Christmas part 1

My New APG winnings! 

Yep! That's it! My brand spanking new PMI Piranha GTI that I won from APG! I got it today when my family came over for an Early Christmas.

We opens all the gifts from My parents, grandmother and sister. Logan sure got a huge haul! WWE wrestling ring with 2 figures, some Tonka toys, an Animaniacs Splat Ball (paintball) computer game, Spongebob Squarepants "Mr. Potatohead", some art supplies, and a few assorted odds'n'ends.

Most of what Carrie and I got were his'n'hers gifts. We got a new microwave, some tupperware containers, floor wax and a ceiling fan.

I got a Stephen King book, a fotrune telling set, and a few stocking stuffers.

Carrie got some new pajamas, some perfume, and some stocking stuffers.

The highlight of the day was when my grandmother opend her gift from us. We got a picture of her and my grandfather put on a coffe mug. When she opened the box, the picture was facing up, and she started to cry right away. She was litterally speachless. Everyone was teary-eyed for a few minutes.

And e have on VERY ANNOYING MYSTERY on our hands. Our gift to my sister Carmen VANISHED! We tore the place apart, while they were here, looking for it. And we still can't find it. It'll probably turn up in the new year.

More Paintball gun pics in a day or two.

8 days until Christmas and counting....

Yep. The year has disappeared pretty quickly. In 2 weeks it will be EXACTLY 1 year since I was fired from Stream and worked last. With having moved in I haven't put many resumes out. It's too much with having to try and get the apartment to feel like home, transfer direct deposit government cheques to a new account, fighting with Bell Sympatico internet about why they took a payment when we cancelled service with them and getting Logan into school. In total I think I have 5 or six out there. And that doesn't count the 4 or 5 I did over the internet.

As much as I hate having my mother and the rest of the family come over, just because it winds Logan up for the next 3 days, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone on Sunday. Since we don't have a car, we can't go home for Christmas. So they're coming here for a few hours, to let Logan open presents from them early. But that's not why I'm looking forward to it.
If you've read everything else then you already know I entered a contest for a paintball gun with the draw date in October. I found out I won on November 4, and have been waiting with baited breath ever since. On December 3 I email APG to see if it had been sent out and maybe get a tracking number. They told me it shipped on November 22. On Tuesday of this week mom called to ask me to see if I could track it down. I was going to call customs to see how long of a hold they put on that sort of thing. The next morning Mom called back and said the package arrived!! I GET IT ON SUNDAY!!!! WOOT!!! Pictures will be posted on Sunday or Monday!

As I mentioned above, Logan was enrolled back into school. We were planning on waiting until the new year, but listening to him ask, "Is it a school day yet?" got on our nerves. He goes all day Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday. So he went for a total of 3 days and is off for the holidays. Ugh! Now we listen to, "Is it Christmas yet?". We can't win.

I got an MSN messenger popup from my sister Erika, today. She's in Alberta. Haven't talked to her in a while, since she didn't have internet for the longest time. I'm pretty sure I gave Dad our new address, but I gave her all the info. I just hope she wrote it down. She can be such a doofus.

Other than that, all that I have left to do is wish my Mom, Jim, Carmen, Steve, Paula, Dan, Amber, Erika, Dad, Laura, Carries dad Jim, Linda, Wanita and Dean a

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

And Merry Christmas to everyone that reads my blog, and even those that don't!

New digs!

YES! We're moved into the new place. We did that Sunday. Started unpacking.
Monday saw more unpacking, and the connection of the internet, cable and phone.
Tuesday, while carrie rested because her back was sore, I put up all of her dolphin knick-knacks. It made the new place feel more like home.
Wedensday, we put up pictures after my mother left. As a housewarming gift my grandmother bought Carrie and I a new bed frame.
Yesterday we all went out to do Christmas shopping, and finished it today. THANK GOD!! We have our Xmas tree up and decorated all the presants are wrapped and under it.

That's the week so far. Other than that it's just us trying to get used to the new place. With it being a basement apartment is cooler. Heat is from the old radiators, but they're mounted to the ceiling so it's not as warm as it could be. We asked the super if he could turn up the heat and we were told no since it's a central heating system. It's set to 19°C so it's not cold. But at 2 am.... So we bough an inexpensive space heater. It only cost about $20.00, but works great!

Today while we were finishing up the Xmas shopping we explored downtown as well. I found an Army surplus store that deals in some basic paintball gear. Which means I'll be able to fill my tank, when I get my paintball prize, for about $8.00

I also noticed a roleplaying store downtown too. I may be able to start playing Mechwarrior:Dark Ages, and get into some other RPGs as well.

Tonight we fed Grissom. Boy, talk about wanting privacy. he refused to eat unless all the lights were oput and a cover was over his tank.

I think tomorrow we need to feed the hamster. I haven't fed him this week. I don't think Carrie has either.

More pics!

Me and my budy. 

This is Grissom. He's a 2 year old Califonia Kingsnake.


Yes. He is comming out of my sleeve. 

I'm a large guy, and I'm always warm, which is what Grissom likes. His favorite game with me is to crawl down my back and out the my armpit.



Isn't he cute? 

He's chocolate brown, with cream banding. Very inquisitive, and very friendly.


Carrie and Grissom 

Moving and new family members.

It's been a while since my last update, but when you're moving, who has time for anything else?
Anyway, Sunday is coming VERY fast. We're just about ready. only have a few clothes, dishes and food items left to pack.
We're happy to announce a new addition to the family. He's about 2 years old, 3 feet long, and weighs less than 2 pounds.Isn't he cute?


Grissom

Is he gentle? Take a look and you tell me....

Best buds! 

No, he's not venomous. His name is Grissom. Yes, as in CSI Gil Grissom. He eats mice and small rats. He doesn't kill them himself, they're already dead, frozen, and thawed for him. After we move I'll put up some other pics.

17 days untill we move.....hopefully.

Why hopefully? Well the landlord is getting paid directly from ODSP. We can't move in untill he has first months rent. All we can do is hope he gets it in time.
We can't stand living in this shit hole anymore.

This morning the stunned cunt neighbour was fighting with her husband. Again. The cops were called because she's scream for him not to touch her. Of course when they get here she says he's at work and nothing happened. After the cops leave he pulls their van around front.
If he kills her, all I'm going to do is laugh at the stupid bitch.

Mom gave the the tracking number for her letter to the editor of APG (see the link). I checked it today. It IS in the U.S. , but hasn't been signed for yet. It is vetrans day tho'. So I'll check tomorrow. With luck I should have it before we move.

More good news!

YEA! More groovy news!
Some time ago I entered a draw through a paintball magazine, Action Pursuit Games. Every issue they have a draw for a paintball gun. I finally decided to enter. I would have entered my name 4 times, but it's only one entry per person. So I used Carries name, my mom's name and a friend.
Mom called me about 30 minutes ago. She won.
The package is a PMI Piranha GTI, with owners manual, allen wrenches, o-rings, and barrel plug. the kit also comes with Extreme Rage/PMI X_RAY goggles, 9oz Co2 tank, 200rnd PMI loader, PMI Twin pouch harness, two 100rnd PMI pods and a Swyper flexible squeege.
The picture in the August Action Pursuit Games mag is red in color. I'd prefer black or blue, but hell, it's free so I don't care if it's dayglo pink!

Chock full of good news goodness

Halloween and Samhain have come and gone.
Halloween I wore my old deaths head mask, monk's cloak, and carried a sythe. Carrie was dressed as a cat woman. Logan was a fireman. WE left the house to go trick or treating at 5:00 pm, and got home a little after 8:00 pm. Yep. Our four year old son had us out for 3 FREAKING HOURS!
We probably could have gotten off easy, but he hooked up with a couple of 10 year old girls. They were pretty cool about hanging out with a little kid. They'd wait for him to get to the door before yelling "Trick or treat!", and if he tripped, they'd help him up.
When all was said and done, Logan ended up with a 5 gallon bucket full of bags of potato chips, an 8L container 3/4 full of candy and chocolate bars, and 6 cans of pop. Mommy and daddy got about 2lb of hard candies that we felt he might choke on.

Last week we went and looked at an apartment. It's a basement apartment in an old Victorian style house, with the upstairs converted into 4 other apts. It has it's own entrance, and a large vestibule/mudroom. the bedrooms are a pretty good size, the kitchen/dining room is decent and have lots of cupboards. the only small areas are the living room and the bathroom. The bathroom door is a little low too. the rent is well with in our budget at $525.00/month and hydro costing about $40.00/month.
We got a call from the landlord today to confirm it is ours!
The current tenant moves out December 1, we have to move out of here before Jan 1, so we have lots of time!
The worst thing we have to do is pack. We're close to being finished...Sort of. More than half of our dishes are packed, all the pictures are off the walls, our storage closet has been cleaned out and put to use for hiding boxes.
We've gone through all of Logans toys, and thrown out all the broken crap, set aside stuff he doesn't play with for the Salvation Army and now almost all of his toys fit in the toy chest.
We have a few things, like damaged chairs to throw out, and some stuff we figure won't fit in the new place. Not that the new place is smaller, but it's lay out is very different. I have an old armoire that I bought when I was in Calgary, aside form the draws having been destroyed it's still in pretty good shape, but won't fit. We also have a knick knack shelf (6'x8') we aren't sure will fit anywhere, but we're taking it with us.

Tomorrow we go to sign the lease. After that's done I'm dropping off an application to Corrections Canada. Hopefully I get a job with them. In the mean time, O.D.S.P will allow us to earn $239.00 a month with out deductions. That works out about 29 hours a month at $8.00 an hour. So..Part time at the mall looks like a good idea.

After we're done with the lease signing we need to go to the Uhaul rental place and get some information. Online a 14' truck with a dolly and some pads will cost us $130.00+tx, but it doesn't say how long we can keep it. Is it a one day rental or a week? Is there a charge for mileage?

The Lunar Eclipse

Yeah, I know. Everyone and their dog, cat, horse and grandmother will be blogging and chatting about it.
Here S.E Ontario it started around 2100hrs. Just a black spot on the lower left side of the moon. Somewhere around 2230hrs the eclipse was in full effect. I wasn't expecting an epiphany, nor was I expecting the same magical feeling of a solar eclipse. I was pleased that I was able to see it, just as I was when I saw Comet 1996 B2 (Hyakutake) in March of 1997. However the comet seemed to have a more spiritual feel to it. I Hope I'm still around to see Haley's Comet in 2061. I missed it in 1985 due to cloud cover. I found the Lunar Eclipse a bit of a let down though. It probably would have been more impressive if the moon had been lower in the sky, allowing it to appear closer. It also seemed to be more of a reddish brown color and I was hoping for a bright red. On the plus side, I did see to meteors/shooting stars.
Saturday we're heading out of town for a few hours to take a look at an apartment. It sounds nice on the phone, and it's well within our budget, $525/month + electricity (about $35.00/month). We did a quick recalculation of our finances and we'd be able to save $200 every month, spend more on food, and get a better internet connection!
I'll keep you all posted as top what happens with the new digs!

Burble

Here we go.
We're planning on moving in the next 60 days or so, and so far we've only been able to book 1 viewing of one apartment. If things keep going at this rate, we might need a cardboard box. Thank god we haven't given our notice yet.

Two days after we decide that we do want to give notice, Future Shop calls me to set up an interview. I said no, since we are moving. I guess I'll put in an application when we get to our new town.
Yes I am not saying where we're moving to. Why? Because there are a few people that we do not want to lnow where we're going. We just don't need the stress from these assholes.

It's been a busy few days. LOTS of laundry needed doing. A friend of ours called last week to let us know that their niece had come home from daycare with lice. Our friends didn't find any on them, but since they babysat, and had been to our place they let us know to keep an eye out. So we made a pre-emptive strike. Washed all our clothes and linnens, and scrubbed up with the lice killing shampoo. 25 loads of laundry. HOLY SHIT!! I never want to do that again.

Last night, Carrie did some re-arraging in the bedroom. It looks good. At 11:30 pm we heard a strange growling noise. We thought it was something outside. We were wrong. Turns out that it was something in the file cabinet. One of her "toys" was accidently turned on. I damn near pissed myself laughing!

I got some news today, oh boy.

I finally heard from the army today.
"I have reviewed the medical records accompanying your application to join the Canadian Forces (CF). The documents indicate that you suffer from exercise and cold-induced asthma requiring pre and possible post-treatment with inhaled bronchodilators. As well, it is noted that you suffer from obesity and multiple food and envronmental allergies and possible hyper tension. Accordingly, medical limitations have been assigned. Unfortunately, you do not meet the common enrolment standard required by both the regular and reserve forces."

SO I'm fat. I can't eat anything, and I should probably live in a plastic bubble. If I'm lucky, I'll have a heart attack before I'm 40. But at least they said it nicely.

The big question is: What now?

I need a life....

It's been 15 days since my last entry. Goes to show how much has happened with us.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in Canada, and we aren't doing a damned thing. Hell, we can't even afford a turkey and with my "step dad" Jim out of town, my mother cancelled dinner.

News...News.....News....Hm. None really. Schools been going well for Logan. He had his first field trip on October 6. His class went to the grocery store and library. They got free cookies for the class as a snack.

Carrie's got pink eye. We figure it's because of Logan. He poked her in the eye a few days ago while she was sleeping on the couch. We don't know what he used, but it must have been dirty. How else would she have gotten an infection? We haven't been to a public pool in about 2 months, and no-one else we know has it.

Me? Still waiting for the fucking army to call. If they don't I don't know what to do. What I'd like to do is get into paintball. I know I don't have the money to open an indoor field. I'd LOVE to do that, but I'd need at least 4 acres of land, buildings, and all the fixin's to make it livable. I'd be happy to become an airsmith.
I could do it as a home based business. All I need is a work table, bright light, and someplace to test fire the paintball markers (guns). Repairing, modifying and upgrading them.

It'd be nice to have some kind of family support for my paintball enthusiasm. Not that it matters. It doesn't seem to make any difference what I want to do. What ever I mention to my mother is "a bad idea". She thinks I should become an ambulance attendant. That is something I really don't want to do. I know Belleville isn't like Toronto where I'd be scraping people off the streets on a daily basis. I just don't want to deal with that kind of stress, being responsible for someone dying. I don't care that they die, that's part of life. But Belleville is small enough that I'd run into other family members that would blame me. It's not worth the stress.

I thought about going south for a few weeks to learn how to build mountain bikes. Design and weld the frames. Again that would be shot down by my mother.

Yeah I know I shouldn't give a shit what she thinks. But I feel like I've never really done anything to make her proud of me. She says I have, but I sure don't feel like it.

Sometimes I think the only way she'd be proud of me is if I were to die.

The world marches on.

So, on September 7, Logan started junior Kindergarten. He's been having a blast, but he's only there for the mornings. Man does he ever get pissed off when it's time to come home.
He's going on his first field trip on October 6. His class is going to a grocery store for a tour, and then to the library for stories. I hope he has fun.

I'm still unemployed. I'm getting pissed off at the army, they STILL haven't called. So, I'm looking at other options.
Earlier this year I was told about a program that I'm eligible for. I don't remember if it's E.I or CareerEdge that's in charge of it, but I could get as much as $5000.00 Cdn to go to school with. Downside is it has to be a 1 year course. So I've been doing some poking around on line to see about becoming a paintball airsmith. There is a school in Tennessee that will teach me and allow me to be a factory certified tech for 7 or 8 paintball manufacturers. C1/C2 certification Fill station operation is $200.00 US, is 2 days. C5 Advanced Air smith class is $750 US and is 4 days. C5a is more indepth than C5 and gives me aditional factory level traing. Unfortuneately they don't have a price listed, or a time frame, but I'd expect it to be 2 days and probably the same price as C5. So that's a total of about $1700.00 US and less than 2 weeks training. I can then start a home based business here in Belleville and go on line as well.

God, I need to work. Carrie and I are driving each other up the fucking walls being in each others faces 24/7.

Jessica Simpson RULES!!!

As far as karaoke is concerned, anyway. Why do I say that? Well, I was doing some channel surfing the other day and came to the music video station Much More Music. They were playing a video of Jessica Simpson, it doesn't really matter which song though. It did get me thinking. As I thought about it more and more I realized I could remember EVER hearing an original song by her. They all seem to be covers of well known songs. I maybe wrong about everything she's done being a cover. After seeing her on her show "the Newlyweds" or whatever the fuck it is, she sure as hell doesn't seem smart enough or deep enough to write anything on her own. Nick Lachay doesn't seem much brighter.
How the hell did she get a recording contract anyway? She must be damn good in bed, or the producer must have been desperate.

OH! I almost forgot. I HAVE GMAIL! I also have 6 invites to give away. Anyone want one? Post a comment, if it's nice enough I may give you one.

Am I a monster?

Well, 9/11 has come and gone again and I live in no more fear now than I did 3 years ago. Does that make me an uncaring bastard? Maybe. Does that bother me? No. Has mass media desensitized me? Most likely.
In September of 2001, I was going in for my first test after my first week of on the job training. Someone in the calls had said something about "they're blowing up the World trade Center." I had assumed he was talking about an up coming movie, or, maybe some future urban renewal project.
Seeing it on TV, I was shocked by the loss and devastation. Yet on some level I think I found beauty in it. The same goes for the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters.
Am I a monster?
I relish the power and beauty of disaster. I empathize with the loss of life, but that's about it. Weather it's a natural disaster, or one bred of human arrogance, or wrought be an evil mind, I know and understand the purpose behind it.
No, I'm not talking about God's overall plan for us. I know it's merely a reminder.
Every once in a while we, as humans, forget we're just small animals on the planet. Civilizations have collapsed because they've thought themselves better, bigger, stronger than nature. We try to force the Universe to conform to our needs. The Universe has the power to thow us a curveball every time.

Ok. Enough diatribe.

I'm bored. So today I went to the mall seeing as they were having a job fair. What a waste of time. The fair was only for the stores to recruit Christmas rush staff. Of the 10 stores looking, there were only 4 that I'd be able to work at, and only 2 I'd care to work at. They now have my resumes. Actually they have 6 copies of my resume to date. The only other place I dropped a resume off at was a massage studio. I should hear back from them by the end of the week.

the end of the day! 

Mrs Montgomery talking about Lucy. 

In class with mommy. 

glasses, patch, and ready for his first day of school. 

I need a life. Or least I need something to do...

It's been 9 days since my last post. Goes to show how much excitement I have in my life.

Last weekend we went to the Quinte Exhibition and Fair. What a FUCKING RIP OFF that was. We checked on line before going we're on a tight enough budget as it is so we didn't want any suppresses. Fat lot of good that did.
The website was right about the entry fee to get on the grounds, $10.00 for a 5 day pass. They also had a price listing for ride tickets, $0.75 per, 14 for $10.00, or 30 for $20.00. BULLSHIT!!
We go to the booth and the sign above it says each ticket is $1.00, or 22 for $20.00. When I asked about the pack of 14 I was told, "we don't sell 'em like that."
So, I spent $10.00, just enough to let Logan go on a few rides. Now, everyone has seen the giant slides they have, you know, the kind that you ride a potato sack down?
I wasn't hard to talk a 4 year old into going down, but he was too small to go alone. Number of tickets per person? 2 + 1 for the accompanying adult. So it cost $3.00 to go down a god damned slide. Further down the midway they had the kiddy rides. It cost 3 tickets to go on the merry-go-round, 2 to go on the moonwalk and 2 to go on the kiddy cars. Obviously I had to buy a few more tickets.

Tuesday was Logan's first day of junior kindergarten. He met his teacher Mrs. Montgomery. I'm glad parents were allowed to go into class on the first day. While everyone was looking around and chatting the teacher had a box on the table, and said that there was a special friend inside named Lucy. I think all the parents thought it was a class pet, a hamster or something. I found out today that Lucy is a lamb puppet.

Holy Hell! Where did the week go?

I just can't fucking believe it. It's been a week since my last post. Talk about slacking.

Not a hell of a lot has been going on. Just the usual mundane, boring day to day shit.

Carrie's still healing from her surgery. It's taking longer than expected, but she has been doing all the normal stuff she's not supposed to do. Except pick up Logan.

I've been lazy and haven't taken any pics of Logan in his new glasses. Maybe tomorrow I'll do it. We did, however, get him a soft leather eye patch for his good eye. The adhesive ones were just too harsh on him when they had to come off. He's missing about half an eyebrow.

It's now the end of August and still nothing from the military. I guess all my "minor" faults (flat feet, glasses, hearing loss, weight, asthma) are conspiring against me. I'm trying not to let it bother me too much, but I do feel really useless and old every time I think about it.

So. Options. 1)I fight like a son of a bitch and try to get a job at McDonald's. 2) Re-apply to Stream, a place where I didn't mind the work but HATED management.
3) Look into a program from Employment Insurance that will give me $5000.00 to take any one year course I want from nearly any school. 4)See about getting a student loan and taking a 2 or 3 year course for business management, and start my own indoor paintball field. 5)Become a gigolo. 6)become a ninja assassin. 7) Suicide. Or, finally, 8) become a taxi driver.
These are in no particular order.

On the lighter side..... Yesterday, when I took Logan to daycare, we spent the trip there arguing about when he goes to "big kid" school.
That's right. Next Tuesday, September 7, Logan starts junior kindergarten. He's very excited to go. Today we picked up some school supplies for him, and tomorrow we go to the school to meet his teacher and see his class room. Hopefully I'll remember to bring the camera.

All she has to show for it is a band-aid on the belly button

Yesterday was surgery day for Carrie. We were supposed to be at the hospital at 9:15 am, we were there about 20 minutes early. Not that it mattered. There were complications in the surgery before Carrie's and she was delayed almost 3 hours.

Things went very well. The surgery only took about 20 minutes. We don't have all the details, the doctor never spoke to me, but told Carrie, while still coming out of the anesthetic, something about her Fallopian tubes being blocked. They cleared them. More details may come when after she sees our family doctor in a week.

Aside from being sore, and feeling a little silly about worrying for 3 months, Carrie is starting to recover. Down side for me is no sex for at least 2 weeks, and I have to do all the heavy housework.

Last Tuesday, I think I forgot to mention that Logan went to the ophthalmologist. That was an adventure and a half.
Logan does have a lazy eye, and his good eye needs to be patched for the next 6 weeks. He also needs glasses.

We picked up his glasses last night. His are similar to mine, and just a shade darker. He's four, so keeping them on, for now, is a little difficult.

As mentioned in a previous post, I finally got a pic of my Grandfather's medals.

My Grandfather's medals 

Hopefully I'll be able to display it in my home someday, and do the same for my dad's dad.

thing. 

And the Games go on

Ok. The Olympics are on TV. That's supposed to be a good thing, right?
I mean, the Olympics are on every 4 years. You sit down and watch the seemingly endless coverage of your favorite events, cheering on the guys and gals from your country so they can bring home that elusive chunk of gold. Hell, you might even know one of the Olympians personally giving you even more reason to go insane during a particular event.

It's not like it a last minute throw together sport challenge, right? That's the way CBC seems to be covering things though. They've had 4 years to pull their shit together and give us the BEST coverage they can. I know there are 37 events, and most are broken down into a different classes (men's, women's, individual, team, weight, distance) and so I don't expect to see EVERYTHING on the bootoob. I also didn't expect to see a schedule that looks like the cable guy is coming over to fix things.

My local listings go something like this:

" Friday August 20 7:00-12:00 CBC Olympic Morning Basketball Women's prelims: Athletics men's/women's qualifying; Swimming men's/women's heats; Diving women's prelims; ....."

Yeah, it tells me what's being covered, but that's over a five hour block of time. What if I only want to watch diving? I have to HOPE to switch channels at the right time to see it. I can't set my VCR to record it because I don't want to waste tons of tape. The afternoon coverage is done the same way. Add in all the commentator babble between event coverage, it just pisses me off.

I don't think any one event deserves more coverage than another. I can understand why sailing has no coverage, but why does swimming have tons? In the evening they "recap the days events". Cool, I'll get to at least see highlights of the untelevised events that I WANT to watch. WRONG!WRONG!WRONG!WRONG!WRONG!WRONG!
They repeat exactly what they showed during the day. I want to see archery, fencing, judo, tae kwon do, and mountain biking.

So far there's been ZERO archery and fencing. The only judo I've seen was by accident on the French station. Mountain biking is coming up in the next few days.

Canada is sucking the hind tit so far this year for medals. We're tied for 15th over all for medals with 1 bronze. USA is in first with 35 medals over all, but tied for first in gold with China.

Mountian biking is our sport. I can't wait to see it.....if I'm lucky enough to have it tuned in.

Almost enough to make me triskaidekaphobic.

Yup.
You read right.
Triskaidekaphobic.

It's been a LOUSY Friday the 13th. We had decided to re-arrange the bedroom. Sounds simple, right? That meant the computer had to be moved back to the living room.
Well, the computer desk broke. So did one of the legs of our bed frame. To top that off our digital camera fried when it was re-connected to the computer. Carrie started her period again. This is after having it gone for two days.

Man, if that is bad luck I don't know what is.

On the positive side, no-one here was seriously injured. Mind you I saw the after effects of 4 different car accidents.

Opening ceremonies of the 2004 Olympics were televised to day. That was some cool shit. Good thing I don't do drugs. I don't think I could have dealt with the parade of Greek history if I were stoned.

The days I HAVE to watch are going to be the 14 to 22 for fencing, 14 to 20 for Judo, and 27 to 28 for mountain biking. I'll probably take a look at archery and tae kwon do as well.
Take a look at the CBC schedule for more info

Here we go....

I've been trying to think about how to make my blog worth while reading. Should I do some kind of political commentary? What about reviews? Maybe I could write stories or poems?

I decided that I'm not as rabid as some are about politics. I don't have the money right now to be renting movies to review, and I haven't written anything since high school.

That doesn't leave me with a lot of content. All I have is my day to day life. Quite frankly, it's not all that interesting. At least not yet. It might change once I get into the army.

This week in the regular life files:

Monday- Sweet fuck all.
Tuesday- Foul mood, ran away from home for 3.5 hours and just hung out at the mall.
Wednesday- Stopped in at the library to get a book on Flash MX 2004. Which is no good to me because I have Flash MX.
I also found out my sister Carmen and my half sister Amber are a lot alike. Earlier this week Carmen got trapped in her bosses office for 45 minutes. Last year Amber got locked in the broom closet at the Tim Horton's she works at. She was locked in for 15 minutes. She had the only key to get in the closet.
Carrie dropped of her prescription for her new glasses.
Around midnight a skunk sprayed the window of the apartment below us. Since we had the air conditioner on it sucked the stink right into the bedroom. I almost hurled. Our eyes were watering, we were gagging and both ended up with a headache.
Thursday- Went to my moms to do laundry. My grandmother took me shopping. I was only expecting to get a a pair of pants. She got me three pair. As well as a pair of Merrell sandals and a pair of Merrell shoes. In total she spent close to $300.00. I fought like hell not to get the shoes. The clerk at the shoe store said you can't argue with your grandma. Yes you can. Only I lost.
After lunch, Carrie and I went to the mall to get a refill of my allergy medication and her glasses. They look good, kind of a pink anodized frame with a slight rose tint in the lenses. I just hope she doesn't lose them like she did her last pair.
Friday- Hasn't happened yet.
Saturday- Same as Friday. Do you really want to know about Sunday?

New Old photos.

A couple of weeks ago my grandmother gave me some pictures. I finally got them scanned.


My mom's parents on their wedding day. 


My grand father before he left for war. 



Back from war. 

Stress filled weekend. Ugh!

Friday we had a major down pour here. Not as bad as Trenton, just 20 km away. They got 5 inches of rain, but we got pretty hosed too.

Carrie and I were out spending the very little pocket money we had at Zellers. When we got to the check out we couldn't see across the street it was raining so hard. A few minutes later it let up enough to be classified as a heavy drizzle. So we bolted out the door to make our way to the mall, because it has a sheltered bus stop. We were half way there when the clouds burst a second time. We were completely soaked.
Carrie was complaining that she felt "squishy", and we both figured it was because she was wet.
We were wrong.

When we got home and got changed, she realized she had started her period. Or thought she did. A few hours later she commented that it seemed heavier than normal. Not that we had any idea what normal was anymore, having been over 9 months without and NOT being preggers.
Saturday morning, she was still very heavy. Around noon I had called my mom for advice, was told a few things and persuaded to wait, "it'll slow down."
Sunday morning, still no change. Carrie was looking pale, feeling weak, and I was very nervous. We called my mom, and convinced her to take Carrie to the hospital to be checked out.
The doctor said that Carrie was hemorrhaging but we had caught it in time. They didn't explain WHY, but they gave Carrie a prescription for progesterone to help slow/stop the bleeding, and told her to come back on Thursday for an ultrasound.
She's been on the pills for 4 days now, and they seem to be helping a little.
Hopefully it's nothing too serious.

Monday my mother calls and leaves me a message saying she took my grandmother to the hospital because of chest pains. Grandma had been having them since Friday. FRIDAY! And she never said a word. They hospital hooked her to an EKG, drew some blood and determined that it wasn't a heart attack or stroke. They figure it's angina. She goes in on Friday for stress testing to confirm it. For now she's on nitro pills.

We called housing yesterday. The two people we wanted to talk to there weren't in, of course. So we made a few inquiries and got another name to speak to. I'm sorry we did.
When we called yesterday, we were told that we signed up for low income housing in January 2001, and had been on the list for only a year (it's now 2004, you do the math) and that it's a 3 year wait. Today we got a call back from them because the secretary of the "Boss" heard what we were told yesterday and wanted to try to clear it up. Hooray! NOT!
A couple of hours later, after looking at our file, she called back to tells us, "yes, it's three years. You signed up in 2003, which is what you were told yesterday."
They're damned lucky I'm poor and can't afford to buy a rifle, because Belleville does have a bell tower.

In other news, the stairs I helped build at my moms would have cost her $5000.00. Mike started his own business and is planning on using his free work as a show piece for his advertising.

Well, it's now 1936 hrs and I'm dying of thirst. I think I'll go make a batch of Kool-aid.

I'm sick of waiting.

Carrie, Logan and I moved to Belleville in October of 2001 because I got a better paying job at a company that is managed by assclowns. We were still tight for money and applied for low income housing. When we signed up we were told it was a 12 to 18 month wait. So we waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
When we would call to find out how much longer it would be, we would get told various time frames, 2 to 6 months, 6 to 8 months, 2 months to a year. And we'd wait again.
We went to where we applied for non profit housing to see what the hell was going on. The lady we spoke with didn't really have anything to do with the placement process, she just took the information and passed it on, but was extremely helpful. She gave us a couple of names and phone numbers to contact to get this straightened out. Now with it being a long weekend we'll have to wait until Tuesday to try to get some answers. October will be the start of year 4 for us to be on the waiting list.

I'm still waiting to hear from the army. I did, however call them on Thursday. I did it for two reasons: 1) I wanted to confirm that they received my medical files from my family doctor, and 2) to find out what was going on with my processing.
My answers were: 1) "Yes we did get your files.", and 2)"The review board has all your information. Your first and third choice of trades begin in September, your second choice starts in January. You should hear from us in the next 2 to 6 weeks."
For those of you that don't know, my choices are: 1) Vehicle Tech 411 (mechanic), 2)Material Tech 441(welder/fabricator), 3)Mobile Support Equipment Opperator 935(drive EVERYTHING the army has).
That's a modified list. Item 1 was actually item 3. Number 2 was 1, and 3 was 2. When I went in to drop off my application information, I had JUST missed the cut off date for Mat Tech and MCSE. So we fudged things around a bit.

So while I wait for the army, I'm still unemployed. I did apply online to Future Shop. I have to wait until the finish building it I guess.

The PATIO IS DONE!!

Well, It's done. It took over a month for it to get completed, but it's finally done!

I didn't get started on the patio itself when I thought I would. I was told be ready for 1400hrs, but didn't start until 1800hrs. It was raining too. But it took the three of us 3 hours to lay the brick work. When I left at 2100hrs, all that was left was to sand, tamp, and re-sand it. Having only two brooms I decided to leave. That and I was cold, wet, tired and hungry.
What do you think?


Sunday, before we started on the patio. 


the patio and stairs. 


the stairs that took 7 hours to build. 


To celebrate the completion of the project I went for a swim today. DAMN that water was cold! It was free at the public pool so I didn't mind too much. On the plus side I got to embarrass a female life guard. There was a day camp there today. When I left a few of the boys from the camp were goofing around in the shower area. I was in the change area drying off when I heard a whistle blow. I turn around to see what's up and I can see the lifeguard standing there, and she can see me in all my butt nekkidness. No swimsuit on, no towel. Nothing. Funny thing is, I wasn't embarrassed at all, even when she walked through the change room.

Not a typical Monday

I know, I know. Today is Tuesday.

Yesterday was so insane, I haven't been able to breathe until now.

Logan had a dentist appointment at 0810 hrs. I wasn't looking forward to it, seeing as his last 2 tries at getting his cavity filled failed miserably. Then again, it wasn't our regular dentist that saw him the last two times. Dr Verpoorte seems to be able to deal with kids better than his associate.
The nurse came in and explained to Logan what was going to happen, starting with the gas, then about the different drills they use and finally the filling. Logan was given a choice of purple, blue, green or white for filling color.
Everything was going fine upto the filling going in. Logan had enough of the gas and having things in his mouth. As Dr. Verpoorte said, it's not the best filling he's done, but it's in.

I was expecting Logan to not want to go to school afterwards, but he did. So I took him in.
On my way home, I looked out the bus window in time to see an older lady wipeout on her bike. She went down hard.
Nancy, the bus driver, and I hopped off the bus to see if she was okay. She was rolling around in pain, scrapes on her right shin, but nothing that looked too bad. A passerby stopped to lend a bit of a hand, and called 911, left a pillow and took off. Nancy had to go, so I waited for the ambulance to arrive, just in case she went into shock and passed out.
The EMTs checked her over, nothing broken, just some scrapes, and pulled tendons in her leg. She's probably got some nasty looking bruises today.

When I got home, our friends Andrew and Jenn called. They had scavenged an old Compaq Deskpro computer form his dad's place and wanted some help to get it up and running. Sounded easy enough, so I foolishly agreed.
Did you know that Copmaq didn't have a BIOS on the motherboard for the system they had found? It's supposed to be in a hidden partition on the hard drive. The hard drive was missing, by the way.
It took us two hours to find the right file to add the BIOS to the hard drive Andrew had. But it does work.

As Andrew was checking things out (the drive had Win98 on it), I was getting ready to go to the YMCA for a workout, and Andrew was thinking about going with me. I had just started to pack my bag when the phone rang. It was my mom. Her ex-step-son-in-law,Mike, finally showed up to start work on the stone patio she wanted. But they needed an extra set of hands.
First we had to build the steps to get out the patio door. From the ground to the door it's 4 steps. The top step is a landing that's level with the living room floor, so it's about 4.5 feet above the ground. The landing is approx. 5-6 feet long and 4-5 feet wide. It took 3 guys 7 hours to build it. I was on shovel/wheelbarrow duty. We used close to 40 wheelbarrows full of limestone, close to 300lbs/load. Once that was done, we moved the rest of the limestone to the pit where the main deck is going to be, that was another 20 barrows full.  That was all packed down last night.

All this on the tails of a busy, but enjoyable Sunday. Mom called me at 0900 hrs and asked if we wanted to go over for brunch seeing as my step sister was visiting with her kids. We had HUGE omelets. All three of the kids played in the backyard together. We all had water gun fights, and the  three boys wrestled with me and grandpa Jim.
The day went fast and it was supper time really soon. 1800hrs and people were still full from brunch, but I still managed to eat 2.5 bbqed hamburgers! Man did I feel sick when I got home.


Grandpa is down! Victory is ours! 


Getting ready tor the water gun fight. 



The boys. Nolan, Logan, Kadin. 

I got a call just a few minutes ago. Mike got the afternoon off. Looks like I'm going back to help lay the patio brick today. At least there's no more shoveling or wheelbarrows.
Damn my arms are tired!

Hooray for Phones!

On Thursday of last week I asked Kris, via ICQ, if he had Marks phone number. He said no. I wasn't overly surprised, seeing as he and Mark weren't buddy-buddy.
Kris did suggest I ask Shaun. Just as I finished reading it, Shaun pops up on MSN. When asked if they planned it they both said no. I have my doubts about that. But Shaun gave me Marks phone number.
 
Here it is Sunday, and I finally gave Mark a call. I haven't spoken to him in a few years, at least 2, but probably closer to 4.
It was a little awkward, and we never really fell into that old "good friends" type of banter. I guess it's just too many years of news have passed and not knowing what to ask.
 
SO. Mark and his long time girlfriend (Bonnie), got married last August. They've moved into a house, have no kids, but have at least 2 cats. I'm guessing there's more, but Mark only confessed to two. He's been working at the same place now for, as far as I can figure, 6 years. I know Bonnie was working when I left Nova Scotia after high school, but didn't think to ask if she was still pulling her weight. (I'm going to get slapped for that one)
 
We made the typical small talk about how no-one can afford to go more than 100 meters from one for a vacation, which means we won't see each other unless someone wins the 6/49. I asked about some other common friends we had, and was told that he didn't see them very often.
 
The one person I was hoping for news about was Julie. Unfortunately Mark hasn't heard from her since the wedding. Maybe she'll contact him soon and he can pass my info on to her.
 
Other than that, not much has been happening. I'm still waiting to hear form the army. I haven't been to a movie in a dogs age. I'm waiting for the Olympics to start. I had a job interview at Staples last week, but didn't get the job.
 
OH! I went to my FIRST Mechwarrior: Dark Ages tournament at the Fable Shop. I didn't play, I don't have enough figure to make a decent army. I went mainly to see the game mechanics. Just like back in high school in Kris and Johns basement, it took forever for things to start. It was scheduled to start at noon, but everyone kept trying to tweak their armies. There was no money involved, but there was a prize. A pair of hard to get figures. If you haven't seen the game yet, check it out  http://www.wizkidsgames.com/mwdarkage/ 

A little wet and soggy

It's now Wednesday. Waterfornt weekend is done for another year, and rumor has it, again, this will be the last one.

I'm not going to lose sleep over it if it is. Waterfront isn't the best thing I've been to. Hell I've been to kids birthday parties that offered as much entertainment. After all Waterfront is really only a flea market. This year there were supposed to be more craft stalls than ever before. It didn't look like it to me.
Aside from the crap, I mean crafts, that I wouldn't buy because I'm not over 70, there's the "Ethnic village". The village is a food court. That's it. No there isn't a McDonald's or a Pizza Hut. The food is supposed to be from various countries around the world. This is a good thing. I like to eat. I like to try new things. Unfortunately everything is way over priced. A polish sausage cost $3.00, and a can of Coke was $1.75. And it's a small sausage.

I'm still unemployed, but that will hopefully change by the end of this week. I had an interview at Staples yesterday. The guy I was supposed to be interviewed by was out assisting a customer in home, so I was seen by someone that wasn't prepared to see me.
She told me that it's normally a 3 interview process, and she was usually the second interview. Aside form the "what can you bring to the company" question it went well. I never know how to answer that.

I woke up this morning to a "sever thunderstorm warning". That's a nice way to start the day. Shortly after that I got a call from my mom telling me that if it gets really bad, hide the family in the bathroom. The storm lasted MAYBE 20 minutes. Hell, it didn't even rain that hard. No lightning, no hail, no dark foreboding skies. sigh. Maybe next time we'll get a tornado, now that would be cool!

Waterfront and Ethnic Festival

Yep. It's that time of year again here in Belleville, Ontario.

Depending on who you ask it's either a 3 day or 5 day event. Sticklers say it's only three because the craft shows and concerts don't open until Friday. Others say it starts on Wednesday with the closing of "the Village" downtown, for the all week sidewalk sale.

No matter how you choose to look at it, it still needs better organization.

The events are reasonably well planned. It's the travel that needs the help. Because most of downtown is closed to street traffic half the city busses are re-routed. This year its complicated due to a bridge being refurbished. Next is the "free shuttle" service.

To allow everyone to get to all the events at Meyers Pier or at Zwicks Park the city has commandeered a few city buses that run from the bus terminal to Zwicks and Meyers, or from the mall to Zwicks.

The biggest problem is the times these shuttles run. Events start at 1100 hrs. Shuttle starts at 1200 hrs. For people with a car it's not that big of a deal. Those, like myself, without have a problem with it.

How can I take Logan to see Spongbob Squarepants and get to other more "grown up" things on time? Spongebob was to be there at 1215 hrs. I was expecting monster line-ups like we had for Dora, so I wanted to get there around 1130 hrs. I figured that would give us lots of time to wait and we could take the shuttle from Zwicks to Meyers to catch the bellyflop competition. Since we couldn't get there at 1130 hrs, I figured we were screwed. Walking was not an option with a 4 year old, especially since we walked home Friday night after the fireworks.


Spongebob, Logan and Mommy 


Daddy, Logan and Spongebob. 

We finally found our sponge buddy and he did have a line up. We waited form 1230 to 1245 to get our pics taken with him. After that we looked around the "kids village", Logan helped Carrie build a wooden tool box at the Home Depot tent, and then Logan saw the Lego tent and palyed in there for a bit.

We never made it to the bellyflop competition. Logan was starting to get cranky and Carrie and I were sweating buckets. We got home around 1430 hrs, and laid down.

Yesterday was a little more fun.

At 1830 hrs the parade started. Logan had a blast waving at EVERY person on EVERY float. Most waved back.

At 2000 we wandered down to Meyers Pier to wait for fireworks. We saw a couple of tallships and listend to some live music.

A great Canadian band Krome was on stage. Logan though they were awesomeand was dancing to all their tunes.

Fireworks were supposted to start at 2145 hrs, but were delayed until 2200hrs. They lasted for nearly 30 minutes, 22 minutes LONGER than our Canada Day display. That's kind of sad.

When we left, the Tea Party was just taking the stage. I've seen them before and would have liked to see them again, but all votes are vetoed by a tired 4 yearold.

Stressed

I'm pissed off. Not in general, but at something specific. Or, I should say someones specific.

Now, I know I haven't had this blog up and running very long, and those few of you that read it don't know a hell of a lot about me or my family.

Carrie has a brother who is badly schizophrenic. He's been in care for sometime, but as of a week and a half ago he had walked off on his own. Without his medication. So the provincial and local law have been trying to find him.

We got a call from Carrie's parents to let us know he was on the loose and that we were to call them if we saw her brother. We saw him tonight and had him in our home.

It was the most nerve racking hour and a half I've spent in a long time. Carrie tried her parents several times, but the line was busy. So I told her to call 9-1-1.

It wasn't until after the cops had left that we got through to Carrie's dad. Her mom was off at BINGO, and her sister was with her dad getting drunk. Both of them started bitching at Carrie for calling the cops. I can guarantee her mom will call later to do the most bitching and complaining. Mind you, I'll have a few choice words for them!

After the police left, Carrie told me that while her brother was on the run, he was extremely violent at one place he stayed. I was glad he left without force.

Knowing that a person is mentally ill is bad enough. Watching them try to avoid the help they KNOW and admit they need is even worse. Having other family members berate and belittle you for doing the right thing? I can't imagine how Carrie feels.

I can only hope that the Army gets a hold of me soon. I pray that we get posted anywhere but here. I can't stand seeing Carrie so torn up over this and it always seems to fall in her lap.

Carrie's sister is also schizophrenic. Last month she was the one we had to deal with. She had decided that she couldn't deal with her two daughters anymore. So she called the Children's Aid Society. They apparently have a “weekend off” program where they take custody of the kids for 2 days. A week later, she still hadn't picked them up.

She did call us to see if we would take the girls. Finances and lack of space forced us to say no. It hurt Carrie a lot, but she knew C.A.S was the best place for them. Her sister should have known that too, but still told Carrie that she didn't love her nieces. A few weeks later C.A.S called because sister told them we wanted the girls. Again Carrie had to tell them no. Again the family said she was a bad person.

Even though my side of the family can be nuts and angry with each other, I can still see and feel the love. Carrie's family rarely says or does anything nice for her or about her, yet I can feel her love for them. I just don't understand why.

Why? How? What?

I was sitting here watching the Discovery Channel. It was a show about amusement park rides. Cool stuff.
When they went to commercial it was an ad for HP computers. You've probably seen it, the one where Donkey from Shrek complains about a receding hairline?
At the end HP takes credit for helping create the graphics for Shrek. That's a kind of arrogant don't you think? Yes, the animation company needs computers, and probably got the best deal from HP, but HP just puts components together. I don't see Intel or AMD taking credit for helping make the movie. There's no ads from ATI or nVidia doing it. Hell HP doesn't even make their own monitors.
It's kind of like the caterer taking credit for the space shuttle launch. "Buy Maxwell House Coffee. We kept ground control awake for the launch!"

Now, what's up with these blogs? When I log into my blogger dashboard there's 2 lists of blogs. The bottom one for recently updated blogs, and Blogs of Note. Who decides what's "of note"?

Let's take a look at Spindrift surfboard.
Spindrift started the blog in May of 2004. All of the entries are pictures of surfboards. I don't surf, but can see the beauty in just about anything.
I don't see how it's a "blog of note". Especially when there is no text content. Are these Spindrift's personal boards? Does Spindrift own a pro shop and these are for sale? Are these hand made by Spindrift?

Terminal Island is another one I don't get. I like the look and like the interface idea, but he states it's a TEST. He's got two or three posts and that's it.
Again, no real content.

Kuwait Diary was one I had hopes for, just based on the title. I thought it would be blogs form someone stationed in Kuwait letting us see how things are. Again it's just pics.

Caliblog actually has some content. It's not earth shattering, but it's intelligent.

I'm not ragging on Blogger.com to see if I can get into the "of note" category. It'd be cool and all, but I'm not concerned. All I want to know is what they base the choice on. Maybe I can change my writing style or pick a direction for this to go.

I can't imagine too many people want to read about my mundane life.

Canada day

Well, Canada just had it's 137 birthday.
Here in Belleville, we had thunder storms all day. It cleared up enough to have a fireworks display. Because the ground was wet I din't go, but I've heard peolple complaining that it only lasted 8 minutes.

Other than that all I did for Canada Day was argue online with a 16 year old kid. Why? Not really sure. It started with a post on a paintball forum about a Canadian jackass Toobis. Someone came across this idiots website and a rant he posted on how Hitler was demonized, and was actually a decent person. You can read the thread here as well as my comments to the 16 year old kid. I refuse to post a link to Toobis' web site, but there is one in the thread.

I woke up this morning with sore shoulders and chest. I was at the gym yesterday. Usually I focus on biceps and legs, but yesterday I did some bench presses. Man I need to do more work!

Later today I'm taking Logan to the kiddie pool to slapsh around in. Now I'll be able to complain about a sun burn too!

I'm stumped.

I have absolutely no clue as to what I need to do.

Here I am, hoping to get into the army. I've done most of the required preliminary work, all that's left is the actual fitness test. Here in lies my quandary.

I'm 5' 10 3/4" tall, 232 lb. For my height, I should only be 170 pounds. That means I need to lose 60 pounds.

"Go on a diet, you idiot!"

Yeah, right. Which one? It's not that I don't have the will power to stick to a diet. It's a lack of finances. Everything I've read tells me that eating FRESH FOODS is the best way to shed pounds with regular exercise. I can't afford to but a head of lettuce every other day. I'm stuck with processed crap because I need food to last at least 2 weeks.
Hell, I can't even afford to get Slimfast. The shakes need too much milk and a box of 6 bars won't last long. I'll have to double check the price of them. At least I'd be sure to get more balanced diet.

The next thing I'm having problems with is finding a workout routine. I need something to help me build strength for push-ups and chin ups. Can I find anything online? HELL NO!

I guess this means I'm off to the library to find some fitness/anatomy books.

Oh hell. I almost forgot. I have to take Logan to the dentist in the morning. He needs to get a cavity filled, or as the dental assistant put it, "He needs to get the sugar bugs out of your mouth."

Sweet Jesus, I'll need a drink by 10:00 am.

Pride and Patience

Lets start with patience.

Today at the local mall, Dora the Explorer made an appearance. Having a four year old son we had little choice but to take him.
Dora was to be there from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm, near the food court. The layout of the mall is kind of like a square donut, a ring of stores on the exterior wall, and a core of stores at the center. The line up started at the stage (food court) wound it's way along the exterior stores almost back to the food court again. Now, the mall is used for indoor walking before the stores open, you follow the exterior wall exactly you'll walk 1 mile. We got to the mall at 10:30 am and waited at about the 1/2 mile mark. That's a SHITLOAD of kids.


Me, Logan and the famous Dora the Explorer! 

I was quite impressed, very few cranky kids were there. By noon we had advanced to the 1/4 mile mark and still all but the youngest kids (under 2) were still very well behaved. Mine included. We finally got to the stage at 1:00 pm. I still can't believe that we spent 2.5 hours in line for 30 seconds on stage with a geek in a costume. The things we do for our kids!

Now for the Pride.

Friday we went to my moms to do the laundry. When we got there I wandered into my grandmothers living room to she how she was doing. She was doing a cross stitch so I took a look around.
She's a typical old lady, all her stuff is this old antique type stuff, Hummel figurines, clocks, that sort of stuff. But the one thing I ALWAYS, look at is something on her wall.

I don't know exactly what to call it. She has a box on the wall, with a glass front, like a frame. Inside, centered from left to right, but above the mid point from top to bottom is a photo of my grandfather. It was taken shortly after he entered the army, but before he went over seas. Below the image is a small plaque with his birth year, and the year of his passing, as well as the years he served in the military. Below the plaque are his medals, and surrounding the picture are his pins. It looks fantastic and it's a wonderful way to remember him.

I also found out that these items were offered to my uncle, my mom's brother, and he refused them. I can't understand why. My grandmother said, "I guess he just wasn't proud of his father." That just crushed me. I told her I'd be honored and would love to have it hanging in my home. I think she was ready to cry when I said that.

It also got me thinking about my dad's dad. I'm going to call my other grandma at the beginning of July (more long distance minutes for my phone plan) and see if she still has all of grandpa medals. I like to have a display for him in my home as well.

Once I have them both, they'll be passed down to Logan, along with a third. The third won't be ready for sometime, at least not until I'm done my years in the army. I just hope I get in and can do the memory of both of these men proud.