Numbers Game

I purported to Plug on her blog the other day that I think that all men love lists. I don't know why. Maybe it's just some innate need to have order in our lives. Maybe it's a need to know what value things have in life. I'm not sure. I do know that I have many, many, many lists. Not all of them are written down. Most are "in general" rankings that I keep in my head. I know that in talking about good movie stars and such, I used to throw out to Q and CyberD that a certain woman was good looking, but not in my top five, or ten, or fifty, or even hundred. Finally, Q and CyberD each did me one better and actually put pen to paper and made their top 100 lists of famous women. CyberD went the farthest by creating a dossier of each woman including where her family lives and predictions where she might be found should he ever be in the area.

I have lists for an innumerable amount of subjects. For instance, I can tell you that my top actor in the last twenty years is John Cusack, followed by Ralph Macchio and William H. Macy. I can tell you that my top 10 rappers turned actors are 1) Ice Cube 2)Mark Wahlberg 3)Will Smith 4) Ice T 5) The Fat Boys 6) Queen Latifah 7)DMX 8) Tupac 9)Eve 10) Snoop. I can also tell you that in unarmed combat I am the second deadliest person I know. I don't want to tell you where you all rank as I'm afraid it might hurt some feelings.

Glocks in Box

I had to reschedule my sons weekly guitar lesson due to a conflict with the upcoming start of soccer. That meant getting up early on Saturday, when I might otherwise have slept in and taking him to class. As I sat outside the strip mall waiting for him I was caught by the sight of a young 4 or 5 year old girl walking down the sidewalk with her mom. No, I wasn't just staring at the mom (although not bad...), but instead the fact that the girl was carrying what appeared to be a Glock. I was a little startled about why a child would be carrying around a Glock and in a public area. The mom didn't seem to be too concerned, but I certainly was when they turned and walked right in to where my sons' guitar lessons were being held. OK, I was bewildered. My curiosity grew as I saw another 4/5 year old child arrive with his mom and he was also carrying a Glock. And then another and another and another. Each of them walking around with a Glock in his hands.



I couldn't take it anymore. I know I live in Texas, but to see young kids walking around with these things was too much to take. I had to know what was going on. So I weant inside after them to get some answers. It turns out the same place that teaches my son the ways of the guitar also has a class for young kids on the weekend in which they are all required to purchase their own Glock. I still don't know what kind of nefarious plan I've stumbled onto. The children were all in a room with their parents when I entered the building. Sitting just to the side of each of them were their Glocks in specially manufactured cases. Are the children being raised to be some sort of spies or soldiers or muhjadeen? I don't know. But it frightens me.

Picture of kid with glock

Take it to the Bridge

This weekend the family went to watch Bridge to Teribithia. This was at the bequest of my youngest who was convinced by all of the ad time on Disney Channel that she wanted to see it. The rest of us like fantasy movies and things that are marketed to 7 year olds so we agreed. If you don't want any spoilers then stop reading now. I myself have never read the book that the movie was based on. I remember hearing of it, but had some recollection that the book was girly. I don't know why I had that in my head, but I did. Well we weren't prepared for what was coming. The movie got heavy pretty quick. From the depressing life that Jess lived, to some relatively deep talk about God and Christianity, to the unexpected death of the main girl and Jess' only friend in the movie. In the end, we walked out feeling like we needed some sort of grief counseling. My little girl said that she didn't ever want to go to the movies again, because "it was too sad". She just didn't understand why the girl had to die or why they'd put that in the movie. My son was sad as well, but mainly because I think he had been expecting to see Ghost Rider.

I had to spend the rest of the night trying to cheer everybody up. That meant comfort food and trying to find a movie that would make us laugh. Being the good dad that I am I got us some burritos and nachos from Taco Bueno. Then I popped in one of the movies that I remember having several funny moments in it from when I was a kid. So we sat to eat and watch Stand By Me. Although the movie does have a lot of funny parts, I forgot that the whole trip the boys were going on was to see the body of a dead boy that had gotten hit by a train (Oops. Not helping). I also forgot that the character of Chris Chambers (the best friend) is reported at the end of the movie to get stabbed in the throat and killed (definately not helping). My little girl who was having a pretty devastating weekend at this point let me know that although she was sad that she knew it wasn't real and that she knew the actor was still alive. I decided to keep quiet about the fact that River Phoenix wasn't making any more movies.

Dad Food Remix

The kids have figured me out. They realize that everything I fix them is going to include some form of Macaroni and Cheese, Hot Dogs, or Chili. They've begun requesting fancy stuff like McDonald's and....well pretty much anything else. They've become food snobs. Why just this morning my daughter opted out of asking me for any breakfast (left-overs from last night) and made herself a bowl of Fruit Loops and poured in some chocolate milk. It looked repulsive. If they're expecting me to conform to exotic things like that then they are out of luck. It did give me a little hope for her ability to one day get on Iron Chef.

Dad Food

My wife has been out of town now since Tuesday, which means that I've been soley responsible for feeding my children. So Tuesday was Chili Mac, Wednesday was Chili Dogs, today will probably be Macaroni and Cheese without chili, and tomorrow...I don't know yet probably Hotdog Mac. This is pretty much the gambit of what you get when I'm the one cooking. I have also taken up grilling in the last year and could probably do more than this, but normally I reserve the effort for somebody that might actually appreciate it. The kids, so far, are thrilled with the instant meal menu that I've been providing. Additionally there have been other benefits as well. For one, dinner has been at a lot earlier times the last few nights, which in turn means that baths/showers are taken earlier, which means that we all go to bed earlier. See, I told you that I was dedicated to getting to bed on time.

As a side bar, me and Q saw the Weinermobile a couple of weeks ago when he was visiting for the Super Bowl. I wish it was stopped, because I surely would have visited. Unfortunately, it was traveling on what I can only imagine was a top secret mission against evil.

I Haven't Got Time For The Pain

I had a flashback to adolescence this morning. I previously noted how I've been going with the clean shaven look as of late after some time wearing facial hair. Apparently all of that time taking it easy has eroded my shaving skills. I had erroneously come under the impression that shaving technology made it virtually impossible to cut yourself anymore. Not so much. This morning when taking a completely incorrect angle with my razor I managed to put a good size gash right over my top lip. It hurt like hell and it had been so many years since this had happened that I panicked and forgot what to do. I scrambled around the bathroom dabbing at the blood and throwing various products on my face in a failed attempt to make the pain stop. A quick note for anyone that hasn't done this, aftershave doesn't help. It just makes you cry. Eventually,I found the Neosporin after trying the cortisone, the lip balm, and the Aquafresh.

I am now sporting a very conspicuous band aid just above one side of my top lip. I'm pretty sure that everyone thinks I have a cold sore. I'm going to try and hide in my office the rest of the week.

A Dose of Reality

I had to run a few errands early this morning. So after the daily ritual of waking everyone up and getting them ready so that when I returned we could leave straight away I headed out the door. My daughter (now 7) took my place on the sofa in front of Robin Meade and whoever the hell else is on CNN Headline News.

When I returned some minutes later my daughter was still on the sofa and I was surprised to see that the channel hadn't changed. My daughter upon seeing me quickly announced that Britney Spears had shaved her head and that Anna Nicole, who is from Texas, still needed to be buried. Thanks a lot CNN. I then had to spend the rest of the morning explaining to my daughter that all of this craziness had something to do with drugs, not studying enough for school, and not going to bed on time.

The good news is that I'm dedicated to going to bed on time tonight.

"What do voluntary mean?"

That's my favorite quote from a football player, ever. In this case it was the response of former Dallas Cowboy starting running back Troy Hambrick who was being questioned by reporters about missing the "voluntary" off season work outs.

I think my son felt the same way last week when I took him to get his braces put on. The night before hand he asked me why he needed to do it and if it couldn't in fact be avoided. To his credit he did about all he could to not need them. He didn't suck his thumb. He didn't take a pacifier. As it turns out it didn't matter he needed them any way. There's a life lesson in there somewhere, but as a parent I'm not allowed to see it. I told him that later on he'll be really glad that he did it and that if it weren't important his mom and I wouldn't be investing the money into it that we are.

My boy persisted and asked what the medical ramifications would be if he didn't get the braces. So I had to admit to my son that this was purely cosmetic and that he faced no life threatening consequences. At this point he said that he was fine with his teeth the way that they were and was already happy with how he was. "Alright son", I said "Here's the deal. We're shallow, but other people are too. So this is being done in the effort that you will one day be able to get a date or win over the person at the job interview with your nice smile." So now I feel like I did the right thing by getting the braces and also feel guilty that I'm contributing to making my son self conscious.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

No, this one isn't about me or my life. This is more a similarity I see between the Series of Unfortunate Events books and the current confusion over the daughter of Anna Nicole Smith. In both situations there seems to be somewhat curious circumstances surrounding the deaths of the parent(s). Also the child(ren) are being fought over because of possibly dubious reasons. It occurs to me that whomever gets custody of the child will be granted a substantial windfall. I can't help but wonder if these things aren't interrelated, and what worst of all the child(ren) are the ones that are left to suffer.

I can't as a good Christian man stand to watch a child be torn apart by self serving, greedy people. It makes me sick. This isn't to say that Anna Nicole would have been a great mother, in fact that probably isn't the case at all. But at least she was the mother. No this child deserves better than that. So I am officially putting my name in the hat for custody of the child. I will even offer that it's possible that I am her father. When the blindfold is on who really knows, right? So please stop all of this fighting and send my baby to her rightful home. The House of Dagromm is open to her. I will love her and care for her with as much attention as I can. My two resident children would love another sibling. Yes, I think it would be best. Also when you make the check out to me, please remember there are two m's in Dagromm.

Facial Hair Confusion

As a few of you who have actually seen me in the last month or two know I have been letting my facial hair grow out. In fact I have recently been sporting what Q refers to as the "Grizzly Adams". It started out of pure laziness and figuring that I could sleep a couple minutes longer in the morning, which in turn meant that I could stay up a few minutes later in the evenings. Which in turn meant that I did not actually get any more sleep and was just as tired every morning. Funny how that works. It wasn't meant to be a long term thing, but after a couple of weeks when no one at work mentioned it i decided to let it go. It became kind of an experiment to see at what point someone in my department would say something. Now I did some minor maintenance here and there, but for the most part I let nature take it's course and let it achieve some normal bushiness. After a month people in other departments were starting to say things to me, but my own group stayed quiet. It really got annoying as I found myself constantly stroking it (the beard you pervs). It was like having a pet on my face. I was always giving it attention.


Finally, last week in the Beatdown Meetings someone finally said something. It was one of my coworkers that had relocated to Chicago and hadn't seen me since before the experiment began. My experiment completed I went home that night and shaved my face clean and my head as well. At this point in my follicle life it's not that big a deal to shave your head, but since I had been letting that grow for a couple of months it looked pretty drastic. The next day at the meeting I came in looking completely different. Some of the people there that didn't know me that well didn't recognize me at first. I was amused to see everybody's reactions when for several weeks they hadn't even acknowledged the beard was there.



My former boss used to accuse me of having "facial hair confusion" as I've done this kind of thing before. For me it's about not being scared of change and in fact embracing it. That and because it cracks me up.

Let's get Valentiney

Hi Blog World!! I thought I would jump on Valentine's Day before it attacked me tomorrow. This is what we in America call a pre-emptive strike. Rather than do the annual pissing and moaning about Valentine's Day, like most men, I've decided instead to jump in with both feet. First of all I have already bought my wife a present. This is a vast improvement over previous years when I've waited until the actual holiday. In many cases I have actually waited a few days until all of the candy was on clearance. Not this year though!! I'm prepared! I bought the candy last year when it was clearanced and so this year it will be there when she wakes up in the morning. Luckily there have been few advances in Valentine technology and as long as the expiration dates are smudged out (they already are!!) I should already be supplied for the next ten years.

So I encourage all of you men out there to stop whining about the holiday and how you don't get anything out of it. Instead, look at all of the things that your wife or girlfriend goes along with for your sake and be appreciative. Realize that when she was a little girl she did not dream of one day wearing a Valkyrie costume to bed to satisfy your viking fetish. She did however hope to get some attention and some sort of present from her special guy. That being said guys let's jump into V.D. together and feel the love!

Girls Soccer Day 1

Well, we had our first practice of the season Saturday. It was fun seeing the girls again and meeting the two new ones. They weren't the ones that I was trying to recruit, but they appear to be somewhat athletic and aggressive, which is great. Unfortunately I didn't have the whole team there as the weekend fell on an unfriendly custody weekend, but I felt like it was really productive. Our season starts in two weeks, and because we don't have the time in the evenings yet, I've told the parents that we will be doubling up next weekend. So next weekend will be eaten up with practice. Saturday and Sunday. I've already talked to them about playing physically, we worked a little on skills, and some on conditioning, but the newbies still need to learn about rules and positioning. This can be tough to do on the unmarked field that we practice on, but I've got a few ideas.

I'm still waiting to receive our schedule, and some of our returning girls are eager to see it too. There are a few grudges they are wanting to work out, so hope for the best. I'm looking forward to a good season this year and hopefully a few more wins than last season.

LOA

In HR circles that stands for Leave of Absence (We love acronyms in HR), so I wanted to give a quick explanation for my recent blog LOA. I have been unfortunately pulled away from the computer this last week due to a long week of departmental meetings. The point of these meetings seemed to be to tell us that we don't dress well enough, keep our offices too messy, are inefficient at our jobs, and that our SVP got a big bonus because of us. We also were treated to mandatory dinners and reprimanded for not being grateful enough. It was awesome!!!!

I also got to spend a lot of time with our new corporate trainer. It occurs to me that corporate trainers are all neurotic and notorious self promoters. It could just be the three or four that I've met, but it certainly seems like more than just a coincidence. There was lots of over laughing at our SVP's jokes, lots of being astonished at the work he's done (eg. "That's great", "That's terrific", "Wow"), lots of over note taking even when we had handouts that said everything, and of course lots of directing everything back to herself. This current one seems to be the worst that I have seen. So much so that she almost seems like a caricature. She is the type that in a conference call will always ask a question so that she can say her name to everyone listening. That's called "getting your name out there". On day three, her last day with us, I realized while on a conference call with the CEO that she really only has one question. "What type of training do you think will be most needed in the next year?" It might have some slight variation, but that's basically it. Now I can't wait till the next time I'm on a similar type of call with her again, because as soon as it opens up for questions I'm going to totally steal her question just to watch her scramble.

Who Am I

I came to America from another land and helped my lover reclaim her life, even though people felt I was too immature. Time and again I watched my childhood friends as they stumbled towards marriage and I was there for them. My life became like a terrible game and I faced death for the chance to strike it rich. My love for music has put me in the company of a queen. But I have never forgotten how I had to play for gangsters and murderers. Eventually I pretended to be a gangster myself, but that's not who I really was. Eventually the people that I thought were my friends came to scourn me, but they all got AIDS and died. Now everyday seems the same and I don't know how to make it all turn out right.

This one might be way too easy. Let's see what you've got. Put answers in the comments section and I will give clues every 24 hours until someone gets it.

JULY 21st IS THE DATE

I'm just excited. That's all I had to say. Thank you Robin Meade for imparting this knowledge on me. The seventh book is coming out 5 days after the fifth movie. I will most likely be on a Potter junkie binge that entire week.