BK4Life

Wifey and I used to do a really good job of planning a menu for the week and then going on a big grocery trip with Little Man on Sundays. In the past 2 months we have fallen off the meal-planning wagon. This has led to a few different problems.

Problem the 1 st: Many a trip to the grocery store to pick up ingredients here and there. We are going to the local grocery store (luckily at the bottom of our street) about 4 times a week. Instead of one looong trip where we walk the entire store and get a ton of groceries, we are constantly running to and fro.

Problem the 2 nd: We end up getting fast food too much. Besides the relative lack of nutrition associated with the food that is fast, there is also the cost per person financially for the partaking of the neatly wrapped hand held fatty, salty, sugary foodstuffs. I am not sure you, dear readers, are quite aware of just how unhealthy fast food is. Oh wait, you may also not realize that the sky during a non-cloudy day happens to be a light blue, or that humans need air to breathe. Regardless of what you are or are not aware of, fast food is not what we want to base our health upon.

Problem the 3 rd: We are falling into a rut of expedient eating at home. We are making the same things over and over and over and over and over. I think even Little Man is getting tired of the same old meals coming across his plate. We have 4 or 5 really solid cookbooks that we used to draw upon to come up with some kick-ass dinners. Since we are just piecing meals together at the last second, we are making the things that we have memorized or just making it up as we go. These 2 methods are not bad, but they should not be the only methods.

Problem the 4 th: There are no left-overs that I want to bring to work with me. Since we are making the same meals over and over and over and over, I am tired of the typical. I need some interest. This causes me to eat out for lunches way too often. I enjoy the people that I happen to lunch with, but it is waaay too costly to eat with those jokers on a daily basis.

What I am getting at with these 4 problems is that I have no idea what Little Man and I will be having for dinner tonight. Wifey, conveniently, has a meeting this evening that has food. Most likely it is foods that will aggravate her tumor which in turn will punch her gall bladder in the proverbial “jimmy” causing her mush discomfort, but she will not have to figure out what to have for dinner. She is ever so lucky. Ever so. I will, on the other hand, be trying to convince Little Man that he wants a hamburger made by yours truly instead of a clown or a plastic monarch.

Who knew the King was “street?”

To recap:
Staring at a blank Word document does not help a post get written
Especially when I have only allotted 20 minutes to create a post for today
I am afraid, dear readers, that inspiration does not work on a timetable
Schedule it all I want and things won’t necessarily fall into place
I don’t like running
I don’t like scissors
And yet…

pitiful... just pitiful

I woke up this morning to a flash of lightning and a peel of thunder. Is it s “peel” of thunder? Hang on a sec… Nope it is “peal.” My bad… Anyway, it seems that spring is attempting to make a play here in Ohio. Sure we still have some mounds of ice from the last winter storm, but it is gray and rainy again, the hallmark of a central Ohio spring. Oddly, it is also the hallmark of a central Ohio fall. Go figure. It is surprising that central Ohio is not known for being more marshy. On a side note, Word wants me to replace “more marshy” with “marshier, “ but you know what? Word ain’t the boss of me! Word! YoYo. I am street like that. No really.

Anyway… I got nothing. One would think that I could muddle through 4 topics a week. Sweet Jebus! I actually only need to come up with three cogent topics since I instituted 20 Questions Tuesdays 31 weeks ago. Is my life that boring? I can only come up with 3 topics. Oh, Good Lord! Yesterday’s topic was just about Little Man ailing. So in actuality, I am only able to come up with 2 topics a week. Heck, this post was just going to be a stream of consciousness post, but I couldn't even do that. Sheesh, that is just pitiful.

To recap:
This is the fourth post I have started today
Sadly, it is the best one
That is why I kept it
I hope DC United and the Houston Dynamo win tonight
That would be great for MLS
Have a great weekend everyone
Maybe next week I will have some topics
Anyone think of any topics?
Anyone…

Sapper

The good thing about not making any New Year’s resolutions is that I can’t feel disappointed in myself when I haven’t broken any in the first week. Yep, so far I have not broken any of the resolutions that I did not make. That’s the thing about goals: if one aims low enough, one can only be pleasantly surprised. With resolutions there is nothing lower than… ummm… nothing. Even a negative resolution is still a resolution. “I will smoke more cigarettes a week” is still a resolution. It is neither a good nor a healthy one, but it is still a resolution. The mere fact that one has resolved themselves to do something makes it a resolution. I, however, have not resolved to do anything, and, by gum, I have not done anything yet this year. Just ask Wifey.

Many people think that resolutions are made to be broken. That is why a few people I know resolved to make no resolutions. The irony was not lost on them, in fact, it was their point. They are very ironic in their extremely predictable ways. Sometimes people make resolutions to which they know they cannot hold, quitting smoking, for example, or “getting fit” (whatever the hell that means). Oftentimes these people couple these “insurmountable” resolutions with ones they actually could attain (drinking 64 fl oz {1.9 L} of water a day, for example) just so when they fail at the really hard one, they can give up on the reasonable ones. Self-fulfilling prophesy at its finest.

In recent years past, I thought that making vague resolutions would be easier. They did turn out to be easier to not accomplish. The vagaries of the non-well-defined resolutions lend themselves to quick failure. Any goal needs an implementable plan. Without a plan, the resolution is doomed to failure. “Doomed,” I say, “DOOOMED!!”

As I have stated before, numerous times, I am quite good at “nothing.” Since I am soo flipping good at nothing, I have determined that I shall resolve nothing this year. “Nothing,” I say, “NOTHING!!” The problem with resolving nothing is that when I do anything, I will have broken the resolution. Oh, the conundrum that is my tangled logic.

To recap:
It is my mom’s birthday today
I need to call her when I get home from work today
It is quite sad when the best thing you can do is nothing
Quite sad indeed
I need to come up with a topic for tomorrow’s 20 Questions Tuesday
I think Little Man is actively trying to sabotage my getting to work early
Mainly because he wants to be known as a “sapper”
Who doesn’t want to be know as a “sapper” though
Maybe I should resolve to be a “sapper?”
I could potentially be an emotional sapper
Methodically removing other people’s emotional defenses until they become blubbering piles of jelly
If I were to resolve anything this year, it would definitely be “I resolve to be an emotional sapper.”
So, tell me about your childhood…
Did I hear that there was some kind of game going on tonight?

Conversations with Zed

Nothing to post about today. So instead of writing a few paragraphs about “nothing,” I will go straight to the recap. Really, posting about nothing for me has become kind of a crutch. I have far too many times waxed eloquent about absolutely nothing. I can go on days and days about the absence of something. The concept of nothing is really a forté for me.

In my misspent college youth I actually studied some higher level math that focused almost solely on the concept of nothing, on the empty box, on the null set, I contrmplated φ for a semester, I spent quality time with the big goose egg, conversed with the Zed. I accomplished nothing for a semester, and it was good. The history of nothing, the applications of nothing, the membership of nothing, the cardinality of nothing, the cardinality of nothing, ummm the cardinality of nothing (I seem to be stuck on that one for some reason), the very existence of nothing. We looked at nothing as a concept, nothing as a construct, nothing as a logical building block. We used nothing as a foil, we used it as a basis, and we built 1 and 2 from nothing. We complimented the universe with nothing, and complemented nothing with the universe.

Honestly it was an interesting class, and when my parents asked what I learned that semester, I could look at them and in my most petulant 13 year old voice say, “Nothing!”

To Recap:
You ca say anything you want about nothing and be correct
Little Man did not want to go to pre-school today
He wanted to stay home and play trains
He went to pre-school… much to his chagrin
Grandpa R is in the hospital for stroke-like symptoms
Grandpa R and Grandma D really cannot catch a break
Google images for “nothing” suck
The section’s Holiday Hootnanny is this afternoon
Nothing says “Happy Holidays” like a Chinese buffet followed closely by bowling
I mean it. NOTHING says “Happy Holidays” quite that way
Nothing, nil, nada, zilch zip, zero, zed, rien, bumpkiss, the big goose egg, φ, null, null set…
That’s all I got without a consulting Roget
Gimme some synonyms for nothing folks, I need to replenish my lexicon
Have a great weekend

Nothing

I got nothing today, so straight to the recap.

To recap:
Nope, nothing to post today
I will attempt to stretch out the recap to make this interesting
All the sudden it feels like the office is rather warm
It is raining right now
I need new pics of Little Man on my cube wall
"Start, horny cat!" is an anagram for my name
I want to take a nap
Made Faux French Toast for dinner last night
The secret is in the Soy Sour Cream!
That’s right fake sour cream helps to make fake French toast
Mrs. Butterworth’s Lite syrup has not a bit of butter in it
Why do marketeers force words like “Lite” on us?
Little Man doesn’t really like bacon so much
I had 8.5 strips of bacon yesterday evening
I love me some bacon
Little Man does like sausage though
This weekend he ate 6 links in one sitting
4 of the 6 were going to be his mama’s
She likes sausage too
She ate 14 links in one sitting as well
She wasn’t really paying attention to how many she was eating
Her mom had 5, I had 5, and the 24 pack of sausage was gone
She didn’t feel so good that night
Needless to say she monitors her sausage intake better now
I also ate a full dozen Krsipey Kreme glazed doughnuts one time
I was just eating them without thinking and all of the sudden, my belly was rather full and there were only 2 left in the box
At that point it became a challenge
I didn’t feel so hot all the next day
Trying to find a good dairy free, egg-free recipe for cut out cookies
Must be soft, airy, and delicious
So far we have found hard, crunchy, and tasteless
Tomorrow is that day that my house goes completely digital
Time Warner people will be over to hook up our digital phones and give us a nice new DVR for our digital cable
DVR---
That King Arthur special on History International?
Recorded
That episode of Heroes that I missed because I spent an extra 30 minutes on the elliptical? Recorded
The Facts of Life Reunion show on Lifetime (don’t ask)?
Recorded
Oh, my active life has ended.
Wifey, you brought this upon yourself….
Have a great weekend everyone

Labor Day

What can I say? It is a holiday and we are holidaying. Is that a verb? Well, if not I have verbified it.

To recap:
Minimal post today
20 Questions Tuesday to be unleashed tomorrow
I cannot say that I am surprised that Steve Irwin was killed by an animal
I am surprised it was not a reptile that killed him
I am bit saddened by his passing
He was clearly a man who enjoyed life to its fullest
We need to get to the grocery store
The cupboards are bare
Well, not entirely bare
I have to get back to playing with Little Man and Wifey

I had something better

Usually during the weekend, whilst the my humdrum life boils along, 2 or 3 things happen that make me think, “Wow, now I have a topic to blog about.” Then Monday rolls around and I completely forget what the heck I had thought was so “blogworthy.” That is definitely the case for this fine Monday.

I think there were at least 3 topics this weekend that lodged in the labyrinthine passages of my noggin, only to be forgotten. I am sure, had I had a paper and pen, and I had remembered to write down the idea during their conception, you, dear reader, would be reading something inherently more amusing than this post about forgetting post topics. As it is, I must make do with the limited mental faculties I possess and post about something.

Here it goes.

The main issue with having one’s house on the market is that one’s weekends are not relaxing. Especially if one has an open house sometime during that weekend. On Saturday we had a showing during the prime I-want-to-be-at-home-on-my-couch time of the day. Then on Sunday I had to watch the World Cup Final on a not-as-nice-as-mine TV. Not that I really missed any spectacular soccer there. Crappy World Cup ending in PK’s. That just sucks. Anyway… my point is that when one’s house is on the market, one typically has to not be at home on the weekends because that is when all the working folk who are looking for houses are out looking.

Okay, I need to start writing stuff down. That was pitiful. Just plain pitiful. We are going straight to the recap.

To Recap:
I really am curious as to what was said to Zidane
Are rib-cages supposed to take that kind of a beating?
Work was a really tiring folly today
I had to get in stupid early to finish something for this afternoon
Now, I am rather tired and more than a little cranky
Zidane, a headbutt, really?!!?
It is not relaxing at all to maintain a high level of cleanliness with a near 3-yr old in the house
That doesn’t even take into effect how abjectly lazy I am
Last night, for dinner I mad Little Man a hamburger, reheated some turkey chili, some chicken tenders, and some pasta with sauce
He asked for each meal in succession
He only ate the pasta and sauce
It is the equivalent of him saying “Dance, Monkey, Dance!”
No one really expects the headbutt as a lead off
We went hiking on both Saturday and Sunday
Saturday was just Wifey and I
Sunday was all three of us
Saturday was 5.2 miles (8.37 km for my metric loving readers)
Sunday was 2.7 miles (4.35 km for my metric loving readers, again)
I am not sure what we are having for dinner tonight
But I do know it takes tomatoes
I promise, tomorrow will be a better post
I promise

Block Party

I have writer’s block pretty severely. I mean it is a bad case of it. So far I have started this entry 6 times.

Attempt 1: A post about how a middle of the week holiday sucks

So did the beginnings of that post

Attempt 2: A post waxing nostalgic about blowing up snap together models with my brother on July 5th with left over fireworks

Just could not come together

Attempt 3: The complete uselessness of fireworks

They aren’t even pretty, but they are pretty smelly

Attempt 4: How holidays without gifts are kind of silly when they art(e) in the middle of the week

Very similar to Attempt 1, same issues

Attempt 5: Something about witches and warlocks

Really didn’t work… at all

Here we are at attempt 6 and I have nothing. Absolutely nothing. I think it has something to do with the sleep debt I constantly live with. Stupid sleep debt.

So I asked my darling wife for some help with the writer’s block and this is the email I got back:

From: Wifey [mailto:xxxx@xxx.xxx]
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 1:38 PM
To: SRH
Subject: RE: wednesday

Well, you may compare your dislike of fireworks and the associated farfalle of the holidays with my hatred of numbers. I don’t think they’ll compare – and I know that’s an inappropriate use of “farfalle” but it was fun – but you may try. You can typically call up strong hatred for minutiae like nobody’s business.

So, I do not even know how to take that and I cannot come up with a topic for a post. I can “typically call up strong hatred for minutiae like nobody’s business?” Is this a positive thing, or a negative? I cannot tell. So I asked Wifey for some examples of my minutiae hating ways. She responded with

From: Wifey [mailto:xxxx@xxx.xxx]
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 3:18 PM
To: SRH
Subject: RE: wednesday

Well, your hatred of hippos, your anger at not having a variety of food in the vending machines, your hatred of the yeti and all he stands for, you don’t like it when people eat part of the ham they are giving as a gift to someone, and you don’t’ care for san serif fonts.

To name a few.

I guess I do hate minutiae.

To Recap:
Writer’s block sucks
Even for a blogger
Attempt 6: A post about how I cannot come up with topics for a post
It didn’t go great either
I still posted it
We are having some kind of Turkey and bean thing for dinner
France v Portugal right now
I am too post weary to link all my various tirades about minutiae

Off Topic

Got nothing today, but I figured I could blather on about something.

Number 1: I don't usually have an opinion about the royals but wtf?!? Harry, Harry, Harry. I hope your handler got sacked for letting you attend that party in an Afrika Corps uniform. For the love of God and all that is holy, did no one ever sit you down and talk to you about the application of common sense? All you have to do is not something stupid, and yet you seem to mess that up all too frequently.

Hey, royal wranglers, don't let that child go out anymore. Turn one of the lesser country estates into a big night club, import some partiers, and let Harry party there. Get him as many loose British rave chicks as he wants, some "x" if he wants it, marijuana, beer, liquor, etc... and take some control of where and how this child behaves. You cannot keep him from partying, just take control of the parties. Give the kid his excesses, just keep him from doing his stupid stuff in uncontrolled environments.

Number 2: ro·ta·vi·rus (rO-tah-vI-rus)n. pl. ro·ta·vi·rus·es : Any of a group of wheel-shaped RNA viruses of the family Reoviridae, including the human gastroenteritis viruses that cause infant diarrhea. Also called gastroenteritis virus type B.

That is what the doctor seems to think the little one has had since 12-27-04. Says that it lasts anywhere from 5 days to 3 weeks. Well, we are on 2 1/2 weeks, so here's to hoping it is coming to an end. Little man has been vomiting every night between the hours of 11pm and 4 am for 2 1/2 weeks as well as having some nasty ass poo during the days. Sent some poop out for tests, and most likely the lab will be able to tell us what the big man just got over. Here's to hoping.

Number 3: Why can't we just let sleeping cheese lie? Okay, for the last time. I do not dislike cheese, I dislike the over usage of cheese in the US. Too much of anything is bad, this applies to cheese as well.

Number 4: Got Milk? I hate the fact that the American Dairy Council has somehow talked non-Caucasians into doing their ad campaign. Caucasians have a mutated gene that allows them to ingest cow's milk and process lactose. Everyone else in the world has difficulty with cow's milk. As adults, many Caucasians cannot effectively digest lactose as well. The dairy industry is subsidized by the US government and therefore milk and cheese is made into a mandatory food stuff in the US.

Since my little boy is allergic to dairy, I have had time to think about the whole concept of using a cow as a wet nurse. Humans should not suckle off the teat of another animal. I will continue drinking my soy milk, thank you very much. I have found it amazing just how pervasive dairy products are within the US diet. Dairy byproducts such as whey and caisin are additives found in a whole heckuva lot of food products. It is absolutely mind numbing what one can find out about food, just by reading the ingredients listings. I am positive that most of the dairy byproducts found in foods are there because of the government subsidation of the dairy industry.

Stupid dairy.

Something Witty This Way Comes

At least I wish that something witty would come this way. It would pick up my day greatly, seeing how not interesting my day has been so far. This morning was one long meeting. Much got accomplished at the meeting, but that did not make it any less boring. "Boring, yet productive" that's what I want my work legacy to be remembered as. Maybe I could strive for "inneffective, yet enjoyable" or "useless, yet time-consuming" (no wait, I think I have that one already).

this just in....

One of my co-workers just mentioned that the $50 tickets to the up-coming Steelers/Eagles game on Sunday in Pittsburgh are going for $1200 to $1500, and the crappy-assed $30 upper-nosebleed tickets are going for upwards of $200. My God people! watch the damn thing on TV, on your new $1500 dollar tv.

I really do not undertsand the fervor with which some people follow certain sporting events. I do not get it, and I never will.

I have absolutely nothing to write about today

Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero.

I could write more about election woes, but it would not help the outcomes any. I could write about how work gets in the way of my sleeping time. I could write about how my baby is going to be a shitty-shitty-damn-damn baby because I curse so much at home. Instead of those things I am choosing to write about nothing.

None of my election woes can be changed now without another election, so my complaining will not be able to sway anyone's ideas, or change the outcome in and way, shape, or form. I must learn how to live within the system that was voted for on election day. I am sure that there will be change, come the next election. Well, here's hoping anyway...

No one wants to hear about how work impedes sleep. We all know that work gets in the way of doing fun stuff. If work were fun it wouldn't be called work. Every weekday morning I have to pull my sorry ass out of bed to make myself get to work, and I have a job that I like. I cannot imagine what it would be like if I actually did not enjoy what I do. I guess the difficulty of getting out of bed would become even more difficult. Stupid work with its requirement of being there and accomplishing things. At least I have meetings today and tomorrow, so I do not have to work as hard.

Other then my wife and I, no one cares that our little one will be cursing a blue streak. Most find it absolutely hilarious when a 2 year old drops the f-bomb. Everyone laughs and smiles at the mortified parents. The only thing that I want to make sure about though, is that my child knows how to curse properly. There is nothing worse than a poorly cursing shitty-shitty-damn-damn baby. That only shows that the parents are not willing to teach their children properly, and if I teach my little one anything, it will be when it is appropriate to say in clearly annunciated English "fucking" versus the more colloquial "fuckin'."

I am choosing to write about nothing. The wonderful thing about nothing is that you can say all you want to about it and be perfectly safe. Who can contradict nothing? No one, that's who. I will state that absolutely nothing is perfect. Nothing is the best subject matter ever, so that is what I shall write about today. Yup, nothing. I wish I had something, but I do not. Oh well, nothing it is.