Newest Family Member

Actual Conversation:

Vic: "Dog?"
Joe: "No."
Vic: "Dog?"
Joe: "No."
Vic: "Yes."
Joe: "Ok."

So we now have a 10 week old Cockapoo. Half Cocker Spaniel, half Poodle. The girls decided to name him Chance. I think it's because there's a good chance he'll take 5 yrs off my life. :)

Gracie absolutely adores him and plays with him all the time. Hailey's getting better but very averse to puppy nips. You know how they like to nibble on everything. Alyssa won't get in the same room with him. Terrified. We have a lot of work to do with her, but she'll do fine.

So,,,, here's Chance.

Maturity

My Father was in the Navy. My Uncles were in the Army, Navy and Marines. My Grandfather was in the Army. My Great Great Great etc etc. And I spent 10 yrs in the Navy.

By the time I was 22 yrs old I'd seen every John Wayne war movie ever made and just about every war movie period. I'd heard all the stories. And although I was still an immature 22 yr old guy, I had a deep respect for our nation, our military and those who serve.

Interacted with someone recently who doesn't have a clue about the value, honor and willingness to sacrifice our soldiers and sailors have. This 22 yr old, if she is really that old, has her head stuck in celebrities, singers, concerts and TV.

I hope someday she grows up.

Another Day

We told Gracie last night, due to the messes she was leaving around the house, she could only play with 2 toys at a time. She got very angry with me for enforcing this rule.

Gracie: "Dad, you're no longer part of the family!!"

Dad: "Ok Grace, no snack, food, TV, Computer, toys, water, clothes or anything. Go sit down and wait on your Mother."

Gracie: "What? Why?"

Dad: "Cause I pay for everything here. If I'm not part of the family, I'm not paying for any of your stuff."

Gracie: "GRRRRRR,,,,,,O K!!! You can be a little bit part of the family!!"


Gotta love her

Stargate Universe

I looked forward to this Friday and the new Stargate series premier for several months.
What a HUGE disappointment.

Gone is the comraderie, team work, loyalty, common purpose, humor and positive storyline present in over 10 years of the series franchise.

It is replaced with a putrid show about people arguing, bickering, stabbing each other in the back and basically being a typical reality tv show.

The new Battlestar Galactica series was done much the same way. Instead of telling a story, advancing a plotline or being entertaining,,,, they developed characters. They'd spend a whole series episode, a full hour telling a story which should have taken only a few minutes to tell and be part of larger more entertaining story.

They're banking on people choosing arguing, bitchy people over a real story and real entertainment.

So very sad to see this good tv series ruined this way.

Will I still watch? Probably. I'll record on DVR and fastforward thru the endless hours of BS to see where the story goes.

Very sad....

Where to Begin

Lots of things to post about, but so little time.

- Is it me, or is the media totally obsessed with the big O? Can't find a TV news show or magazine with a very positive story about his greatness. I'm still waiting for the first accomplishment.

- Not all celebrities are twits, as I previously thought. Only most of them. Became 'acquaintances' with one recently and they surprised me.

- Gracie's started blocking doorways in the house demanding the password in order go go through. I wonder when this will start turning into demands for cash?

- There's nothing in the world quite as wonderful, warm, fuzzy and down right loving as a kidney stone. Unless it's two. :)

Loser

In joking with Gracie this afternoon, I teased her and said: "Loser."

She looked at me and said: "YOU,,,,,are calling ME a loser?!?"


She's pretty smart.

Earth Day

Today I'm helping celebrate Earth Day. Let's cut to the chase here, bottom line - the purpose of this day is to save the planet from ourselves. Fat chance. 99.9999999% of the people on this planet are so uneducated and ignorant they will continue to do what they've always done regardless of our little Earth Day. And if they aren't ignorant, they just don't care.

But to be positive, to move forward, to help make this planet a better place for my offspring I'm going to suggest the following 10 things you can do to help save this planet. So here ya go.

1. Eat beef today. Reducing the number of cows farting will reduce carbon emissions.
2. Buy some leather goods. See benefit from #1.
3. Don't flush your toilets all day. Water conservation.
4. Don't put anything in your trash cans today, wait til tomorrow.
5. Hold your breath several times throughout the day for as long as you can. Save our precious oxygen.
6. Don't buy any gas for your car today. Fumes you know. Wait til tomorrow.
7. Shower with your spouse today. Lots of positives for this idea me thinks.
8. Wait til tomorrow to brush your teeth. Saves water you know.
9. Take some Beano. Again, reduce carbon emissions.
10. Don't workout today. The heat you generate will only contribute to global warming.

There ya go. 10 things you can do on Earth Day to make you feel better, save the planet and tick off your local PETA representative. :)


On a lighter note, from the homefront:
Allysaism:
Alyssa ran thru the house yelling "I GOTTA GO POTTIE!!!"

She got to the bathroom and yelled "Someone didn't flush the toilet."

Being a smart a$$ I said: "How can you tell?"

Alyssa replied: "Cause there's poop crumbs in there!!"

Gotta love her.

New Application

Added a new section to my blog. Where's Joe???

Now Vic need never wonder where I am.

Or Rachael Hunter, Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek or any of my girlfriends. ;)



Yep, I'm gonna get hit for that.

Stormy Weather

Tornado sirens wailed again in Atlanta. Kids were roused out of bed and rushed to the basement as a 'possible' tornado swept by us. It was about 1-2 miles away.

Reports of damage started coming in a few minutes ago. A small newborn was injured when a tree fell on a family's house not far from here. Like us, they had little warning. The sirens by our house didn't go off until the thing was almost on top of us.

Fortunately for us I was watching the radar on my iPhone and had gone outside just before it hit. I could hear the sirens from Cobb county to our south. Vic and I went ahead and got the girls jackets and shoes by the basement door just to be ready. Good move on our part.

So now I'm standing guard by the TV and Vic's sleeping with the little ones. Hopefully, this will only last a little while longer.

Another Day

I hate being sick. Especially if it involves pain or discomfort. For the last week, that's been the case. It sucks. Really sucks. It's impacted my workouts somewhat. I can still walk and ride. But no running and no intensity. Standing for a while or sitting in a chair for a while hurts a bit. Driving is miserable.

If you're wondering what's wrong I'll just say this. I have an internal infection, which has caused swelling and pain in a very private area. And for you bozo's out there NO it's not an STD. Geez. :)

So, I'll just continue to work on my basement office. Getting it outfitted so I can work more efficiently, often and effectively on Pingfit.

Later --

Good Carbs / Bad Carbs

The other day a friend of mine said she was trying teach her husband the difference between good carbs and bad carbs. Apparently he wasn't getting it, so I tried to help.

Good Carbs:
Pizza
Lasagna
Egg Rolls
Spaghetti
Dinner Rolls
Three Cheese Texas Toast
French Fries
Home Fries
Bake Potato's (with butter, sour cream, bacon bits and chives)
French Toast (with lots of syrup)
Cookies
Cakes
Honey Buns
Doughnuts

Bad Carbs:
Vegetables
Fruits
Wheat Bread
Beans


Yea I know. I'm tireless in my efforts to help friends.

On the home front. Gracie got put in timeout today for screaming in school. Big surprise there.

She also had the following conversation with Vic yesterday:

Grace: (From the other end of the house) "MOOOOOMMMMMMMMYYYYYY!!!!!"

Vic: "What Grace?"

Grace: "COOOMMMMEEEEE HEEERRRREEEE!!!!"

This repeats several times til Vic gets up to stop the noise pollution.

Vic: "Grace, what do you want."

Grace: (laying in the floor looking up at Vic) "I need a kid to play with."

Vic: "Well what do you want me to do about it?"

Grace: "Duh,,,,call some kid and tell them to come play with me."


Alyssa on the other had exhibited all the good traits we've been trying to instill in our girls since day one. At school yesterday they handed out prizes to the kids who sold the most 'cookie dough'. Alyssa and Hailey had pooled their resources, shared sales and entered all under Alyssa's name, so she got 4 different prizes.

Well, every kid in class got a prize except one. He got nothing. Alyssa went to him and gave him her biggest prize cause she didn't want him to be sad and feel left out. No that's my girl!!!


Later.

Vacation

We'd love to go on vacation this year. Panama City Beach again, Myrtle Beach, Pigeon Forge,,,any of them. But because of money and work,,,doesn't look like we'll be able to go anywhere.

My family is held hostage by certain aspects of my place of employment. Oh well, it's a job in these uncertain times, so I'll be happy with that.

Alyssa does want to go camping, so I told her we'd get a tent and brave the backyard one night. Gracie said she want to as well. I just don't see it happening.

More Gracisms

Everyone has seen a baseball players 'scratch'. You know,,,, the digging, rutting moves in broad daylight, shifting around and scratching in the most inappropriate places to be doing so outside.

Well,,,,, Gracie was doing a very good impression of this yesterday, which prompted the following conversation:

Vic: "Grace, what are you doing?"

Grace: "I got an itch and I got to itched it."

Vic: "Well you doing dig at yourself like that in front of everyone, it's not nice."

Grace: "Why not? My music teacher itches her itch like that in class. So if I get an itch, I'm gonna itched it."


Gracie also had a run in with our neighbors dogs the last few days. 1 snapped at her cause she was pounding it in the head and calling that 'petting'. The other was because she saw something unusual on our other neighbors Greyhound. Something that looked like an 'extra leg'.

Took us a few minutes to distract her away from that. Geez!!

Socialism

Another great story I just have to post. True? Who knows, but it certainly matches what I think would happen:

An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had failed very few student but had, once, failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "Ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades will be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade meaning, obviously, no one will receive an A."

They all agreed to this and after the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a C.
The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

When the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too, so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great dismay the professor failed them all. Then he sent all of them this note:

"A socialistic government will also ultimately fail - because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed."

Yep, sounds about like what I'd expect.

20 Years

Some jokes are just too good not to post.

A woman awoke during the night to find that her husband was not in bed. She put on her robe and went downstairs.

He was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of him. He appeared to be deep in thought, just staring at the wall. She saw him wipe a tear from his eye and take a sip of his coffee.

"What's the matter dear? Why are you down here at this time of night?" she asked.

"Do you remember 20 years ago when we were dating and you were only 16?" he asked.

"Yes I do." she replied.

"Do you remember when your father caught us in the back seat of my car?"

"Yes I remember."

"Do you remember your father when he shoved that shotgun in my face and said.'Either you marry my daughter or spend twenty years in jail'?"

"Yes I do", she replied.

He wiped another tear from his cheek and said, " You know I would have gotten out today."

Idiot Neighbor

For the last two days, my idiot, stupid, brain dead, dufus, ignorant, bonehead of a neighbor has been burning his leaves. That's right. Burning dead leaves from his property.

We're in the middle of a town. Hundreds of houses all around. Not out on the farm somewhere 100 miles from anyone. But dumba$$ collects all his leaves all fall and winter, piles them up, and burns them. Oh yea,,,,and it's rained for 5 days,,,so burning isn't really a good description. They're smoldering.

Smoke is so thick you can't walk around the house without choking.

I'm calling the city offices tomorrow and see if there is some way to get this jerk in trouble for this garbage.

Did I mention that I have more brain cells in my pinky toe nail than bonehead across they way has?

WHAT A MORON!!!!!

Friday - Best Day of the Week

My blogging habits have been pretty poor this year.

Between Facebook, work, Vic, kids, working out and PingFit. Not a lot of time to write.

I always wanted to be a writer though. I had good ideas for books, or stories. Wrote a few beginnings and I like them. But never went beyond that. Of course, I'd have to spend any advances I got for a book on people to edit my bad grammar and writing skills. :)

Anyway, I may try to dig up some of my old musings and put them out here.

In the interim, tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day. I'm sure we'll be outside with the girls some. On the bikes, soaking up the sun and warmer weather.

Til then.

Basketball

Well, it the great tradition of Kentucky, I'm taking the girls to go shoot some hoops.

Should prove interesting.



Joe

Alyssa Rides Her Bike

Well, today was a first for Alyssa. We took the training wheels off and let her hit the road. Several times actually. :)

That's right. Alyssa rode her bike today for the first time. Did a great job too.

Still has a bit of difficulty starting off by herself, but she was doing laps around our cul de sac this afternoon.

Next victim? Hailey!!!

It's My Party

The Elswick family trio strikes again:

Note from School

Got a note from Alyssa's teacher at school today.

"I thought you would get a giggle that today at lunch, Alyssa picked Chicken Pot Pie. She then told the lunch ladies that she was allergic to peas and they would have to pick all the peas out of hers. "

Gotta love her. Sounds like something Gracie would do.

The Big P

Saturday - Wen to Regers last to work on PingFit. It was cold in his office. Started coughing that night, ears hurt a little.

Sunday - Hacking a lot, not much sleep

Monday - Felt like crap. Coughing like a 3 pack a day smoker. Left work early. Still worked out though.

Tuesday - No sleep last night. I'm sure a lung is going to come up soon. Still worked out.

Wednesday - Keeping a plastic bag and spoon handy, just in case that lung does come up. No sleep but still worked out.

Thursday - No sleep, lungs burning, went to office anyway. Left to go to doc. Doc took xrays and says I have pneumonia in one lung. Great!!! Started me on antibiotics that are so big they have to be served in courses like a meal.

Today - Sunday - Still recovering. Tired, head hurts some, but not hacking as much. Gotta love it.

Shame

I thought it funny in the news today. Obama states it's 'shameful' all the bonus' earned on Wall Street last year. Earned by individuals like you and me, with families, working long, hard hours and weekends. Doing what they were being hired to do and compensated accordingly.

But apparently it's not shameful for the actors in Hollywood to get paid tens of millions of dollars for thier movies. Not shameful for producers and directors and studio execs to get hundreds of millions each year for producing 'movies'.

Perhaps it's because of which group is donating to his campaign, which is not, and demonizing the free marketplace.

I don't know, you tell me.

Saturday

Well, yesterday was our 22nd wedding anniversary.

Vic got roses, we took the whole family out to dinner and had a real good time.

Thanks to everyone for their condolences, I'm sorry, I mean congratulations for reaching another milestone in our marriage. :)

And what would a long over due post be without a Gracie story.

Gracie runs to Vic with a very scared, concerned look on her face.

She yells "Mommy, Mommy, somethings wrong with my butt, please look at it!!!!" Then she turns around and bends over.

Vic asks "What is it, did you fall, does it burn?"

To which 5 yr old Gracie responds: "Noooo,,,,it's got a crack in it!!" And takes off running and laughing.

And how's your weekend going?

The Day After

Ok, so we have a new president. I hope he is up to the task and will pray that he is 1/2 the man so many millions think he is.

As for the concept that this has changed America, a new day has dawned, we put demons behind us because we elected a black man to the presidency? I think it is an inspiration to young people of any race or color to know once and for all they can do anything. But other than that I say nothings really changed.

I will say this country has truly changed, has truly become color blind, is truly beyond the race baiting and issues when a black man is elected president and no one ever mentions the fact that he (or she) is black. I personally don't care if the person is green, I just want the right person for the job.

So here's to the new president. May he honor the constitution, defend our land and do what's right for this country and her people.

PingFit BETA

Joe Reger and I have a new site up we're testing right now.

I know many of you have made New Years Resolutions to lose weight and get fit, well PingFit can help. It provides you with simple exercises you can do all day long. At work or at home.

You choose the exercise list you want and you get 'pinged' every 20 minutes (or 30, you can choose) to do the exercise.

It's in the infancy stage and we're looking for people to try it out and give us feedback. Please give it a shot and be sure to use the Feedback button to let us know what you think.

We'll be adding exercises and lists as quickly as possible to make it more worthwhile for everyone.

One other benefit. For now IT'S FREE!!!! That's right, for the duration of the BETA access to PingFit will be free. And if you help us out by using the site and providing a lot of feedback, when the site does become a pay to use site, you could get a free membership.

So come on. Give us a hand. Help the world get PingFitted.

- Joe

Hey Joe, where ya been?

Well, it's been a busy new year. Work, Vic and the kids have occupied an enormous amount of time. Lets see, what have we been doing:

- Christmas - big occupier of time.

- New Years - All of us hopped in the car and headed to Happy China for New Years Eve dinner. It's a little family tradition.

- Played a lot of Wii with the girls. Got my butt handed to me many times. The worse was when I got Lightsaber Duels and Alyssa slaughtered me the first time around.

- Took down all the Christmas decorations

- Cleaned the basement

- Cleaned house a lot

- Worked a lot


That's about it. Just so busy, no posts. And all in all we took only 5 photos Christmas day. Just,,,,,you guessed it,,,,,too busy.

More will be coming I promise.


Later