Santa Visits Newton, NC

Santa came to our house tonight. We didn't burn a fire just so he could come down the chimbley. He brought my children so many toys... too many toys. He ate some cookies and drank some soy milk left out for him. He also took some oatmeal left out for his reindeer. I suggested to Tamara that maybe we should leave out some white lines so the reindeer wouldn't lose their magic. For some reason she didn't think that was funny.

Dammit Santa, next year don't bring so many damn presents.

Santa Claws

Tonight Tam and I wrapped presents from Santa - a rediculous amount of gifts. Fourteen for Adrienne alone and that doesn't count the stocking suffers. I really don't like the excess that we are teaching our kids that they will consider the norm.

We watched the Hangover 2- not as good as the first ont, but nonetheless funny.

Kids are at Mimi's.

Big Assed Red oak

I paid a tree company $900 to fell a very large red oak that was fairly close to my house. My father was so worried about it falling on my house. I truly believe that the chances of it falling on my house anytime in the next 60+ years were almost zero. it was leaning kind of towards my house but it was completely healthy and had a very good root system. I just took it down so my father would not worry.

So my father let me borrow his chainsaws and got the chains sharpened and supplied me with gas and I cut up all the wood today. Next will be to split all of it. The scary thing is that I really enjoy doing this. there is something about manual labor and wielding a chainsaw that I like.

Getting ready for bed

Night always proves to be somewhat of a challenge. When Tamara or I announce that it is time for bed inevitably Atticus will pitch a fit and say he is hungry and that he did not get his desert. Normally we cave in but tonight I didn't. I called his bullshit on it. It is just a stall tactic because they don't like to go to bed. But we try to stick to a schedule because routine is good for kids at that age.

Adrienne has really warmed up to me over the past six months. Now she will give me kisses goodnight and hugs at any request. She asks me to play with her frequently. At nights she always wants me with her when she brushes her teeth because she says she is scared and doesn't like to be alone. She doesn't like to go downstairs at night by herself because she is scared. The same goes for London. Both the girls have me wrapped completely around their fingers as it should be. I know this stage won't last forever and I will do my best to enjoy it while it is here.

Out of School

Today London was out of school just like yesterday. She claims that she is sick and she did have a fever yesterday but she doesn't have one today. Tamara let her stay home. London was well aware that I thought she should go to school so she hid from me when I came home from Lunch. She told Tamara that I was mad at her. Being the nice father I am I hugged her and told her that I wasn't mad at her. Tamara explained to her that not wanting to go to school was not a valid reason to stay home.

Hand Foot and Mouth Disease Mouth lesion

MF Ouch

Hand Foot and Mouth Disease

Although never officially diagnosed we think that Atticus had Hand Foot and Mouth disease. Some of his classmates who sit at his table had it and then last week he got huge sores on his tongue and in his mouth along with a sore throat. His mouth hurt so badly he wouldn't talk he would just hum when he wanted something.

Now that we are back from our Thanksgiving trip I think that I might have it too. I have a huge sore on the inside of, my lower lip. It is bigger than the canker sores I get. My throat is very sore. It really hurts to swallow. On top of that, I have a blister on the back of my left hand and on the side of my right ring finger. The blisters showed up on Friday this past week and the mouth lesion and sore throat showed up on Sunday morning.

Normally adults do not get this disease unless they have a reduced or compromised immune system. I had my annual physical a week ago and my White Blood Cell count was low. The doctor suspects a viral infection so that is why I might have gotten this Hand foot and mouth if that is what I have.

What about the future for our children?

I am really concerned about what the current generation of youth will face when they become adults.

When I graduated from college it was 1990 in the middle of a recession and a lot of my friends had problems finding jobs. However, the recession soon ended and everyone I knew was fully employed. We were not competing against the Chinese or Indians for jobs. When my children graduate from college in 2025 to 2027 what is going to be waiting for them?

What will the USA look like? How can we recover from a debt that is over 100% of GDP? When congress can't or won't do anything to solve the problem what is the future? Will my children be living in my house indefinitely?

Right now this is what I worry about.

My Ride today- damn windy and not so warm.

Eastern Catawba County 25 mi Loop by thefid at Garmin Connect - Details

The things Adrienne Says

My twins are five years old. Atticus was doing something that Adrienne didn't want him to do. Here is the dialog:

Adrienne: "Stop Atticus!"
Atticus: "Why?"
Adrienne: "Because you are evil."

How lucky we are

Do you know how lucky you are to live in a place where you normally take your own personal safety for granted?

I have a good friend who is also the general manager in my business' factory in Honduras. His wife was killed in a commuter plane crash outside Tegucigalpa Honduras on February 14, 2011. Now he is living with his two daughters age 13 and 17, his sister and a maid in San Pedro Sula Honduras. I am on a business trip to Honduras that has been going pretty normally.

We normally work all day at the factory and then go out to dinner after work. My friend drops me off at the hotel and goes home for the night. Last night when he got home he found out that his maid had just been brutally raped by a security guard who works at the condo complex where my friend lives.

Now my friend is really fearful for his daughter's and sister's safety and rightfully so.

Before his wife was killed in that tragic accident, she had been receiving death threats trying to extort money from her. Honduras has become such a violent country. I have heard that it has the highest murder rate of any country in the western hemisphere. This is such a shame for such a beautiful country with loads of natural resources. Corruption rules the land here and helps to keep people in the cycle of poverty and hopelessness.

I just feel really bad for my friend who lives here and is raising his daughters here. I get to go home to my safe home and wonderful family and he along with 8 million other people in Honduras have to continually worry about their safety.

There has to be a better way.

So I am not supposed to have caffeine or at least I try not to consume caffeine because of my history with atrial fibrillation. caffeine can supposedly bring on that nasty heart arrhythmia.

The wife was kind enough to make my chocolate smoothie this morning and asked if she could put some coffee in it. I said sure.

Now I. am at work and I am tripping and it feels great.

I can understand why people get addicted to caffeine.

No more for me.

Glad to be alive

Today the family and I drove to Table Rock. It was kind of overcast and hot and when we finally got up to the parking lot there were rumblings of thunder in the distance. We started up the one mile trail that takes you to the top of the mountain and we met a hiker coming down. He told us that he had seen lighting and that he was not going to mess with being up on top of the mountain.

After a slight hesitation on my part, we continued on.

After the rocky one mile uphill hike we all arrived at the top safely and the kids really marveled at the beauty of the Linville Gorge. You could see the Linville River winding its way through the valley on its way to Lake James which you could also plainly see in the distance.

We ran into a man and his wife were we were chatting with. I was standing on a rock at the very top to Table Rock facing south and the wife and kids were sitting down right at my feet as we talked.

The sky was cloudy and we could see rain in the distance.


All of the sudden I felt the strangest sensation envelop me in a fraction of a second from behind- it was almost like a split second wind that came and went without warning. About one second after I felt that sensation we heard the unmistakeable crack of thunder which was extremely loud and extremely close. I immediately realized that I had just felt the jolt of a very nearby lighting strike. I wasn't the only one to feel it- every one else had the hair on their arms stand up and they felt it as well- but I think I got the brunt of it since I was highest on the summit. All the kids were crying and we scrambled to get down from the summit as quickly as possible.

The couple we had been talking to knew a short cut so we took that - the kids were scared shitless. We all walked down the trail back towards the parking lot with thunder clapping regularly around us. Adrienne was moving kind of slowly so I picked her up and she rode piggyback for a while then I put her on my shoulders. About 1/3 mile from the parking lot we got pounded by extremely heavy rains and the trail turned into a very swift running creek. We all got completely soaked. The nice man who we had met at the summit held Atticus' hand all the way down the trail and talked to all of us to keep us calm.

What a scary ordeal. I feel ultimately stupid for exposing my family to that kind of danger when I had a warning. You really have to respect nature and what can happen in a flash. We got very lucky today and will never forget and hopefully will make a better choice next time if ever we are in a similar situation.

Living in a sauna

Right now it's almost midnight and it is 80 degrees with 90 percent relative humidity. If I wanted to live in a sauna I would move to central america.

I really like my motorola xoom.

Font Cache?

What the hell is a font cache and why does it have to be rebuilt? I think VLC Media Player 1.1.9 has some 'splainin to do.

Vegas

I am in Las Vegas for the Clean Show and I am staying at the Vdara on the 51st floor which is pretty cool. Three days in Vegas will be more than enough. I'm heading to get some food and maybe a dip in the pool before my business partners get here.

I'm an Optic Freak

My eye doctor told me I have "interesting tiny optic nerves" which she said are of no consequence- just interesting. She said that people like me who are very nearsighted usually have large optical nerves. Humph.... As if I needed another reminder that I am a freak.

Worried....

So now I am worried because normally the wife is home by 9:00 PM when she has one of the kids. She has Atticus with her for the mother son dance. I just got a call from William and he hasn't heard from his wife either.

Friday night for losers

So I am sitting here by myself on a Friday night drinking beers and waiting for my wife and 4 year old son to return from a mother-son dance at the country club. I am watching TV which I rarely do. When I do watch TV I have to watch HD TV because SD TV is an assault to my eyes at this point. I love to watch Palladia because I love music in general.

Playing right now is a concert featuring Taylor Swift and Def Lepperd. First let me say that Def Lepperd climaxed with their High and Dry Album over 20 year ago. All their popular music since then has sucked huge donkey penis. Taylor Swift is a very attractive youngster who undoubtedly has talent. However, putting these two together produces some pretty atrociously stupid, baseless, shallow and lifeless music. The only redeeming aspect of what I am watching is Taylor Swift in her sparkling dress.

Right now Taylor is singing the first stanza to "Pour some sugar on me" which is without a doubt my least favorite Def Lepperd song. Her talents could be used in such a better manner.

"I'm hot sticky sweet- from my head to my feet." Now that is some truly deep lyrics. Someone please bring me a 3 gallon barf bucket.

Please in the name of all that is right, correct, virtuous and good, Del Lepperd please, please retire and go away so we can remember your pre-Pyromania good music.

.......... Ok as an edit to this post.. I just saw the ending credits of this Taylor Swift and Def Suckard concert and saw Taylor belting out Lepperd's "Photograph" and she did an awesome damn job. She actually redeemed the song. Much better than Joe Smelliot ever could have done. I think that is what Def Lepperd needs.. some infusion of what they originally felt in their first two alubms... youth.. .energy and a complete set of limbs...

Okay now I am hitting low but I am now hearing their son Rockit which is so bad that I can't help myself from dragging them all through the shit to comment.

P90X Rediculousness

I started the P90X fitness program this past Monday. I used to be in shape but I am a worthless slug of a lump of quivering jelly flesh. After two workouts all the muscles I can feel in my body are in severe shock and feel as if they have been tenderized with a sledgehammer. I had great difficulty lifting my hands to wash my hair this morning.

I can do all of the exercises but certainly not to the quantity they ask. Like the chin ups... there must be seven or eight different chin up exercises on the leg day. What the fuck? They ask you to do 15. I can't even do ten without using my leg on a chair to give me some help.

This reminds me of how out of shape I am. I will power through it.

U.S. Citizens. Get some perspective

My 15 hour flight from Shanghai to Newark was delayed for unknown reasons by two hours. As a result I missed my connection in Newark. Continental was kind enough to comp me a room at the Ramada a short 5 minute shuttle ride away from the airport. Well, apparently the Ramada was full so the shuttle bus driver from the Radisson informed me and my fellow travelers that we were now going to the Radisson.

What he didn't tell us was that the Radisson was a 30 minute ride away from the airport. It was all the way in Somerset, NJ. By the time I got to the hotel it was about 11:00 PM.


After I got settled in I went downstairs for dinner and drinks. Over a few beers, I started talking with two other guys who were in the same situation as me. They had sat on an airplane in Cleveland on the ground for four hours and missed their flight to Beirut via Geneva.

One of the men named Lee was born in Lebanon and when he was six years old his mother sent him to live with his Aunt in Cleveland. He looks like he is in his mid 20s and is a respiratory therapist. He was returning home to see his family. His parents brother and sister all live in Lebanon. He makes the journey once every two years and he stays for two weeks. He says two weeks is plenty for him.

His mother has issues (understandably so) that she sent her son to live on the other side of the world but Lee is very thankful that his mother gave him that opportunity. He feels fortunate to have two families- his aunt raised him like her own son so he feels that in effect he has two mothers.

Sam, the other Lebanese man was older- maybe my age about 40. He was traveling with his wife and two children and were on the same flight from Cleveland. He was obviously a business man but I did not find out what his profession is. He too was born in Lebanon and moved at a young age to Cleveland where his family owned several Love's convenience stores.

The conversation turned from China to politics. They shared with me their perspective on the Israel/Palestinian situation. From what they told me, most of the Arab world would be satisfied if Israel simply gave back the land they captured during the 1967 war. According to Sam it is that simple- the majority of the Arab population is moderate and will accept a two-state solution to the problem as long as Israel relinquishes the land they won in that war.

It is so important for us as U.S. citizens to realize that the world is not like us. We are so fortunate yet most of us don't realize it. Everyone should be required to travel the world to a developing country to understand and gain a perspective on the rest of the world. We as Americans are boxed in what becomes a unrealistic representation of the rest of the globe. We are enclosed in this box by our everyday miles and the media. We are subjected to the political pandering and infighting that makes us think that the flaws of our country are beyond what we should live with.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Go live in a developing world. Deal with their culture and government. Wake up! We have it beyond good. The sad part about it all is that collectively as a country we don't realize this. We go on living our daily lives and nothing changes. If we don't wake up and realize that our way of life is so far removed from most of the rest of the population of the world we risk losing everything our forefathers worked so hard to build. We are in danger of losing our way of life.

Wake up Americans. Wake up Congress. Get investment pouring back into the United States. Lower corporate tax rates so multinational companies keep profits in the USA instead of sheltering them where the taxes are less.

I am so afraid for my children and my grandchildren. Because of the way we are living today their world will be much more difficult. I feel that one of the most important ways for us as a nation to get a grasp on this and start changes is to travel. Get out experience what the other cultures are doing- how they live and why they do what they do.

Jetlagged in Japan

13 hour flight from Houston to Narita Japan. It has been almost 24 hours since I have slept. I have another 6 hour flight to Ho Chi Minh city. It is going to be 10:00 tonight before I meet the people in Vietnam.

It is not doing any good for me go be sitting here blogging. I am just about to fall asleep.

Tattoos

Tattoos are cool if your tastes, maturity and body never change.

Splitfinger roks da Artist's Café

So my brothers were in town and we cut up a bunch of wood until the log splitter crapped out. We crowned off the evening by taking our significant others out to Newton's local and only descent watering hole. A band by the name of Splitfinger was playing. They made for a great fun evening. They played a lot of Journey tunes- Kansas, Play that Funky Music White boy, etc. If you grew up in the 1980's you will love this band. They nailed all the tunes precisely! They also had the obligatory drunk girlfriend/roadie grooving to the tunes and dirty dancing with just about any willing partner.

So if you live in Catawba County you need to check out the Artist's Café - they probably are the best place in the county to see live music.

Kids say the darndest.....

Attitude I am getting from London our seven year old daughter: "You don't love us equally. You love her a lot more than me."..... "Daddy are fairies real? I think you might be the tooth fairy."

We were at my parent's house on Saturday with my four year old twins Adrienne and Atticus. My nieces and nephew was there. When it was time to go Adrienne pitched on holy fit not wanting to leave. Crying and running and hiding from me. We finally get home and I put her in bed. She says to me "Come on man... get out of here and leave me alone!"

Coughing Bullshit

I can't stop freaking coughing. There is a tickle in the back of my throat that won't go away. I cough and cough and it is always unproductive. I have to be up and ready to leave in less than five hours. Sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks.

The worst Valentines Day

Part I:
So I got back from the trip this morning about 1:00 AM and couldn't go to sleep until about 2:00 AM. I slept on the sofa downstairs so as not to wake Tamara with my persistent coughing and hacking. In the morning London and Atticus came downstairs to see me with big hugs and kisses. I could tell they were excited to see me and they wanted to know if i had brought them presents. I finally motivated my sick ass off the sofa and up the stairs.

I saw Adrienne in the hallway- she just walked right passed me and didn't even acknowledge me until I said "Hello Adrienne" She then said "Hi Daddy" and went about her business- no hug - nothing. That is just the way she is. I am sure she loves me but she is just different and shows it in a different manner than the other two.

Part II:
Tamara London and I went to the doctor since we are all sick. I had received a text message from an old friend from Honduras that I didn't understand and sent a message back saying so. At the doctor's office I got a text clarification of her question. It turns out that I find out that a commercial airplane crashed in Honduras killing all 14 aboard. The wife of the general manager of my factory in Honduras was on the plane. I have not been able to talk to him. This is horrible news. They have two young teenage daughters. So very tragic.

Feeling better

My fever broke this morning about 3:00 AM. I began to sweat profusely and within an hour I was feeling better. My throat still hurts, my voice is several octaves deeper and I am coughing frequently with plenty of phlegm that is brown in color. Thank god I flew first class and I was a little more comfortable.

I have been popping 400 mg of ibuprofen every 6 hours to keep the fever down. I hopefully just took my last dose.

I feel good enough to go to work tomorrow but my flight doesn't land in CLT until 11:40 tonight so I won't get home until about 1:00 AM. I always have to wind down after a trip like this. So I am going to be tired tomorrow.

Sickness Sucks

I am in beautiful Wyoming for a skiing trip and I am sick as hell- fever, headache, chest congestion, coughing and chills. I got to ski two days and I missed today. Being sick really sucks.

Atrial Fibrillation

I went into what I believe is atrial fibrillation today about 4:00 pm. It has been over three years since my second ablation surgery and it is back. This really, really, really sucks.

Most kind Beer

I normally don't pray, but I might be able to muster one "amen" for The Reverened.

One of the best damn beers I've had. The 10% alcohol content doesn't hurt. Score one for Avery Brewing Company. Thank you for helping me to relax after a frustrating night of trying to install LED accent lighting made by some cheap Chinese company. Now if I just didn't have to go to work tomorrow or get the kids to school. I guess that is what the past two weeks were for.

Cheers.