Blog Number 267

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Wow, 10 days without a blog.  My apologies.  You can always check out my YouTube channel to see what occupies the time normally set aside for blogging.  For some reason my kids find that more enjoyable than watching me type out a blog.  Go figure.

I had an idea during ABF on Sunday morning.  Our bedroom is huge, probably twice the size of the kid's rooms and most of our bedroom is wasted space.  Inevitably, the whole family ends up in that room for the last hour of the night for one reason or another.  We keep our computer back there and if we are reading a chapter of a book to the kids then it is usually in that room.  Anyway, my idea was to give our bedroom to the kids to share (even though they are of opposite sex and are 9 and 6 years old, they sleep together in a tent every weekend in the son's room).  We would take one of the kid's rooms and the computer would get the other room.  I told my wife about this and she thought it was worth a try but I asked her not to tell the kids what we were doing.  I wanted them to guess as each piece of furniture was relocated.  This was when I discovered my children's lack of logical skills.

We moved our dresser from our room to what would eventually be the computer room (but at that time was the son's room).  He then ventured a guess that we were simply giving him our dresser.  When I asked him to give us a reason why we would give him a huge dresser when he already had a place to store his clothes he could not provide one.  Next we took the computer table apart and moved various pieces of computer equipment into his room.  Again he made a guess that we were going to give him the computer.  I asked him if this seemed logical and (wishfully thinking) he thought that it made perfect sense.  At this point in time we got the kids into the living room to watch part of a movie so they would not be in our way.  We moved the daughter's bed into our room and set it up where the computer table used to be.  I then asked her to come make her bed.  When she came to her room and the bed was gone she did not know what to think.  The first place she searched for her bed was her brother's room.  Now this actually made sense since they shared a room in the apartment last year.  Not finding it there she then looked in our room and found it.  She then told us in an excited voice that she knew what we were doing.  She thought that we were just moving her into our room and that she got to sleep with mommy and daddy.  She was very excited as she told us about this and somewhat dejected when we told her she was guessing wrong.  As more pieces moved back and forth, more outrageous guesses were made until eventually (when everything was moved) they understood and did a little dance of joy.

It has been a few days since this rearrangement and I must say that I don't mind (and somewhat enjoy) having a smaller room and having the computer NOT in our room.  The kids are still very excited about having a huge room to play in.  We will have to see how long this lasts.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 266

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I'm not in a finishing mood
I just want to start something

These are the first 2 lines to an obscure song by Charlie Peacock called "Finishing Mood".  Ironically I almost did not blog about this since I started to look for the CD on which this song is included.  I looked through all 200 or so of my CDs and did not find it.  I about gave up but then there it was.  Anyway, I have not been in a finishing mood this past week.  Even today I was ready to ditch the Sunday morning service after only having gone to Sunday school.  But I pressed on.  Yesterday when I was recording / putting together the video that I posted on YouTube, I felt like quitting half way through.  But I pressed on.

All my new ideas are so grand and complicated
Maybe they have no endings, only beginnings

This is another problem I have.  My thoughts and plans are pretty big.  I don't think I can pull them off or maybe I don't think I will have the tenacity to see them through until the end.  I would like to change my eating habits, my spending habits, my time management, etc.  But it seems like such a big task that I give up before I start.  I want to see about having Lasik surgery but don't want to take the time to go to the mandatory 3 hour pre-surgery appointment.  Also, I know that there is a healing process that could take months.  Seems like a lot of work to me.  Also, at work I am out of small projects and only have the daunting huge projects left on my to do list.

Tonight I am going to an introductory meeting at church for potential deacons.  Someone (I do not know who) has nominated me to be a deacon at our church.  This is just the first step in the process.  I do not have a great desire to be a deacon per se and I am not looking forward to the process either.  But I will press on.

I came across this site yesterday and laughed until I cried.  I am not a person giving to extreme emotion (laughing or crying) but when I do laugh I really enjoy it.  These photos are spot on sometimes.  There are about 80 pages of them so save some for a rainy day.  Wish me luck in becoming (or not becoming) a deacon.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 265

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Has it really been a week since I last blogged?  It doesn't seem that long to me.  Oh well.  This week I received a few CDs in the mail that I had special ordered.  I (our whole family really) am a big fan of the group Tree63.  We have their mainstream releases (the 4th of which I received for Christmas).  In researching the band I found out that they are originally from South Africa (though they now reside in Nashville).  It turns out that they used to be called simply Tree and their first album was called 63 (after Psalm 63).  When they were going to release their first CD in the states they found out that there was already a band named Tree so they combined Tree and 63 to become Tree63.  I found an online music store that said they had a CD called 63 Sessions which was supposed to be outtakes from their first US CD.  I placed the order, received the order confirmation and waited.  Nothing came or happened.  I emailed the website multiple times with no response.  My credit card was never charged.  The site sold more that just Tree63 stuff so I emailed some of the bands that had merchandise there and received no response from them either.  Eventually I emailed the Tree63 management email address referenced on their MySpace page.  They said they could get me the 63 Sessions CD if I mailed them a check for $12 and so I did.  Early this week I got the CD in the mail.  It is one of those "for fans only" type CDs but I like it as does the son.  It even appeared to be autographed.

In my research of the band, I also found out that they released 3 albums as the band Tree.  They were not released in the states.  I have a co-worker in the UK and though he had never heard of them, he did have a brother who was going to be in South Africa so he promised to look at the local stores there.  Tree had several #1 hits on South Africa radio so my hopes were high.  After a few weeks I received the news that he could not find anything.  I did find a double CD that had 2 of the Tree releases on a double CD.  I found it on a UK bookstore site.  It was going to be about $40 once you throw in international shipping.  That seems a bit much for me (though I hinted to the wife that it would be a great birthday present).  In one last desperate attempt I checked out the UK eBay site and lo and behold someone had a copy and the shipping was much more reasonable ($28 total for the CD and shipping).  Ironically it was the exact same UK bookstore that wanted $40 for it.  It was one of those Buy It Now auctions so I ordered it.  It was shipped via Royal Air Mail (sounds important doesn't it?).  I got the CDs in the mail yesterday and am listening to them as I write this blog.  Most of the songs were re-recorded and released on the US CDs that I have but there are several new (to me) songs and the other songs are in slightly different versions.  All in all I am happy.

It was a very busy week at work and at home (hence the lack of blogs).  Take Thursday for instance, I started off with my usual Thursday call to Egypt, Hungary and The Netherlands (though The Netherlands guy didn't make it).  I then went into a 90 minute training session hosted by a friend in Argentina but most of the trainees were from Mexico.  This was all in Spanish so I just multitasked and listened for my name.  Shortly after that it was another training session hosted by my Argentinian friend only the trainees were from Mexico and Brazil (this was also in Spanish).  I did manage to hear a few words I recognized (la herramienta nueva - the new tool).  I had an actual call to Virginia thrown in there somewhere and then it was off to my last call for the day to New Zealand and Australia (thankfully in English).  Thursday was my busiest day but typical of my week.  Throw in the fact that the wife went to a get together on Monday evening and the kids had AWANA on Wednesday and the week was just "full".  Thankfully though it is all over and I can relax here with my coffee (with Tree playing in the background).  However Monday is lurking with several more important meetings.  If I was a fellow that would get a big head over these types of things, surely it would be huge by now.  For me it is just fun to interact with all the different cultures (and to try to internationalize my sense of humor - though I fear I will never get Australian humor!).

Tonight we are going out with friends to Buca de Beppo's.  It is their fist time going there so it should be fun.  When you get a chance, head over to my YouTube page and see some of the videos I have posted (another thing that kept me busy this week).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 264

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I am a little tired this morning as I did not get home until around midnight.  The men of our ABF had a Texas Hold 'Em party last night.  I was the 5th one out of the game (out of 8 of us).  With my stack dwindling, I went all in pre-flop with and Ace-Seven and wound up loosing my 113 chips to a low pair.  Such is poker.  The losers could then go try their hand at Wii bowling (which I fared much better at with a 194).  All in all, it was a great time (even though some 12 year old won the poker game).

OK, now on to some griping / ranting.  One thing that I have never liked is when a family pet is called by the family last name.  Veterinarian office's are very fond of doing this.  I can understand the need.  When the attendant comes into the waiting room and yells out the patient name "Fido" there is likely more than one patient with that name hence "Fido McAllister" narrows it down quite a bit.  This reason does not make me like it any more.  I have not gone to the vet with Gabbi (our lab/spaniel) so you may wonder why I am even thinking about this.  Well, I am glad you asked...

You can't quite make it out but this pill bottle says Gabbi Dieterman in the patient space (she was recently spayed).  Listen, I married my wife and she became a Dieterman.  My son first and then my daughter were a product of two Dietermans and as such qualify to wear the moniker of Dieterman.  Gabbi, well she looked cute for 5 minutes at just the right time when the kids were trying to pick which puppy to pick from the litter and then she has really done nothing but eat, process waste, and destroy anything left in the back yard (including a badminton net).  She has not earned or inherited the privilege of being called a Dieterman.  Honestly I don't think she cares but the wife will call her Gabbi Dieterman at times and I never fail to correct her that (like Madonna) she only has one name.  For a dog that is sufficient.  The canine brain only has so much space for data and allocating space for a second name means removal of the data currently occupying that spot.  This could have bad results if that space is being held by some binary code that helps said dog remember where (and where not to) pee.  So I think everyone can now agree with me that dogs only get one name and ours is called simply Gabbi.  If you will excuse me I need to get some white-out and fix the misprint on Gabbi's pill bottle.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 263

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Tonight the wife is out of the house attending what is called "Mom's Night Out" with some of her home schooling friends.  They get together like this about once every month or so.  The kids enjoy this as Daddy rules are in effect.  We spent the evening listening to crazy songs on SeeqPod (The Drifters - "Who Put The Bop") and watching Tom & Jerry cartoons on YouTube.  Before that however we practiced some Spanish.  I had purchased 3 small boxes of candy at work today (Lemon Heads, Apple Heads and Cherry Heads) and for each correct translation they received a piece or two of candy.  Normally the kids are not into Spanish but if you put a Lemon Head on the line, whammo, they are quite literate.  Anyway, this is not something we would ever do when mommy was home.  Not that she would disapprove, it is just a Daddy thing, that's all.

One of my new Spanish words for the week is PESCADO.  The software I am using to learn Spanish really does not translate anything for you.  It shows you a picture and then describes it in Spanish.  For instance, it will show you a little girl with a dog and say, "Una niña y un perro" and from that you have to derive that niña is the word for little girl, perro is the word for dog and y must be "and".  A few lessons back, it showed a white fish (un pez blanca) and then a fish swimming (El pez está nadando).  However this week it showed a man holding a big fish that he had apparently just caught (Un hombre y un pescado grande).  Now I know hombre is man, y is and, grande is large so pescado must be the fish (by process of elimination).  But, I also know that pez is fish so what gives?  I asked some of my friends from Argentina and the best way they could describe it is that pez is a fish IN water and pescado is a fish OUT of water.  I find it incredible that there are 2 words needed for fish but that is just my crazy, American way of thinking I guess.  If you are a fish in Spain, one minute you are a pez and the next you could be a pescado.  Such is life.

Well the kids are in bed now so I am going to spend time just goofing off (Dad's Night In).  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 262

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well it took me 5 weeks but I finally finished book 2 in the Mission Earth series by L. Ron Hubbard.  According to the check out receipt (that I was using for my bookmark), the book was due back at the Frisco library on 01/12/2008 so it is just a little overdue.  Fortunately there are no late fees at the Frisco library, only the suspension of your rights to check other materials out (and an occasional computer generated phone call reminding me that I had overdue materials).  We are heading to the library this morning so book 3 will soon be in my hands.  With a little work maybe I can finish it in under a month.

Recently the wife bought me some bar soap since I was running low.  I was hoping for some basic soap like Irish Spring, Dove or Dial (you know, the normal brands).  What I received was this...

You can read more details about it at the Kiss My Face website.  She bought me the Olive & Green Tea Soap.  Notice that it is just a giant rectangle.  The edges aren't even curved.  I can see this hurting when I use it until I get the edges rounded off a little.  The wife was saying something about not wanting chemicals touching our skin since the human epidermis system is the biggest organ we have (or something like that - I usually just nod and say 'uh-huh" occasionally until she is done talking when she talks about stuff like that - no offense honey, it is just truly boring - I will use the soap, just don't make me have to know why it is good for me).

Anyway, it is time to hop in the shower as the library opens soon.  Wish me luck with the rough edges.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon