since I was worried that a joint had collapsed since I was having so much trouble with it backing up in the past.

My father-in-law came down this last weekend and we built a new front porch/steps. I’ll post some pictures of it. It turned out nice. We used treated tongue and groove deck flooring. We also painted the entire downstairs. He has a paint sprayer so it was a quick process. It was a nasty green and yellow color, now it’s a happy bright white. It makes a big difference.

I’ve felt very strange the last week or so. I can’t quite explain it fully. Being very physically exhausted from working outside and hockey, and also being tired makes for a strange take on reality. It’s not always in a negative way though. Like I said, kind of hard to describe.

I am Jack's unchecked violence

This picture is from Foxnews.com

That is a picture of an Iraqi Police Officer! Holy Shit! This fucking guy looks like Rambo.

We all hear these news reports of the violence and terrible things happening in Iraq, but this picture just really drove it home for me. You have this picture in your mind of what a police officer looks like, and that is not it.

It just shows how big of a fucked up mess Iraq has become because of the gross mishandling of it by our current administration. Justified, unjustified, whatever, this is inexcusable incompetence.

I am Jack’s fatherly instinct

I went to an Attachment Parenting meeting with my wife on Saturday. It was about the father’s perspectives on AP. We had to talk to the group for about 15 min on nighttime parenting.

I really didn’t want to. I hate talking about thing I don’t really know about to complete strangers. I’m afraid I’ll look like an idiot.

It went OK. It made me realize thought that we’re getting sucked into Peoria. Making friends, joining clubs and associations, and the like. It will make it that much more difficult to get out.

My dog skitch is still alive, but he fell down like five stairs this weekend and messed up his back again. My wife took him to the vet today and $125 later he got an injection and meds to take away the pain while he heals the sprain or whatever. His heart disease is progressing though and his esophagus is beginning to collapse. His rear paw also doesn’t really extend due to his nerves not really sparking with his brain correctly. It’s a fucking shame he doesn’t have much time left.

I’ve only been getting 5-6 hours of sleep at night, which isn’t enough for me, and then taking 1-2 hour naps. The result is that I always feel tired and detached. Carter keeps getting up early, and I keep going to bed late since I’m not tired from the naps. It’s a vicious cycle.

And since my buddy Chris doesn’t like stealing, here’s a little trick to get a 2 for 1 deal on coke machines.

I am Jack’s misery voyeurism

(I can’t wait to see what Google searches get to my blog with voyeurism in the title)

Anyway, I was talking to my sister and she was telling me how my blog has become boring. My wife said the same thing.

I agree. I do know why though. Nothing bad has been happening to me lately.

Misery and tragedy do two things. They make me write better (always have), and people love to read about other peoples suffering. It makes them feel good.

It makes them grateful for all the special little things they have.

That’s why newspapers sell, and why people watch the news. They want to see people dying in exotic places they’ll never go to. They want to see homicide and genocide and infanticide.

They love hearing about how hard it was to deal with a miscarriage.

They want to hear about moments in your life that break you down and make you build yourself back up to move on.

It makes for an interesting read. It’s better than fiction because it’s real. I was looking back at those posts and they’re so charged with emotion. Brutal honesty like that draws people in.

It’s tragic when a two month old breaks their leg, but how fucking interesting is it to see how someone has to deal with a two month old in a full hip spica cast.

I can’t guarantee this blog will get anymore interesting, but who knows… God may get really drunk again and serve me up something good.

I am Jack's acceptance of Diversity

Opposite of Dog has a large diversity initiative in place. I’m all for diversity in the workplace, especially at Opposite of Dog where the culture is so grossly atavistic it’s oppressive.

When most people think of diversity, they think of different races and cultures interacting as if there is no difference between them. This is definitely part of diversity, but I think that’s pretty easy to achieve. By easy, I mean that it’s easy to accept someone when they are supposed to be different than you are. Someone from India is from the other side of the world, so most people can handle the fact that they have different customs and ways of seeing the world.

Where Opposite of Dog is failing, and will continue to fail is diversity of thought. I can’t be who I actually am at work; because of the inability of old white men to accept the fact that all young white engineers aren’t conservative, Republican, God fearing, risk intolerant, local sports team loving, willing components of the larger machine.

The day I could come to work in a short sleeve shirt, sit down and eat sushi at lunch, and have a discussion about how universal healthcare would solve the rising cost of healthcare (it’s all the lawyers faults according to 99% of the people who work here), would be the day that Opposite of Dog has truly embraced diversity.

At which point hell would freeze over.

I am Jack’s conceptual realization

I figured out why Instant Grocery List hasn’t been selling well. It’s inaccessible. The majority of people out there with computers don’t feel comfortable in the Excel environment.

My wife wanted to keep track of her expenses and profit from her store. She asked my how to do something in Excel because she just didn’t feel comfortable with it. She could use it if she really wanted to, but it wasn’t nice and comfortable.

Now I need to take my concept, and learn how to make it into a program. I think I’m going to learn Java and turn Instant Grocery List into a Java program.

I took one computer programming class in college and I hated it. It was C++, and the TA that taught it was a dick. He was kind of like Comic Book Guy.

I don’t like the idea of trying to learn something new like this, but I think if I do manage to get a working program it will sell much more. It’s also the issue of time. It takes time and effort to really learn something like a programming language, time I don’t know that I have.

I am the Party of Values

I was trying to write something when I found this little bit of satire mixed with tuth.

Enjoy

I am Jack’s pounding heart.

Have you ever gone to a restaurant, and then not gone to it for like a month, and then you go back to it and you’re like, “Damn that was good, why don’t I come here way more often?” (Cool people use run-on sentences)

I had one of those moments today.