I am actually trying to exercise more. I’m training for this race. Should be fun. Maybe after that I’ll have a story to tell.

A story I will have to tell, hopefully with awesome pictures, is when I go see one of my favorite bands in concert. Guster. If you’ve never heard of them you haven’t read my blog very much. But this concert will be special. I am on their guest list. Not from the blog, just because I was a fan and was one of 6 people who actually bought this awesome shirt. I also have after show passes for this event. I have no idea what that means, but I do hope to get a picture with the band, perhaps I should learn their names.

Enjoy some tunes…

Guster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k-VAlIPzKg

Pearl Jam (an old classic often overlooked)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmL8XbC6Zmo

5 years ago today my 2nd little girl was born. In that time, she has become adored by every human she comes in contact with. Her eyes will hypnotize the toughest of tough and her soft voice would melt a glacier. She has the biggest heart in the tiniest body and a personality you just need to be around. Her sass and attitude are present as well, but she saves that for just her mom and dad. She is the other apple of my eye and has me firmly wrapped around her little finger. She is my snuggle bear and she is my baby girl. My time with her truly has flown by.

As I mentioned earlier, time has also felt like a complete crawl. Time seems to slow down when I think about my father. As you may know, today is also the 5 year anniversary of my fathers death. Perhaps because of the sudden nature of his passing it’s been harder to accept. Perhaps it is hard because there is so much I wanted to share with him in the past 5 years but could not. Or maybe it was the new friendship he and I had started to develop the last years he would be with us. We chatted online almost every day the last 5+ years he was alive, and whenever I see my online friend list, his name is still there. As though it will suddenly go from greyed out to bold, I could never remove him from my list.

Today marks a very unique celebration of life in my world. We celebrate together with happiness and cheer the life of my beautiful daughter. Then at night and generally by myself, I quietly celebrate the life of my father. I do not let my daughter, or anyone else for that matter, see me mourn the loss of my dad. My daughter has no idea that only 8 hours separate the events of this day 5 years ago. She only knows the grandfather she never met knew her name. Someday she will, but that day is not today.

For my daughter today is all about pizza, barbie cakes, and presents from her family and friends. At 5 years old she deserves nothing less than a smile on her daddy’s face. Even if her daddy is drifting in his own mind remembering his. My father would have wanted it that way.

and a whole lot of this…

We started with a 9mm and sent the target 20 feet away.We each took 10 shots and here is what our target looked like after.

Not bad for 2 guys who’ve never actually held a real weapon in our hands before. I took aim at the chest, plus a couple head shots and Adam went for the head with a couple at the chest.

We did some more shooting with a different target that was twice as far, but I didn’t take a picture. The results weren’t as accurate, but still pretty good.

Then we decided to up the caliber of what we were shooting to a .45 glock. Like the rappers always talk about, and what most police officers seem to have. The rounds were noticeably larger and so was the pop when you squeezed the trigger.

See the target way far away(40 feet)? That’s the “bad guy” target. After my first set of shots with the new more powerful weapon, the bad guy looked like this…

Sorry bad guy, I win. Turns out, I’m a decent shot.

Overall, I had a good time and enjoyed the experience. I would certainly do it again, perhaps with rifles next time to try out some of the things I saw in the range shop. I would also like to try the .357 magnum as well just to know what that feels like.

What I walked away from this was with a completely new respect for the danger and power of these things. The recoil on what we fired was strong, but not overpowering. A proper grip gave me complete control and not like what you see in movies and television, those grips would make you hurt yourself and certainly miss your target. The most shocking part of the experience was the sound. You can see I was wearing ear protection, but the sound was still loud. The lane next to us had one of those magnums and I felt each of those shots in my bones even though I was 6 feet away.

The power of these things is impressive. Every shot you see the explosion and feel the heat off each casing as it pops away. I can’t see myself ever owning something like this, be it for recreation or protection. I’ll just use the local range. I did not get a feeling of empowerment as I fired round after round at the targets. I felt a little more afraid of the power if anything else. It was fear born from respect of what that thing in my hands is capable of.

Picture belongs to Food Network. I don’t bake that well!

Perhaps though, that’s ok. As I was doing my patriotic duty tonight waiting in line to cast my vote, I witnessed 2 things that outraged me. The first was the schmoron behind me in line. I overheard him talking with his wife. He said “The allot is so long(2 pages) because it’s also in Spanish. I swear, if you can’t read English you shouldn’t be allowed to vote.” I spun around and gave him a look. I wanted to see the ignorant bastard that said this. If my daughter wasn’t with me, I may have said something. My thought was he shouldn’t be allowed to vote for being so stupid. I bet the jackass thinks this country has an official language! As far as I’m concerned, the ballot should be in any language requested.

It got better from this jagoff though. As he and his wife were going over the ballot, I heard his passive wife ask about the judges. He quickly responded “I vote No on all of them. Clear all of them bastards out. They are all terrible.” His wife responded “Maybe we should learn a little more about what they stand for.” Hos retort was quick and abrupt “It’s too late for that, just get rid of all the bastards.” I wanted so bad to tear up his ballot. It is sad that ignorant idiots have the right to vote. They are so stupid, they don’t even realize how much damage they are potentially doing.

I have to admit though, I was not as responsible as I should have been. I did not research the judges either. But I chose not to vote in those elections. Perhaps I should have done the opposite to cancel him out looking back, but I didn’t feel comfortable giving my vote on something I didn’t understand.

That was part 1.

Part 2 took place in the voting booth next to me. There was a man who had a deformed arm. Looked like a birth defect in adult hood. Possible it was from an accident, but it really didn’t look that way. Anyway, this gentleman was probably in his mid to late 40′s and he asked for assistance with his ballot. Ok, it’s an option we all get, but he could read and I would assume he could write or color bubbles with his other hand. What he did do was chat up his helper. She would read the race and candidates and he would ask questions about each candidate that you should read in the paper. He would ask who was the better choice and although she did not choose for him, she did tell him who had what commercials on TV. When they were going over the amendments she was then explaining what the full translation and impacts of each were. Explaining what they meant and again, what the commercials looked like. Sure, she denied offering which she would vote for, but this still seemed very illegal to me.

I know the lady was just trying to be nice and as helpful as possible, but I think a line was crossed. I am under the belief that when assistance is given the helper should be able to do nothing but read the ballot word for word and color in the bubble of the voter if that much help is needed. I just know I have never felt so uncomfortable casting my vote in this country I love. I don’t know if what happened was illegal, but it sure didn’t seem right.

I lost faith in my country tonight. I know what I witnessed was very small in scale, but I wondered really how small the mentality is nationwide. What upsets me even more though is the trend I see in Washington. 6 years ago, we didn’t like things so we changed the Republican House to a Democrat one. Our President was useless and didn’t do much in between all his vacations. Now the American people still see problems that cannot be quickly fixed in 2 years and instead of giving the President the tools he needs, we take them away and switch it back. Guess what? When the next President or this President doesn’t get much done because of the newly applied red tape, we’ll do it all over again. I’m tired of bullshit promises though keywords that have no merit when said. These guys are career businessmen and in business your goal is to make money for your business so your business can grow. Only, they don’t see America as a business, they see it as a crutch for their own businesses and private future growth. Amazing what you can do for your business when you control the laws that will impact it.

No one has a platform based on education and how we’re falling behind in this country. Education is not as profitable as war and it is suffering miserably. I think its time we as an American people take back control of our country. Not just with our votes, but with our voices. In France the people did not want to see retirement age increase and the people came out in droves to fight it. The current generation doesn’t gather for much of anything. Until we take back the power from our elected officials we will be at the mercy of what they want, not what we want.

To the elected officials I say this. Drop the bullshit. Drop the negative ads and demographic based campaigning. Really try to do something already. Just tell us what you stand for, what you want to do and run on yourself, not your party rules. Fix what is broken in our government and start by getting rid of the backroom bullshit. Campaigns should be publicly fully funded. Even steven for each candidate. Term limits in every elected office with a limit on total years of service regardless of titles. Make these career politicians get back into the work force paying for health care and gas and bills just like the rest of us. Cut the pork barrel crap out completely. If an appended item has nothing to do with the main purpose of the bill, it doesn’t get added. It requires its own bill. Make it illegal for corporate lobbyists to exist from a financial perspective. No campaign funding, and no extra access than you or me to our officials.

To me, that sounds like real change that will make a difference in our country. Would it be good or bad? I don’t know. But it sure as hell can’t be any more broken than what we have now. I’m tired of the crap and I’m embarrassed as some of the citizens I share a community with. We need a big dose of tough medicine around here, but will we be willing to accept it? Probably not.

My little bookworm enjoying the trip over.

Before the game, during the warm-up, her hero parked right in front of her. He even smiled at her when he skated by. She was smitten.

She didn’t get a puck like her sister did a few days before her, but she had a great time. Except that her team lost. She was NOT happy about that. After the game, she wanted to send her mom this picture to trick her into thinking we left with the goalie. I think she bought it.

Have you ever gotten a wrong number phone call? I’m sure you have. This weekend I got a wrong number text and I decided I would have some fun with it. Here is the result of my fun. Of course, I’m in the green…

In other news, I found a new hockey team to play on. It’s in the 35+ league(not 35 yet, but league said 8 months was close enough) and after my first game, you’d never know this was the “old man” league. These guys can skate, shoot, and play. The skill level is much higher than my previous league which I much prefer and look forward to continue playing in. Did I mention they can shoot? Hard enough a shot hit my throat guard and cracked it in half. The other best part? Early start times. 8:30 or 9:30 are the starting times. You get home by midnight unless a friend comes out to watch and you go grab a cocktail after… I am looking forward to the rest of the season and the challenge it will be. My team doesn’t have much for defense, but I don’t mind at all because I’m on the ice.

Later this week we will get to see the space shuttle Discovery go up. Yes, we see every shuttle go up from our front porch or at my office, or wherever we are, but this one will be different. We got lucky and were selected in a lottery to purchase tickets to watch the launch from the Astronaut Hall of Fame. This spot is about 12 miles from the launch pad meaning we will hear and feel the final liftoff of the shuttle Discovery. It is also the second to last shuttle launch ever I believe. I am excited to see every launch, but I am most excited for this one. It is an amazing thing to see no matter how far away you are. If you can see it, you are hypnotized by it.

Don’t we look cute! I know we did because as we walked through the concourse and even at dinner, everyone was admiring how cute we were. I do mean everyone. Ushers, security, and even fans of the other team smiled or made sweet comments as we passed by. It almost made me uncomfortable with everyone staring as we walked hand in hand. However, her soft voice and little hand in mine made it quite magical for this proud papa.

On the ride over to our closest NHL arena where our team was playing and daddy happens to have season’s tickets thanks to an amazingly cheap deal, you have to make sure entertainment is provided.

All good dates have to have dinner right? She got her favorite dinner, pizza.

Did you know if you talk sweet and put gear on you can stand on the ice during warm-ups? Kidding. But we did stand right on the glass. No, that picture did not use zoom. It’s awesome!

When you get that close you get to see guys like this one up close. All 6’4″ and 227 pounds of him.

His name is Trevor Gillies and that was some screen caps I personally took of him last week before they played the Rangers. I love his intensity for the game. He is an enforcer in the NHL which means if you pick on one of my team’s star players, you get to deal with him in a not so friendly way.

On this night though, he would change my young daughter’s life.

As we watched the players during warm-ups I told her to waive at the players as they skated by and maybe one would wave back. 2 years ago it worked when my favorite goalie waved back to my older daughter. Anyway, as warm-ups were ending, she kept waving and Mr. Gillies spotted her from the blue line some 50 feet away. He stopped skating, motioned to me, bent over and picked up a puck off the ice. He then skated over to where we were in the corner and punched out the plexi-glass cover the camera guys stick their lenses through to take those great in-game photos you see in various publications, and handed the frozen rubber disc to me. Of course, I thanked him and he nodded and winked as he skated away.

It was too cold for her to hold for a few minutes, but she couldn’t have been happier.

My actual regular view at the start of the 2nd period. Yes, it was pretty empty for a Thursday.

But my team won the game in overtime. Now I’ll go back to cheering for the home team. Except when they play my team.

My little one had so much fun she told me she didn’t want to go to sleep when we got in the car. Alas, she did and our perfect night ended with Daddy in bed before midnight.

The best part for me is that I get to create these memories for my children. I seize every possible opportunity I can to do so with them. I do it with the two of them together, but I feel its just as important to get the one on one time every now and then. The bond I’m building now I feel will last forever.

In a few days, I get to do exactly this once again with my oldest daughter. This time though, we’ll be seeing her team play in person. I guess I’ll have to cheer for them with her.

Fine
Women: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut the hell up.
Men: We also use this word to end an argument. Most often its because we realize if we say anything else relations could be suspended indefinitely. Sometimes though, we’ll say it because we agree with you. Read the tone ladies, all about the tone. Especially considering we’ll use it if we think you look good.

Five Minutes
Women: If the woman is getting dressed, this means a half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.
Men: When men are getting dressed, this means we missed the alarm, just woke up, and will be dressed and ready in five minutes. You can bank on that. However, if we’re engrossed in a game, that means we think we will be completing the current level but extra time may be required. If we’re watching a game where the clock stops, you may have to wait 30 minutes after timeouts and commercial breaks. If either of the last 2 are accurate for the situation, do not be pushy. We will be a grumpy grump wherever it is we need to be and it’s better to be a few minutes late than dragging along a grumpy grump.

Nothing
Women: This is the calm before the storm. This means something, and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with nothing usually end in ‘fine.’
Men: Another word where you must consider the tone. Generally though, this actually means the definition of the word. We know nothing more, we have nothing more to say, and if you keep asking questions you’ll get exactly that. Nothing. Our arguments will begin and end with the word nothing, even if there really was something but we feel it will be used against us at a later date, we’ll bottle it up and give you nothing. No sense in arguing over nothing.

Go Ahead
Women: This is a dare, not permission. Don’t Do It!
Men: If we meant this as a dare, we’d follow it with specifics such as “…just one finger” or “…just not with another dude” or “…make my day.” We will usually say this to grant permission, but we will use this as a bargaining chip later. It’s like saying “yes” with an asterisk and we will expect payback in some fashion shortly. Most likely when we go to Best Buy.

Loud Sigh
Women: This isn’t actually a word, but a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about nothing.
Men: We only do this sometimes. Like when we’re thinking of the correct response and we’re trying not to fart. We roll our eyes or get bug eyes if we think your an idiot. Mostly though, you’ll only hear a man do this after pushing out a stingy turd. In which case, why are you in earshot? A little privacy please.

That’s OK
Women: This is one of the most dangerous statements a woman can make to a man. That’s okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.
Men: This is a term of agreement for a man when we really don’t agree, and want something different, but are agreeing to end whatever it is we’re arguing about. It’s either that, or we’re about to make fun of you in some way with a follow-up comment. Hopefully not out loud though, that would be a trigger to hear these same words in return which translates to lots of “alone” time for awhile.

Thanks
Women: A woman is thanking you, do not question it. Just say you’re welcome. (I want to add in a clause here – This is true, unless she says ‘Thanks a lot’ – that is PURE sarcasm and she is not thanking you at all. DO NOT say ‘You’re welcome’ to a ‘Thanks a lot’– that will bring on a ‘Whatever’).
Men: Funny, this has EXACTLY the same meaning when it comes from a man and EXACTLY the same reaction by the receiving woman. Replace the “she” with “he” and you get the same message. Imagine what this world would be like if we believed each other when we said this?

Whatever
Women: Is a woman’s way of saying’Get lost you idiot’
Men: Is a man’s way of saying “shut up you tool.” To a guy though, we’d never call a woman a tool to her face. When we say it to a woman, it’s another mechanism to agree with whatever the hell you want so you’ll stop talking and we can un-pause whatever we were doing. This is another word we’ll use when we want to get something else later and end the discussion now.

Don’t worry about it, I got it
Women: Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a man to do several times, but is now doing it herself.
Men: We always got it. Even if we have to secretly ask Doctor Google how to get it, we got it. Often, this leads to trips to the emergency room for us guys, but we’ll get it. However if we say it to a woman with a sarcastic tone it means, “you just sit right there and continue to praise mama Oprah or watch your stupid stories while I do something domestic.” Not that there’s anything wrong with men doing anything domestic, we just hate how mama Oprah seems to have that much power over women.Sometimes we envy mama Oprah and must vent our frustrations.