Wear Gloves and Protective Eyewear

The Death of Malathionman

2008-11-16T13:24:00.000-08:00

In the movie “Bleak Future”, Malathionman meets his demise in a gruesome manner. If you have watched the trailer posted in the sidebar of this site, I get in a fight with the dude in the kilt. Kilt dude is mute because I cut out his tongue, so he doesn’t like me very much. I was pretty much kicking his butt, but then I got cocky and taunted him with his tongue that I had been carrying around in a jar for God knows how long. As I began to eat his tongue, I choked on it (Which is kind of funny because I actually did choke on it while filming that shot, and it tasted nasty!) and Kilt dude is able puncture my malathion tanks, giving me a bath in my own malathion juice, causing me told melt before a horrified audience.

Wear Gloves and Protective Eyewear will not meet such a slimy ending. I am just quietly shutting it down and putting away the Malathionman mask for good.

When I started a blog on MSN Spaces a couple of years ago it was just supposed to be a way to keep in touch my fantasy baseball buddies. I needed a screen name and I had all this Malathionman stuff so I thought it would be fun to use it in the blog. And it was, but the blog that I had created for my baseball buddies had became the blog for the friends I had made on-line.

As I got more interested in blogging I moved from MSN Spaces to Blogger, and started Wear Gloves and Protective Eyewear. I like this blog, but I have had this feeling for a while now that it had no real identity, other than the Malathionman, a character that most people don’t get unless they take the time to get to know me. As open and as honest as I am on my blog, I think it is hard to get past that scary looking dude in the comment section.

In case you were wondering, I am not quitting blogging. In fact, I’m going to try and step up my blogging game, but not as Malathionman. The new site will be similar to this one and the mask will be gone. I noticed that one of my friends had me listed as a daddy blogger. A couple of years ago I might have shunned that label, but I have realized that I am a better writer when I’m writing about my kids, so why fight it I’m a daddy blogger.

So, I have a web host and a domain and will be opening my new site soon. I will be going from a Blogger page to a Wordpress page. I probably should have used a free Wordpress theme to start, but I bought one that I liked and I am still trying to figure out how to customize the page. I have very little ‘code” experience. I’m sure I’ll figure it out and have things up and running soon.

I am going to leave this email for those of you who want to know my new address. anchorice26@yahoo.com Although I don’t think I said anything too crazy here; it has come to my attention that some people read this blog that I didn’t know about. And no, Jackie isn't one of them! So I would like to start the new site with more of a clean slate. I will continue to visit the sites that I usually visit and I’m sure you will figure out who I am.

Until then, you may want to try this new blog out. She is a much better writer than I am, but very new to the blogging world. Stop by and say hello.

P.S. We have a date and Sarah is coming home. I'll share details on the new site. Or you can check out the new blog linked above. :)

Thanks Dad

2008-11-10T21:32:00.000-08:00

Do you have a stepparent, blood relative, or in-law that drives you and the rest of the family nuts?

I do, it is my stepmother, Jackie.

For years she would complain behind my father’s back, to his family, about what a jerk he was. When she tried to gripe to me about him I let her have it, “ You are preaching to the choir lady. I grew up with him. I know what he can be like. You should be having this conversation with him, not his son.”

Here is another example of Jackie’s lack of common sense.

Over the last couple of years it has become obvious to my wife and I that Jackie doesn’t care for my youngest, Alissa. But she adores my son Austin. Today she invited him to go fishing and spend the night at her house, without Alissa. Later, Alissa asked me why grandma Jackie likes Austin better than her. Nice going grandma.

After my father passed away, my sister threatened to kick her ass if she ever saw her again. I didn’t believe my stepmother when she told me that, but then she showed me the letter that my sister had sent.

My family makes great blogging material.

Not long before my father’s death he asked me to do one thing for him. I don’t know how I knew what he was going to say, but I did, and thought to myself, “Please don’t ask me, please don’t ask me,” but then he did, “Please take care of Jackie when I’m gone.” Heavy sigh, “Sure dad, I’ll do that for you.” “Thanks Tommy, I didn’t think I could ask your sister to do that.”

If he only knew, if he only knew.

I Put My Pants On Today

2008-11-08T18:37:00.000-08:00

I know this may sound weird, but it has been 6 months since I have worn a pair of pants.

Today was opening day at the golf course that I work at. Pants are required from opening day until Easter, after that we can wear shorts.

It always feels strange when I start wearing them again.

I just thought I would share.

Let the rude comments begin.

The 6th Letter of the Alphabet List

2008-11-05T20:46:00.000-08:00

Peas and carrots, peanut butter and chocolate, Malathionman and Death Chick, some things just go together. D.C. is a great blogger and when you die she would be glad do your make up before they display your corpse to curious friends and family.

Sometimes the Death Chick gets a little excited abouts things and rants a bit. She accidentally (yeah right) started a meme called the F-List. I'm not sure my F-List was what she was looking for, but she linked me anyways.

Sign of the Times

2008-11-02T16:08:00.000-08:00

My kids had a fun Halloween.

I walked my daughter around the neighborhood with her best friend and her father. When Alissa was done she took over the task of handing out the candy, something I think she enjoys just as much as receiving it.

My son is old enough now that he was able to go out on his own with his best friend. It is no longer cool to hang out with dad or the little sister.

We have lived in this neighborhood for about 6 years. It is a nice neighborhood, people would drive to our neighborhood to amass Halloween candy, but I have seen a change the last couple of years that makes me a little sad.

I bet two years ago 80% of the houses in my neighborhood participated in Halloween festivities. This year I would guess closer to 30% bothered to participate. That was still enough candy to keep our dentist in business, but nothing like it used to be.

The streets were just dark. People were not at home, at home but not handing out candy, or the house was bank owned. And there was a lot of the latter.

Are times that tough that you can’t afford to buy candy for Halloween? Maybe. The vacant homes, now looking more like haunted houses, might support that statement.

It’s depressing to think about what my house is worth now compared to a few years ago. I’m not even going to ask. We don’t have plans to move anyways...

So, what kind of candy have you been stealing from your kids this weekend? Anything with the word Reese’s has mysteriously disappeared from my kid’s bags.

Aww Shucks

2008-10-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

About 5 years ago I was finishing up the general education credits for my Turf Management degree.

Physical education was part of those GE requirements. I would need to take 2 PE classes. Each class was only 8 weeks, half a semester.

The first class I took was tennis. This would be easy for me. I was the team captain on my tennis team in high school and I played in many competitive events when I was in my twenties.

The class instructor’s name was Wendy. Wendy was more of a personal trainer than a tennis instructor, but it was a beginner class and she had done this enough times that she was able pull it off. After a couple of days she could tell this class would not be very challenging for me. I ended up helping her teach the class. She would often pick my brain for new things to do in class and then we would try them out.

One day we were talking before class,” Hey Tom, do you need to take another PE class?”
“Yeah I was thinking about golf.”
“That’s probably some other sport you already know how to play. Why don’t you be a man and take my yoga class?”
“I don’t know....”
“It is the same time as this tennis class, starting right after these 8 weeks are over. It is always full but I’ll add you anyways.”
“Yoga...”
“Come on, come to a class that I really know something about.”
“Do very many guys...”
“Hardly any guys take this class. Just good-looking women. You should love it.”
“Well...”
“Don’t be a WUSS. Are you afraid you can’t keep up with a bunch of girls?”
She finally pushed the right button.
“OK, I’m in.”
“You won’t be sorry.”

The 8 weeks following the tennis class were “challenging”. Wendy was a genuine yoga instructor. I think she was teaching a power style of yoga. You had to be flexible, but most of the poses required a lot of balance and strength. She pretty much kicked my butt for 8 weeks, and I showed up everyday for it. And I wasn’t about to complain.

About 2 weeks into the class Wendy made an announcement. She was pregnant.
This would be her third child. She said that she would still be able to teach the class, but that she might have to tone it down a bit. I’m thinking this was my lucky day. Two poses later she was standing on one leg and had the other leg behind her head.

Yoga turned out to be one of my favorite classes, and not just because Wendy didn’t lie about the good-looking women.

The last class I took in college was a nutrition class taught by Wendy. She was well into her pregnancy. I didn’t she would be there at the end of the class. She almost made it. She missed the last day, finals, to have her baby.

I never got the chance to see her again after I graduated. Until...

... Last weekend when the Pink Puppies played the Blue Angels! Wendy’s oldest was playing for the other team. I was sure that was Wendy on the other sideline. She came over after the game with her family to say hello. She laughed and told me she knew I was a coach the moment she met me, and that she had a great time just watching me with the Pink Puppies.

I noticed that her youngest was a little boy and asked, “ Is that the guy who made you miss my last day of school?”
“Why yes it is!” she smiled.
“And what’s his name?”
“Tommy.”
“Really?”
“What can I say, I’ve always liked guys named Tom.”

Raise That Bar

2008-10-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

Before the start of my soon to be legendary girls soccer coaching career, the league made all the coaches take a class on coaching soccer to eight year olds.

The instructor was some guy from England who took his soccer very serious. He was about my age but in much better shape. It looked like he still played.

He shared with us about how he has been to Wembley Stadium to see many great football matches. The San Diego Chargers and the New Orleans Saints will be playing a “real” football game there on the 26th.

I thought he did a great job. I took a lot away from his class.

One thing bothered me though, his expectations for this age group. I thought they were very low. He didn’t think kids this age should bother with the goalkeeper and that if the kids could just dribble the ball and change direction every once in a while the season was a success.

This year the kids are using a goalie. The field they use is much bigger and most penalties will be called except for offsides. They are playing a game with a referee, but nobody is supposed to keep score. Yeah right! Those girls know exactly what the score is.

Last year Alissa played flag football with the boys. I just realized that I never posted anything about that, what a lousy daddy/evil mutant blogger I am. Her coach (coach Weed, that cracks me up) had high expectations for his team. Coach Weed had "high" expectations, I'm killin myself here. He had a playbook that he expected the kids to know, by the end of the season, they did. He didn’t coddle the kids either, he wasn’t psycho football coach, but he was firm and the kids listened when he spoke. And they were a year younger than my Pink Puppies.

So I have taken that into my first season of coaching these little girls too.

I think the Pups are the best-prepared team out there. They know what to do when it is a goal kick, corner kick, or throw in. Our goalkeepers are aggressive and do a good job kicking or throwing the ball back down the field.

Their skills are improving too. They can already dribble and change direction. I’m working on getting them to pass the ball and use their left foot.

The main thing is that the girls have fun, and I think part of having fun is being successful. The Pink Puppies are having fun, and so am I.

Lets Be Honest

2008-10-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

Someone I consider a good friend revealed to her readers that she was a birth mom. Being an adoptive parent, I can not begin to express the kind of heart I think she has for doing one of the toughest things a woman can do, give a child up for adoption. The reason she shared this information was because the child she gave up for adoption has found her. If you click on the link you will read that mother and child are doing great.

The conditions of my adoption were different. The birth mother of my children did not voluntarily give her kids up. They were taken from her. Despite that lousy situation, I’m pretty sure my kids will be looking up their birth parents.

I’ll be honest, that bothers me. And I’ll be even more honest, it bothers me for a very selfish reason, I don’t want to share. I understand an adoptive child’s curiosity about their birth parents, but it will still hurt when Sarah, Austin or Alissa decide to look them up.

But I shouldn’t be so insecure. The birth parents of my kids are not very appealing. Both dads are in jail and mom is a drug addict.

Hopefully ALL the family involved in the above reunion are better equipped to handle the situation than I will be. I wish them all the very best.

Why I Sometimes Feel Old

2008-10-16T21:03:00.000-07:00

It has been a very long week. I have just worked an 11-hour day and I have to rush in grab Alissa and go to soccer practice.

Austin is eager to talk to me about something, “Dad, can I tell you about my homework!” “Dude, tell me in 90 minutes,” I said as I walked out the door.

90 minutes later, to the second, I walk through the front door, prepared for excited greetings from dogs and son. The poor dogs had to wait their turn as Austin leapt from the couch with a report in his hand.

It is times like this that I have to take a deep breath and compose myself. My first thought is, “Take a chill pill Austin! I’ve had a long day and just want to veg-out for the rest of the night.” But I know he is just happy dad is home and he wants to share his day with me. He is not much different than the dogs, and I think that’s a good thing. I really love my dogs.

“Dad we did a report on Iraq today!”
“Oh yeah, did you talk about the war?”
“You knew about the war?”
“I heard about it.”
“It started March 20th, 2003”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Did you know that Iraq used to be a place called Mesopotamia?”
“Yes, I did.” Really, I did.
“Oh, is that because it was Mesopotamia when you were a kid?”
Pause
Sigh
Cracks open a beer.
“Yes, Iraq was Mesopotamia when I was a kid.”

Malathionman's Horror Holiday Picks

2008-10-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

I don’t know why I never did this before, post Malathionman’s Halloween Movie picks! Who better to know about horror than the evil mutant Malathionman?

When I sat down to think about my recommendations it occurred to me that I could categorize this list in many ways. Vampires (Bram Stoker’s Dracula), werewolves (Dog Soldiers), and chick flicks (Steel Magnolias) are types of horror movies.

I tried to be less specific.

FOREIGN.
You may have noticed that I have recommended some foreign movies on the sidebar. I like foreign movies. If I can watch an entire movie in subtitles and enjoy it, it has to be a darn good movie. I do not watch the dubbed versions. Here three of my selections.

Ringu (Japan). Ringu was remade in the U.S. as The Ring, which wasn’t a bad movie. Ringu was a little darker, a little creepier, and no blood, just a good scary movie. It is a little dated with that whole videotape thing. Subtitles.

The Orphanage (Spain). This is probably still a new release in most of your video stores. 30 years later, a woman comes back to the orphanage that she once lived at as a young girl. With her husband and adopted son, she wants to run her own orphanage for special needs children. Like Ringu, this movie has no blood; it’s just a really good ghost story. Subtitles.

Dead Alive (New Zealand). Before there was Lord of the Rings, there was Dead Alive. I think this was Peter Jackson’s second feature film. The blood and guts that are missing in the above movies are in this one, 10 fold. This zombie comedy is one of my favorites. One of my favorite scenes is when the zombies come knocking at the church’s door. The local priest answers and decides to take the Lord’s work into his own hands and feet. He then proceeds to kung fu on hordes of zombies exclaiming, “ I kick-ass for the Lord!”
No subtitles, English.

COMEDY/HORROR
This is my preferred “Halloween” type movie. Dead Alive definitely falls into this category, but it fit nicely into that foreign film slot. I think horror is better if there is some comedy mixed in to take the edge off; it also makes the comedy funnier, even it isn’t that funny.

Evil Dead 2. This is actually a remake of Evil Dead. Evil Dead wasn’t a bad movie, it was just more of a traditional horror movie. Director Sam Raimi remade Evil Dead with laughs in mind. It has lots of blood and gore, and that famous flying eyeball scene. It also has Bruce Campbell; he appears in many of Rami’s films, very funny guy. Check it out; it makes many must see lists for this genre.

Re-Animator. This is not a movie for everyone, but if you like Dead Alive or Evil Dead 2, you’ll probably like this too. It’s just your typical mad scientist movie. Geeky guy discovers a way to bring dead things back to life. Decapitated and reanimated evil doctor’s body walks around carrying his own head so he can kiss the girl he likes. Great
stuff.

American Werewolf in London. This movie has genuine scares and laughs. The hospital dream sequence scared the you know what out of me. This movie won an Oscar for make up effects. Still one of the best werewolf transformation scenes and baddest looking werewolves to date.

REASONABLY KID SAFE
I tried most of those movies above on my kids and I can safely say yours won’t like them. Here are some movies that most elementary age kids won’t get too freaked out by watching.

Ghostbusters. Classic 80’s movie period.

The Monster Squad. A boys club team up with Frankenstein to battle Dracula, Wolfman, the Mummy, and Gill-Man.

Gremlins. More 80’s more fun. I think monster movies were friendlier in the 80’s. Everything today seems to be pretty shocking.

Unfortunately Bleak Future doesn’t make my list recommendations, but you can rent it! I am a member of Blockbuster Online. While looking for something to rent I was shocked to come across Bleak Future. I am even listed in the cast. So if you are feeling brave, check it out and see the Malathionman in action.

Feel free to throw any of your Halloween favorites my way. Chances are I've seen it and have an opinion on it.

Pink Puppy Training

2008-10-09T23:06:00.000-07:00

Coaching my daughter’s soccer team has been ... different. Any coaching I have done in the past has not been for little girls. I would have used the term “little girl” to motivate teams that I have coached in the past.

Coaching girls is different, but my toughest problem has nothing to do with gender. Amanda and Dorian, the identical twin sisters are my biggest challenge. It is bad enough telling them apart, but these girls are wild animals. Any lapse in action during practice results in hair pulling, cartwheels, or somersaults.

I played soccer in elementary school and all the through high school. I know how to play the game. I also know talent, and these girls are pretty good.

I enjoy coaching, and I really enjoy coaching players.

Besides Alissa, my favorite player is a little girl named Malia. She is the smallest player on the team, but she has big game. It’s not that she has the most talent; she just plays harder than anyone else. Its like she is playing with a chip on her shoulder, trying to make up for her size.

This may sound bad but I do have a least favorite player. I won’t say her name but this sweetheart really pushes my buttons. This pink puppy likes to correct me. I don’t know many adults that like to be corrected by an eight year old.

“Amanda, I want you to take the corner kick.”
“Excuse me coach but that’s Dorian.”
“Is that right Amanda? Are you Dorian?”
Giggle, giggle, giggle, “Yes.”
“Told you.”
“You sure did. Why don’t you go take a lap.”

Longest Month of the Year

2008-10-06T22:55:00.000-07:00

The longest month of the year for me is October.

It is the month my golf course closes for over seeding.

What we basically do is dry up all the warm season grass and scalp it to the ground. It is a very dusty job. A lot residents leave town because the grass in the air is too much to handle. I just stock up on allergy medicine and try to stay awake while I’m operating heavy equipment.

We will hopefully have the scalping done in one week. We work dawn till dusk until it is.

Next we reseed the course with about 110,000 lbs. of cool season grass. Another 3 days, dawn til dusk.

That leaves 20 days of worrying about if that seed is going to grow. Waiting for that first sign of life can seem like an eternity. Like waiting for water to boil.

Like waiting for me to post

If They Can Get Batman Right...

2008-09-28T21:54:00.000-07:00

I made a cd for my daughter a couple of months ago.

While I was looking for songs, I thought it would be fun to look them up on YouTube. I wanted to see what, or if any videos had been made for these great songs.

What I found was pathetic. Now that I think about it, most of the early MTV videos are dismal too.

I think the world of music videos should do like the world of movies, remakes! There are so many “older” songs that tell wonderful stories; they would make super music videos. Or maybe a music video was made and it just didn’t do the song justice, remake it.

One of the music video stations that still play music could easily make a weekly show out of this idea. Maybe they already have and I’m just out of touch, its not like I’ve watched MTV or VH1 or whatever in the last decade.

Here are four songs I found on YouTube.

A Boy Named Sue- Johnny Cash
Long Tall Glasses- Leo Sayer
Space Oddity- David Bowie
I Don’t Like Mondays- The Boomtown Rats

I really like all four songs but don’t like the video on them. These could be great music videos if done right.

Anybody else have an old favorite (music video) they would like to see made or remade?

The Wrath of Mrs. Khan

2008-09-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

I was whining about my daughter’s class last week.

The school has started sending the second graders in Mrs. Valasek’s class to a second grade math class. The teacher’s name is Mrs. Khan.

Mrs. Khan has a little problem with germs. On Alissa’s first day in her class she sent her home for coughing in class. She told Alissa that she didn’t want to catch her cold. I think she may have been joking, but Alissa didn’t understand and thought she was mad at her.

So she spent the rest of her school day at work with me, not a cough all day.

The principle of my daughter’s school called us yesterday. He said he had an opening for her in a second grade class if we wanted it. “Why do you say it like that?” I asked. “Its Mrs. Khan’s class,” he replied. “She is a little ...ridged.”

As you may know, we are trying to get Alissa into a different class. But this seemed a little weird. It sounded like the principle wasn’t sure this was a good idea.

We asked the school counselor what she thought about the move. We gave her the low down on Alissa and that we thought she might need a teacher with a little softer touch. She agreed, and we will just continue to wait for a different class to open up.

Feel free to ad-lib a Star Trek 2 line except it is Mrs. Khan instead of (Ricardo Montalban) Khan.

For example- “Math is a dish best served cold.”

The 100 Million Dollar Question

2008-09-21T20:01:00.000-07:00

I was eating lunch with a couple of guys from work. Midway through my Cobb salad one guy says to the other, “Let’s ask Tom.” These are guys are stereo-typical so I’m thinking, “Here it comes, Ginger or Mary Ann, fake ones or real ones, tan lines or not.”

“Tom, if you won 100 million dollars in the lottery, would you stay with your wife?”
“Yes.”
“Dude, you didn’t even think about it.”
“I didn’t have to.”
“Did you have to think about it?”
“If she bought the ticket, heck yeah I’d stay with her!”
“Wow, you would have to think about it?”
“I have asked about 10 guys the same question and you are the only guy who answered yes without hesitation, and only one other guy answered yes.”
“Does that make me weird?”
“Absolutely.”
“Blow me.”

It was really disappointing to hear that from one of my friends; not that I was weird, but that he would hesitate when asked that question. I’m not even sure he answered yes.

I really can’t imagine what my life would be like with out my wife in it. I guess I was lucky to find the right person at such a young age. I remember seeing her for the first time when she was sixteen; she looked like she was 20. I thought to myself, “I’m going to marry a girl just like her.” I married her 3 years later and today is our 23rd anniversary. I think I’ll give her a card with a lottery ticket in it and hope that she won’t have any tough decisions to make.

Suckaaaa!!!

2008-09-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

“Is this Alissa’a Father?”
“Yes.”
“Hi this is Rick from Alissa’s soccer league!”
“Cool. When is practice?”
“Well, I’m not her coach, I’m the commissioner of the league.”
“Oh?”
“We can’t find a coach for Alissa’s team.”
“And because people often confuse me for David Beckham you think I know how to coach soccer?”
“Exactly!”

It is true that Rick couldn’t find a coach, but turkey balls actually said, “ I thought maybe because you were older than the other dads you could better manipulate your work schedule.” “Thanks Rick, let me turn up my hearing aid I didn’t catch the last part.”

I got the call 2 nights ago. First practice is tomorrow night. First game is a week from Saturday.

Right now we are team number 48, any ideas for a team name? I bet someone can guess what a bunch of 7 and 8 year old girls are going to name their team.

As Good As It Gets

2008-09-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

It is a school night and I am lying next to my youngest Alissa. It is tough getting her to go to sleep. One thing that seems to work is when I stay with her until she falls asleep, half the time I fall asleep before she does.

Tonight was tougher than usual; unfortunately these nights seem to be turning into the norm. Alissa’s mood swings are extreme, yelling, screaming, and crying one minute, laughing and singing the next. It is almost impossible to control her when she is on the wrong side of that pendulum.

I have come to the realization that she has bi-polar disorder and possibly reactive attachment disorder too.

How do I know this? From experience. In addition to the bi-polar and reactive attachment disorders, my oldest has also been diagnosed as a sociopath with a borderline personality. Combine that with a lifetime of neglect and abuse from her birthparents and you have one really messed up teenager.

When we adopted the kids we knew we would have problems with the oldest, we just didn’t know it would be this bad. The therapist we were seeing asked us if we had to take Sarah. (This was an option the county made available to us.) I will admit that it has been hard to bond with Sarah, but there was no way we were going to tell her, “We don’t want you, just your little brother and sister.”

So we tried our best to keep these three kids together. Unfortunately, we ended up putting Sarah in a residential treatment school when we couldn’t control her any more.

Sarah is 16 now (17 in January) and she has been gone for 2 years. We keep in touch with weekly phone calls and visits to the school periodically, but we can feel her becoming more distant. She still says that she wants to come home, but the thought of her coming back is frightening; it was that bad before we sent her away.

Is she better? Yes.

Will she be able to handle a public school? No.

Will she ever let us be the parent? Doubtful.

Is it time to bring her home because it probably isn’t going to get any better? Possibly.

Does that scare me shitless? Definitely.

That being said, we don’t want her to turn 18 in this school and then tell her she is on her own. She was dealt a crappy hand and deserves better from the family that she has always wanted, but doesn’t know how to live with. And to be fair, we didn’t know how to live with her either.

We hoped that Alissa, being the youngest (6 months old when we got her), would be less maintenance; this is beginning to look like wishful thinking. We thought most of Sarah’s problems were a result of the years of drug, physical, and sexual abuse from her biological mother. It now looks more like personality disorders passed on by her biological mother and father.

My kids have the same biological mother. Sarah and Alissa have the same biological father. Austin has a different biological father. Austin does not appear to have any of the personality disorders that the girls do; I guess there is something about that combination of DNA between Sarah and Alissa’s biological parents. We only have three of birthmother’s 6 children. Of the remaining 3, one was born retarded and given to the county because she couldn’t care for it. This was also a child from Sarah and Alissa’s father. Another child lives with his birthfather (father #3). And her newest addition (father #4) was born after Sarah, Austin, and Alissa were taken away from her. The county has let her keep this baby.

It is fair to say that I have bonded the most with my youngest Alissa. If you have read my blog with any kind of regularity you probably already know that. It tears me up inside when I see her in a rage that she can’t control. I try to stay calm because I love her and I understand that she can’t help it. I have not been as understanding or fair towards Sarah. It is for this reason that I am probably more willing to let Sarah come home, even when the chances of a happy ending are slim. Sarah knows Alissa is my little girl; I want to at least give her another chance to just be my daughter.

Alissa and I were driving around town the other day. While we were stopped at a signal I turned to look at her. She had her headphones on and was singing some Hannah Montana song. She smiled at me and continued to sing. I thought to myself, “I love this little girl so much, I’m going to write her a poem.” I don’t know where the hell that came from but that thought really popped into my head. Did Sarah ever have a parent feel that way about her? Did she ever have a parent look at her and melt inside like I do when I see Alissa run home to see me after school?

When Sarah does come home I will try to look at her with a different pair of eyes.

Green eyes, red hair
Tiny freckles everywhere
Green eyes, red hair
Born with attitude to spare

Green eyes, red hair
Clean your room and make the bed
Green eyes, red hair
I'll probably cry the day you wed

Green eyes, red hair
I love the girl that drives me mad
Green eyes, red hair
I thank the lord that I'm her dad

Tough Crowd

2008-09-09T18:16:00.000-07:00

Those Canadians are a tough crowd.

It is an election year in Canada this year too. I think the voting process in Canada is cool. The campaigning starts about 5 weeks before the election. It seems like we started a year ago here in the US. And instead of two real candidates you get three! These guys don't mess around with slinging mud at one another, they sling shit!

My buddy Nelson is from Grand Prairie and he likes to fill me in on what is happening in Canada from time to time. He shared that with me today. We both agreed that we would vote for Harper just because he ran the ad.

395

2008-09-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was on vacation with my family. This year we rented a van and hauled the kids, the grandma, and the dog up to Donner Lake. Yes, kind of like the Griswolds, except grandma and the dog made it back alive. Grandma took the brunt of most of our jokes but she was a good sport and offered to ride on the roof whenever we needed her to.

The car was full and the mood was tense for the first 90 minutes of the trip, at least it was for me. It takes a lot of effort to get this freight train moving, and I usually don’t relax and settle in until I get to highway 395. This is when my vacation starts, at the junction of interstate 15 and highway 395.

This desert highway is the road to many fond memories in my life.

When I was 8 years old my father woke me up in the middle of the night to pack me into his ‘70 Barracuda for our first father-son fishing trip. He didn’t tell me what we were doing and to try and go to sleep. I slept for a couple of hours but woke up when my dad cranked the 8-track tape player, the group Creedence Cleerwater Revival, the song Travellin’ Band. I think he was excited and wanted me to wake up; I didn’t mind and I like CCR.

My dad told me about our trip. We were going to a place he used to go to when he was a kid, Rock Creek Lake. Rock Creek Lake is about 45 minutes north of Bishop, CA. and about 45 minutes south of Mammoth Mountain. Over the years Sherri and I have caught a ton of fish out of the crystal clear waters at Rock Creek Lake.

It was still dark, and the Cuda was flying. “Slow down dad! Please don’t hit that rabbit!” were thoughts going through my head, but would never say. He never slowed for a single critter, but we managed to avoid them all. I was relieved.

I think we were in Lone Pine when the sun finally came up. I was surprised to see snow on the mountains in the summer; you would never see that in southern California. ”Holy shit! 45 cents a gallon!” my dad bellowed, “We’ll gas up in Bishop.” I think it was 43 cents a gallon in Bishop, much more reasonable.

We stayed 3 days and 2 nights at Rock Creek Lake. Our campsite was next to an outlet creek from the lake. I caught my first fish in the lake and many more just from our campsite. I used worms and salmon eggs, bait that still works for me today. The sun and mosquitoes did a number on me. At the end of 3 days I was sunburned, mosquito bitten, and filthy (no showers), I was ready to go home.

The ride home from RCL is about 5 to 6 hours, an eternity for an 8 year old. I think my dad was shooting for 4 hours, I think the CHP thought those were his intentions too. “Shit! I knew I should have kept it under 90!” my dad whispered as he pulled over. The CHP stood at his window and asked, “Do you know how fast you were going sir?” “95,” my dad replied as he showed him his badge. “Pomona Police? You know sergeant Hannibal?” asked the chippy. “He’s my boss,” said my dad. “Try to keep it under 80 officer Johnson,” the CHP smiled.

The two knuckleheads bullshit for another 20 minutes and probably lost whatever time my dad had saved while speeding down highway 395. I watched my dad’s speed the rest of the way home; he was just under 80, like a good boy. We didn’t talk that much but it was understood that mom wouldn’t know about that little CHP thing.

My father and I made 3 more trips to RCL, all of them before I got married. When he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer I tried to get him to make one more trip. It was literally one of the first things that popped into my mind. One of the first things that I thought would give him and me comfort. He said it was a great idea but he kept putting it off until he was just too sick to do it.

As a teenager I made a couple of trips with my friends, no parents, fun, very fun. Sherri’s family is very familiar with Bishop and places to go along the 395, so the tradition of camping and fishing along that highway continued when I got married. Each trip I would be surprised at how things have changed and haven’t. Each time that pleasant feeling, as I turn off the 15 and head north on to the 395.

Double WTF!!!

2008-09-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

WTF in bold letters! WTF in italics!

Last year I was a little disappointed with Alissa’s teacher. So you can guess how happy I was when we walked over to the school last weekend to see who her new teacher was going to be and found out it was the pickle lady again. But it gets worse.

My daughter’s school has put her in a combination 1st grade/2nd grade class. There are 15 first graders and 5 second graders. I guess the first grade class was short on students and the second grade class had too many students. This was their solution.

The principal let Miss Valasic hand pick the five 2nd graders that would be in her class. We feel so lucky.

Alissa thinks this is great. The other four kids were good friends of hers last year.

I think Miss Valasic handpicked 5 little teacher’s aides.

How much attention are those kids going to get in that class?

No, It Wasn't Weed.

2008-08-27T18:43:00.000-07:00

If you read the comment from Sarah in my last post you may be wondering about “the package” she was talking about. I guess Chris is the only one wondering since he was the only other commenter.

When I got back from vacation there was a plain brown package waiting for me in the mail. Usually when I get these kinds of packages they have a Columbian postmark. But it didn’t. This package came from the lovely state of Maine.

Cool, this package came from Sarah!

Sarah is a blogger I came across while clicking on that “next blog” button on Blogger. I left a comment, that I’m sure was rude, and now I bug her on a regular basis.

Sarah likes to knit. I try, but I can’t even pull off a basic purl stitch.

Frustrated, I e-mailed her. I wanted to make something cute for Alissa and needed help. Sarah said, “Step away from those circular needles rookie. I’ll make something special for that red haired princess of yours!”

So she did. And here it is.

Look at how clean that room is!

I think a few of my readers already visit her blog. But if you haven’t, do it! And ask her to knit you something!

Thanks Sarah! Now that I have your address you should be looking for that package from Columbia.

Orville Would Not Approve

2008-08-25T20:41:00.000-07:00

It is always a good idea to take an extra day of vacation just for putting things back together after the trip. And I did just that. We got home late yesterday and just chilled the rest of the day. Today we emptied and returned the rental car. We also did a ton of laundry and unpacking. It has taken most of the day and I don’t have too much time to compose one of my normally brilliant posts. But I do have time to share a little snippet from the vacation courtesy of Austin.

One of the hard things to arrange on our trip was a motel that allowed pets. We decided to bring Ernie along for the ride. We only needed the room for one night. The rest of the trip will be spent at our friends cabin at Donner Lake. You can probably guess what kind of place we had to stay at. Mandalay Bay? Nope. Holliday Inn? Nice try. How about the Vagabond Inn? YES!

This place was nnniiiicce. Austin thought the Vagabond Inn was very cool. As he was checking out the bathroom he declared his love for the place, “Dad! Check out the toilet paper! It’s folded like a fan! Hey look, they even left us bags for our popcorn!”

Road Trip

2008-08-16T09:16:00.001-07:00

I think the title explains It all. Making that annual trip to Truckee. We know someone who lets us use their cabin for free, SO WE USE IT! Bringing the laptop, don't know if I'll use it much. Someone might make a post for me, but they are pretty busy. So don't expect too much action around here the next week. Gotta go, I'm getting the stink eye from my better half.

Like a Good Neighbor, Malathionman is There.

2008-08-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

Ernie has a friend that lives across the street. Her name is Shasta. She is also a Labrador retriever. We have known Shasta’s mommy and daddy for a couple of years, but really didn’t talk much until we got our Labrador retriever. We wish we had taken the time to get to know them when they first moved into the neighborhood; they are a really nice couple.

About six weeks ago RNC started their family the Malathionman way, with three. The difference is they didn’t adopt. They had triplets instead.

They have had family and friends over to help out most of the last six weeks. We figured that they were getting hammered with visitors so we didn’t want to go over and sneak a peek at the babies until most of that was over.

One thing I had noticed over the last few weeks was that they weren’t able to get any work done on their yard. I thought it would be nice if someone took care of that for them until things got a little more normal for them. Yeah right, like anything will be normal in that house again. But I wasn’t sure how it would be received. I didn’t want them to think I didn’t like looking at the long grass in their front yard. I just wanted to surprise them with something nice. I thought about it for a few days and finally decided to go for it. The next morning after finishing my yard, I grabbed my stuff and Austin and walked across the street and cleaned up their front yard.

I was very proud of Austin. He was very into this random act of kindness. And so was RNC. They were very thankful. They tried to pay us but I would take the money. I told them this was on me. I did tell them that Austin might consider doing their yard on a regular basis. They offered him $20 a week. I told them he would take $10; diapers are going to be expensive. Austin is happy too, he only gets $5 a week from me for the work he does around the house.

It has been about 3 weeks since we became better friends with our neighbors. And it has really paid off. They have had to leave town a couple of times and needed someone to take care of Shasta. They came over and asked, something they have never done before. We were happy to do it cause guess who will take care the frog, lizard, fish, and two weenie dogs while we are on vacation next week? RNC.

Here is the baby announcement that they made themselves. I thought it was pretty cool.

I Could Just Lock the Door

2008-08-12T19:49:00.000-07:00

My youngest Alissa has been spending too many nights sleeping in my room. She will start in her room, but usually ends up finishing the night on the floor next our bed.

She has been asking us if we would let her do a sleep over at her friend Kylie’s house. We have been reluctant to give her our blessing because she has had such a hard time getting through the entire night without our company.

Alissa is also very concerned that Austin has got to sleep over at his friend’s house a lot this summer. She doesn’t think it is fair that he should have more fun than her.

This is a discussion I had with her in the car last week.

Daddy can I talk to you about something?
Sure, what’s up?
I really want to spend the night a Kylie’s house.
You know how your mother and I feel about that.
Yeah but I don’t think you guys have thought this out.
Really?
If Austin stays at Jake’s tonight and I stay at Kylie’s, you and mommy can have privacy.
What do you mean privacy?
You know...
No I don’t. Yes I do, but this is too much fun.
...You can kiss!
Awww man that’s gross!
Daddy!
Honey, I have a cold. Mom won’t kiss me. Maybe next week.

Why I Kiss My Wife Goodbye Everyday

2008-08-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

3-year-old Lennon came into the play station room (Sarah’s vacant room) and asked,
“ Can I play with you?”
“You know who Tiger Woods is Lennon?” I asked.
“Best Golfer,” he smiled.
“You want to play Tiger?” like I didn’t know the answer.
Bigger smile.
“OK, you be Tiger and I’ll be Natalie Gulbis, she’s hot.”
“Hey Tom,” Lennon’s 6-year-old brother Lux enters the room. Today he sounded older.
“You want to play or just watch me thump your brother with a girl?”
“I’ll play but I don’t want to be a girl.”
“That’s cool. Is John Daly manly enough for you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Daly it is. ”

I’ve known Lux before there was a Lennon. My kids love these boys like brothers. It has been a couple months since I’ve seen them. They are usually with their mother Jen when she comes to baby-sit for Sherri and me. But Jen hasn’t worked for us this summer.

Back in June, Jen’s husband Jeremy was killed in a car accident. His car was hit head-on by a drunk driver.

Of course the drunk driver was able to walk away.

Jen had to ID her husband’s body on the side of road at 3:00 am while Lennon was asleep in the car.

Jeremy worked at a local casino. He was car-pooling home with some other workers. One of these workers called the casino from the accident. The casino called Jen and said he was going the local hospital. When she called the hospital they said he wasn’t there yet. So she packed up Lennon and headed to the hospital. Lux was in Colorado with his grandmother.

She had no idea it was this kind of accident. The casino didn’t give her any details.

The only way to the hospital from Jen’s house was highway 62. The same highway Jeremy takes home. Arriving at the accident was unintentional.

She pulled over to ask if Jeremy was on his way. The CHP asked her to wait in the car. She did, for almost an hour. They finally did come back to tell her that Jeremy had died at the scene and that he was still there. She chose to ID him there. They drove her home.

A week later she drove by the accident site and found personal things from the car still lying around on the ground. She picked it all up.

Jen wasn’t just our babysitter. She is Sherri’s best friend in the desert. I had met Jeremy a couple of times through the years, but wouldn’t really say we were friends. I knew him more from stories that Sherri had told me; stories Jen had shared about Jeremy that weren’t that great. They are about 10 years younger than Sherri and me. So we would hear these stories and shake our heads, “You’ve totally done that!” “ No way, I’m not that dumb.” “Uh yeah, you are.”

Tonight was the first time I had scene her since the last time she had babysat for us. It was awkward. I had to acknowledge the death of her husband. I tried to give her a hug, but it didn’t feel welcome, so I think it came off weak, like a limp handshake. I hate limp handshakes.

So I let the girls talk and bond and do what girls supposedly do best, communicate!

I would then focus my attention on something I can deal with, her sons. We played Tiger Woods and Ape Escape 3. I even let them win. We talked about kids stuff. Dexter’s Laboratory or SpongeBob. Does Lux like Alissa? Or does Alissa like Lux? We didn’t talk about their dad.

I’m sure they are going to have lots of guys trying to be father figures. I’ll just be the same silly guy they are used to. If they ever want to talk about dad it will be their choice.

I wondered what they were thinking while they played with me. Dad and me used to play video games. We don’t have fun like this at home anymore. God I miss dad. Tom sucks at Tiger Woods.

You hear about these kinds of tragedies all the time, but it really doesn’t hit home until it happens to someone you know, not even family, just someone you know. I may have to let Austin beat me occasionally with his new golfer, Caroline. :)

Mr. Popularity

2008-07-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

Remember this little guy? Ernie was a Christmas present to the wife and kids. But he also has another job. He “works” with me at the golf course.

Last winter we had a problem with migratory coots. Hundreds of these coots try to make MVCC their home for the winter. They are a huge problem. All they do is eat our newly seeded grass and crap all over the place. The members wanted the coots to go away. When you buy a membership for $80,000 and pay monthly dues of $850 you don’t want to have to putt through bird shit.

Nelson thought getting a “bird chasing“ dog for the golf course would help, but he didn’t want to take care of one.

Sherri wanted a Labrador retriever, but she didn’t think we had a large enough yard to accommodate such an energetic dog.

Like peanut butter and chocolate, the my two problems turned into an unbeatable combination. Both my family and the members at MVCC love Ernie. Sometimes I think more than me. When I get home from work, “ERNIE! YOU’RE HOME! Oh, hey dad.”
When Ernie is with me in my cart members will stop me, “How is Ernie today?” God forbid they ask how I am. That’s OK; I love the BIG guy too.

One of our fertilizer vendors has asked local golf courses with dogs to submit pictures for their 2009 calendar. So I am going to send in a picture of Ernie. I thought I would post the three that I have narrowed it down to and let you guys, “The Cult of Malathion” help me decide.

A.

B.

C.

This may be my favorite, but I'm not sure it is "calendar" material.

The Difference a Dollar Can Make

2008-07-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

Summer is a very expensive time for the Malathionman household. The electric bills are usually over $400 dollars a month and we need to pay for daycare since the kids are out of school. We had a great inexpensive sitter set up for the summer but her husband died in a car accident a few weeks ago. So we had to do find someone to watch the little angels real quick.

I was ready to ask one of the guys hanging out at Circle K if they wanted to make a few bucks, when one of the ladies at work said her 19-year-old daughter wouldn’t mind watching my kids. Her daughter Nylet had applied for a job at my golf course earlier this year and didn’t make much of an impression on me then, but she didn’t make a bad impression, so she was in. She would get $8.00 an hour; work 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, 3 to 4 days a week. I would even give her a ride home if she needed, because she did not have a car.

Nylet did fine the first week. The house wasn’t too messed up when I got home. The kids were alive. The dogs were too. I was pleasantly surprised.

Week two didn’t start off very good. When I arrived at work at 5:00 am I said good morning to Nylet’s mom and asked if everything was a “go” for Nylet to be at my house later that morning. She looked at me kind of funny as said, “Yes!” I knew that was a big fat NO but decided to let it play out. Sure enough I got a call from Sherri a couple of hours later. Nylet had forgotten about babysitting and was stuck at her friend’s house without a car. My wife, who was just stepping into the shower and had to be at work by 9:30 was tickled pink about the situation and told me, “You hired her, you handle it.” I did, but it was a pain in the ass and I wasn’t very happy with Nylet.

The rest of the week was OK. Nylet showed up like she was supposed to. The house was OK, but definitely NOT as nice as week before. I had to drive her home everyday, which sucked. And the kids kind of whined about Nylet not going outside to play with them. She said it was too hot. This is coming from the girl who wanted to get a job working landscape on my golf course. I didn’t like the direction this “work” relationship was headed, and I didn’t want to tell Nylet’s mom her daughter was a sloth, but I kind of think she already knows it.

The next week Sherri was off, so we didn’t need a babysitter. We simply told Nylet we would call her when we needed her. We would try to find someone better the week Sherri was off, and we did. We will use Nylet when the new girl is unavailable.

The beautiful and angelic Caroline is the 20-year-old daughter of one of Sherri’s employees. She is home for the summer from college. As you can tell we love her. For $9.00 an hour Caroline drives her own car to my house. She also uses that car to take the kids to the movies, swimming, and to the park.

When I come home from work the house is always immaculate. Instead of her ass planted on the couch watching TV, feeding her face while the kids are in the other room, maybe I won’t be using Nylet again, Caroline is doing something with the kids.

I also think Austin is in LOVE. I understand. She is pretty cute, she gives him attention, and he is a 12-year-old boy.

Last night he asked me to try out a new racetrack he had made on the Playstation. I laughed when I saw the name of the track. It was called “Caroline.” I HAD to point out the name and start teasing him about it. While he emphatically denies any feelings for his new babysitter I hear a voice in the hall, “Austin and Caroline sitting in a tree...” Austin had to stop and address the instigator, “MOM!”

I Did Mocha Momma

2008-07-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

Today I am guest posting at Mocha Momma's Blog. I was very flattered that she would ask. I don't know what she was thinking.

I Like to Make the Girl Sing

2008-07-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

One of the great pleasures that I get from being Alissa’s dad is listening to her sing. When she has the headphones on she sings without realizing that the people around her can hear her. When she was younger it was Veggie Tales Songs. Now it is Hanna Montana. :(

I sing in the car when she is with me, but not with anyone else. Sometimes she will sing with me if she likes the song. So I decided to make a fun CD of “old songs” that she would sing with me. The trick was to try and select songs that I thought she would sing. I did pretty good. I was 8 for 9. She doesn’t like “Joy to the World”. I thought all kids liked “Joy to the World”. Her favorite song is not really an oldie, but it has the oldie sound. It is called “Chick Habit” by April March. You will find on my player if you want to check it out.

Alissa’s and Malathionman’s Sing A Long

1. Chick Habit- April March
2. Stuck in the Middle with You- Stealers Wheel
3. Long Tall Glasses- Leo Sayer
4. ABC- The Jackson Five
5. I Can See Clearly Now- Johnny Nash
6. Joy to the World- Three Dog Night
7. Misty Blue- Dorothy Moore
8. Lean On Me- Bill Withers
9. Build Me Up Buttercup- The Foundations

He's Still Making Movies

2008-07-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

Brian O'Malley. The teenager that used to make and deliver pizzas for me back in the 80's and early 90's is still trying to make it in the movie business. August 14th his new movie Audie And The Wolf, a movie that he wrote, directed, and produced, will be premiering at the 2008 Downtown Film Festival in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Theatre. I'm very excited for him. Compare the Audie And The Wolf trailer to the Bleak Future trailer. Its a big upgrade! He has REAL actors that you should recognize too! Christa Campbell, Rance Howard, and Richard Riehle all have parts in this film. Go to this site and click on all the links. http://audieandthewolf.com/

I think it real interesting to see how they try to sell these small movies.

Yeah, "Plumb Me"

2008-07-09T18:43:00.000-07:00

I snapped this picture today. I'm not sure why I found it so amusing. I guess I just have a weird sense of humor. But then again you probably already know that.

Squishy Between Your Toes

2008-07-07T11:38:00.000-07:00

I remember camping outside in the backyard when I was a kid, pretty fun stuff. Austin tried it with Alissa a few months ago, that didn’t fly. Who do you think got scared and wanted to come in after 30 minutes? Not the little girl, it was the big brother. So when Austin asked if he could do it again last night, except this time with his friend Jake, I figured he better “man-up” or he would never hear the end of it. He did.

I thought these boys had it pretty easy. Look at that nice tent! When I was a kid we had to use blankets and tarps that we tied up between trees. It was more like a fort than a tent. I don’t know if you can see in the picture, but they have an extension cord running into that tent. They wanted a fan and music for the night. At 10:00 pm I went out tell them to turn the music down and found them both dancing in the yard. I’m not sure what to think about that. I guess it is just cute.

I had fun sneaking outside to eavesdrop on their conversations. Lots of “dudes” and “you farted!”

I also had to have a little fun at their expense. I wasn’t going let the sprinklers run while they had power out there, but I did make sure the dogs made plenty of trips outside during the night. They thought it was funny when the dogs would try to get in, but I knew there would be little surprises waiting for them when they got out of the tent.

Austin was the unlucky victim. I never recommend walking barefoot in my backyard. :)

F**K the Cheep Stuff!

2008-07-04T16:57:00.000-07:00

This Forth of July I am home with the kids while Sherri is at work. She is off at 4:00 and will be home in plenty of time for 4th type festivities, but I wanted to try and make sure she didn’t have to do much when she got home. Just kick back, relax and wait until it gets dark.

As soon as Sherri was off to work, the kids and I went into action.
The first stop would be Stater Brothers Market and pick up stuff for dinner. Tonight will be a pretty simple meal. Rib eye steak (on sale $3.70 a pound), salad (romaine mix, tomato, green onions, cucumber, and avocado), and sliced fruit (watermelon and pineapple). I was hoping I could get all the drinks there, but they didn’t have the most important beverage, so I just got the beer and juice boxes. Total cost, $50.00. Not so bad.

Next stop would be the fireworks stand, fun, fun, fun.

“Daddy, buy the Mega Block Party! Mega Block Party looks awesome dad, buy that one!”
“How much is Mega Block Party?”
“$500 dollars sir.”
“We’ll take Block Party”

Total cost, $89.99. Ouch.

Last stop was the most important. I needed a bottle of tequila, but not for me, it is for Sherri. Stater Brothers didn’t have the right kind of tequila, just cheep stuff. I ended up going to Smart and Final, Costco was closed. Sherri likes an occasional margarita, and she likes them with good tequila. She likes Cazadores. Cazadores is not the most expensive tequila, but it is not cheep. I like Cazadores because when ever she has these margaritas there is a reasonably good chance I will get lucky later in the evening. Why mess with success?

One small bottle of Cazadores, $30.00. Worth it.

In My House

2008-06-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

I don’t normally lock the front door when I’m home during the day, but I’m thinking about it.

Hi Mr. Johnson.
Hey Kiley.
Is Alissa home?
No, she went to the store with her mother.
Could you please tell her I stopped by?
Sure, would you close my bedroom door, I’m going to change my clothes.

I guess its cool that the neighborhood kids are not afraid to come into my house, but don’t parents feel uncomfortable about them doing it? When I was a kid I had a couple of friends that would let me in the house without knocking, but that was a different time. I don’t even let Alissa play out front unless someone is with her, and she must knock before she enters someone’s house.

When I was a kid, “Go outside and play!” was what most of us heard all summer long. Occasionally my dad would say, “Here’s 5 bucks, go buy me a carton of smokes and you can get ice cream with the change.” You can’t do that today when you are only 8.

Today parents are singing a different tune.

“Don’t go near that guy in the van with the little dog.”
“No, you can’t use the restrooms at the park, you’ll need to come home.”
“Stay away from that guy collecting aluminum cans.”

I have actually said all three of those things. :(

Google Readers, can you guess what Mary Jane Girls song is playing on the player?

Don't Let The Smell Bother You

2008-06-19T18:19:00.000-07:00

About 7 years ago I gave up all of my privacy. That would be when the county of San Bernardino gave Sarah, Austin, and Alissa to us. They were 9 years, 5 years, and six months old. At first it wasn’t too bad, but now that everyone is used to each other my privacy no longer exists.

My youngest, Alissa has no concept about my personal space.

I get home from work about 15 minutes before the kids get home from school. It is one of the few quiet times I have. It’s a great time take a dump, in private. Don’t you love it when there are kids outside the door asking you questions or they are whining about the other kid to you and all you are trying to do is not make loud farting noises while they are standing there?

When Alissa came home from the last day of school, she wanted to show me what she had made in class for me. It was a Father’s Day card. She was very excited. She was so excited that she couldn’t wait for me to get out of the bathroom.

The master bedroom has a “closet/stall/booth” whatever, with a sliding door that doesn’t lock. I hear my spastic little girl cheerfully burst into the house and come straight to the bathroom. Funny how she knows where to go.

Daddy! Look what I made for you!

The door slides open a crack and she waves the card in the room.

That’s really cool Alissa! Thanks!
I made one for my dad too!
Oh, that’s nice. Who is that?
Hi Mr. Johnson.
Its just Kiley.
Oh, OK.

Its (I'm) Not Unusual

2008-06-06T17:10:00.000-07:00

All of us have them, guilty pleasures. Guilty pleasures are things we like to eat, watch, listen to, or do, that may not be considered mainstream. Something you may not share with someone until you get to know him or her better. I have lots of them. And as I get older I have come to realize that it is silly not to share fun, quirky, things about yourself, it makes you more enjoyable to be around. Who really likes that quiet dude that just keeps to himself? Sure there may be some laughs at your expense, but it will pay dividends in the end.

Today I am going to share one of my guilty pleasures. In the future I may share some more. Feel free to make fun or share.

I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. There was a lot of great music in the 70’s and 80’s, or at least I think so. But there is one guy I secretly listen to. Tom Jones. I actually have a Tom Jones play list in my Rhapsody library.

When I was a kid I remember my mom watching This Is Tom Jones every week. I think this show was so hilarious, the Vegas-style singing, the ladies throwing under garments on stage, cheesy skits; it was total 70’s. Only Tom Jones could pull that routine off and get away with it.

I dig that even today he is doing the same thing he did back then. I also think it is cool that many younger artist have done work with him. It’s a sign of respect for the work that has done in the past, and proof that he is still cool.

One of my favorite Tom Jones appearances is in the movie Mars Attacks. It is a small cameo towards the end and I believe he has the final scene. I really liked Mars Attacks; it’s not a movie people mention when they talk about Tim Burton films.

So there it is; I have a man crush on Tom Jones, not Tommy Lee Jones, whom I think is cool too, and if you think about it he does have the same name.

Hopefully you are reading this from Wear Gloves and Protective Eyewear, and not from your Google Reader, so that you can enjoy the macho goodness that is Tom Jones.

Flies With Fresh Breath

2008-06-02T18:38:00.000-07:00

The bugs in the desert are pretty bad in the summer. It is better to say bugs are bad in the summer for everyone. This has to do with high temperatures that encourage insect eggs to hatch. Our problems insects are crickets, roaches, ants, and flies, pretty common stuff.

I have a Qualified Applicators Certificate from the State of California. This means I could get a job with ORKIN if I wanted, but I enjoy the free golf and lunch where I work too much to consider it. You would think I could handle killing my own bugs but I have an exterminator do it. He does a real good job with the crickets, roaches, and ants, but the flies are still a problem. With three dogs you can probably guess why.

Sherri and the exterminator (Ray) are real close. If she sees anything crawling around the house with more than four legs Ray gets a call. She asked Ray if there was anything he could do about the flies. Austin thinks Ray should do a better job keeping the dog dung picked up. Ray thinks Austin should pick it up twice a day instead of once. I agree with Ray, but when the dog takes a dump in his room he still has a hard time finding it and dealing with it, so I don’t think twice a day is going to “fly” (get it). Ray’s other suggestion was just as helpful, pay $75.00 a month for his special fly treatment.

Friday night Ray gives Sherri a call. What’s up with that? He tells her that he heard about a different, inexpensive way to kill flies in the yard. Spray your yard with Listerine. Something in the antiseptic kills the flies, and it is also safe to spray around pets and plants. Just put it in a hand sprayer and apply it full strength.

I think it sounds stupid, but Sherri hates flies more than decaf, so she is “all in”. Saturday morning she buys two gallons of Listerine, mint flavored, and sprays the yard herself. I won’t participate in such witchcraft I may lose my QAC.

I won’t say it was a total success, but I will say it did put a dent in the fly population. I think the results are going to be short lived. The sprinklers should wash off most of the mouthwash in a day or so. I will say if are you going to entertain in the yard and you have a fly problem it might be worth spraying the night before with some cheap .99 Store mouthwash. I don’t think flossing will help.

Would You Tell Your Boss?

2008-05-31T13:34:00.000-07:00

If you have ever read Wear Gloves and Protective Eyewear you may know that I like to talk a lot of shit. Or maybe I should say I talk about shit. Maybe you’ll remember We Have A Plunger Just In Case and Butt Plug Not Included. In the fine tradition of those great entries I bring you Would You Tell Your Boss?

I have an employee his name is Reyes. He is what we call an irrigator. His job responsibilities require that he work a lot by himself. We need to be able to trust him to keep busy and do an honest days work without much supervision. We have found that not to be the case with Reyes. He appears to be getting very little done, and what is done is done half-ass. (Half-ass would be a technical term we use in the golf business.)

I have made it known to Reyes that I’m not satisfied with his job performance. He said I had some sort of problem with him and complained to my new boss. Mistake. Now my boss holds him accountable for every minute he is on the golf course. Reyes is now freaked out that he is going to loose his job, he should be. He calls me and reports to me every little thing that he does. Things are better, but it has gotten a little extreme.

As I am driving to the clubhouse to get some lunch I come across Reyes driving back to the maintenance shop in a hurry. He pulls me over to talk.

Hey Tom I gotta go home.
What’s the matter?
I’ve got real bad diarrhea and I shit my pants.
Umm...really?
REALLY. I shit in my underwear a couple of hours ago so I threw them away. Now I’ve shit in my pants....
Stop stop stop, enough, don’t get out of your seat. Just go home. Call me tomorrow if you can’t come in. I’m going to lunch now. (Yum.)

Later that day while I was washing my hands in the bathroom. As I threw away the paper towel I noticed a pair of underwear in the trashcan. I was curious, but not that curious.

It Really Better Not Be A Tumor

2008-05-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

I made a reference to the movie Kindergarten Cop in the title of a post a couple of weeks ago. I thought I might clear that up today. Sometimes I assume that everyone will know what I’m talking about when I drop a line from a movie. I don’t know why, but sometimes people will stare at me blankly when I say, Tito Puente's gonna be dead, and you're gonna say, "Oh, I've been listening to him for years, and I think he's fabulous."

At the same time that I had written that post, my wife was really sick. She was having a hard time standing up without getting dizzy and falling down. It was so bad that she couldn’t drive. I had to take time off of work to get her to the urgent care center.

The PA that looked after Sherri ran many tests. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Finally he said he wanted to do a CAT scan. He said she probably just has a virus, but wants to do this to make sure it is not something else.

We grab our paperwork and head out to the Lucy Curci Imaging Center. It was time for school to get out, so we had to pick up Alissa on the way. Austin would be home later.

Alissa was all questions on the way there. Why are both of you picking me up from school? What’s wrong with mommy? How long are we going to be? Can we have ice cream on the way home? It was all cute until I pulled into the parking lot and noticed that the Lucy Curci Imaging Center was really the Lucy Curci Cancer Center. Sherri noticed the look on my face and gave me that don’t say a word in front of the little girl look.

I am now waiting with Alissa in the lobby for Sherri to get her CAT scan. We are doing her home work, talking about her day in school, and I’m dying inside. My little girl has no idea what this CAT scan is for. What the hell are we going to do if the person that holds this family together has cancer? What’s Sherri going through in the other room?

Sherri comes out after about 15 minutes and we wait to hear from the technician. It didn’t take long, maybe 10 minutes. The technician says that we would have to go back to the urgent care center and discuss the results there. Give me a break. So we go back to the urgent care center.

Everything was fine, no tumor. But we still don’t know what is going on. The PA gives Sherri a prescription for motion sickness, and it has kind of helped. He thinks it is a virus and that it will pass.

Sherri is now experiencing some numbness and tingling in her arm. She has now seen our regular doctor and told him everything that has gone on for the last 2 weeks. He thinks that everything is probably related to a possible neck injury she sustained at work. We are now waiting for an MRI approval from her workman’s comp carrier.

All I can say is, “At least its not a tumaaa.” (my best Austrian accent)

Maybe That's Why We Don't Talk.

2008-05-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

While doing my Mother’s Day shopping (for my wife) this week I saw a lot of great gift ideas. I spent a lot of time trying to decide what she would like the most. This is hard to do when there is a 7-year-old girl who wants to go home and play, instead of shopping for mommy with you.

I always try to pick something nicer than what Sherri would normally buy for herself, or something she wouldn’t normally buy for herself. I finally decided on a skirtini and a pair of shoes to match.

While driving home I thought about what I might get for my own mother for Mother’s Day. I don’t really talk to my mom much anymore, so I don’t put the kind of effort that I should into her gift. I know that sounds bad and I have come to realize that maybe some of my previous efforts at her Mother’s Day gifts may have contributed to our lack of communication.

Here are some examples.

I'm sure I saw some of this stuff in her bathroom. So when I saw it at the store I thought, "Hey, mom uses this stuff. I'm sure she would love getting some more for Mother's Day!"

OK, so mom has a little moustache, some sideburns, and ... a beard. No biggy. This Epilady thing takes care of all of that. I think it takes care of armpits, legs, and other hairy spots, if you know what I mean. She haaaad to think this was a great gift. The salesman said it actually feels good when you use it too!

When I was a kid, I KNOW I saw one of these in her bathroom. I remember asking what it was. She said it was a massager. I also remember it was boring looking and white. Now that I'm older and wiser, I thought it would be funny to remind her of that fine mother-son moment with something a little more colorful. I'm sure she was all laughs when the UPS man needed her to sign for the package.

It Better Not Be A Tumor

2008-05-06T21:39:00.000-07:00

I don’t know how it is in other states, but in May the public schools in California do their standards testing. This is the way the government holds the school accountable for the job that it does. If you suck, you have to go to Arnold’s office and get a swat. Nobody wants a swat from The Terminator. For weeks now, the teachers at my son’s school have been preparing him for this test, in order to avoid a turbo butt blistering at the hands of Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer.

Now that the testing has started, the kids are getting the “royal treatment”. Austin says that they get extra recesses; I think an extra 2 or 3. He is not being sent home with any homework. Also, the kids are getting healthy snacks provided by the school, because tests show that an empty tummy is not good to test with. Jeez, why don’t we do that everyday?

Austin was even sent home with instructions from the school on how they would like us to manage his nights during this period of time. You know, get to bed at a reasonable hour, feed him, no porno, and no weed, all the things that got me through school, denied!

I think the school district may have it all wrong. Maybe they should be offering incentives that the kids want, or stronger deterrents that would encourage America’s future to do better in school.

Here are some of my ideas.

Incentive (For the boys)- Internet access during recess with links to Miley Cyrus scandal pictures.

Incentive (For the girls)- Internet access during recess with links to Malathionman pictures.

Deterrent- Free copy of Bleak Future.

Teacher's Pet

2008-04-30T20:05:00.000-07:00

It was a proud day for the Malationman. His boy Ernie graduated from beginner dog training class at Petsmart. If there were a class valedictorian it would have been Ernie. While all the other “students” took their final exam on a leash, the instructor surprised the entire class by making Ernie try it without one. No problem. We should get the intermediate class for free!

I recommend the classes to all my friends with dogs. It was about $100 for 8 weeks of instruction. If you are good and practice like you are supposed to, you will see results. You could really tell which pet owners took the class seriously and got their money’s worth.

Ernie will sit, lie down, come when called, and stay. Also, he walks on a leash without trying to dislocate my shoulder. It may not seem like much, but having these commands mastered is nice.

Irony

2008-04-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

I called her to wish her a happy birthday. When she answered the phone I could tell she had been drinking; a bad habit my father passed on to her. Actually it’s a habit that seems to run in that entire side of the family. I have been lucky not to get hooked on the smoking or drinking that killed my father, his mother and father, and sometime in the near future his brothers. My younger and only sister is also an alcoholic.

“Hey Karen, Happy Birthday!”
“Thanks for remembering, you don’t know how much that means to me.”
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Nothing. I’m just laying here in bed.”
“Where are your kids?”
“Bethany is at dance class and Brock is with mom.”
“You are by yourself on your birthday?”
“Beth will be home soon.”
“Why is Brock with mom?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“Brock lives with her now.”

Brock is her son. He is permanently disabled from the treatment of a brain tumor that he had when he was 8 years old. He is now 21. It is easiest to describe him as a boy in a man’s body. He will probably need some sort of supervision the rest of his life.

My mother lives in Arizona and my sister lives in Colorado. This is the first I have heard about Brock living with my mother. He went home with her after Christmas. This is the great relationship I have with my mother and sister. I am the only family they have. At some point in time over the last 3 months when I checked in with my mother to see what new and exciting things were going on in her life you would have thought she might mention something like that. I some times think she doesn’t talk to me about Karen because she is afraid she will hear a great big I TOLD YOU SO.

My mother has always covered for my sister. Ever since we were kids, it has always been about Karen. My parents always fought about her. She ran away from home so many times that at the age of 13 they let her move out with her boyfriend. She ended up getting married at 15. Although I don’t think my parents were meant to stay together, I do feel that Karen put such a strain on their marriage that it only helped to speed up the inevitable.

My sister is the reason my mother and I don’t talk much. A few years ago when my dad was diagnosed with cancer, Karen did some really crazy stuff. I took issue with her about her craziness. Karen put my mother in the middle and my mother had to take a side. Actually, she didn’t have to take a side. She should have been Switzerland. But she took my sister’s side and lied for her. Some day I might blog about it just because what she did was so crazy. It was truly Jerry Springer material. You know, the kind of thing most of my readers come here to enjoy!

Five months after my father died, she continued the craziness with my grandmother and grandfather. My grandmother was also diagnosed with cancer. I remember talking to my grandfather on the phone at the hospital,

“How are things going?”
“OK”
“Are my mom and Karen there?”
Hesitation
“Yes”
“Are you sure things are OK?”
Chuckle
“Tommy, I’m going to kill these girls. I totally understand what happened between you and your mother now, so does your grandmother.”

The things she said and did were so bad that to this day my grandfather still does not talk to her.

The fact is, the only two family members that will talk to her are my mother and me. All other relatives do not.

Listening to her on her birthday made me sad. I could tell that she was in desperate need of help. She has lost her house, lost her job, and she is going through a nasty divorce. And after all of the bullshit she has put me through, I still wanted to do something for her. So I asked, “What can I do?” She said, “ Just don’t be mad at mom.” After all of these years she has finally realized how much she took away from me as far as that relationship goes.

There were two reasons why I sent my oldest daughter Sarah to a residential youth school. The first was to protect her from herself. We had no control over her. At that time she was trying to get pregnant and experimenting with drugs. The second reason was that she was taking away all of Austin’s and Alissa’s time with us. That is something I am very familiar with.

I can remember sharing with my wife that I always wanted kids, just as long as they were not like Karen. The minute that came out of my mouth I knew it was my destiny. I should have just said, “God, give me a kid just like my sister so I can be the perfect parent that I missed out on.” His response, “No problem, here’s three.”

The last time I wrote about Sarah things were looking good for her. Well, things have changed. At this time the plan is to get her ready for being on her own at 18. She came home for a week since my last entry about her. And the visit really gave us all a slap in the face. She is not ready to come home and she is running out of time at this school. Her therapist thinks she has improved a lot but isn’t going to get any better, and he does not recommend letting her go back home.

Does this mean we abandon Sarah? No. We will still be her parents, as much as she lets us. My guess is that she will hook up with birth mom shortly after her 18th birthday. We would consider hooking them up now if we thought it would help Sarah. We just don’t know. I just don’t want her to be celebrating her 43rd birthday by herself with a bottle of wine and no home no friends and no family.

I do see a lot of my sister in Sarah. Perhaps I’m easier on my sister now because of it. I have had to learn a lot about personality disorders and that some things just can’t be fixed. Just ask Brittany's mom. :)

Fuk-u-do-me

2008-04-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

Baseball season has begun and one of the early stories this week is the debut of the Chicago Cubs' new right fielder, Kosuke Fukudome (Fu-ku-dough-may). He was a stud in Japan and it looks me might be one here in the United States too. On opening day he had 3 hits, including a 3-run home run in the bottom of the 9th to tie the game. God I wish Harry Carey was alive to butcher this dude's name.

They Would Not Have Been Merry Maids

2008-03-31T19:13:00.000-07:00

It has been a week of firsts for the Malathionman.

I have lived at the current house for about four years. I have never been able to park a car in the garage. Between boxes of unpacked stuff, garage sale stuff, Christmas stuff, Halloween stuff, new bikes, old bikes, exercise bike, paint, tile, and just a bunch shit we will never ever use again but just don’t want let it go, the car has never made in the garage. Well the car finally did it. It got to spend the night in the garage. I got a little more organized and made some things mysteriously disappear. Actually it’s not a mystery until somebody knows it’s missing.

Next “first” is that I won my first auction on eBay! It was very exciting. I purchased a laptop for $365.00. That was $110.00 less than the “buy now” price that the computer shop was asking for. I had a price in mind and I stuck to it. I had to enter about 7 auctions before I got the price that I wanted. $365.00 was the lowest price I saw the computer go for until I finally won with a whopping $365.01 bid. Lots of fun; I will definitely try it again.

Lastly, I had my Micro League friends over yesterday for our annual draft. An event that used to be a bunch of single guys belching and farting and scratching themselves while they select players for the next year, has turned into a family “party” event with wives and kids that hang around us guys while we belch and fart and scratch ourselves while picking players for the next year. The draft at my house seems to have become a tradition. I don’t mind at all; I enjoy it. However, it is a lot of work for Sherri and me.

This year we did something different. We hired someone to clean the house, not just someone, but an actual cleaning service. In 22 years of marriage, I have never had the house professionally cleaned. Wow, what a difference. We might do it monthly now.

So here is a funny or gross story about the whole “cleaners experience”.

Sherri arranged for the cleaners to start early in the morning. I was at work. I have to work every other weekend, but only until 9am. When I got home the cleaners were still there working hard. The first thing I usually do when I get home is make a trip to the throne room. A couple of diet cokes and a breakfast burrito at 5am usually come calling around 930am. Well, the cleaners were still working, in both bathrooms! There is no way I’m going to stink up one of those bathrooms and then have them go back to work. They would then be entitled to hazard pay. So I went to the near by Jack in the Box and used the public toilet instead. I know; pathetic.

No Sympathy

2008-03-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

I don’t know why I found this so funny. I actually turned around, got out of the car and snapped this picture. Are things that tough for the homebuilders right now that they can’t afford to pay the sign shaker dude? I kind of felt sorry for the whole sign shaker community; their days must be numbered...

... Then I saw this fine example “shaking” two blocks down the road, I didn’t feel sorry any more. Maybe the homebuilders are just smart.

I should have taken a picture...

2008-03-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

… but there is already too much shit on the internet.

My daughter Alissa likes to make every living thing she finds her pet. This took place earlier this week.

Daddy I found a fly!
That’s nice sweetheart.
I’ve named it Rainbow.
Why have you given it a name?
It’s my pet fly.
No its not.
Yes it is. I’ve made a home for it and everything!
That home better not be in the house.
Sad face, Its in my room.
What are you keeping it in?
A jar.
You can’t keep it, but if you bring it here we will set it free in the backyard.
But Daaaad!
No buts, just go get it.
OoooKaaay.

A few minutes later.

Here it is Daddy.
Alissa, what is that in your jar?
Rainbow.
No, the other thing.
Pooh.
You have been keeping a jar of pooh in your room?
Just today.
Don’t tell your mom.

I Bet You Didn't Know

2008-03-07T16:46:00.000-08:00

I had a birthday last week. They seem to come quicker and quicker. (Sigh)

I make it a point not to tell people at work that it is my birthday or if it was coming up. I get plenty of attention at home and I don’t want people who work for me to feel any kind of obligation to recognize the day.

This year the cat was out of the bag. The crew put together a really nice party for me. They arranged for an extra long lunch break with the new superintendent so that they could serve lunch, cake, and give me gifts. The new boss was really impressed that I had a crew that cared so much. I was really touched.

Below is a picture of my lunch and gift. Not shown is the bottle of Cazadores that they also gave me. The gift box of tequila came with two shot glasses. I guess the glass with my named engraved on it is supposed to be used for the Crown Royal. The glass reminds me of the one Elwood used in the fancy restaurant when he has the waiter fill his wine glass to the very top. I guess instead of filling that big glass with wine I’m supposed to fill it to the top with Canadian Whiskey. :)

Maybe I Should Grow Up

2008-02-29T15:41:00.000-08:00

My son brought home a flyer from school today. Austin is in the 5th grade and the school is having the district nurse (Mrs. Suzanne Dick) give a presentation to all the boys about the changes that their bodies will be going through. I don't remember this talk taking place until junior high for me, and it came from Mr. Roden. When I read that Mrs. Dick was giving the presentation I had a hard time explaining to Austin what I thought was so funny.

I tried to scan the flyer and post it but I couldn't get it up. Maybe Mrs. Dick could help me with that too.

Let the "grown up" comments fly.

It's Tough Being Ernie

2008-02-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

My life is “ruff” rough.

I get up everyday at 4 am. I eat a healthy breakfast of lamb and rice and take my daily vitamin. Then I go to work.

The drive isn’t too long, about 10 minutes. It would be shorter but everyday the guy I drive with stops at Circle K to buy a diet coke. Dude needs to give that stuff up.

At work I have a meeting with the crew before they set up the golf course. Some guy named Oscar usually says he is going to have a carne asada with me, or was it have me for carne asada.

If it is the latter, he couldn’t catch me. I’m too fast. Every time I find a piece of goose or coot that the coyotes have left behind my “master” tries to take it away from me. He looks pretty silly chasing me around so he quit doing it. I just get to chew on it until I’m finished.

One thing he still can’t handle is my affinity for bird crap. I love that shit. I know I’m supposed to chase these geese and coots because they eat the grass seed and poop all over the place, but if he would just leave me alone out there I would at least clean up all of their mess. It would be better than all you can eat shrimp night at Sizzler.

A couple of hours of riding in a golf cart and running around the lakes chasing birds can make a guy tired, so I head back to the shop. I’ll usually settle down in the office with a knucklebone. The chef at the restaurant sets me up whenever he has veal in the kitchen. When I’m done gnawing on that bone for an hour or so its naptime.

After I’m done with my siesta I’ll ride around with the boss and check on the crew. The golf course now has a lot of players on it. Big bossman will stop occasionally to say hi to some of the members. They really don’t talk to him that much; they usually talk to me! They often ask me how many coots I’ve killed today. I say, “None, but I’ve been eating their shit and now I’m licking you with my tongue!”

On the ride home I prepare myself for the second half of my day. That means I have about 30 minutes to rest before the kids get home from school.

I put up with a lot from those kids, especially that little red head. She won’t leave me alone. One day she had me wearing her wiener dog pajamas. It is bad enough that I’m wearing her PJs but do they have to be wiener dog PJs?

Which brings me to the topic of wiener dogs. What’s up with the wiener dogs in this house? Splinter and Mia don’t let me have jack. They are always stealing my stuff. I’ll be chewing on a toy and if I turn my head for a second, poof toy is gone. Those little sausages never let me on the bed or couch either. I sit there and bark at them to let me up and they sit there and snap at me like alligators. It’s just not fair.

Glad I Asked

2008-02-10T20:13:00.000-08:00

My youngest, Alissa had her first boyfriend early last week. Christopher asked her to be his girlfriend at the beginning of the school day. Alissa said yes. By the end of the day the romance was over, they were splintsvile. Stupid Christopher.

That whole chain of events has sparked a new type of relationship between her and my wife. I really shouldn’t say “new”. Maybe saying their relationship has “matured” would be a better way to put it.

Sherri has taken on the role of “girlfriend” as well as mother.

When will I know when I’m in looovvve? Why are boys so stuuuupid? What was daddy like when you guys were boyfriend and girlfriend? All things I’m not supposed to know about. It’s all very cute. Sherri loves it. It’s great that she is getting the chance to do these kinds of things with Alissa instead of all of the drama she has had to deal with from our oldest Sarah. I’m sure Sarah was capable of being this cute at this age, but we never saw it. It has made it tougher to feel the same attachment towards Sarah.

Alissa is now only 2 years younger than Sarah was when we brought them into our home. I can’t see Alissa maturing enough in the next 2 years to be anywhere near Sarah’s maturity level at 9 years old. That’s a good thing. Sarah was the head of that household when the county took them away from their birthmother. She really hasn’t let that go.

Alissa and I were driving home from her basketball practice the other night. She now had some questions for me.

Daddy when did you know you were in love with mommy?
I was in love with her at first sight, I just didn’t know it or act like it.
That’s kind of what mommy said.
Oh really? What exactly did mommy say?
Mommy said you acted like a punk when she first met you.
Nice, glad I asked.

No Cannonball Run

2008-02-01T19:13:00.000-08:00

One of the fond memories I have about being a kid in the 70’s was going to the drive-in movies with my parents. We would pack a dinner and desert. This usually was fried chicken, potato salad, and some sort of pie or cake. We would get there a little early so we could play in the playground while mom and dad would set up the picnic dinner.

We would also pack blankets and pillows. We usually went in the summer. This would mean that the movies started late because of daylight savings. There was always a double feature. My sister and I would normally fall asleep before the end of the second movie.

While I was at work earlier this week I saw something that reminded me of the last double feature I saw with my parents before they got divorced; The Bad News Bears and The Gumball Rally. What I saw was a Shelby Cobra.

The Cobra was one of the featured cars in The Gumball Rally. It is also one of the better cars in Gran Turismo. I play a lot of Gran Turismo with my son Austin. I drive the Cobra because it kicks ass and I remember it from my childhood. It reminds about one of the few things my family did as a family when I was a kid.

Its funny what things we choose to remember about our childhoods.

Don't Call CPS

2008-01-26T20:11:00.000-08:00

It’s not abuse if they like it, right? Look at her. She looks happy! I can’t keep her out the stupid thing. Seriously, she keeps asking us if she can sleep in it. My life would sure be a lot easier if all I had to do was keep her in the crate when I needed to. Think of the babysitting money I could save.

Its not like Ernie likes using it. He prefers to sleep under the bed. I guess that is OK since he has been kind enough to pull out all of the crap that was underneath it. This won't last long. He is growing so fast he won't fit under there in another month.

Scary

2008-01-20T14:58:00.000-08:00

Sarah came home for a visit a couple of weeks ago. It went well for the most part. She is in a much better frame of mind than when we sent her away to Red Rock Canyon School. It looks like she is very close to graduating from the school. If she does, she will have completed a very tough program for any kid, let alone one with emotional problems.

One of Sarah’s biggest problems before she went away was her obsession with the neighbor boy. She was trying to get pregnant with his baby. She still has a problem with it. She did whatever she could to be around him as much as possible while she was here.

Austin and Alissa were hard for her to deal with also. They can be very overwhelming. They are kind of like two Jack Russell Terriers. Sarah was too at that age. She is 16 now and doesn’t want too much to do with them, but they wanted her undivided attention. We had to take A&A aside and chill them out.

I am also a big issue she hasn’t begun to deal with yet. She has expressed concerns with her therapist about not getting along with me, but she won’t engage in any kind of conversation with me about her concerns.

So I think she will be back home sometime in the next 8 weeks. They have a combination of meds that seem to be working OK. She HAS worked hard to complete the program at Red Rock. But she doesn’t have a good start on dealing with the same problems that she had when she left home.

Scary

Damn It!

2008-01-12T14:37:00.000-08:00

My time as acting superintendent at MVCC is just about over, although officially the GM was the acting superintendent. I met the new superintendent today. He will start officially in about two weeks. Ironically, I met the guy before about three years ago when I just got out of turf school. I interviewed at his course and accepted a position there. But when I got home from the interview I found a message waiting from MVCC. They offered me the same position and money, but MVCC is five minutes from home and a much nicer track. I would have had a 35 minute commute to a public course that had half the budget and 36 holes. MVCC only has 18 holes. So I had to call him back and renig on the job.

This is funny, as I was just getting ready to bag on the GM; he has called me at home. He is using the company truck and can’t find it in the parking lot. What a retard.

All the agronomical decisions the last two months have had to go through the GM and his advisors on the east coast. I was a little offended that they didn’t trust me enough to let me actually run things. I met the advisors and they knew a lot about growing grass on the east coast, but not the nature of the business here in the resort area that I live and work in. I even took the GM aside and said, “These guys are good guys, but I’m not too sure about some of the things they are having me do. You should be getting your advice from an expert that knows the golf business here in the Coachella Valley. We have over 100 golf courses here, it shouldn’t be hard to find someone.”

Well the “acting superintendent/GM” let the golf course get nice and yellow before he came to me and asked what the hell was going on with the golf course. I should have told him to ask his freaking advisors. Instead I made a couple of calls to superintendents in the valley that I trusted. I got some “good” advice and one week later the course is much greener and the members are much happier. It took 20 minutes of my time and about $15,000 in fertilizer that my old boss didn’t budget for. The advisors cost that much.

The guys I called threw 41-0-0 just like we did, but they knew it would shut down during the frosty months of December and January. A different fertilizer needed to go down in early December, before the frost started to hit, then the course would not have gotten yellow. My old boss did not do his homework. He didn’t plan for that fertilizer application in December. There was like $1000 in the fertilizer budget. So ironically, the 41-0-0 purchase that cost my boss his job didn’t even do the job he thought it was going to do.

OK, so I have had to deal with a lot of political B.S. and stupidity over the that last two months. But one thing has REALLY made me mad.

Before the whole 41-0-0 thing, I had been working on losing some weight. I had lost close to 25 pounds. You can probably guess what I’m pissed about now. I’ve gained most of it back. I’m a baaad emotional eater. I have sought the comfort of chili-cheese fries, pizza, In-N-Out Burger, and strawberry cheesecake too many times the last 8 weeks.

DAMN IT!

I'm Just A X-Mas Kinda Guy

2008-01-12T13:05:00.000-08:00

It is January 12th and I just took down the Christmas tree. It's a good thing I don't do lights on the house.

Hot Dogs and Pupsicles

2008-01-01T19:01:00.000-08:00

Conversation between father and son while driving home.

“Hey Dad, what smells good? It’s making me hungry!”
“You don’t want to know.”

The problem was that we were not driving by a restaurant. We were driving by the local veterinarian. I had noticed this before, lots of smoke coming out of a large smokestack on the property, and the smell of BBQ. No, it is not a Vietnamese vet.

I don’t know if I could bring myself to take my dog to a place that disposes of the not so lucky patients.

Then there is this alternative.

Back in the early 90’s I worked for Domino’s Pizza. One of the restaurants that I worked at was in a strip mall, right next to a veterinarian. This guy didn’t incinerate the unlucky ones; he froze them. I guess he had a freezer that he kept the corpses in until a truck came to pick them up. There were many nights that we watched the heartless “pick up” guy toss frozen dogs and cats from inside the building into the back of his van. It was a long toss too, maybe 15 to 20 feet. Sometimes a leg would break off, but it was frozen solid so it wasn’t too gross, just sad. We made lots of gross jokes, but I think we all thought deep down inside, those pets deserved better.

So on the topic of pets let me introduce you to the new member of my house. His name is Ernie. He is a 13-week-old Labrador retriever. Sherri had a Lab when she was a teenager and always wanted another one. We also think the kids should get the opportunity to have a puppy when they are young, so Christmas morning we sprung Ernie on the kids. It was quite the feat hiding the little guy all day Christmas Eve Day.

A Bipolar Post

2007-12-20T19:06:00.000-08:00

Caller ID is a great thing. I love ignoring that call from the LA Times or Emperion Marketing, which usually come at dinnertime or late in the evening.

One call I kind of hate taking is the one from Red Rock Canyon School. If it isn’t the scheduled therapy call at 3pm on Wednesday afternoons, it usually means Sarah is costing me money, or has kicked someone’s ass. When I got the call last week Friday evening I was reluctant to pick it up.

The person on the other line was Dr. Bob. This is usually a sign that something has happened, and it had, but Sarah had nothing to do with it. Apparently one of the new students managed to hang himself in the shower. Dr. Bob had the awful job of having to call all the parents of children under his care and tell them about what had happened, and how devestated they are.

I feel sick for the parents of that young man. I’m sure they thought sending him to Red Rock Canyon School was going to protect him from doing this kind of thing.

I’m not going to rag on Red Rock Canyon School. I’m sure they feel like crap, but there must have been some sort of lapse on their part that may have made it a little easier for that boy to commit suicide. I just know this place has done a pretty good job controlling and helping someone I couldn’t, my daughter Sarah.

This brings me to the happy-cheery part of this post! Sarah is probably 60 days away from coming home. She will get to do a home visit in about 2 weeks, then she will graduate from Red Rock Canyon about 5 weeks later. This program is designed to take about 9 months but my girl was having so much fun she hung out for 18!

We haven’t figured out what we are going to do about school. She will still have two more years of high school left when she gets back, and we are not sure if she can handle the regular public school environment. On-line school sounds like too much freedom and too easy to screw up for a teenager, especially mine. I know the two college classes I took on-line were tough.

Does anyone have any ideas out there? How do those Spears girls handle school while working? Maybe I shouldn’t ask.

Diabolical

2007-12-06T20:17:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure what to think about this conversation.

Alissa (my soon to be 7 year old daughter) - Mom, I’m going to ask Santa for a cell phone.
Sherri (mom/wife) - Santa doesn’t give cell phones to 7 year olds.

Moment of contemplation.

Alissa -Then can you ask Sarah (my 15 year old daughter) to ask Santa for a cell phone and then she can give it to me.

I think it’s funny now, but in 6 years who knows what that little diabolical fiend will be thinking.

Christmas Idea

2007-12-01T21:22:00.000-08:00

I have been involved with the same fantasy baseball league for about 18 years. Most of us are really good friends. One year one of the guys put together a CD for everyone in the league. It wasn’t just a bunch of songs that he liked. Each song on the CD was dedicated to each team in the league. So there was hidden meaning to each song. One guy’s team was the doormat of the league; his track was U Can't Touch This. The guy who made the CD burned Sinatra for his team, My Way. It was really fun to tease another manager about what song his team got. I enjoyed that CD for a long time. It was a great gift.

I thought I would share that as a Christmas idea for my blogging friends that stop by and leave nice comments. With all the downloadable music that is available, it is probably an easy thing to do. Most bloggers hang out in groups. Why not make a CD with each track dedicated to a blogger? Here is an example from my PPE list. It should be playing on the player right now.

Mocha Momma-Black Coffee Inn Bed
Queen Of Disfunction-Superfreak

Here are some other tracks that would be on my CD.

Hyperbolic Hermitage- Renegades of Funk (Rage Against The Machine). I’m not going to let her librarian persona fool me. I’m sure she is a renegade of the atomic age.

Long Drives To Nowhere- Nowhere Road (Fastball). How do you get to Nowhere? Nowhere Road.

Rantings of a Crazy Woman- Pump It Up (Elvis Costello). Kristi stopped breast feeding this week.

Seeking Camelot- I’ve Done Everything For You (Rick Springfield). G was in love with Dr. Noah Drake back in the 80’s, probably still is.

White Hot Magik- Never There (Cake). What the hell Nora, where have you been?

This Side of Patty O- Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad (Meatloaf). Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics.

My Longest Post Ever !!!

2007-11-23T20:34:00.000-08:00

It has been a very busy and stressful couple of weeks for me, not much of it having to do with the holidays. Most of my tension has been coming from work. That is not the norm. I still love what I do, but I do not love working for the guy that I have been working for. I had to do something to end this relationship that was heading for disaster.

This guy gave me a chance in this business when others would have made me wait. Sure, he made me start at the bottom, but he moved me up the ladder very quickly. I am grateful for that. I got a late start in this career and don’t have a bunch of time to burn “paying my dues”.

I became his assistant about a year and a half ago. He got me involved in just about everything there was to do about being a superintendent. A lot of these things I have done for years at previous jobs, so it wasn’t hard to pick up. Payroll, budgets, employee reviews, processing invoices and bills, daily work schedules, overseeing the work on the golf course, I did it all, all in the name of “my training”, that shit only flies so long when then the boss is putting in a 30 hour work week.

I also think he has a personality disorder. I don’t hold that against him, I don’t think he can help a lot of what he does.

I am very much a “ducks in a row” kind of guy. I like things organized, and I think my crew does too. He seems much more comfortable when the crew is spread all over the golf course, trying to get ten things done at once, never completing anything. He likes the chaos. It is also a nightmare for the foreman or assistant to try and be in all these places at once. I love my crew, but that old saying “When the cat’s away, the mice will play”, rings true with even the best of employees.

Then there are the human resource issues. He has made female employees cry. Everyone is afraid to approach him when they would have requests. He actually shook an employee buy the shoulders when she couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell her. She was too afraid that she would lose her job if she reported him, so she didn’t. I didn’t hear about it until after she was no longer an employee. She was very shy and quiet, that must have scared the crap out of her; it really pissed me off when I heard about that.

A few months ago Nelson and I reported him to HR after he had made one of the female employees cry. She didn’t even do anything. She was mowing a green like I had told her to do. He stops her. He gets on his radio and tells me it was a stupid idea to put her on a greens mower, that she can’t handle it, while she was standing there. About 80% of my crew doesn’t speak English; I guess he didn’t realize she was in the other 20%. I came to the green that she was at and drove her to her new job, she cried the entire way there.

I believe he got written up and I believe HR made him take an anger management class. When Nelson and I talked to the general manager, his immediate boss, I told him to look more closely at the maintenance department. He needs to ask more questions. He needs to be more involved. There are other things going on that are not HR issues. I’m sure the GM didn’t like me telling him how to do his job, but my boss did whatever he wanted to do and was held accountable for very little.

Nelson and I have been holding things together for a long time. We have been keeping problems “in house”, but things have been snowballing for a while and it is getting out of hand.

On November 1 a vender came into my office with an invoice for $24,000 worth of 41-0-0 fertilizer. He wanted my signature saying that we had received it. That’s fine we received it, but on October 1. I signed it with great reservation. I confronted the vender about the date change. He said that my boss had arranged for the change of date on the invoice. I asked my boss the next day about the $24,000 invoice with my signature on it, “Hey, who knows about this invoice?” “Just you the vender, and me.” he replied.

October 31 marks the end of our fiscal year. That $24,000 will now appear on the books for 2008 instead 2007 where it belongs. Want to guess who is on a bonus program? It is not me. I have known about this kind of bullshit for a while, but now I’m linked to it. I could loose my job for this. He has put my family in harms way so that he can make a fucking bonus. I’m glad that he thinks I have the same ethics that he does. That playing with the books to make a bonus isn’t stealing. I’m sure my employer isn’t very attached to that 20 or 25 thousand dollars he may get when he makes his numbers.

So a couple of weeks ago I couldn’t sleep. It just hit me that I couldn’t let this go on any more. It was 2:30 in the morning when I got up. Sherri knew what I was going through. I woke her up to tell her that I was fine and that I was going for a walk, I just couldn’t sleep any more. She asked me, “What are going to do?” I answered, “I’m taking down my boss today.”

There was a small problem, who do I tell. I didn’t trust the GM. I’m sure his bonus is contingent with my bosses bonus. For all I know, he knows all about it, or just didn’t care to know. I told someone who didn’t answer directly to the GM. I told the controller our accountant. I told her about the invoice I had signed and gave her a few other venders to look at.

I knew my boss knew what was up. I’m sure the venders gave him a call. He didn’t talk to me much. He spent a lot of time with the bills and on the phone. I think he was trying to clean up his paper trail and get all his buddies on the same page, but I’m sure they all folded when my employer told them they weren’t paying them unless they fessed up to their arrangement with my boss. All I could do was wait and see how this would play out. Oh, did I mention this was all going down 3 days before we reopened from our over seed?

I figured if something was going to happen it would go down on Thursday of that week. The VP of the company that I work for had a scheduled appointment to be in town. He showed up on Monday, unannounced. My boss resigned the next day.

Now I am dealing with the aftermath of my decision. My employers have hired outside consultants to give the facility a deep anal probe with no Vaseline and unclipped fingernails. I’m sure the GM is pissed at me; nobody likes a rat. I’m sure they are not done looking at the GM too. I think he is a “dead man walking”.

I was hoping I could get my boss promoted and that he would recommend me for his old position. Now I have no reference to use on a resume since I basically screwed the two guys that I have worked for in this business. I think I could be the superintendent here, but the VP told me that they really aren’t interested in hiring an assistant for this position. That’s really rich, my boss had a very nice pedigree and look what that got them.

So it looks like I’ve set myself back a couple of years while I reestablish my reputation. I’m sure my old boss is thrashing me. The word is out. I got a call two hours after my boss quit from some guy wanting to know what happened and how he could apply for the job. This call came on my cell phone, I didn’t know who he was or how he got my number.

I will start applying at other courses as the opportunities arise, something I really didn’t want to do until now. Maybe someone will take a chance on me, but that means I will have to leave a course that I take a lot of pride in, and group friends I love to work with.

How Are Frogs Like Sponges?

2007-11-12T17:22:00.000-08:00

…They dry up when you leave them out of water. It takes about 8 hours and then they will shrivel up and die. What’s really cool is if you put them back in the water they will rehydrate, just like a sponge, but unfortunately they don’t start living again.

How do I know this great stuff? I have my friend Nelson to thank for that.

Back in August I took a little vacation. Nelson agreed to look after the small zoo that lives in my home. We have two weenie dogs (Splinter and Mia), two goldfish (Sally and Hammerhead), and one toad (Rosie) that Alissa and I found on the golf course.

I had promised Austin that we would go out and find a toad for him too, but that never happened.

Alissa loved that toad. She was about the size of a nickel when we found her. Like we know if it was a female. We fed Rosie small crickets and kept her in an aquarium with plenty of water. She was about the size of a 50-cent piece at vacation time.

Well I get the call from Nelson on the way home that there had been a death in the family. While he was cleaning out the aquarium he forgot to put the water bowl back in. When he came back, he found the dried up remains of Rosie.

Good guy Nelson went to Petco and purchased Alissa a frog, not a toad, to replace Rosie. He also bought one for Austin. He said that it might pass for Rosie, but that we could decide on what to tell Alissa. Rosie 1 was all gray. Rosie 2 is green with red spots on her entire underbelly. Then there would have to be an explanation for Rock, the frog he bought for Austin. I’m not sure what he was thinking.

The guys at work told me later that the poor dude was pitifully looking all around the golf course for a toad to replace Rosie. It was the running joke at MVCC for weeks. I thought Sherri had the best one though. Nelson called to talk a few days later and Sherri answered the phone, “Hey Nelson, my dogs don’t come to their names anymore.”

When we got home from vacation, the first thing Alissa wanted to do was check on Rosie. We didn’t say a word. Who knows, maybe she wouldn’t know. I thought it was working until “Mr. Helpful” Austin comes in the room, “That’s not Rosie!” The boy almost died that night.

The story we told her was that Rosie escaped while Nelson was cleaning the tank.

So how do I know that it takes about 8 hours to dry up a frog? Rock met the same fate that “Rosie 1” did this morning. Austin did exactly the same thing Nelson did. He fed Rock before he went to bed and forgot the water. You wouldn’t think they would dry up so fast. You also wouldn’t think my kids would think if they put him back in water he would come back. They did, and Rock puffed back up, just like a sponge. Close, but no banana. I got to flush Rock when I got home from work.

Malathionman's Yard #2

2007-11-10T21:03:00.000-08:00

On Monday MVCC will be back open for business. It has been 5 weeks since we closed for over seeding. In those five weeks we cut 150 acres of grass down to dirt, spread 48,000 lbs. of fertilizer, dropped about 110,000 lbs. of seed, and threw about 36 million gallons of water. Since I consider this golf course my yard, it seems like a good time for another edition of Malathionman’s Yard!

In this installment of Malathionman’s Yard I would like to share with you, The Malathionman Entourage, some information about fertilizer.

When talking fertilizer, you have to know the symbols N, P, and K. N is the elemental symbol for nitrogen, P is for phosphorus, and K is for potassium. These three elements are very important for good plant growth.

Nitrogen will promote fast growth and green foliage. Phosphorus will promote blooms on flowering plants and strong root development. Potassium works on both roots and foliage. So you could say N is for the top of the plant, P is for the bottom of the plant, and K is for all the entire plant. This is a very basic interpretation of what these elements do for the plant.

Now you may ask,” What do those 3 fricking numbers on the fertilizer bag mean?” Well I’m going to tell you.

41-0-0 is the fertilizer we threw before we dropped our perennial rye seed. Remember that fertilizer, it may come up in a later post. 41-0-0 represents the percentage of the elements N, P and K that are in the bag. This bag is 41% N, 0 % P, and 0% K. If the bag weighed 100 lbs, only 41 lbs of it would be N, the other 59 lbs would be filler. If the 100 lb. bag of fertilizer had 15-15-15 on it that would mean 15% of the bag was N, 15% was P, and 15% was K. That’s 15 lbs of each element, 45 lbs of actual N, P, and K, and 55 lbs of filler.

We went with a fertilizer high in nitrogen because we were trying to grow things as fast as possible.

Now I’m only going to add one more thing to this post, not everyone finds fertilizer as exciting as I do.

FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS ON THE BAG. Some fertilizers recommend mowing before application or not mowing before application. Maybe you are supposed to water before you apply, but usually you water in. Always use the recommended application rate, more is not always better. It is amazing how well things work if you just follow the directions.

Giving Is Better Than Receiving

2007-11-02T20:04:00.000-07:00

Who’s stupid idea was it to wait until November before we set the clocks back an hour? I had trick or treaters knocking on my door at 9 o’clock. Maybe it was me but it seemed like every other candy seeker was a teenage mother with her infant child that was asleep in the stroller. There were a lot of adults too, not in costume, just showing up at the door, “Trick Or Treat!” I wanted to say, “Grow the hell up my candy is for the kids,” but I figured they couldn’t resist the cute little fairy giving away treats at my door.

We started going door to door at dusk, which was about 6:15. Alissa got really cranky and tired fast. She only lasted about an hour, but when we got home to hand out candy she got her second wind. She had much more fun handing out candy than collecting it. About 8:30 we ran out of candy, but that didn’t stop Alissa, she started to hand out the candy she had received that night and earlier in the week. At first I was all for it, but I finally stopped her so she would at least have something to eat for breakfast the rest of the week. :)

Learn From My Mistakes

2007-10-29T22:27:00.000-07:00

This week the Malationman had the “pleasure” of buying a new car. It wasn’t actually a pleasure or a new car, but it is newer than my other cars.

I had to buy a car because two of my three cars were down and we didn’t want to spend the money required to repair them. I was hoping to find a dealership that was willing to take the broken cars as trade-ins.

I found a nice Chevy Tahoe at a near by dealer. The price was a little more than I wanted to spend, but I really liked the car. The room inside the car and the leather interior was great, but my favorite thing was the Bose stereo system. Blondie’s One Way Or Another came on the radio during the test drive, so I had to crank it through the entire song. The salesman and I looked like Wayne and Garth jamming to Bohemian Rhapsody.

We told the salesman what kind of down payment we had, the kind of monthly payment we were looking for, and that we wanted to trade in both clunkers. “We will try our best Malathionman,” hissed the slippery salesman. About 20 minutes later slippery salesman slithered back into the waiting room with the news, “We think we can do this for you.” He got the monthly payment exactly where we wanted except for one thing; the loan was for 72 months! We had no idea they did used car loans that long.

Sherri and I looked at each other in disbelief. Although they pretty much did what we asked; we didn’t want to pay that much for the car. We had to run a few errands, so we told them we would be back in an hour with an answer.

I really wanted that car, but even I knew that was a bad deal. Sherri said I could buy it if I wanted, and I was going to, but I had some conditions. 72 months was too long, I would go no longer than 60, and the monthly payment needed to stay the same. So I figured the price needed to come down. The DVD player didn’t work, that would have to be repaired. The car needed to be detailed; there was still crumbs and trash from the previous owner in it. Lastly, I thought the tires only had a couple of months left in them, so I wanted a new set of tires. Now that I’m writing about it, this car sounds like a piece of shit.

I returned with my demands. I told him these were deal breakers. I would not drive the car off the lot without these things done. If he couldn’t do it, I understood, no hard feelings. He said he would talk to his boss. 5 minutes later slimy sales boy brings in the "closer". We go over my deal and he agrees to all my terms. I’m feeling like Donald Trump, playing hardball, making the big deal. I agree to the deal and tell them I’ll return with the pinks to my trade-ins.

An hour later I return with the pinks and my wife. We are signing papers and I noticed the price of the car remained the same. How did they shave off 12 months and keep the monthly payments the same? They lowered the interest rate. This kind of pissed me off. Why didn’t I get this better rate in the first place? Donald Trump had such a bonner over this car they probably thought they could stick him with a crummy loan too. I’m feeling like I’ve just been screwed when I say, “When will the car be ready for me to pick up?” “You can take it home now,” scumbag cheerfully replied. “Really? You fixed the DVD player? There is a new set of tires on the car?” I’m starting to smell bullshit. “Your detail is almost done. You will have to come back and make an appointment to get that DVD player fixed. What’s this you say about a new set of tires?” "You know about the tires, I told you about them, closer boy agreed.” “Oh. I’ll be right back.”

Slimy, slithering, scumbag, sales boy comes back with his sales manager. Pampas jerk says, (That would be the sales manager, not me.) “Who promised you tires?” “Closer boy.” “ He didn’t have the authority to do that. You know we thought we had an agreement at 72 months, and then you make us go to 60 with all these demands. I think we are being taken advantage of.” I’m getting pissed real fast, but I see my opportunity, “Well we didn’t sign anything at 72. Your guy agreed to my terms. If you can’t do them I’m walking.” “Hey, no need to be that way, we can make a compromise.” ”No we won’t. We are done.” I pull the pinks from his folder and walk away.

We get 3 or 4 follow up calls the next day. They do their best to try and get us back in there, but I won’t budge.

So now I’m really in a really pissy mood for the next 24 hours. It took me that long to cool down. I regroup and think about what mistakes I made while trying to purchase this car. Here are some things I learned.

1. Don’t negotiate monthly payment. Negotiate price of the car and interest rate. Almost all dealerships have a website with a loan calculator. If you know the price of the car and the interest rate, the loan calculator will figure out your monthly payment. If you tell the dealer you want a $400 a month payment, that’s probably what you’ll get, even if you can do better.

2. If the dealership has their used car inventory on-line, check the price on-line with the sticker price on the lot. I bet the on-line price is much lower. The price of the Tahoe I was looking at was $2000 less on-line. This is the price I agreed to pay; the dealer had no problem with that. I would guess there isn’t much room for negotiating on the on-line price.

With those two things in mind I looked for another car at a different dealership. I looked for a car that I liked, with an on-line price that I could live with. I found a 2004 Mountaineer with 30,000 miles for $14,000. I drove down to the dealership and checked out the car in person. The price on the lot was $19,000. I went home to do some homework.

When I got home I went back on-line to the loan calculator. I entered the on-line price, my down payment, my trade-in values, sales tax, the interest rate I could live with, and the number of months I wanted to pay. Voila, here is my monthly payment. Now I’m informed before I go to speak to a salesman.

I go back to the dealership. I test-drive the Mountaineer. I am happy with the ride. So I try my new strategy. I told the guy I wanted the on-line price, which he knew was $5000 less than the sticker. There was nothing wrong with the car. I didn’t have to ask for any repairs. I wanted blaa, blaa, blaa, for my trade-ins. I had blaa, blaa, blaa for a down payment. I wanted the best possible interest rate, and a 48-month loan. If I can live with the interest rate you offer me I will buy the car. They came back with an interest rate 1% higher than I expected, so I told them they needed to do better, they lowered it 1%. I bought the car.

I was home with the car in about than 90 minutes. It was that easy.

Go Mermaids!

2007-10-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

How mermaids can play soccer is a mystery to me.

I think they are willing to trade in their flippers for a chance to play for coach Tavo.

Poor dude. These little "mermaids" own him. I think Alissa has Tavo tie her shoes at least twice a game.

That's the look of trouble. I'm sooo looking forward to the teenage years.

I'm Such A Puss

2007-10-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

I know it is hard to believe a tough looking guy like the Malathionman cries when he reads or watches movies, but it is true. I have long history of it.

I remember when I was in 6th grade. Someone thought it would be a good idea to show us kids Brian’s Song. It was a pathetic sight, 30 kids trying not to cry, and teachers too.

It is easy to pull the Old Yeller card when it comes to crying, but how about Lonesome Dove. It could make you cry almost every episode. Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call are two cowboys that have a more traditional relationship than Larry McMurtry’s cowboy lovers in Brokeback Mountain. It seems ironic that he wrote both stories.

This is what inspired this little post.

My daughter Alissa is required to read every night. One of her favorite books is Love You Forever. We usually have to read it to her at least once a week. I have a hard time doing it. I can’t read it without getting all misty-eyed. If I were by myself I would just flat out cry. It’s a sneaky little book. You pick it up thinking it’s a harmless children’s book, then wham, you are reaching for the Kleenex. If you have read the book, click on the link I have provided and read about why Robert Munsch wrote it, you would probably cry some more.

I Kill Grass Too

2007-10-15T20:54:00.000-07:00

That title is a little misleading. It looks like we kill the grass, but we are really putting it to bed. The summer grass isn’t really dead it has just gone dormant. In the fall all of the golf courses in the desert go through the process of over seeding. This is when we turn off the water and cut the summer grass real low. Then we seed the course with winter grass turn on the water and cross our fingers.

There are a lot of things that can go wrong. You watch as close as you can but you have no idea if the guys throwing seed missed any spots until the seeds have germinated. Sprinkler heads can break or get stuck, causing seed to move. Weather can be suck. Equipment can break. It is a lot of long hours and stress.

Today was my 8th consecutive day at work; I will not have a day off until this weekend, maybe. I got home after dark, and was pleasantly surprised with dinner waiting for me on the table. Dinner was great, but the special “slushie” Sherri had waiting was even better. The kids didn’t get why I got one and they didn’t.

Now I think I'll put the kids to bed, grab another "slushie" and see what kind of dress Edyta wears tonight.

Maybe This Time

2007-10-07T21:42:00.000-07:00

The weekend didn’t totally suck. Normally the Angels getting spanked in the playoffs would set the tone for the rest of my week.

I hope my oldest daughter has set a different tone.

About four months ago my daughter Sarah had a major set back in her quest to come home from Red Rock Canyon School. This weekend we got a very encouraging report from the staff at Red Rock. Sarah has rebounded to the place she was before the setback, and is probably in a better state of mind than she was before.

After the altercation, Sherri and I stopped our weekly therapy phone calls. We also stopped the two personal phone calls that we made every week. We told her that the ball was in her court. She needed to figure out when she wanted get out of there and do what it takes to come home, until the staff tells us there is a significant change there will be no more phone calls. We do keep in touch by e-mail, but do not discuss therapy issues.

It took a few weeks, but Sarah finally reengaged in the Red Rock program. It looks like she may have been feeling too much pressure from mom and dad. Eliminating the phone calls has apparently eliminated that pressure. I’m not sure when we will start talking again, but it sounds like it is going to be sooner than later.

After the last post I made about Sarah I didn’t care if I talked to her again. It has been really hard to bond to this girl, but every time I get good news about her I can’t help but hope for the best. I still want things to work out for us as a family, but I guess if we can just get her through her teen years free of drugs and not pregnant, that would be an accomplishment all in its own. And that just might have to do.

Yes, I Grow Grass For A Living

2007-09-27T21:34:00.001-07:00

This picture was sent to me the other day. It is me at about 5:45 in the morning. It is probably my favorite time of the day. While most people are still in bed, I’ve been up about an hour and a half.

In this picture I am going to inspect the putting green for stress or disease. As you can tell it is real tough work. It sucks when I actually have to get out of the golf cart that I drive around all day.

Getting out of the cart doesn’t really suck. I liked doing the manual labor when I was on the crew. I liked to walk mow the greens. I got a kick out of making sure that my greens had the straightest lines and cleanest edges.

I also liked to mow the fairways. Driving that big fairway mower is pretty cool. You also get to do that whole straight-line clean edge thing, just on a bigger scale.

I think you have to be a golfer to appreciate the job that I have. I love to golf, so it is safe to say that I love my job. My only regret is that I didn't get started on this career earlier. Both my father and father inlaw were big golfers, neither one of them got to play at my golf course. I would have loved to be able to share my golf course with them.

Because They Asked

2007-09-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I asked what kinds of things did you guys like to read here at Wear Gloves And Protective Eyewear. Kristi and Elizabeth both made strange requests in the comments. I’m surprised Kristi didn’t ask me to write about afterbirth. Hasn’t Mallory popped out yet? Anyways, I’m going to do a “Wayne Brady” and try to work their requests into this post. Some of this post is true, some of it well…

I don’t know how this always happens, but I had to take Alissa to her friend’s birthday party while Sherri was at work. The party was at a place called Pump It Up. Pump It Up is a place that specializes in bouncy fun!

Your child and their guests get to enjoy a private room filled with all the best bouncy toys you can think of. They had a giant slide, an obstacle course, and the biggest moon bounce I have ever seen. These rides were so big that they even allowed the parents to jump in them. Game on, I’m all over that.

So I kick off my flip-flops and started attacking the obstacle course like Nitro from American Gladiators. I always have an American Gladiator outfit in the car just for times like this! Kids are flying, moms are screaming, other dads are cheering as I annihilate this wimpy course. Then all of a sudden I hear a loud whistle. It is the teenage boy that monitors the kids, “Dude, you can’t be in there.” “And why the hell not?” I responded, “You guys said parents could play too!” “It’s your nasty ass toenails, they are too long, they might pop the rides, and I don’t even want to talk about that toe fungus. I think you can get a prescription for that.” the pimple faced punk replied. “You really should go to the private room for dads.” “Really? Where is that?” “Follow me Nitro.” Me and all the other dads follow “Spicoli” back to a black door marked private.

The private room was actually an arena filled with cheering and screaming dads. They were cheering for the two Victoria’s Secret models wrestling in a pit of lime jello. I think one of them was Tyra Banks. She had 30 lbs on the other one and easily won.

The ring announcer then steps into the ring, “Can we have a volunteer that thinks he can handle these two ladies!” Everyone stops and turns to look at the guy wearing the red, white and blue leotard. Then the chanting begins, “Nitro, Nitro, Nitro…..” Some dreams do come true.

I’m going to describe the match as efficiently as I can. Bill Murray, John Candy, Stripes. Do I need to say more?

When all the fun was over, me and the other dads joined the birthday party, again. We were just in time for cake and ice cream. There was a different private room for present opening and cake eating. The Pump It Up crew took care of serving the cake and singing to the kids. I was impressed. I went to this girl’s party last year at Chuck E Cheese. This year’s party was much better.

Bloody Finger, Bloody Finger....Got A Band Aid!

2007-09-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

Some deals are too good to be true.

Sherri was shopping at the local grocery store late in the evening. The meat department was getting ready to close when she asked for 2lbs of hamburger meat, the 15% fat kind. The butcher made her an offer, “ It’s the end of the day, do you want some 7% for $1.99 a lbs?” She thought that was great, “Alright, give me two lbs.” He responded, “I only have about 10lbs, buy the rest of it and I’ll give it to you for $1.79 a lbs.” “Deal.”

Last night we are all enjoying the spaghetti dinner Sherri had prepared when she makes an unpleasant discovery. Sherri is chewing her mouthful of food when I notice that she pulls something that is not spaghetti out of her mouth. We examine the object closely and determine that it is part of a band-aid. No one in the house has a cut, so we can only make the assumption that it came from the butcher. NASTEY! I already had finished my plate, the kids didn’t care, but that pretty much finished dinner for Sherri. The leftover spaghetti found the trashcan. The other 8 pounds of meat are still in the freezer, but I think it is going to magically disappear someday.

On a side note:

My wife has a gift for finding “nonfood items” in her food. Glass, hair, and fingernails are all things I can remember her finding in her dinner. Claim Jumper, Red Lobster, and Outback Steakhouse were the restaurants we were at when she found these items.

I’ve watched her eat. She looks at almost every bite before she puts it in her mouth. I almost think ignorance is bliss in this case, because once she finds something she is totally grossed out and can’t eat a thing. God only knows how many body parts I’ve eaten over the years, and enjoyed them too!

Put Those Things Away!

2007-09-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

I will start this post with the acknowledgement that I am a pig. So you don't need to point that out in your comments, but if you must, go ahead, I'm all for free speech.

Church here in the desert is pretty slow. About half of my church leaves town for the summer.

Church here in the desert is also pretty casual. It is usually at least 110, so people dress to stay cool. Especially the ladies.

Today was an exceptionally "scenic"day. The sun dresses were out in abundance. It was a great day to be a guy.

A guy can usually catch a casual glimpse of an attractive woman and its no big deal, but today, I flat out was caught staring. I wasn't even going to deny it.

The woman I was staring at was wearing a red sun dress with very thin shoulder straps and the top was barely holding in her breasts. She was very tan, but her boobs weren't! You could see that much. I think my mouth was actually open in amazement when I got an elbow in the ribs from Sherri.

So basically, I was caught checking out babes at church today, with my wife standing next to me. I'm pretty much going to hell.

Malathionman's Yard #1

2007-09-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

It is tough being Malathion man's neighbor. I sometimes pee in the bushes and I walk around taking pictures of their yards so that I can rag on them in my blog.

This guy has a huge tree problem. His tree is way too fricking big. You can't see this in the picture, but the roots are tearing up his driveway. They will soon be messing with the foundation of the house. There is also too much shade. Nothing will grow under that tree.

If I turn around 180 degrees, you will see what his neighbor is trying to do to fix the same problem.

As you can see he had no grass from the lack of sun. He still hasn't fixed his bigger problem, the roots. Also, he has left a huge frame that will fill up again and keep the grass from getting any sun.

The real fix would be to remove the entire tree. Start over and plant something that doesn't grow so big.

Also, if you are going to trim your tree, leave some foliage. The more the better. Plants can't make food without leaves, duh. This tree will have to use up stored food to crank out some leaves. Once the leaves are out, the tree can start making food again, but it will be stressed out for quite some time because of all the energy it used to get to that point.

While I am talking about trimming, take a look at the house across the street. Does this guy want a tree or a hedge? If that empty frame across the street gets cut down to size, a dense canopy will begin to grow like they have here, but don't take the hedge clippers to it!

Tree trimming should be an "as needed" job. If the canopy is hanging too low, trim up the low hanging branches. If there is too much end weight pulling down a branch, remove the end weight. Fruit trees are a good example of this.

A rule of thumb about trimming is, do not remove more then 25% of the canopy when trimming. Don't let your tree overgrow the area that you want it in and you shouldn't have to worry about that rule.

Lastly, do your homework before you plant a tree, don't take the Home Depot guy's word for it. How big is this tree going to get? How fast does it grow? Is it evergreen or deciduous? How much water will it need? Think about these things before you invest your time and money on a tree or plant for that matter, then your nosey neighbor won't talk trash about you on the internet.

Another Brick In The Wall

2007-09-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

Both of my kids brought this home for me to read last week. WTH !!! Can’t teachers be left alone to teach reading and arithmetic’s? It looks like they have to teach students how to behave first. Shouldn’t the students come with those skills already ingrained from home? Maybe I’m too “old school”. When I went to elementary school, you behaved yourself or you saw the principle and his paddle. It kept ME out of trouble. I didn’t want that swat from Mr. Dick (yes, that really was his name). From reading this “behavioral focus plan” you would think our kids couldn’t be aloud to be kids and that they don’t know the meaning of respect. I know my kids know the meaning of respect, but they can be pretty spastic. This just seems like they want little Stepford Kids. Can’t kids be kids without losing valuable learning time? Do we need to go to this extreme? Maybe we do. Things sure have changed, but have they for the better?

Being One Of The Guys

2007-09-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

It didn’t take long for Nelson and I to become friends. Technically he works for me, but I think I treat him more like a partner. He actually has more experience than I do in golf course maintenance, but I have more management and life experience. We make a really good team. Everyone at MVCC knows we enjoy working together and people (our crew) enjoy working for us.

I make it a point to look out for my crew. The occasional box of doughnuts in the morning or ice cream in the afternoon goes a long way towards making these guys want to work for me. My boss says, “Save the receipt!” I tell him the treats are on me and I want the crew to know it. Buying sweets for the crew doesn’t give me a free pass to act like a jerk, I still have to treat them with respect, it just reinforces to them that I appreciate their effort. When you are a white male, and your crew is entirely made up of Hispanics that speak very little English, you better be able to convey that message.

Nelson takes these kinds of lessons from me, and I sponge information about golf course maintenance from him.

Last week, the mechanic at my course was challenged by his brother who works at another course, to a little game of softball. Nelson and I were invited to play. No other managers were invited. I thought that meant something and that we should go. I did have plans to see The Bourne Ultimatum with Sherri that night, but I cancelled on her so that I could do this. I felt that it was one of those times were it was just the right thing to do. Sherri understood, but I had to take her to the movie the next night at a later time (7:30pm). This sucks because I get up a 4:00am, but it was all worth it. The movie ruled, and the game was a blast.

Nelson drove us to a park called The Armory. This was not a place a couple of white guys would normally hang out. “ Dude, I’m not getting out of the car unless I see some of our guys.” I said. Luckily we saw some familiar faces, so we parked as close to the field as we could and got out.

I don’t know why these guys picked this park to play at. The Armory should have been called The Cow Pasture. The dirt infield was overgrown with weeds and grass. There were many holes in the outfield and infield that someone could easily break an ankle in. There was also a light pole in the middle of centerfield that came into play a lot; it was like 20 steps behind second base.

This game had a large turn out. It wasn’t the amount of players; it was all of the friends and family that came along to watch. There were probably about 30 people just to watch, and party.

The game turned out to be no game at all. MVCC opened up a can of whoopass on Sun City. We scored 10 runs in our half of the 1st inning and never looked back. Things stayed friendly and both teams had a good time.

After the game, it was “Get your picture with a couple of white guys night.” All the ladies had cameras and wanted pictures with Nelson and me. We posed with the ladies, we posed with families, and we even posed with the other team. It all made us feel very welcome, and glad that we decided to go.

This Pickle Wasn't Sweet

2007-09-04T17:23:00.000-07:00

It was Alissa’s first day of school. She will be in the first grade. She will also be going to school with Austin. The last two years she has gone to a private preschool and kindergarten. They were nurturing and kind to my little princess. So I guess I was expecting too much from this public school, first grade bitch, oops I mean teacher. Most of the teachers here have been fine, this one just pissed me off.

Ms. Valasick sat behind her desk and waited for her new students, and their parents, to come in. She didn’t leave her desk to great us. We walked up to her throne.

“Good morning, we are Mr. and Mrs. Malathionman, this is Alissa.”

If Ben Stein had a sister, she would sound like this, “Hello, I’m Ms. Valasick. Alissa, pick a colored stick from this jar, match it to the colored spot at one of those tables and take a seat. Here is your name tag, please put it on.”

We do as instructed.

Sherri is doing her best to get Alissa excited about class, but things are getting misty in a hurry. As I watch the tears forming in both Sherri and Alissa’s eyes, I can’t help but think this woman could get off her butt and try to make my daughter feel a little more comfortable in her classroom. It didn’t happen. I felt like shit leaving, but Sherri had to go before she really started to cry and that would make things even worse for Alissa.

I made sure I was there when she got out of school. I wanted to see how Ms. Valasick was interacting with the kids, and I wanted to give my little girl a big hug.

I watched as Ms. Valasick let each child out of the classroom. Each child got this option at the door, “High five, handshake, or hug.” Alissa chose hug. It all sounds nice, but with that Ben Stein voice and the going through the motions hug she got, I still wasn’t impressed. I wish “needle in the eye” was an option.

Just Curious

2007-09-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

Do you wear gloves and protective eyewear when you visit this site? Does my writing cause eye and skin irritation? I often wonder what brings some people here or back for return visits. The crude titles I use for a lot of my posts bring hits from all over the world, but when they don’t find pictures of “boob licking” or “butt plugs” they put the hand lotion away and try a different search.

I started this blog for my fantasy baseball friends. It was supposed to be used as place for us to talk baseball and possibly make trades in our fantasy baseball league. I think some of the guys read it every once in a while, but it has basically evolved into something I didn’t intend it to be, a place where I tell stories about what’s going on in my life. Why would I think anyone gives a rip about that?

One thing I have discovered since I started this blog is that I enjoy writing. I think my writing has improved too. I think I could go into more detail when I’m telling my stories, but I’m not sure my readers enjoy the real long post.

Sometimes I don’t have any funny stories to tell. I’ll sit in front of the computer and try to think of something, but I usually just skip posting until I have something in my head ready to go. I bring this up because I often wonder what people like to read about when they come here. I like to write about my family, but for the sake of this “writing thing” I’m asking for some other ideas.

Here are some things that I can write about without bull shitting you, BASEBALL, THE ANGELS, FOOTBALL, GOLF, GOLF COURSE MAINTENANCE, COOKING, PARENTING, ADOPTION, MOVIES, MUSIC, MANAGEMENT, LAWN CARE, GARDENING, PESTICIDES (Besides Nora, how many of you know Malathion is a pesticide?), HOME DEPOT (Worked there 8 years.), DOMINO’S PIZZA (Worked there 10 years.), AND MARRIAGE (Married 22 years.).

I am willing to write about more serious topics like politics, religion, and race/discrimination issues, but I get the impression people come here for a “light read”.

So friends, give an evil mutant a shout. Let me know if there is something you would like me to tackle. You would be doing ME the favor.

Canabalism and Monkey Humping

2007-08-24T19:46:00.000-07:00

It is now Austin’s time to shine… kind of.

We spent our vacation in two places, Silver Lake and Truckee. We have friends that rent a cabin near Donner Lake, which is really close to the town of Truckee. Our friends, Jerry and Wendy, are like grandparents to the kids, although I think they prefer aunt and uncle.

Jerry and Wendy thought it would be nice if they took the kids to The Donner Party Memorial, so Sherri and I could relax a little. The Donner Party may be something only us Californians are familiar with, so this might not seem funny to a nonresident, or it may not seem funny at all. I’m kind of twisted so I think it is funny. Here is the conversation I had with Austin upon his return from The Donner Party Memorial.

Hey dad!
Hey dude, how was the exhibit?
It was ok, that Donner Party was a really terrible thing.
What was so terrible?
Just that all those people died.
That’s all that you took away from that exhibit?
No, Wendy let us get some stuff from the shop. I got some postcards, a t-shirt, and I was hungry so I got some jerky.
You went to The Donner Party Memorial and got some jerky?
Yes.
So, you got some “Donner Party” jerky?
Uh huh.
I hear Donner tastes kind of salty.
No I think it tastes like teriyaki.

My mother-in-law Mary also came with us on our trip. She stayed at Silver Lake in the RV while we drove up north to visit Jerry and Wendy. She also brought her dog, Bogie. Bogie is a two-year-old Shitzu. Austin and Alissa LOVE to play with Bogie and his monkey toy. Bogie likes to do more than play with his monkey toy. I have never seen this before, but I swear the dog was humping the damn thing. I asked Mary, “What the hell?” she replied, “ He has lots of toys, and that’s the only one he does that to.” I respond, “Remind me never to pick up that monkey again.”

Later that day Austin is playing with the dog, and yes, he was playing with the monkey. Usually that means tossing the monkey down the hall for the dog to chase. Fine, I’m not too grossed out by that. When Austin put the monkey in his mouth and started having a tug-o-war I had to make it stop,
Dude that is grosser than you want to know, give the dog his monkey.
OK, it’s funny when I give it back. You should see what he does.
I’m afraid to ask.
He humps it.
OK, so you know what he does to it?
Yes.
And you still put the monkey in your mouth?
Oh…
Go brush your teeth.

Barbie's Deadliest Catch

2007-08-22T18:29:00.000-07:00

Armed with her new Barbie fishing rod and reel, Alissa climbed into the rented fishing boat to attempt catching her first fish. She had been fishing before, but had not been very lucky. This time was going to be different; she had Barbie on her side. While I was at Wal-Mart buying a fishing license my daughter came to me with the special rod and reel. She was sure it would work and that I was the best daddy in the world if bought it for her. I wasn’t so sure about the first part of that statement, but I was sure the second part would ring true for at least a couple of hours if I did.

Her first cast was almost Barbie’s last. I explained to her that you held down the button on the reel and let go of the button as you cast the rod forward. Probably trying to get a little extra on her first cast of the day; Alissa rears back and fires the rod forward, letting go of everything and sends Barbie flying into the lake. Half expecting this disaster, I was ready to retrieve her rod if it went swimming. Daddy saves the day.

Her second cast was almost her last. After another quick lesson on how to cast, Alissa quickly gives it another try, before I can get out of the way. She set her worm filled hook into my arm, not my sleeve, my arm.

Two bathroom trips to the shore and about 3 hours later, I catch the first fish of the day. It was about a 2 lbs rainbow trout. I was lucky and had hooked it in the lip, so I let it go. This was a total bummer to Alissa; she didn’t understand why I let it go. She was also getting very tired of not catching anything. She was getting ready to call it a day.

We agreed to fish for 30 more minutes, then we would call it a day. 25 minutes later I am watching her bubble start to move side to side. I point it out to her. I tell her to watch the bubble closely and be ready if it to goes down. 15 seconds later, boom, the bubble dives under the choppy water. She was ready, and she did a great job, she landed the fish all on her own. All that Alissa needed me for was to take out the hook.

I had done a good job removing the hook, so I asked Alissa if she wanted to release her catch. I think you can guess the answer.

She Has No Locks Of Gold

2007-08-20T20:28:00.000-07:00

Somebody has been sitting in my chair! I got home from vacation and found a weird “ass print” in it. I was sure that I had shut off the computer, but I found it on, logged in on Wear Gloves and Protective Eyewear. There was an empty Starbucks cup, these and an open bottle of this on my desk. I’m not sure what was going on while I was gone. I am sure I’m getting the chair cleaned.

Actually, I know what was going on. My friend Kelly was nice enough to find time for my little blog and me while I vacationed in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I was flattered when she accepted my invitation to be my guest blogger. She is a very busy woman and one post would have been great in my eyes, but she cranked out three. Thanks Kelly.

Not that Kelly needs my help plugging her site, but I encourage any of my readers that haven’t checked out her non-porn site to go to the links in her second post here at WGAPE. I did, and I listened to the entire hour of the radio interview. Kelly, it was nice to put a voice on that ugly mug of yours, and if you were wondering, I always sound like the Malathionman in that Bleak Future trailer.

I had never listened to a blog radio show before; it was pretty cool. The topic of the interview was The Inclusion and Exclusion: Where Are the Bloggers of Color and Why Aren’t We Reading Them. At the BlogHer conference in Chicago last month, some marketing “pros” wanted to know how to tap into the mommy blogger market, Kelly asked these marketing pros, “When will the diversity come into play?” She could not get a response. Now they are the topic of conversation on many of the diversified blogs out there, probably not the reaction they were looking for.

Damn it Kelly for making me have to think! First the big words, now this! I feel like an insensitive evil mutant with a bad case of hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.

P.S.
Hey Kelly, a marketing agency for a sex toy company sent me some free butt plugs.

Busy, Busy Bee That's Me

2007-08-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

While I've been working on my own blog (WHICH IS FINALLY FIXED, THANK YOU TO GOD IN HEAVEN IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME. Sorry for the "damn", God. Forgive me?) I've also been:

eating way too many fried foods
taking mediocre pictures
getting hooked on new websites
working on freshman schedules
trying to get ready for a Podcast with Kristen Chase
trying to write for BlogRhet
continuing to stir up my own corner of the blog world with issues of race and blogging
putting together a panel of women (and men!) to discuss the issues of race and blogging at next year's BlogHer conference
getting continous wedgies from sitting at my desk
working on "chair ass" at said desk
getting to know my new computer (it's black! whether it's a "he" or "she" is still up in the air)
wondering where the hell the blogging community has disappeared
clipping my toenails and leaving them here for Malation Man to clean up later
drinking my new favorite beer, Red Stripe
cutting up pears and fancy goat cheese to go with Red Stripe

What have you been doing or are all the bloggers on vacation with Malation Man? Are y'all fishing? Covering yards and houses in toilet paper?

3 Questions a la Dwight K. Schrute

2007-08-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

Question: What the heck is good to watch on television during the summer?

Nothing, I tell you. NOTHING.

This fall I'm planning on catching up on some good television that I've missed for the last two years since I've been taking classes. One of them is The Office. It's one of my favorite shows I've caught up on because I've blindly bought the DVDs and then I started reading Dwight's blog. Speaking of awkward segues that make reference to aforementioned television shows...

Question: If I told you that I have some upcoming projects and you'd have to go read them in other places, would you?

No? Ok. I'll try another one after this cute anecdote.

My neighbor's son came over to play for awhile yesterday while I had a houseful of relatives for my Grandma's birthday (Give a shout out to Maggie for her 90th, would you? She's all over this blog stuff and reads me religiously. No. She doesn't. But it would be nice anyway and you could leave more $10 words for the owner of this blog.) and he said this to me: "I'm for serious." That's my new favorite phrase and I'm going to inject it into the vernacular in an attempt to get other adults to talk like three-year olds.

Question: Did you know that I have a podcast coming up and you can hear my midwestern vocalization in real time? I do! It's a broadcast on race and blogging involving Glennia and Jason on Kristen Chases's blog radio show. Click here to bookmark the page and come back Wednesday night from 9-10. Oh, come on. The new fall line-up hasn't started yet and you know there isn't anything good on television just yet.

Plus, you can call in and get on the radio. Dwight would find that hysterical.

Just for fun and to combine my granny's birthday with how I spent my evening after a long day of partying (read: watched Season 2 of The Office) I've linked a clip for you that's one of my favorites.

Listen to my radio broadcast or no cookie. For serious.

Pink Bunnies & Sex Toys

2007-08-11T05:15:00.000-07:00

MalathionMan foolishly gave me his password to blogsit for him and now I'm thinking this place is too dark. Perhaps something pink and in the way of cute bunnies would make for a lovely background? Maybe a rainbow of tampons? OH! How about an array of glow-in-the-dark blow up sex toys? I shall think on it.

For the time being, my own blog is "broken" and that has hindered me from telling all these great stories because I can't even get into it easily myself. There's the one about the guy who stalked me at the park and gave me the creeps (unless that was you, MalationMan, in which case dude, what an asshat you are) or the fact that I ate nearly an entire gallon of ice cream in one sitting or maybe the time last week when I spent the evening quoting So I Married An Axe Murderer. They're all quite interesting stories. At least, I can make them interesting. Sometimes I do better to tell stories in person but I can't quite do that yet. My Superpowers don't yet allow me to teleport into your homes (and prisons - I know that's where a lot of MalathionMan's readers are) whenever I choose.

In any case, here I am on a Saturday helping to keep this place nice and tidy while the proprietor ($10 Word #1) of this hellhole takes a vacation and surely he's checked back here and is screaming, "Why hasn't she posted yet? She's so damn slow and lazy! God! I hate her!" because it's Saturday and I was supposed to start yesterday.

I'm here now. You can rest easy.

To begin my week of hijacking this mofo I thought I'd introduce myself to his readers. Hi, I'm Mocha Momma. I've got this blog over here and sometimes I write about education and other times I write about my three kids or sometimes I post pictures (but I took them down not too long ago and am now starting to put some back up) and other times I discuss inappropriate things that my father would croak if he heard me discussing but that my mother seems to enjoy. Recently, I've stirred the proverbial ($10 Word #2) pot and discussed the taboo topic of race, but I sure enjoy saying what's on my mind.

He said I could write anything and now that I am afforded that sumptuousness ($10 Word #3) I have to admit that I'm stumped. It'll come to me, I'm sure. The point is Mr. Vacation has left me in charge and we're going to raid the fridge, use permanent markers in the living room where there is fresh paint, and have a party.

Leave some $10 Words in the comments so he has to look them up when he returns. In the meantime, sit down for a cuppa or a very dirty martini (Belvedere vodka , thankyouverymuch) and I'll make us some snacks and find those markers so we can make a mess.

Get back to me on the pink & bunnies & sex toys.

Gone Fishing

2007-08-07T16:05:00.000-07:00

It is time for a little rest and relaxation. The family and I are going to Lake Tahoe. We took the same trip last year, but this time we are stopping in Bishop for a couple of days on the way up. I grew up doing a lot of fishing in the Bishop area, so I’m looking forward to that.

On this same trip last year I took a great picture of my son fishing. I like it so much I’m going to share it again on this blog. It may seem like a normal picture of a kid fishing on a pier, but you have to look a little closer, there is a ray of sunshine coming from his butt crack!

Anyways, while I’m gone, there will be a guest in the house. My guest is a much better writer than me. They sometimes use big words that I have to look up when I read their blog, but that’s ok; it is always a great read. I am not going to say who the blogger is. How they identify themselves is up to him or her. Enjoy the change of pace and I will see you in a couple of weeks.

Malathionman

Alpha Dog

2007-08-06T18:06:00.000-07:00

I watched the movie Alpha Dog yesterday. The story is based on what some stupid spoiled teenagers did in the late 90’s. It wasn’t a BAD movie. I just found some of the content a little disturbing.

I just don’t understand why kids get in to the kind of trouble that they get into these days. My parents neglected me just as much as any other kid and I didn’t feel the need to deal drugs or shoot anybody.

The kind of trouble I got into was harmless.

1. Once my friends and I got busted for trespassing at the local rock quarry. We were climbing the giant sand piles and diving off the top. The cops were cool; they just took us home and laughed with our parents about it.

2. We did a lot of T.P.ing. Never less than a 12 pack of TP. It was an honor to have your house T.P.ed by my gang of troublemakers.

3. Probably the nastiest thing my friends and I did was cover my buddies piece of shit Pinto with tampons dipped in ketchup.

Nobody got hurt, nothing got broken.

I was a teenager in the late 70’s and early 80’s in the very same area this movie takes place. I was born in Pomona, CA. My dad was a policeman in Pomona. I played high school soccer and tennis against Claremont High. I delivered pizzas to the Claremont Colleges. I now live in the Palm Springs area. All three of these places are featured in this movie. It was weird to see these places that I look at fondly represented in this type of a movie, a movie that is all about drug dealers, potheads, tweekers, racists, kidnapping and murder.

Probably more disturbing than the kids in this film were the parents. Every parent in this movie played a key role in how his or her kids ended up. I always have to remind myself that it is my job to pay attention to my kids and do my best to make sure they stay out of harms way. That means I can’t always be my kid’s friend.

Shrinkage Happens

2007-08-01T17:00:00.000-07:00

It was bound to happen. You hear about it all the time, but you don’t think it could happen to you. It happened to me last night. I’m not sure how long it is going to take me to get over it. I only hope that there won’t be any permanent damage to any of the people involved.

Malathionman was a little frisky last night. He was not going to be denied his manly needs, and he wasn’t, but there was a price.

I go to bed about 9pm. 9pm is not too late. Can you guess what happened yet?

Things were just starting to get heated up and we hear, “Can I sleep in here tonight?”
“Ahh, no.”
Sherri gets up and puts the little darling back to bed.

Thinking, “Oh well, so much for that.” I roll over to go to sleep. Sherri comes back a few minutes later. I was WRONG! That’s right, Malathionman has got it going on, and just as Malathionman was about to be going off, “ I’m still scared.”

I’m not sure she was talking about a bad dream. She could have been talking about what she was seeing.

P.S.
My wife says she reads my blog, but I don’t believe her. I should know if she is telling the truth after this post.

P.P.S.
Check out the poll on the right side of the page.

Butt Plug Not Included

2007-07-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

Tonight is softball night. I play on the team that MVCC put together. I haven’t played ball for about 8 years so the wheels are kind of rusty. I was reluctant to play because of how out of shape I have gotten, but the rest of the guys really wanted me to play, and it has turned out to be very fun.

I think we are going to keep the team together and play more after this season is over. This has inspired me to try and get into a little better shape. It is my intention to just loose some bad habits and get my big butt moving more. Hopefully that will help me get around the bases a little faster.

My wife told me that she supports me 100%. In fact, she’s tired of supporting 100% of me, she would prefer to only support about 80% of me, if you know what I mean. :) Anyways, she came home with some new “stuff” for people who are trying to diet. Stuff I’m not sure I’m going to try.

This dietary aid is supposed to block the digestion of fat. So I guess what happens is that the fat you eat just passes through your body, this may cause some unpleasant side effects. You may poop your pants! The instructions actually tell you not start using the product until you have an entire day that you can stay home, just incase! Sherri is so supportive; she is going to try it out first.

How many guys can say their wives would do that for them? I’m so lucky.

Bird X

2007-07-18T20:43:00.000-07:00

Today my wife got her shot in front of the camera. She didn’t want to do the news interview, but the reporter begged. It wasn’t the thought of being on the 11 o’clock news that bothered her; it was the 2 o’clock hair and make up. She called me later in the day to tell me about the interview.

“Hey guess what, I’m going to be on the news.”
“Why? Did you snap on one of your customers?”
“Nnnoooo. We talked about bird x.”
“Bird X? What the … oh I know, is Bird X some militant pigeon that craps on everyone’s car? Or maybe Bird X is the pet of Racer X; that would be really cool. Speed Racer was OK, but Racer X was cool. I could see some sort of hawk with the same mask as Rex Racer…”
“Excrement.”
“What?”
“ The interview was about bird excrement.”
“Your first appearance on TV is all about bird shit?”
“It’s a big problem here at The Gardens. Tenants pay a lot of money to have the poop cleaned off their store fronts.”
“Why are they interviewing you about it?”
"The Gardens just installed some sort of sonic bird repeller. It’s basically a way of getting rid of the birds without killing them. I’m a store manager here and they wanted my take on the new gadget.”
“What if the sonic noise drives the birds crazy and they start to attack?”
“Why do I bother?”
“That would be cool.”

Just Light Me On Fire

2007-07-13T18:15:00.001-07:00

Today I read a very remarkable post about the death of someone’s grandmother. The Queen of Dysfunction is normally a funny read, but she can handle the serious stuff too. So for the Queen I offer this true story of dysfunction and my deepest sympathy. I hope things go better at your grandmother’s funeral than they did at mine.

The last time I saw my grandmother alive was at the adoption party we threw for my kids. She acted normal, but I didn’t think she looked that good. About 3 weeks later I got a call from my mother informing me that Nan had gallbladder cancer. She must have felt like shit that day at the party, but she didn’t complain a bit. She smiled and greeted people all day long. She loved to entertain and she was in her element.

I am going to “Reader’s Digest” the chain of events while Nan was in the hospital.
1. Cancer was inoperable.
2. Doctor said she could have 6 months of quality live. (She was 82)
3. Grandfather accepts the diagnosis. My mother does not.
4. My mother gets my incoherent grandmother to give her power of attorney.
5. Mother changes doctors without grandfather’s knowledge.
6. Big fight about how Nan will be taken care of.
7. Nan goes on dialysis.
8. More fighting, mom accuses grandfather of trying to kill Nan.
9. I keep calling to find out when I can come down and visit. I am told it would be best if I waited till she got home. She didn’t like to be seen in this condition.
10. Fighting continues aunts and uncles are now involved. Old accusations of abuse from grandfather and uncle are brought up.
11. Nan no longer can stand the bullshit going on around her. She demands to be taken off dialysis. She wants to go home.
12. I get a call from my mother at 9 pm, “If you want to see Nan she is home, but in a coma, she could be gone any time now.”
13. “WTF mom. I live 3 hours away. Why am I just hearing about his now?”
14. One hour later, Nan dies at her home in Laguna Beach while her children fight about shit that happened 45 years ago, in the same room where her body lays waiting for the mortician. I turn around and come back home.

Really, I’ve left out a lot of gory details, I would have preferred to skip it all together, but it was necessary to lay that nasty foundation so that I can get to the funny stuff! “How can things get funny after that episode of Jerry Springer?” you ask. Don’t forget, we still have a funeral to go to!

OK, at the time most of this stuff didn’t seem that funny. After the fact I laugh at most of it.

Nan died on Palm Sunday. She was Catholic and wanted a Catholic funeral. My mother and sister wanted the funeral ASAP because they could no longer stay in town. Finding an available Catholic priest so close to Easter was tough, but they did. Instead of taking the time to do things right, my grandfather had to slap together the funeral by Wednesday. Many of Nan’s friends that would have wanted to be there missed out because of such short notice.

When I arrived at the funeral home Nan was already on display. This was the first time I had ever seen a dead person. Very odd, very not the person I knew. Problem was Nan didn’t want an open casket. Gramps freaked when he showed up, and immediately had the casket closed.

Nan was very Irish, so she would have liked this, the priest’s name was Father Flanagan. I think Father Flanagan was pulled out the retirement home to perform this service. I think I could smell booze on his breath when I met him before the service, and I think he farted as he walked up to the podium. It was brutal having to watch him look at his note cards every time he had to say my grandmother’s name.

Two other people spoke at the funeral, my sister and my uncle. They hate each other.

My uncle was ripped when he got to the service. As he was slurring his way through the few things he had to say, his alarm went off on his wristwatch. He tried and tried, but couldn’t turn it off, so he waited, we all waited, for it to shut off. I heard some dude in the back whisper, “Time to wake up dumbass.” I’m having a hard time not laughing.

My sister was next up, what a bitch. She was the stick stirring the shit at the hospital. She said many nice things about Nan, and then she launched a scud at my grandfather, accusing him of cheating on her. A lot of people wanted a piece of her after the service.

I got to meet my aunt for the first time. She is my mother’s sister. She ran away from home as a teenager. Apparently ripped uncle was sexually abusing her. She was eventually put into a mental institution. That’s what they did to runaways back then. She ended up marrying a nurse that worked at this institution. Nan and Gramps didn’t speak to her for years, not because the man she married was older and was supposed to be her nurse. They disowned her because the man she married was black.

Family breakdown- Gramps was a widower before he married Nan. He had two sons from that first marriage. Nan was widowed twice before she married Gramps. She had one daughter from each marriage.

Now the funeral goes to the cemetery, where I get to meet some more family. My mother told me that I would be carrying the casket with a few of the men. As I approach the casket there were two men standing there I had never seen before. The first guy was wearing jeans and a nice dress shirt, looked normal. The second guy was a little different. He had a black hat with black fur around the brim and a big black feather on the side. His suit was black with black fur lapels. He also had a nice cane to go along with his ensemble. Did I mention they were black? Sherri whispers to me, “Who are those guys?” I reply, “I think they are my cousins!” They were.

Now this gets really weird. After the funeral I am talking to cousin Huggy Bear. Did I forget to tell you he brought two girls with him? He did. Anyways, I am having a really enjoyable conversation with him when he says, “ You know we have kind of met before.”
“Really, when was that?”
“When you worked at McDonald’s”
“I was a teenager when I worked at McDonald’s”
“I know, I was a teenager when you took my order.”
“And you knew who I was?”
“Yup, I knew all about you. Mom told me everything.”
“And you happened to be in town?”
“No, I drove 90 minutes to check you out.”
“ OK, I think I hear my wife calling me.”

We hung around a little longer, but that was pretty much the end of the weirdness. My mother and sister still don’t talk to my grandfather. Unmentioned uncle has died of liver cancer. Runaway aunt lost her nose to skin cancer a few months ago. Runaway aunt and abuser uncle seem to be friends now, and I haven’t seen stalker Huggy Bear around.

Did I mention I spend a lot of time with my wife’s side of the family?

Chicken and Ribs

2007-07-07T15:47:00.000-07:00

Can you guess what I did on the 4th? I AM the grill-master! This is the barbeque my wife gave me for Christmas. It rocks. Its called the Perfect Flame and it is sold at Lowe’s. Being an ex Home Depot guy my wife felt kind of bad buying from my old competitor, but the service was so crappy at our Home Depot she had no choice. I’m glad she did. I used to sell barbeques in the garden department, and for the money we had nothing this nice. It’s hard to get 4 burners, natural gas hook up, and stainless steel for under $450. I think this was about $425. It was also very easy to put together. If you are looking for a new barbeque, I highly recommend it.

On a side note, my daughter thinks I’m weird for taking pictures of the barbeque.

“Daddy, why are you taking pictures of your meat?”
“Uhhh no, actually I’m taking pictures of the barbeque.”
“Why are you doing…oh I know, it’s for your blooooggg.”
“Yyyeeesss it iiissss.”
“That’s silly, you blog about everything. Look, there’s a piece of dog poo. Why don’t you take a picture of that and blog about it?”

I’ll have to think about that.

Malathion Induced Statements

2007-07-02T20:09:00.000-07:00

The Malationkids always have something important to say. This week all three of them had “blog worthy” quotes.

Let’s start with the youngest, Alissa. It is always a battle to get her to eat all of her food. Half the time she asks for what’s on her plate then she says she is full and the food goes to waste. This morning she didn’t want to eat the toast that she had requested. Sherri pulled the “There are starving kids in Africa" card. Alissa’s response, “If I eat that toast will those kids stop starving?”

Next up will be the middle child, Austin. This summer we are working on his language arts skills. This book we have him working in has an exercise on metaphors. The exercise was simple; make up a metaphor for the list of words provided. Here is Austin’s metaphor for friend, “Friends are like meat and cheese, they always stick together.”

Last but not least will be the oldest Sarah. When asked about why she got in a fight this was her reply, “Bitch had it coming.” Nice.

There's No Place Like Home, I Thought.

2007-06-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

I usually keep the posts on this blog light. Wearing ladies shoes, pierced privates, and boob licking are the kind of posts associated with my little corner of the Internet. When I have something serious to get off my chest it is usually about my oldest daughter Sarah.

Sarah is currently living in a residential treatment home for teenagers. She has been there about 15 months now. It looks like she has turned the corner and is on her way to possibly coming home.

About 2 months ago a light must have went off in Sarah’s head. I guess she decided it was time to start working on getting out of that place. She is now in a program at the school that is starting to get her ready for just that, coming home. If she works hard and stays focused she may actually be home for Thanksgiving. It is all pretty exciting.

I am actually writing this post while waiting for a phone call from Sarah and her therapist. We have a therapy session once a week…….

I kid you not; I just got off the phone with Sarah’s therapist. She is off the program. Earlier today she started a fight in one of her classes. She pulled a hand full of hair out of her opponent and she possibly has a broken nose. WTF. He asked if I wanted to talk to her. I said no. I did tell him to ask her a question, “What was so important about that fight? It probably means she will be spending another Christmas in Utah.”

I gotta tell ya, it is times like this that make me think to my self, “What the hell was I thinking?” Did I just adopt a whole lot of trouble for the next 18 years? It really scares me sometimes. I see an awful lot of Sarah in Alissa. Is a lot of this stuff genetic? The girls do have the same father. Austin has a different father, and he has different issues.

I'm just pissed and I feel like blowing off some steam right now. I know I could have the same problems or worse if Sherri gave birth to some of my own evil spawn. I guess this is just all part of being a parent. Yea.

Sometimes Less Is More

2007-06-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure what to make of the message my son is trying to send me. I don’t think my wife would appreciate his suggestion.

Father’s Day this year was uneventful, the way I wanted it. I got up early to do the yard work before the temperature outside hit triple digits. Then I came inside and kicked the kids outside. I got to watch most of the U.S. Open, I watched a movie (Slither- very gross, very funny), and Sherri made me dinner.

Sweet.

We Are Family!

2007-06-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

I think dinner is a great time for families to spend time together. My family sits down at the kitchen table almost every night for dinner. When I was a kid, more often than not, I ate dinner in the living room, in front of the T.V. Sometimes my mom would join me, my dad was never home and my sister was busy screwing up her teenage life. I didn’t plan on fixing that when I became a parent, we just started doing it from the first day the older kids came into the house and it stuck.

Dinnertime has produced some fine stories that will be used as ammunition against my children at a later date.

An annoying fly is buzzing around the table.
Wife, “Aw man who let the fly in the house?”
Austin grabs the fly swatter, “I’ll get it!”
Austin tries, but misses badly each time, “Daaannngg, that fly jacked me off!”
Trying not to choke on my Costco Chicken Alfredo, “Excuse me?”
“That fly jacked me off!”
“Where did you hear that phrase Austin?”
“School.”
“Don’t you mean jacked up?”
“Maybe.”
“Austin, jacking off is a bad way to say you are touching your private parts.”
I smile at Sherri and roll my eyes.
“Oh yeah mom, you mean like that time you walked in on me in my room!”
“What?’
“OMG”
Alissa chimes in, “Austin was jacking off!”
“What? We are all family. Right?”
Heavy sigh, “Yes Austin, yes we are.”

Creamy Peaches

2007-06-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

I don't know what "Isn't this a creamy peach?" is supposed to mean. It is just one of the four or five lines I have in Bleak Future.

Jacob's Ladder

2007-05-31T16:25:00.000-07:00

One of the creepiest movies I have ever seen is one called Jacob’s Ladder. It had Tim Robbins and Macaulay Caulkin (back when he was cute). It was about 100 minutes that seemed like 200 minutes of Tim Robbins going through all sorts of hell. The main thing I remember about the movie was that I was happy that this poor bastard died in the end. If you ever check this movie out, I’m not ruining anything for you by saying that. You would feel the same way too.

One of the creepiest (or funniest) things I remember happening on the Internet involves Jacob’s Ladder, but a different kind.

I am in a fantasy baseball league that has been together for more that 15 years. We have a core of about 7 general managers, with about 7 guys who have come and gone through the years.

A few years ago, a couple of other guys (Fred, Scott, and Dave) and myself were chatting on-line about baseball. We were kicking around possible trades, when Fred says, “I will give you player A and dirty pictures of my wife for player B.”

“That’s OK I already have dirty pictures of your wife.” I replied.
“Really?” Fred said. “Where did you get them?”
“I’m was kidding dickhead.”
“Oh, …well my offer stands.”
“Player A for player B.”
“And dirty pictures of my wife.”

LONG PAUSE

Dave and Scott now are I.M.ing on the side. (window B)

“OMG is he serious?”
“Have you seen his wife?”
“He’s nasty, she’s gotta be nasty too.”

In chimes Fred on the other window (window A), “Fuck it, you guys wanna see some dirty pictures of my wife?” “ She has some really nice tattoos and piercings.”
“Really? What’s pierced?”
“Nipples, clit”

Window B
“Nasty!”

Window A
“ I have some piercings too.”
“ Oh yeah, what did you do get your dick pierced?”
“Yes, I did.”

Window B
“OMG!”
“Ouch! Holy shit!”

Window A
“ My penis has 4 studs that are connected by small chains, it looks like a ladder. They call it Jacob’s Ladder.”

Window B
‘LOL”
“Maybe he has a picture of that!”

Window A
“ How coincidental! I have the same thing, except 10 studs!”
“I’ll send you a picture if you don’t believe me.”

LONG PAUSE

Window A
“I think I’ll pass on that trade.”

We met Fred’s wife about a year later. She was very nice, and not the pig we thought she might be. Fred is no longer in the league.

No, My Snatch Doesn't Itch

2007-05-23T16:25:00.000-07:00

As the temperatures rise in the desert, I am reminded of my first summer here. I had been living in the bay area (Livermore), so the extreme heat was a bit of a shock. Everyone tells you to drink lots of water and stay out of the sun. No shit! Does anyone tell you to keep you balls dry? Hell no!

In my first summer in the desert I worked outside in the nursery at Home Depot. It was hot, but I was doing o.k. That is until I got this incredible heat rash between my legs! OMG, my thighs were on fire! I was walking around the store like I had spent the night with a Wicked Wanda 3000.

My buddy noticed I was having a hard time and asked what the problem was. I felt comfortable enough to talk to him about it because he had shared with me how had a bleeding hemorrhoid that was bothering him the other day. I was walking a lot like he was that day; it was a fine male bonding moment.

He told me he knew exactly what I was going through and that he had the perfect remedy, Vagisil. He said a nurse had recommended it to him and that it worked great.

“No fucking way am I going to put that shit between my legs!” I replied.

“That’s what I said.” He barked back. “ But I swear it really works. I got a tube in my locker, you want to try it?”

“You are full of shit.” I said.

Sure enough, we go to his locker and he pulls out a tube of Vagasil.

“Well?”

“No thanks, I’ll pass.”

On my way home I stopped by the drug store. I was desperate. I was willing to try anything, and I did. Guess what, it worked. I wasn’t willing to share that with my buddy at work, but I told my wife. What the fuck was I thinking! I still hear about that every summer. Since then I have learned the value Gold Bond Powder.

We Have a Plunger Just In Case

2007-05-17T19:51:00.000-07:00

I have had to address many awkward situations in my years of management. I had to talk to an individual about his body odor. I have had to counsel a guy about farting in the break room during lunch. I even had to confront a guy about having his penis pump mailed to his place of work. These were easy to address because it is an individual that I had to deal with, behind closed doors.(Except penis pump guy. I just gave him his mail infront of everyone.) I now have a situation at work that has to deal with an entire group of people.

I basically have two groups of Mexicans that work for me. One group is the old school immigrants. The other group is ones that are native to California.

I had noticed this problem before but didn’t know what to say. Today one of the natives came to me with a gripe about the old school guys. Now I have to address it with the entire crew so the old school guys don’t feel singled out. This is how the native asked me to fix the problem, “Tomas, will you tell the wetbacks to flush their fucking toilet paper instead of putting it in the trash can?”

I told my boss what was up and he made me call human resources with the problem. They were not fazed a bit. In fact it is something they have had to deal with before. I didn’t know this, but I guess the plumbing in the crappy parts of Mexico is really bad. The plumbing is so bad toilet paper won’t flush, so in the trash can it goes. It is just what the old school guys are used to. They also never flush unless they take a crap.

So today I had a meeting about bathroom etiquette, kind of like the one I have had to have with each of my kids.