March 2008 - Posts
That Stevie was eating on his own today. He had a biopsy and I will have the result in 3 or 4 business days.
Yesterday we took Justin to Dave & Buster's to celebrate his birthday. The kids had fun playing games, and then we came back here and had ice cream cake and played Star Wars battles out in the yard. I found out that Justin and Tristan's friend, Andrew, is a WWII buff. Kind of a funny interest for an 8-year-old, but I think it's great.
As a random thought, I got a Victoria's Secret swimsuit catalog in the mail today. I was looking through it today and was pretty horrified. I haven't looked at one in a long time, and it's really spooky how thin the models have become. Their bodies all looked so weird....Like green beans with breast implants in bathing suits. I had to stop looking at it because it was too creepy. On a positive note, I felt pretty good about myself after flipping through it. I suppose that's bound to happen since they're pushing the sylph look way too far these days.
I went to the vet today to get a high nutrient wet cat food, which I've been syringe feeding to Stevie. His tongue is pretty swollen, so he's not doing a good job of eating on his own. He has an appointment on Monday, and I should know more soon.
I took the kids to Barnes & Noble today so that Justin could use the gift card he received from my parents for his birthday. I told him to look around and pick what he thought he might like to have, and he ended up getting a dinosaur word find, dinosaur maze puzzles, a Bible, a hidden pictures puzzle and a scratch and sketch activity art book. He was using one of Tristan's old Bibles, and he no longer wanted to do that. He wanted one that he picked out himself. This is the one he picked.
Tristan exchanged a book that my parents bought him that he already had, for a 2008 World Almanac. He's had his face in it all day, and he keeps saying, "Mom, did you know that...." I love it, because I dig trivia.
Tonight for movie night it's No Country for Old Men. I've heard it's fantastic, and I've heard that the second half is terrible and it doesn't tie up all the ends. I'll be interested to see my impression of it. It has an 8.5 on imdb.com as of right now.
Right now I'm stalling on doing laundry, so I guess I'd better get back to it.
http://lifestyle.msn.com/mindbodyandsoul/personalgrowth/articleoprah.aspx?cp-documentid=6556551
is well underway. So far I have four families from the Ballantyne area refusing to ever go there again. The reaction to my story has been incredible. Even though it happened to me, and not them, people are incensed when I relay the treatment I was given, and the fact they flatly refused to correct the problem. My favorite response? "Dude, that is so messed up. They're off my list." - csinnett
I will be penning (figuratively speaking) the letter to their CEO this evening. I will grace their doorstep just once more, to gain possession of the free cake I plan to receive as recompense for the indignation I experienced at the hands of their franchaise owner's rude behavior.
The moral of the story is I am not a woman to be trifled with. (hee hee hee) 
Today is Justin's 7th birthday.
He took cupcakes to school for his class to celebrate his birthday, and then after work I went to pick up his cake. I'm not going to go on about this since I've finally managed to not be irritated about it anymore, but here is a review that I posted on 5 different sites on the internet:
"I just picked up my son's birthday cake. The figure
on the cake fell over and damaged his name, and made a hand print in
the graphic. I asked them to fix it and they said they couldn't because
they were out of that color. The owner came over and looked at it and
said the cake was "absolutely perfect" so I pointed out the icing all
over the elbow of Spider-Man and said he was exaggerating. I said I was
disappointed to pay almost $40 (38 and change) for a small 8" cake that
is flawed. I asked for the owner's name and number and he informed me
he was the owner. I said that they had lost a customer and he replied,
"You've got a problem, lady" in front of all the customers in the store
and walked away from me. I didn't even get an apology that the cake was
flawed. In the end, they didn't give me a discount, coupons, fix the
cake, nothing. All I asked for was the cake to be repaired.
Go somewhere where customers matter."
I googled all reviews I could find for Maggie Moo's and posted the above review to save others the aggravation of their terrible service.
After that we went to Monkey Joe's and the kids bounced around in the bounce houses, and the inflatable slides. The kids had fun, and I mostly just stood around numbed by the bad behavior by both parents and children alike. Society's ills are often manifested in our children.
(There goes my neighbor and his irritating stereo again down there).
The thing I saw tonight that really takes the cake (no pun intended), was a woman who thought it would be a good idea to let her kids (both under the age of 10) climb up this two story inflatable slide with her infant daughter and slide down with her, while a bunch of other wild kids were running around and throwing themselves down the slide all around them. I couldn't believe my eyes. To make matters worse, there was no attendant manning the slide, so the kids were not taking turns, or waiting for the slide to be clear before hurling themselves down it. This baby wasn't even old enough to crawl yet (4-6 months old), and a young girl of maybe 8-years-old was climbing the ladder to the slide, and then proceeded down it with the baby on the slide between her legs, plummetting toward the hoard of children below that had recently gone down.
I immediately went to a staff person up front (no staff could be found near the inflatable attractions -- all unmanned) to report it because watching it was giving me a nervous breakdown. The baby responded with the startle reflex and was clearly not enjoying herself. In the time it took me to alert a staff member, the mother then allowed her young son to climb the inflatable slide with the baby. Here's what the slide looked like, only taller.
I'm wondering what possessed her to think that was a good plan. It takes all kinds.
After Monkey Joe's, we went to Backyard Burgers, which are the best burgers in the whole world. We then came home and had cake, and Justin opened his presents. I then had a nice chat with Nicole, and the kids went to bed. Justin said he had a great birthday, and asked us to sing Happy Birthday to him one more time before he went to bed, so Tristan and I obliged him.
Tomorrow is Friday again already? Where is the time going.
I went to my user group meeting tonight, a monthly get together for other IT geeks of the same ilk as me.
I won Windows 2003 Server Unleashed. Actually, that was what I picked. There was a combination of software and books to choose from. And I'm more of a book person.
Free pizza and a free book. Oh, and three free magazines. You can bet your bottom dollar that, in the words of Arnold, I'll be back.
Bathing with Beirko. There are no words for how weird this is.
This article explains the concept.
Has to go for a biopsy on Friday.
He went back to the vet today for dental work, which we thought was going to solve the issue of his swollen tongue and drooling and on closer inspection of his mouth, it would appear one of two things is the case;
1. He got something wrapped around his tongue and now the skin is growing over it, or
2. He has cancer in his tongue
In any event, I'm feeling sad about it. I guess I'll know more on Friday.
Today is Easter, the day we celebrate the resurrection of the savior of all men, Jesus.
The kids got out of bed around 7:30AM and we had an Easter egg hunt in the living room. I hid about 30 eggs stuffed with toys and candy around the house and then the kids had fun sifting through the goodies in their Easter baskets. After we finished with the goodies, we jumped up on my bed and read the easter story of Christ's death, burial and resurrection as told by the gospel of Mark.
Next, we had a nice big breakfast of eggs, waffles, toast and smoothies. Today's smoothie consisted of bananas, pineapple, blueberries, milk, honey, yogurt, grape juice, and ice. It was quite tasty.
For dinner, I'll be grilling a sweet hickory pork tenderloin with green beans, corn and biscuits. Mmm. Just thinking about it makes me hungry.
Happy Easter to all, and if you don't know Jesus as your Savior, here's a website that I once found to address some of my questions back when I was an atheist.
This cornflake just sold for $1,350 on eBay, for being somewhat fashioned in the shape of Illinois. I included the Illinois map on the right for reference. More confirmation that human beings can be so bizarre. It just looks like any old corn flake to me. Personally, if I were to pay that much for a piece of cereal, it would have to be exact. And even then I wouldn't. The fact that it really does look like a pretty normal cornflake is what surprises me that someone would be impressed by it. I'm not nearly observant enough to find something like this in my pantry. I'm sure I've eaten thousands of dollars of missed opportunities. Oh well.
This evening on All Things Considered, there was an interesting little commentary by Ted Koppel. I thought I'd share it here.
I've never seen such an angry cat in all my life (warning, don't have your volume up too loud)
And this cat is seriously chillin'
to the vet yesterday. He's been drooling and losing weight. He still had an appetite, so I knew that there must be something wrong in his mouth. Sure enough, his tongue is swollen. I'm not sure if it was from messing around with one of my house plants, or if he got into something, but a trip to the vet, blood work, some pain reliever and an antibotic set me back about $260. 
Anyway, I bought some soft cat food so he's eating again. I always thought prescriptions were filled by the vet, but I had to go to a regular pharmacy for it. I suppose that makes sense, since the medications have a shelf life, and the vet couldn't possibly anticipate what to have on hand and reasonably go through it all. I guess I just hadn't thought about it before.
Yesterday I went to the Microsoft campus here in Charlotte for a briefing on Microsoft Team System and Team Foundation Server (TFS). I would be one happy camper if we started using it at work. I'm going to have to start rallying support for it. I think it would be a hard sell to get the project managers and quality assurance to agree to start using TFS, but it would certainly reduce some of the project management issues we deal with, and eliminate wasted effort in status meetings.
I started reading Benazir Bhutto's book last night. Very interesting read so far. I'll have to write more on this later....
Happy Wednesday.
I created my own avatar at meez.com today. What a blast. You can dress and accessorize yourself, but in the end I pretty much created myself according to my actual tastes. I tried some of the hot outfits but felt immodest. LOL.
Here it is:
For the first time ever, I'm wishing I had HBO. I rarely watch television, but this evening starts a seven-part series called John Adams, based on
the book titled same, by David McCullough. In case you're not familiar with McCullough, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and historian,
here's his wiki entry. I love narrative history books, so I've added this one (as well as
1776) to
my Amazon wish list. In all actuality I'll likely just rent them from the library, however, my wish list helps me remember my intentions.
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