What's been happening

I haven't posted in a while so here are some nice little bullets of the past few weeks or so.

• Saw the Descendants with S.  I thought it was a really good movie.  I still say that 50/50 is the best movie and Joseph Gordon Levitt was robbed of an Oscar nod but Clooney was really good in this, and more so the interactions with the daughters and their performances.  3.5/5 stars.

• Addy was sick this last week with what was a little bronchitis.  It sucked having her sick.  Especially with her missing her Valentines party.  She still got them from her classmates but she missed the party.

• On top of that I had a nice little trip to the ER.  I started experiencing chest pains and tightness Tuesday night at 930, went to bed and fell asleep.  I woke up about 90 minutes later with a lot of pain in my chest.  It felt like a boulder on my chest with a knife in my heart. I drove myself to the ER and go hooked up to an all the cords.  I got my first IV and had blood drawn, and had an EKG and then X-Rays.  Had some high blood pressure but everything else turned out ok.  It ended up being something muscular and skeletal.  I got some nice pain killers and something shot up my IV.  After 2 days off work I was ready to get back.

Happy 1 year old!

• Saturday my youngest daughter Ryleigh, turned 1.  1!  Where the hell did the year go?  We had a previous outing with S's family at Hickory Park, unfortunately they couldn't make it Saturday at the Tavern.  So my family showed up there and we had a good time.  Ryleigh had a cupcake and seemed to have a good time.

• At work Friday my supervisor had her last day.  She's been a great boss and got me 2 promotions.  That was a real nice surprise when I got that news.  Friday we had a going away thing at the Chicken Coop.  Had a good time there, and then Monday we had our new boss.  It will all go ok, but day 1 started out with my computer getting fried and spending 2 hours on the phone with the help desk.  Like I said it will get better!

That's about it.  

Best and Worst of the Weekend - Steele Stole it!

Well the weekend wasn't what I expected going into it Friday Night.  This weekend at work I had a program upgrade going through for what I'm the admin of.  Friday monring on a call there was mention of a chance of being here till 1-3am.  My jaw dropped.  I hadn't packed an over night bag.  Luckily things went well and I only was here till 815pm.  Got outta here and home in time to watch some of Missouri-Arizona State.

 

Saturday I had to be back at work.  It was also the annual Iowa-Iowa State football game.  No I didn't plan the date it was going in.  I would have rather it been a week earlier.  But I get into work and saw my comptuer screen....gotta love technology.  My computer crashed.  Thankfully I had a second machine and was able to get in and do my testing, until it crashed!  All while the Hawks and Clones are kicking off (more on that later).  But really, I have 2 machines and they both go down?  Currently I'm waiting on a ticket for both to get fixed.

 

On to the game.  Not gonna recap it all, you can check out the boxscore/recap for that, but got home, had lunch watching the game and then headed to a party for the end of it.  The Hawks just looked flat, and why it happens at ISU and not when the game is at Kinnick I don't know.  The Hawks continued to run the ball into 8 man fronts.  Check down and hit the TE or something.  And where was James Morris?  I don't think I heard his name all day.  McNutt was quiet too, but was recieving a lot of attention.  The Hawks couldn't get enough pressure on Jantz and he made the plays when he needed too.  Why Iowa State won.  They won and they deserve the credit.

 

For Hawk fans calling for change or Ferentz's head.  Calm down.  It's one game.  He's not going to change, its worked for him for 13 years now?  You should be used to it.  If you need to understand why he doesn't change, check out this hardware!  Relax.  Move on to Pitt.

 

 

Saturday evening Addy had a picnic/movie night for her school at a park.  It was pretty fun.  Got to talk to some people, the kids ran and ran.  Finally watched Tangled on a big 30 foot screen.  Funny movie, another winner for the Mouse.

 

Saturday Night when we got home I watched the end of Michigan-Notre Dame.  Thanks Irish and Wolverines for saving the best for last.  Damn that was an amazing game! 

 

Sunday was filled with Laundry, the BEARS destorying the falcons, and more laundry.  Yes the Bears suprised me a bit here.  I didn't think we had a chance but they did well.  The D was ferocious.

 

Ryleigh is now crawling really good, she's got her groove on with it and is rolling.  Kinda cool to see but yet, the past 6 months have flown by! 

 

This week starts a full fledged no time week.  The kids have things going on most every day of the week.  Addy has Cheernastics, Capoeria, Swim, Girl Scouts.  Ryleigh has swim and Brayden has Football this saturday!  He's pretty pumped and I just hope he realizes its flag football and doesn't go Bob Sanders on a kid. 

 

Finally this coming week my sister and her family are coming up from Memphis.  Haven't seen them in a year or so, so that will be fun! 

Best and Worst – Cubs/Braves – Travel fun & More

Haven’t done this in a while so time to throw one up…gonna span a couple weeks.

Addyson performed last Saturday (13^th) at the Iowa State Fair for her tumbling/dance class.  This a few days after her brother knocked her front tooth out.  She did really good and we got to spend a day at the fair.  Always fun, always busy.  Got the new Iowa poster, one for me and one for my son.  My son wanted it up on his wall when we got home.  After 7 hours they were spent (and me too).  Then Shawnna and I went out to eat at Joe’s Crab Shack.  We had a couple good drinks, a Shark Bite and a Twisted Cherry Limeade.  Shawnna has since tried to recreate the limeade at home.

Also last weekend (14-16) I was lucky enough to travel to Atlanta for a conference for work.  I got down there at 9 am on Sunday morning.  A buddy, Ferg, picked me up and took me to a small restaurant (Thumbs Up) for a great breakfast.  Spent 8 bucks for food that would have been enough for 2.  I don’t think I could have bought a meal like that in Iowa for that much.  I had southwestern eggs.  It was half a plate of fried tators, peppers and onions, then 2 huge breakfast burritos loaded with scrambled eggs, black beans, bacon, sausage and topped with pico de gaulo and guacamole.  I ate maybe 60% of the meal, it was huge and good. 

Somehow also I ended up sitting in like cream from a cinnamon roll and had that stuff all over my ass.  Me only packing one pair of shorts, we had to make a run to Target and I got a 2^nd pair of shorts.  We then went to meet up with some of Ferg’s coworkers and head to Turner Field for the Cubs-Braves game.  Arriving at Turner we saw the old torch that was used in the 1996 Olympics.  The wall from old Fulton County Stadium, they also have the bases painted in the parking lot and a spot marked where Hank Aaron’s record breaking homer landed.

We tailgated for 2 hours before the game, and I purposely wore my Hawkeye hat, and got a half a dozen “Go Hawks”.  We wandered into the game during the first and the Stadium looks really nice.  There are a hand full of statues that we got pictures with (hopefully I’ll get copies of them soon). We sat out in right field for the first half of the game, and then headed behind home plate for the 2^nd half of the game.  I drunk tweeted a few pics during the game.  The Cubs fell behind 4-0, but came back to win 6-5.  They also stopped Dan Uggla’s hit streak at 33 that day, a play that included a great diving catch from Darwin Barney.

The work conference was fun and interesting.  I went down with 2 others from Wells.  Meet them later after the game.  The hotel, the Intercontinental Buckhead was really really nice!  I finally got to put names with faces of others that I call and talk to what sometimes feels like a daily basis and also meet some other people who use the program we use and had some really good discussions.  Also meet a lot of other people at the evening events that were fun too.  Over all a great time…till the flight home.

My flight was supposed to be leaving Atlanta at 5 get in Minneapolis at 7 and 3 hour layover till 10pm flight to Des Moines.  Um….yea, that didn’t happen.  Flight delayed what the airport said was going to be an hour…yea it was like 2 hours.  Once on the plane…I don’t think I’ve had that much fun in a while.  I sat by two ladies from Canada going to Minneapolis for the gymnastics championships (you read that right, they flew Toronto-Atlanta-Minneapolis).  They were older, prob 40-50….and we laughed the whole time.  They were hilarious.  If you’ve seen Bridesmaids, one of them had the same sense of humor that the lady who plays Molly on “Mike & Molly” has in that movie.  So we were cracking up.  And we needed too because when we landed in Minneapolis in a rain storm at 9 we were stuck on the tarmac 100 ft from our gate for an HOUR.  We couldn’t hit the gas a little and roll up to it because of lightning.  That sucked.  My 3 hour layover turned into me running for my gate at another concourse.  My flight to Des Moines though was thankfully delayed. We left at 1045.  Funny thing on my flight back to Des Moines is I sat by a millionaire, the owner of Van Wyk trucking, and a handful of banks, some storage companies among others.  But what is also interesting is he knows my banker, and also worked with my uncle in my hometown (of 500) back in the 50s/60s.  Small world.  So I got home at midnight, worked 50 hours that week and that was without working on Friday. 

Friday I was off and supposed to take my boy to Adventureland to play since last time we were supposed to go, we didn’t since he got sick.  BUT 2 temper tantrums later he wasn’t going and he was back to preschool.  I’ve learned you can’t reward that bad behavior.  Hopefully next time he’ll learn.  And one thing we’ve done with him is from a book called 1-2-3 Magic.  With that his temper, reactions and listening has really improved.  Go check it out fellow parents.  So my Friday was spent relaxing! 

Friday night my daughter had her first “real” sleepover with a friend she went to preschool with.  Her and her friend have a blast all the time, it’s too bad they don’t go to school together anymore.  Saturday my son had his first “real” birthday party to go to with a friend from preschool and some other kids that go there.  It was at a nice little park in Lakewood.  He loved it because he could throw rocks into the lake.  Sunday we spent the day outside, mowing and playing and riding bikes.  I fixed the wheels on my grill and overall just a good day. 

This coming week we start school, the kids go to grandma & grandpas so hopefully it goes quick!

And Iowa High School Football started!  Too bad I started 5-4.  Valley beat Dowling in a classic in that series. 

Now for the bad.  Little Ryleigh has an ear infection and is teething.  IT SUCKS!  She’s 6 mos old and can’t express herself without crying and squirming and not eating or sleeping.  We got some meds for her and she’s been ok the past 12 hours.  Still a little fussy.

Also out of my realm…what the hell is going on in the world of sports?  Fights busting loose in Candlestick Ball Park?  I love going to games but this is a shame.  It’s not just happening in San Francisco, it’s all over on college campuses and pro cities.  It makes me wonder about taking my kids to a game.  I don’t want to put them in that environment.  It’s sad…and thankfully the experience at home and TV in HD has gotten so good you don’t have to go to enjoy it.

Then there’s the “NEW” CyHawk trophy that was unveiled last Friday at the State Fair by the “NEW” rivalry sponsor Iowa Corn.  First off you don’t need a fricken sponsor for a rivalry, rivalries aren’t built on sponsorships.  I can’t stand that. You’ll never see Floyd of Rosedale changed or sponsored by Hormel or Oscar Meyer (at least I hope not).  With that being said the old trophy is well cheap looking, but it has some history and has something to do to with FOOTBALL and the game.  The new trophy revealed with a family of farmers has NOTHING to do with the game other than the scores on the base.  It has drawn scorn from all over the state and country with the Govenor, Hayden Fry and ESPN chimming in.  One paper from Oklahoma said it’s a terrible trophy but at least the sports world knows Iowa-ISU now play for a trophy.  Today (Tues Aug 23) Iowa Corn has a press conference to discuss all the backlash the new trophy has brought.  Hopefully it gets changed.  And please, please Iowa-Nebraska Heroes trophy, learn something here…don’t mess up. 

So this is kind of a book but had a time to cover. 

And the loser dad of the week goes too....

So this week I feel like I get a bad dad award. Last week I had talked to them about taking them to Clear Lake for a couple days and hanging out at my aunt & uncles and playing on the beach, and swimming and boat rides and all the fun stuff that goes along with Clear Lake. I’m not going to be able to get them there a whole week like I got when I was young, but a couple days and they are happy and it’s fun to get away too.

Well Monday morning I was planning on leaving after work and taking them up. Something at work didn’t go right in our testing, so that got pushed back to leaving a half day Tuesday and going up then coming home Wednesday evening. Tuesday I get into work and déjà vu happens. Not leaving work early.

Tuesday when I went to pick up my daughter from preschool, I told her and it was one of the worst feelings telling her that we weren’t going. Right away her lip pops out and then eyes swell up. Then the wife tells me when she picked up my son, he kept asking her, “where are we going? Are we going somewhere?” yea that made me feel better!

The only thing that could make it up is that I’m hopefully going to be able to get them up there in August for a couple days. I really hope work doesn’t get in the way because it sucks when they are looking forward to something like this so much then because of work it falls through. We also played candyland and I made homemade blizzards to try to smooth everything over.

So if there is a bad dad award, or most disappointing award or loser of the week award, I’m sure I’m a nominee.

Allergies blow…..

So the past 2 weeks have been rough, physically, mentally and emotionally. Work has been really busy with Wachovia Conversion, program updates and well just busy and taxing mentally and wearing me down. On top of that, allergies are kicking my butt the past 2 weeks. Sneezing and itching eyes and everything else that comes with it is just adding to wearing me down. Really hurting too on me trying to wake up at 445 in the AM to go work out. I was only there 2 days a last week and will be 2 days this week. I need to get my butt going all week next week, otherwise Dam to Dam is going to kick my butt. I am still losing weight though. Weighed in at 198 today. For those who aren’t reading and scoring at home, that is 32 pounds and 13.91% percent lost. So the emotional part involved my wife’s grandfather passing away. It’s been rough and has made us think a lot more about our families, and kids and where we are. Hopefully we will be following through on what we discussed. Softball practice tonight, please rain stay away!!