lolcats 17

Back by popular demand. lolcats

Recovered

I think I'm pretty much recovered. The doctor put me on some new medicine and took me off the other and I'm feeling much better. Sometimes illness just creeps up slowly until there is no doubt that there is something wrong. Most of my life I've just self medicated with good results and after this latest bout I'm considering going back to it.

It wasn't just the physical aspect, but losing ones ability to focus and engage in normal mental processes is the most frightning and debilitating part of being ill. I have new respect for people who suffer depression and other similar ailments.

I want to thank each of you for your concern and kind words that you relayed during my absence.

I found this the other day and thought it was pretty cool.

Checking in

I discovered recently that I developed a bad reaction to one of the medications I've been on.

Every day for the past month I've felt like hammered dogshit. (no pun intended) That coupled with a nagging persistent cough that often made me pass out, I wasn't much in the mood for blogging.

Luckily, I figured it out on my own and have spent the last week or so recovering as that medicine leaves my system.

Now that I'm feeling better, I'll be back around to visit everyone.

I'll be offline for a bit.

Flatulating feline

It isn't much, but for some reason it just cracks me up.

Mothers day

I hope all you moms out there a great Mothers day.

I picked up some flowers and candy, The kids made cards and poems to give their mom.

I got up this morning and made 2 slabs of ribs and we went to my nephews house for a pool party. When I got there I steamed 2 pounds of crab legs with an old propane turkey fryer.

The kids played with their cousins and the rest of us just sat around and visited.

I'm not much into swimming, I usually only do it at the coast or at a hotel pool.

We also hung out with my nephew's in laws. They treat me, my wife and kids better than our own family. It's good to hang out with down to earth decent folks.

The funniest moment was when a friend of the family who's a trucker was telling us how to deal with "Lot Lizards". He said he got so tired of them knocking on the door of his truck, that he had to find a way to get some sleep. The trick he uses is to drop a wadded up paper towel outside his window so they think that he's already "done" for the night.

This was so funny because, he was explaining this to my baptist mother in law who has never been exposed to anything in her life. She had no idea what he was talking about and I wasn't about to spell it out.

Cow award

Matt-Man over at Bagwime ruminations honored me with a cow award.

Thanks Matt-Man!

Money is usually a powerful incentive.

With gas currently pushing $3.69 per gallon it costs about $99 to fill my truck from empty.

I just can't do it. I just go to the cheapest gas station close by and put $20 worth of regular unleaded. It's not even a quarter of a tank but it keeps me going.

When I do have to drive, I try to plan all my errands so that I don't ever have to double back.

Unnecessary trips..forget it. I can do without.

I used to show up 20 min early to pick up the kids from school so I could read my book in the car. Idling while using the AC was sucking up way too much gas, so now I show up just in time.

While driving on the freeway, I get in the slow lane and keep it at 55 miles per hour.

I can double my gas mileage by taking it slow and easy.

Racing around dodging in and out of traffic just to get there 5 min faster is not worth it.

I don't blame the oil companies. Gas is high due to market forces and government refusal to allow more refineries and drilling in protected habitats. There are also lots of regular people who have some of their retirement or stock in these companies. So it's not just a big fat cat in a suit with a cigar pocketing all our money. What's good for big business is good for everyone. When big oil makes money, they hire more people and quite a bit of that money is reinvested into our economy.

I'm not a environmentalist in the traditional sense. I firmly believe that the only time people truly conserve resources is when it directly affects their pocket book.

I still see most people driving 80mph in their SUV's, sports cars burning rubber and racing on the freeways so apparently gas isn't expensive enough for the majority to change their driving habits.

Kids...

The other day my son was on the school playground at recess. He saw a much bigger child pushing his little sister down. She's in the first grade and he's in fifth. My son went up to the bully and said "Keep away from my sister punk!" The bully ran up and told my daughter's teacher that he was being picked on by a 5th grader.

The teacher confronted my son and he told her what had happened on the playground. The teacher looked to my daughter and asked:

"Is it true that this little boy pushed you down and your brother came to help?"

My daughter replied: "No teacher, my brother is lying"

So my son gets written up for bullying a 1st grader.

When my daughter was walking to the car I noticed that there was one kid on the sidewalk that she wouldn't get within 50 feet of, even with me standing right there. I asked her why she was so afraid of that kid.. she wouldn't answer me.

When my son got in the car he was very upset and told me what happened.

It took me about 20 minutes to get the truth out of her. She was so terrified of this boy that she sold out her own brother. I'm thinking, where the hell are the teachers when all this shit is happening?

So anyway, I told her that she had to go to school and tell the teacher that she lied and that the kid did in fact bully her.

I really didn't think she would follow through, but she did. I asked her what happened to the bully. She told me "The teacher yelled at him a lot and sent him to the principal and we didn't see him all day.

The funny thing is that I know this bully, he runs his household and even has his mother and aunt cowering in fear...of a first grader!

Even funnier is, that after the bully was chastised for his actions he did not go to school for a week and now his mother personally escorts him from the classroom to the car. Isn't that the way it always is? The bullies are coddled little sociopaths that can do no wrong.

Random goings on

I've really been cutting back on dining out. It's a huge waste of money and there really isn't much good around here. Basically, it's just dragging myself and the kids to some mediocre joint with mediocre food and shelling out $60 each time. It is starting to make me grumpy. I can take $60 and make steaks, potatoes, fresh vegetables, hot bread and even wine. There are plenty of leftovers and ingedients for future meals as well.

So, I've been cooking at home a lot. It's much less stressful and the kids like learning to cook.

With grocery prices up more than 30%, I decided no more junk food, no more name brand chips and crackers, no more $8 for a six pack of regular beer. I'm buying basic foodstuffs and making food from scratch. To tell you the truth, it's really not that much harder than opening a box and boiling water.

Luckily, before I quit to take care of the kids, we reduced our debt to house and cars only. We can get along fine on one income but there is no good reason to toss money away in this kind of economic climate.

I'm trying to teach my kids about politics. They see and hear all this shit going on and are pretty confused by it. I tell them it's easy.

Democrats want to take away your money and the right to choose how to run your own life. They want to rob from the producers and give it to the non-producers. They want us to give up the standard of living that we have worked so hard to attain because of some nonsense about global warming. They also want to criminalize speech they disagree with.

Republicans are almost the same but they want to do it more slowly.

I'll tell you what, I can't wait for all these military personnel to come home from Iraq and get into politics. They know what they've been fighting for and against for 5 years and should have some pretty good ideas on how to fix the shitty mess we've gotten ourselves into.

In other news...

We're having problems with teachers again. My oldest daughter who has a learning disability was placed in the class of a brand new teacher who refuses to follow the IEP (Individual education plan) That we set up.

Everytime we call a meeting and ask her why our daughter failed 3 tests in a row and hasn't finished any classwork. This teacher makes up some story about how our daughter is constantly in the restroom or at the school nurse for some fake problem.

We ended up calling the school nurse and the teaching assistant to ask if this was true. Nope. All lies. My daughter has been to the nurse 4 times all year and each time with a fever.

My wife and I were ready to sue the school and have our daughter moved. However, this stupid teacher falsified the records and gave my daughter straight As for the year in order to cover her tracks. She has since has been fired and the school has promised to do anything we want.

During this time, we have taken my daughter to a doctor to try to discover what particular learning disability we were dealing with. After a battery of tests and a slew of specialists, they've determined that the 2nd story fall that my daughter endured before she was put in state care, damaged the part of her brain that controls verbal skills and short term memory.

Fortunately, not unlike a stroke victim, my daughter has developed ways to cope and her brain has re-routed itself so that she compensates by having extremely fast visual comprehension.

For example, when shown two pictures and is asked to find the differences, she finishes 5 times faster than anyone else. When she's shown a picture for a brief moment, she can describe every minute detail from memory... It's amazing to witness.

So this doctor is going to go to our next school meeting with her findings and will make sure my daughter gets placed in the proper program and is given the right resources.

Did I mention that my daughters doctor sits on the school board? Hehehehehe.

Pissed.

Someone took the nice apartments down the street from me and turned them into Section 8 housing. Now my really nice clean neighborhood is innudated by dirty jobless scumbags wandering around at all hours. I have to walk my kids into school now because the bums cut across the school grounds to get to the bus stop and drink their 40 of malt liquor. It fucking sucks.

Before 6 months ago, there was none of this. Now I have to listen to pounding (C)rap music rattling my windows at night as they case the houses in my subdivision for future robberies.

I had to buy a locking cas gap because some scumbag mother fucker was getting me for 5 gallons every other night. The mileage indicator in my truck went from 20mpg to 5mpg..Now that my precious fuel is under lock and key the pilferage has stopped.

I've lived in this quiet clean community for 10 years and now it's heading into the shitter because some asshole decided to let the shiftless, worthless crackhead bums have free housing next to my kid's school.

I think it's time to get out before my property values plummet.

$100 reward for the return of a $4,000,000 Violin

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354244,00.html

Adding to his distress: The violin valued at $4 million was on loan from
philanthropists Clement and Karen Arrison, of Buffalo, N.Y.
After calling 911 and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Quint was soon in the offices of the Newark Taxi Commission viewing photographs of taxis.Khalil had parked his cab for the night, not knowing that people were trying desperately to find it. After he got word the next morning, Khalil arranged to meet Quint again. Once reunited with the violin, the musician gave the driver $100.

Oh yeah, and he gets tickets to see the cheapskate play... whoopty freakin
doo. I bet the insurance company is trying to unpucker it's collective asshole about now.

This is about the 3rd missing multi-million dollar intrument left on a train or taxi this year.

And another thing... 911 ignores a college student being murdered but a missing violin puts the frigging city on lockdown.

Who calls 911 for a violin anyway?

It boggles my mind.

PC issues

Not mine but crazy huh?

I took my computer apart but out of the 5 fans in there I couldn't figure out which one was doing the intermittent squealing and chattering. I smacked it around a bit and it's quiet for now.

I'm one of those people that cannot leave something alone when it's bugging me. I've got the PC propped up with the cover off and I'm waiting for it to make the gerbil sound again.

I really hate working on computers, they never seem to go easy. I built this one myself 2 years ago and it's been pretty good so far but it's getting to the age where big things start crapping out.

I built this current machine for high end gaming but I got into blogging instead. It's like having a Lamborghini as a grocery getter. Maybe next time I'll won't get those nerdy stars in my eyes when they show me all those crazy high end video and sound cards that I'll never use or need.

Friday fun (not work safe)

My computer is making a noise not unlike Richard Gere's gerbil collection so I'll be offline while I tear it apart and figure out what's wrong.

I just saw this episode last night and couldn't stop laughing.

I didn't know getting high on cat pee was such an epidemic.

Amazing

Man regrows part of severed finger with "pixie dust"

Article here

With the help of an experimental powder, a man’s severed finger has regrown to its original length in just four weeks, reports London’s Daily Mail.
Lee Spievack, of Cincinnati, who sliced almost half an inch off the top of one of his fingers, described the powder as “pixie dust,” according to the newspaper.
The “pixie dust” is actually extra-cellular matrix, bursting with collagen and is made from a dried pig’s bladder, the newspaper reports.

The dust was designed to regenerate damaged ligaments in horses, the Daily Mail said.Collagen is known to give skin strength and elasticity. It is thought that the dust kick-starts the body's natural healing process by sending out signals that mobilize the body's own cells into repairing the damaged tissue, according to the newspaper.
Spievack said his finger even has a fingernail and fingerprint.
tissues to grow fresh instead of forming a scar.