Betta get ready…Suckas

So…according to Family Radio I only have one day left until the rapture and the end of the world. They actually guarantee it on their website. Tomorrow is judgement day. No way around it. Fascinating. In getting ready for this guaranteed event, I thought I would provide a list of the top seven things I will be doing today to get ready. Why seven? Because it is God’s number and if judgment day is coming tomorrow I can use every last piece of help I can get. So, without further adieu, here we go…

1) Make sure I put absolutely pristine, super-clean, white underwear on! In fact I might go buy some new ones right now. If I am fortunate enough to get raptured then my tighty-whities will be left lying in the street, left behind for all those walking buy to see. Can you imagine the horror of those left behind if my underwear was nasty? Oh my goodness. The embarrassment and shame! I can’t even bear the thought. And if I don’t fly away, then I want a clean pair on so that when I crap in them…oh well…you get the picture!

2) Run through the streets naked. Yes, butt stinking naked. I don’t know why, but it has always been one of those few things I lack the courage to do. The embarrassment is so extreme when your friends, neighbors, and popo see you. Plus, when the popo do finally catch you and cuff you, they throw you in the back of their squad car where you must sit on those plastic seats in the rear of the car with only your bare ass cheeks. Do you know what drunks and criminals have done on those seats? Puke, crap, etc! They are plastic for a reason readers! Eewww!! Disgusting. But, if I only have one day left…what the hell! Come on people and join me. Run naked and be free people! You know that deep down in those places we never talk about you want to!

3) Buy lot’s of tequila and whiskey. I could explain my rationale…but do I really need to?

4) Have myself and my family kiss toads and frogs. Why? Fairytales people! If we kiss enough freaking toads and frogs maybe one will suddenly transform into a prince or princess and we will all live happily ever after! So I am puckering up and sucking face with every frog and toad I see! The way I figure it, if a little peck MIGHT transform the slimy creature, then sucking tongue with a frog or toad would SURELY do the trick! I am concerned however that with my misfortune and bad luck I might be the one that gets “lucky” and ends up with the prince.

5) I am ripping out all my teeth and laying them under my pillow. Then I am going to drink coffee and Redbull all night long. About midnight, I am going to creep into bed, almost close both eyes (you know what I’m talking about…close them to where just a slit remains that is blurry to see through) and wait for the tooth fairy. When that little bastard comes I am going to catch him and beat the living crap out of him/her. I have politely ignored doing this for the last 11 years as I have been concerned with the fortune and well-being of all mankind. After all, that’s the kind of guy I am. Always looking out for others, I am. But I really hate the damn tooth fairy! Actually, I abhor him/her. For the last eleven years I have had to keep my happy ass awake and put money under my kids pillows because the freaking tooth fairy never shows up at my house. What’s up with that? I have lost both time and money because of the tooth fairy. With the world coming to an end tomorrow…well lets just say tonight I finally settle the score with the tooth fairy! In thinking about my sinister plot I must admit that Santa Claus is lucky it’s not Christmas time or his jolly fat ass would be in trouble too!

6) I am not brushing my teeth! Yes, I know dear reader that you are now overly disgusted (as are all the toads and frogs out there), but please consider my rationale. If I am raptured tomorrow then I will be an angel. Have you ever heard of an angel with bad breathe? Of course not! I will be made heavenly and smell wonderful (including my breathe). No problem with not brushing my teeth if this situation occurs! If I remain here for the apocalypse, then I am considering the idea that I just might end up being a zombie. If this could be true then I want the nastiest breathe I can have. I want to scare the crap out of everyone. Anything less would be uncivilized for a zombie. Makes sense now…doesn’t it?

7) I am going to eat lots of refried beans, starting right now! I am going to eat them for the next few hours till they are flowing out of my ears. Then later this afternoon I am going to run around and drop nasty, gooey, stinky chalupas everywhere I think they should be delicately placed (like select neighbors yards and certain places of business). Why? Happy, sweet revenge! If you have pissed me off, then a nice pile of bean shit might just be waiting for you in the morning. The way I see it, there is no time like the present to get revenge. Today, is the day of reckoning for me. By tomorrow, some people will be gone, and those that are left will not care about a pile of shit on their doorstep as they will have far greater concerns. With my enlightened understanding, I feel that there is no time like the present to extract revenge!

Keep one eye on me people. You just might see me running down the street butt naked, sucking tongue with a frog and dropping chalupas as I go!

20 Years Ago Today

20 years ago, on this very date, I asked C to be my girlfriend. Fortunately for me, she said yes. Amazingly, she has stuck by my side for 20 years! She has been there through thick and thin, for better or worse, and all that jazz. We have been together for two decades, married for almost 16 of those years, and have five children. There have been many happy moments as well as some heartaches along the way. Strangely, it seems like only yesterday I was asking her if she wanted to be my girl. Time sure does tick away fast when you share it with somebody that is so cool. I wish everyone could be as fortunate as I am! The last 20 years have been the happiest of my life. I am extremely blessed to have partnered on this journey of life with such a fantastic lady.

Thank you for sharing the ride with me honey! I love you immensely!

Oh! Happy Day!

Almost three months ago my father (and his wife) bought me a Nook Color for my birthday. This was a big decision for me as I love books. It actually was a monumental decision for me. I really love books. I really, really love books. I love the feel of them. I love the smell of them. I simply love holding them and reading them. Books are my comfort zone. They are my security blanket. I know that sounds insane to most people, but please grant me my obsession! When I need to get away for a moment I know that the library or a bookstore can calm me down instantly. In possessing an insane love of traditional books the decision to go with an eReader was a tough one. The decision actually was monumental for me as I can’t justify spending money on something that I wouldn’t use.

Once I finally decided to bite the technology bullet I was forced with another tough decision. Should I go with a reader, or should I go with a reader that has other functions (like the Android based Nook Color)? I did my due diligence and researched them. I read so many reviews that I am confident that I could write a review without ever actually holding or using one. After all the research, my dad and I (along with C and the kids) went to Barnes and Noble where I played with both the Nook and the Nook Color. After much internal wrestling and debating I went with the Nook Color. I am very happy that I did as I am not only able to read books and magazines (like Ellery Queen), but I am also able to surf the web, play Sudoku, or do Crosswords while watching a movie. Yes I know that we as men can’t multitask, but I can switch back and forth between the Nook and the TV. I can also listen to Pandora and have some of my personal documents and pictures on there. I began to fall in love with my Nook Color. Yes, I still make frequent trips to the library. Half of my reading is still in the form of the good old-fashioned paper book. I will never get away from that. However, any book I buy is now in the technology induced design of an eReader format.

Which leads me to my overwhelming happiness today. For the three months that I have owned my Nook Color I have been waiting for v1.2 to come out so that I could download apps and have a full featured email app on it. Before you try to tell me that I could have “already done that”, I know that I could have rooted it. Honestly, I did not want to jack it up and void my warranty. I’m not rich y’all, so I chose to test the virtue of patience and wait for the release of v1.2. Yesterday, I received an email from B&N stating that v1.2 was now out and that they would do a rolling update this week OR that I could download the software at anytime of my choosing. I couldn’t wait and downloaded it yesterday, set up my email accounts, and downloaded several apps (most of which are functional and productivity apps). It is wonderful. My Nook Color is finally able to function in the form of a true Android based tool. Yes, the web may be a little slow for my choosing, but isn’t that what my computer is for? I am not surfing the web all day on my eReader, only using it on occasions when I want to quickly look something up. It is a wi-fi only device (no 3GS or 4G capability), but if I truly need to look something up quickly and do not have wi-fi around me then that is what my phone is for. Overall, I am a very happy camper. I highly recommend the Nook Color to anyone that wants an eReader with other capabilities. However, you can’t have mine!

Da Boys like to “talk”

Yesterday we had three soccer games. I will not bother with the details of the individual games as C posts all of the info on her blog. However I must say that my two boys had “interesting” comments.

–

During JA’s game the ref made some questionable calls. The older JA gets the more vocal and confident he gets. Thus he felt completely comfortable with questioning the ref on more than one occasion yesterday. Finally the ref told JA that if he made one more comment then a yellow card would be issued. JA has played with a yellow before and does not fear them. He promptly turned to the ref and said “Why not threaten with a red, instead of a yellow”. Red would get him kicked out of the game. Nothing like taunting the ref. Strangely the ref tucked tail and walked away. He continued to make some questionable calls and JA and the other boys continued to question. No card was ever issued. I’m still not sure how I feel about it, but I must admit that I chuckled at seeing my boy stand up for the himself and the team. Asking for the red does not make me happy though!

–

At CA’s game, the head of the whole club and I were talking. He advised me that JE is now his favorite player in the whole club and that I definitely have my hands full with him. He laughed as he told me that JE had just run up to him (the head of the club) and told him that “A boy got kicked in the balls at practice and it looked like it really hurt”. Out of the blue. No precedence or lead in. Just a point blank statement. Of course JE was laughing about it. I’m not really surprised. This is the same boy that just two weeks ago told his Sunday School teacher that he was tired because he stayed up late the night before watching Zombieland. His SS teacher looked real happy!

Anyway, have a blessed Easter Day.

Happy Easter Weekend!

Happy Easter Weekend to everyone.

Yes, I know that not everyone celebrates Easter. In respect to that fact I figured I would bring to point that:

There are about 6.9 billion people in the world.

If we look at the breakdown of religious affiliations it looks something like this:

Christianity – 32-33%

Islam – 21-22%

Non-religious – 14% (including no religion, Atheists, agnostic, etc.)

Hinduism – 13%

Buddhism – 6%

Judaism – .2%

All others – about 13% (including Chinese Traditional, Wicca, Primal-Indigenous, etc.)

Stats are from various sources including, but not limited to (adherents.com, religioustolerence.com, and wikipedia). Trust me, I’ve done enough research papers for my many college Religion classes that I would never use websites as fully reliable and trustworthy sources, but these calculations are based on a comparative representation of multiple sources.

If you look at Christianity, Islam, and Judaism combined then about 55% of the world’s populations represent one form or another of Abrahamic faith. The oldest of the “Big 4” (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism) is Hinduism which began roughly around 1500 BCE and the youngest is Islam with its roots at 622 CE.

Why do I point this out? Not to make any specific point or to plead my case for Christianity. I simply point it out to say that based on approximation stats then a third of the world (and 75% of America and Canada) understand the true meaning of the words Happy Easter.

A dad and his teenage son

JA is only a few months away from turning 14 and he has become a fully functioning teenage boy. I am extremely proud of him and the fine young man he has become. His grades are good, he is a soccer star, and he is about as well behaved as a teenage boy can be.

Sadly, as he continues to find himself, it seems that he and I knock heads more than either he or I would like. Within the last year he has changed from needing my “wisdom” and protection to an astonishingly independent young man. This process is obviously painful for him, but I must admit that it absolutely tears my heart apart. It seems that it was not that long ago that I was carrying my first newborn child home from the hospital. He was completely dependent upon C and I. Now…it has all changed.

He suddenly delights in the girls, and yes, he has a girlfriend. It took just a couple of days after breaking up with his last girlfriend to move on and find a new one. Last month he sent and received nearly 10,000 text messages. These texts were to numerous friends, but most of them were to individuals of the female persuasion. I don’t think I hit that many texts in a whole year!

It seems that most of the time he would rather spend his free time with friends and technology than with the family. The other night he was on Facebook, texting his girlfriend, listening to his iPod, and watching tv all at the same time. Last Saturday he had three girls that invited him to a movie. It would have been JA and three girls alone at a movie. Are you kidding me? Thank God that we had soccer games that we had to be at! Don’t get me wrong, he still spends plenty of time with the family, but everything has changed. I know that this is all part of my children growing up. I understand that this is what must happen as my kids turn into young adults. That doesn’t mean that I like it. My emotions are constantly torn between love, pride and sadness.

I am currently reading What Your Son Isn’t Telling You – Unlocking the Secret World of Teen Boys by Michael Ross and Susie Shellenberger. So far, JA seems like a very normal teenage boy in relation to what I am reading. In fact, most of the time I think they are talking about my son. The book is helping me remember some of what it was like for me when I was a teenager. As JA likes to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself (typical teenage boy) it is also giving me some insight into JA’s mind. Hopefully the information helps. The Lord knows I need it!

Happy Good Friday!

Yes, once again I will try blogging. my reasoning is that it will give me an outlet and force me to write. It’s as simple as that….