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.

Many Projects

In my quest to keep it real and stay hard core, I've decided that I need to obtain my own pimp cup. You know like the chalice that Snoop Dog carries all the time. Or the one that Lil' Jon has when he's out. Hell even 50 cent has a pimp cup to drink his vitamin water out of. So I decided that the time had come for me to join my brothers in pimpdom and obtain one of my own. I was so excited as I left the house and headed for the mall. I could only imagine how everybody at work was going to be jealous the next day. Them drinking from styrofoam cups, me from goblet of krunkness. Well I practically ran into Things Remembered and searched for a kick ass, possibly iced out, drinking vessel. What I found though were coffee mugs that said "#1 Boss" and "#1 Dad" and "#1 Employee". Some of them had brass name plates, but none of them looked very gangsta. I asked the employee whether they had any good pimp cups for my Krunk Juice and he just stared at me as if I was speaking another language. Just another example of the man trying to keep me down.

No problem though, I'm going to Hobby Lobby after work to get supplies to make my own pimp cup. It's gonna be off the chain!

Just Getting Around To This

I found this article on Yahoo some weeks back and had meaning to post about it since then.

LONDON, Jan 8 (Reuters Life!) - For sale: the world's smallest country with its own flag, stamps, currency and passports.
Apply to Prince Michael of Sealand if you want to run your own nation, even if it is just a wartime fort perched on two concrete towers in the North Sea.
Built in World War Two as an anti-aircraft base to repel German bombers, the derelict platform was taken over 40 years ago by retired army major Paddy Roy Bates who went to live there with his family.
He declared the platform, perched seven miles off the east coast of England and just outside Britain's territorial waters, to be the principality of Sealand.
The self-styled Prince Roy adopted a flag, chose a national anthem and minted silver and gold coins.
The family saw off an attempt by Britain's Royal Navy to evict them and also an attempt in 1978 by a group of German and Dutch businessmen to seize Sealand by force.
Roy, 85, now lives in Spain and his son Michael told BBC Radio on Monday his family had been approached by estate agents with clients "who wanted a bit more than a bit of real estate, they wanted autonomy."
He suggested Sealand, which has eight rooms in each tower, could be a base for online gambling or offshore banking.
Asked to describe the delights of living on what he described as a cross between a house and a ship, the 54-year-old said: "The neighbors are very quiet. There is a good sea view."

I don't really have anything to add to this article other than Prince Roy was a bad ass. I could see myself doing this same thing. I would of course name the nation Dagrommia and our national anthem would be Feelin' On Yo Booty by R. Kelly. Everyone would be wealthy and every citizen would have a swimsuit calendar. The proceeds of which would go to fund the government. The highest seller would be my second in command. I think it would be recognized as the greatest nation on Earth.

My Reason For Getting Up in the Morning

Every morning one of the first things I do as I stumble bleary eyed out of bed is to wander down the hallway to my living room and turn the TV on to CNN Headline News. The reason? My crush on Robin Meade. There have been many mornings that I've thought about sleeping longer or calling in, but I know that if I did then I would miss this princess of current events. Instead, I eagerly find the remote and punch in to learn about Korean nuclear testing and Kentucky train wrecks. Hezbollah rockets have never been sexier.

I am: Robert A. Heinlein Beginning with technological action stories and progressing to epics with religious overtones, this take-no-prisoners writer racked up some huge sales numbers.

Which science fiction writer are you?

New Game

I had the idea to try this out the other day, so I'll give it a shot. I will give you the description of someone famous (at least somewhat) with chronological clues and you guess who it is. This is open to anyone that would like to give this a try. I might even have a prize for the winner.

Who Am I?

I have been many things in my lifetime. At one point I felt as small as a bug. At others I was known to jump around like a monkey. In 1971 I was obsessed with my father's team while it struggled with race relations. Still I got older and black and white took on new meanings as I found passion in racing. I've even had a stint as a competitive skater. Now my life seems to have a new chapter every week. Some want me dead, but nobody's been able to kill me.

So that's it. Make your guesses in the comments section. I'll let everyone know when someone gets it right. I don't know if this is too hard or too easy, but I certainly hope that somebody out there cares to take a guess.

Recommended Reading

The local Walden Books was closing down and had everything that was left at a 40% discount. I looked around (not for anything in particular) and found this book. I was actually already aware of this book and the film that was adapted from it, but had not ever read it or seen the movie. I'm not sure exactly where I knew of this from as the book and movie were both manufactured and distributed in Japan, but regardless for 40% off I felt like I needed to give it a try. Well 10% of the way into a 600+ page book I'm really glad that I did. It has been a long while since I've had a book that I was excited to get back to everyday and eagerly wanted to read. It's a fictional story about an Asian Governmental Program that takes 50 random high school classes each year and puts them in a remote place and forces them to kill each other until only one person is left. That last person is the "winner" and gets a lifetime pension and a card autographed by the dictator. This book is violent and not for kids, but it's loads of fun. So be sure to check out Battle Royale by Koushun Takami.

This is pretty much the same image my coworkers see as I walk out the door everyday.

I think Tupac and I share a lot of similarities actually. With the exception of the dew rag, tattoos, expensive jewelry, and bullet wounds we could almost be twins. I'm pretty sure that Pac was a Democrat. He loved his mama like a good boy. He kept it real and was a member of the Digital Underground. In fact I think if you held my resume and his up side by side they would probably look like carbon copies of each other. I'm pretty sure that I remember reading somewhere that if he hadn't gotten into gangsta rapping and the Thug line of work that he probably would have gotten into HR. That's about the same thing that happened to me. It just turned out my liberal arts degree is more valuable in the field of Human Resources than in the realm of Hip Hop. These are the things they don't warn you to ask at college preview weekends.

OOOOOooooooowwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!

My daughter is sitting 12 feet away from me playing her drumset to the tune of Queen's Greatest Hits. She's been doing this now for 30 minutes. I think I'm developing an aneurism develop now. I swear my eyeballs are bleeding and every muscle in my neck and shoulders is in knots. After every song she turns to me and asks how that sounded. "It sounds really good, honey. You're getting better" Now, I know why people lose their hearing as they get older. It's a defense mechanism.

Another Change

Do you guys like this template any better? Q was complaining about the last one.