Mr. Bucket Head learn to go Potty

Trying to get Jack potty trained has not been easy, but it has been occasionally funny. I don't know why he wanted the bucket on his head, but whatever--he is two and a half, things don't have to make any sense to us.

Mom's House

I do feel pretty good about the trouble I started when I was down for Grandma's funeral. My suggestion that Patrick and I install a new floor actually was acted upon and finished my mainly Patrick. I was there for the initial work where we completed the kitchen, and then I had to catch a plane. Patrick was stuck completing the dining room and the carpet junctions. Those were a pain the butt. He spent hours trying to drill through the super hard concrete to put the strip down to that junction.

The floor is a faux wood made by Pergo. It has a 25 or 30 year guarantee and looks great. Here are some pics Mom sent.

References/Support for Political Rant #1

Here are some places where one can get background on my problems with the Bush Administration.

Wiretapping
Patriot Act background and issues (scroll to the bottom for possible problems) also here

Signing Statements: unconstitutionality issues Here

U.S. Attorney Firings: Wiki synopsis

Checks and balances are supposed to exist

Other examples of Bad Faith by this Administration:
freedom of speech
search and seizure
4th Amendment
Guantanamo issues: background here and other info here

This stuff doesn't even address my issues with the economy and how it was handled earlier or the Iraq war.

I am not anti-Republican. I am mainly just no longer for Bush. I voted for him twice, and I am sad that I did not see as clearly what was going on. I am against politicians that stood by and let Bush do whatever he wanted for the most part. I suspect that much of this is out of trying to maintain power and trying to play nice the the President, who is the leader of Republican party basically while he is in power.

I am for Barack Obama, but I am not really a Democrat. I just think that he fits with the needs of the country right now. McCain is not too bad either and my main problem with Romney is his history of occassionally flip-flopping when politically convenient. But then that is probably true of most politicians.

I am not a conspiracy theorist like some--not that there is anything wrong with that if that is your thing. But I do think that we need to guard against the powergrab by politicians regardless of the branch of government. This is true even if it is for a good purpose. I am against the ends justifying the means in government whether it is domestic or foreign policy related. I think this administration has been trying to tweak things in both areas beyond Constitutional "grey" areas.

Political Rant #1

I am registered as a Republican. When I joined the party some time ago, I was registering with the "Reagan" Party. I was a big Ronald Reagan fan growing up. Democrats were high taxing politicians that were for abortion. The total antithesis of what I believed in. Low taxes, low spending, low government involvement in the lives of its people. When Clinton was elected, I admit that I was a little afraid for our country. I was in my early 20's back then. I don't think I was wrong, even now about those things during my mid-30's, although I probably over-reacted. But a few things have changed. My knowledge of government has been enlarged during law school and by listening to things like NPR for the past 8-10 years. Also, the Republican party has changed. This party now likes to spend and doesn't seem to be as bothered by taking away rights as I thought. The Patriot Act has steamrolled some rights and Pres. Bush has decided that warrantless wiretapping is a wonderful thing. Hmmph.

I voted for Bush both times. The second time was because I thought he was the best one to get us out of Iraq. I thought it was a mistake to go in after much of the info became public about the lack of WMD's, but now that we were in, I thought he would do better at following through. I don't know if that is true or not. My disgust with him and the Republicans has to do with what I see as corruption in the Government. In addition to the aforementioned warrantless search stuff, the firing of the U.S. attorneys for what looks like political reasons is shameful.

I think it is time for a change. I don't agree with all of the views of the Democrats running for President. But neither do I agree with those everything espoused by those running for the nomination of the Republican Party. I think there needs to be a swing back. We need to stir the pot. Get some of our rights back that were trampled in the rush to get the terrorists. We need to send a message that things are not ok. At least I do.

I am not a fan of abortion rights still. I am not a fan of gay marriage. But having a president that protects those rights does not trouble me as much as one that tramples freedoms that are in the Bill of Rights, or at least that we have maintained through tradition for the past two centuries for those rights that were not explicit. Lying and using what I think is disinformation sort of bugs me too. That is hard to escape for politicians though.

I am voting for Obama if he is the Democratic Party Nominee. I may change my party affiliation here so that I can vote for him in the primary. I think he can shake things up in a good way. Not that I back everything, but I think he is the right person for the job right now.

I used to think the Democrats were crazy liberals that were going to take this country down to some immoral and horrible end. Ha, my party has been working on that pretty well. They had the majority in the House and Senate and succeeded in blowing our budget and taking away a few of our rights in arguably a fundamental way if you read the Patriot Act. They had more than their share of sex scandals too. I admit that I have not been personally touched in the same way that others have been by the War on Terror. But I think that our forefathers would have said that the deaths of some is worth it in order to protect our freedoms for the rest. I feel like we as a country kind of freaked out and acted like chickens in order to make ourselves feel safer. We gave the Federal Government more power than they should have in order to find these terrorists. I agree would should do all that we can, but what if the rights and protections we have given up are used against us by bad politicians and the power hungry? What recourse then? Maybe none will be available. We need to be aware of what the government is doing.

Jay Jay the Jet Airplane is creepy

Why a dorky little airplane with a baby doll face stuck on it is a hit with kids, especially my kids is beyond me. Frankly those airplanes are a little freaky looking. I know that Thomas the Tank engine also has a face on the front, but they are not nearly as human looking.

Perhaps what really happened is that some mad scientist has performed some procedure out of a horror film or Robocop and taken some poor kids' heads and grafted it on to an airplanes and helicopters. These airplanes aren't cool--they are freaking monsters. If there was a group of villagers going with torches to destroy the monsters--e.g. Frankenstein--I admit I would be at the front of the pack.

Not sure if this is good or not, but

63% Geek

Back to California

So I went back down to Mom's for the funeral last weekend. When Mom picked me up at the airport I kind of felt guilty for coming down without the rest of the family. I felt like the Missus and the kids were sacrificing a bit to have me come down. Thus, I felt like I should make my time down there count. I came up with some hair-brained idea to work some more on the old house. I thought it would be good to put a new floor down in the kitchen and dining room. I was thinking that it would just take an hour or two to get the old stuff up and the floor prepped to put down some new linoleum. Everything could be purchased at Lowe's or Home Depot and the project should only take one long day. At least that is what I thought.

Mom, was surprised a bit, but she rolled with it. We went from the airport straight to Lowe's to get started. Serious. We didn't even drop by the house to unload my luggage. Mom decided that she wanted a faux wood that is really durable. It has a 25 year warranty, and it looks really good. Also it is designed to be a floating floor so there is no need to tear up the old linoleum. I was thinking that it would be a breeze.

But then Mom says that she wants to paint too. Ugh, I hate paining. It ended up that Mom, Patrick and I painted until nearly midnight after my sisters left town and then we were up the next morning installing the floor as fast as we could. It took much longer than we thought. We ran into a couple of problems with the carpet junctions. Lucky for me we hit those right about the time that I needed to pack to fly back home. Darn it! Patrick spent the next several days trying to get something to drill into the concrete, which had apparently turning tungsten or something. It was pretty much inpenetratable. Drill bits melting and so forth. Eventually he got it all handled I guess.

Anyway, I am waiting of some pictures of the finished project. I will post some pics here, but everyone needs to realize that the floor was only halfway done and after I left Mom decided to take the red paint all the way down to the floor, instead of a two-tone deal that she had originally chosen. Also needed is the ceiling trim and the floor trim.







So, I am glad that I instigated this little renovation. But I feel bad that Patrick had to end up doing more than his share. It was fun to do though. Now Mom needs to redo those cupboards...maybe on my next trip.

What is your chance of survival?

55%

Hmmm.....oh oh.

Grandma

Grandma Billie May Meese (Ryan and Jack's Great-Grandma) passed away a couple of days ago. She was my last grandparent. I feel like part of my childhood has gone away forever. I have such good memories of being with her and grandpa. Too many memories to do justice here. In fact I started to list the first couple off the top of my head, but erased them, because I couldn't relay why they were special to me and I choose not to do so here.

I am glad that Ryan is hopefully old enough to remember her. I am happy that we saw her just days before she passed away and that we took pictures and a little video of her. I wish that she had been a bit more lucid when we were with her, but I think we were blessed to have gotten her on a good day. I miss her, but I miss those days of my early childhood when I was about Ryans age and a little older as well. Those times with Grandma and Grandpa are my favorite.

Below is the video and the pictures above were taken at the same time, New Year's Day 2008.


I fly down this coming week to attend the funeral. I guess I am not going down so much to honor Grandma as to be there for my mom, who is also pictured above. She is flying solo herself since the divorce and I think she could use some support from at least having all of her kids around. Bridget and the boys are not coming down. For one thing, we were there only days ago and for another neither Ryan nor Jack really get death. And if Ryan does, he doesn't worry about it at all and probably doesn't think it is such a big deal. Afterall, it is only going back to Heavenly Father--that can't be bad. Bridget would like to go but it would be hard to fit it in with work and church commitments. All could be postponed or put aside, but frankly we need the money that she will bring in. Also, flying with the boys is not fun. I think that there is a part of me that wants to go back alone. I am not sure why. It is surely not to play around. I think maybe I want the chance to think about life a bit while I am down there, and I will be better able to take part in the services without having to worry about what Jack is tearing into. Basically, it is for selfish reasons.

Oddly, I view Grandma's death as sort representing the crumbling of final bits of an outer wall that is protecting me from death. The inner wall is represented by my parents. Once they are gone, it is just me vs. Death in a battle that no one wins except Death. This is not to say that these people protected me from Death, but that in an orderly world Death comes for them first before getting to the grandchildren and children. It is probably a weird thought though that others would find strange.

I am glad that Grandma has gone on, she had been slipping away fast and I would hate to see her staying her in this life, miserable. But I will miss her.