well, at least it looks fast

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Its time for the pine wood derby. this will be both ross and my first one. i have found that its as much for the dads as it is for the kids. we had a lot of fun building the car. some one accused me of doing all the work my self. you would be surprised how much work the 9 year old did. he made the original design(i redrew it), he cut out the drawing and put it on the block of wood. i took him out to the garage and he used the radial arm saw(under VERY close supervision). he filed it down and did a lot of sanding both with a power sander and just using a peace of sandpaper in his hand. i did some of the final shaping and some carving on the fins(didn't trust him with carving knives). we did the paint together(5 layers of red, 2 layers of clear coat). i did do the clear coat for him. when he sanded the red paint it made it look pink. he was all worried we had ruined his car and he was going to have to bring a pink car to the race, so i did the clear after he went to bed so he could see it first thing when he got up. the hot wheals sign was his idea. ill take it to work with me today to weigh it. i have a scale that will show me the weight out to .00001 so i can make it perfect(the only worry is that there scale wont be as good as mine and might put the car over the limit). i think it looks relay cool. i think it will be fast but we wont know till we race it. the race is tomorrow night. the give awards for the coolest looking car and the fastest car. i don't think you can get both but if you could i think we would have a chance. ross and i have had a great time doing this together which im pretty sure is actually the point.

why are you messing with me

As some of you know, we have been trying to refinance our house. it is going to help us a lot because we are going to be able to drop our interest rate 1 hole point. works out to a substantial savings. the problem is that the bank keeps finding ways to mess with us. we started out trying to get a cash out refinance, but sense the housing market has crashed our house isn't worth enough to get any money out of it. so then they say, oh we forgot and you need to pay us $400 for sldkkjfiuvnsdvasdv! there has been one delay after another and our locked in interest rate is about to expire. then on Friday, we were told we might need an additional check for $380 to cover some outstanding closing cost that cant be covered by the lone. it all depends on what our final mortgage pay off ends up being. finally after all that we got every thing ready and set a closing date(today). called this morning to be sure every thing was ready and to get some final numbers, only to find out that there has been a hold put on closing because they are waiting for a VOE(verification of employment) to come back from my employer. so i called the HR department to find out what the deal was. i spoke to the person who does these things. she told me that this very important peace of paperwork, that has to be done so we can close today did not get delivered to her until yesterday. and i came by fax not through the regular mail. she was out sick yesterday, and she doesn't usually do the VOE's until Tuesday or Wednesday any way. i told her my situation and asked her to please please please try to expedite it as i am supposed to close at 2:00 this afternoon. she said she would. that has been over an hour now and i still haven't heard any thing. i hope no news is good news, but with the way this thing is going i some how doubt it. why do they have to mess with me. i just want this over with.

when you need that little some thing extra

Sunday Renae made a very tasty dinner. we had venison roast with potatoes and carrots. but as i was not feeling well and our three older kids were gone for the day to grandmas house, there was a lot left over. so, i got to have left over roast for lunch on monday... and Tuesday. well i was happily eating tuesday when all of the sudden i felt some thing stab me on my tong. i thought "well, some how a bone fragment got into the meat." i spit it out and realized that it was not a bone fragment but a peace of metal. on further inspection i figured out it was a BULLET! sense i work at a ammunition manufacturer i asked around and found out that it was a 40 caliber pistol round. now what is interesting about that is that no one in the deer camp i was in was shooting a pistol. we all shot 12 gauges. this is a 40 cal, metal jacketed hollow point. what is more interesting is that i helped skin and butcher all the deer that were killed in our camp and there were no extra wounds. all the wounds were ones that we caused. which means that this bullet had to have come from a wound that had had the time to heal, which means it happened at least a year ago. im glad i got it and not one of my kids or if we had had company over. or if i would have taken to big a bite and swallowed it would have been bad too. i wander if this is god telling me i need more iron in my diet. so this is what a bullet looks like after it has been shot into a deer. this is the view from back to front. sense it was a hollow point the front smashed back making the jagged points.

timing is every thing

last night we had a nice family night where well all got along well, had a good lesson, had a good snack and then we read stories after. i am reading the original version of peter pan and Wendy to the kids. when we got done lid fell asleep in my bed and i just rolled over and went to sleep to. i was getting to bed early for once with the intention of getting up early to ride my bike and get a workout in before work to day. i was just getting good and asleep when my phone rang. it was about 10:00. i had to get up, find all my stuff and go into work. it sucked because i it was a very technical problem that i had to use my brain (that was still half asleep) to figure out. it turned out that i had to find 3 separate records that where saved wrong in a file that had about 20,000 files in it. i got it figured out and went home. missed about 3-4 hours of sleep. it would not have been so bad if i had been awake already, but i was just out. i mean ill take the overtime money but how bout catching me before i go to bed next time please.

the "O" crap-a-meter

So i am wandering how many peoples O(Obama)crap-a-meter is going off. we were promised change. No lobbyists. getting rid of the good ole boy stuff. we were promised bipartisanship. i even herd some one talk about how they thought O was going to govern from the middle. well i already have a list of complaints. i was hoping that he was going to succeed in so much that his ideas would work and that i was wrong about how stuff worked, but all of this seems to be way off coarse. you've had Nancy paloci saying "we won so we get to pass the bills, get over it." the 2nd day in office he lifted the executive order banning U.S. aide for feign family planning. Many of his nominations have been bad, like the TREASURY secretary who doesn't know how to pay his taxes($33,000 in arrears). they went ahead and nominated him. there were 2 yesterday that had major tax problems. one of them for over $100K. he dropped out but some of the dems said that he should not because they had the votes to confirm him any way. this stimulus(i have trouble even calling it that, it is a spending bill) is just crazy. no one wants to run the #'s or look where the money is actually going (like about 25 mil to resod the grass at the Washington mall), or the fact that a huge chunk of the money wont be spent for 2-5 years at which point the economy will probably have fixed it self anyway. and i almost forgot the FOCA thing. look this thing up. it is seriously bad. from what i have herd it pretty much lifts all regulation on abortion. it would even force faith based health care providers(like st. Anthony's, a catholic hospital near here) to start performing abortions. and what gits me is how little of this most people know about. the network news is not telling us about this. if it weren't for cable news and talk radio we would be in the dark. on that there is major talk about reinstating the "fairness" doctrine. if you don't know what that is, it basically forces radio stations to have liberal shows to "balance" what is sent out. the fact is that liberal radio talk shows have historically sucked and not enough people want to listen so they go away. i wander if they will impose the same fairness rules to the movies coming our of Hollywood. for every left leaning movie they have to make a right leaning one. this is censorship. so all in all, i have not liked what our new leadership has done. but i guess i just some yokel who isn't smart enough to know better.

By Grapthars Hammer, were alive!

So the test was very good. First off all the people testing did a great job. There was the Housman Family. A father his 2 daughters and one of his sons(the other is getting ready to test for his red belt), another father and son pair, a collage age guy and one little girl. We had a huge panel of judges. Some of them old friends i haven't got to see very much over the years. As for me and my performance, well, to put it modestly, i was awesome. i am quite sore, but that was from their self defence section. When partnered with a tester you are what is referred to as a fall guy. and it can be as bad as it sounds, especially when you have a lot of big people testing. the idea is that you grab or otherwise attack them and then pretty much let them beat the crap out of you. at one point i was moving from ring to ring partnering with 5 of the 7 people. Luke(21 years old, 6'4", 210)threw me with a hip toss. when i hit the floor the whole room shook and every one looked over and said OOOOWW! it didn't hert.....then. so basically for about 2 hours i had 5 people taking turns hitting, grabbing, throwing, and holding me. Sounds like fun right? well then we got to the fighting portion of the test and i took my turn. you see now i get to fight back. we did 3 different types of sparing. Tae Kwon Do(like kick boxing only now punching to the head, you can kick to the head). Karate(its lighter contact, you can kick and use hands, you stop between each point, first to 5 wins, kicks worth 2 points). and grappling(basically wrestling but your are trying to get your opponent to "tap out" or say uncle). i was able to dominate the two(two minuets each) Tae Kwon Do fights i did. My combined Karate score for matches was 11(me) to 0(them)(i scored 6 on one guy because i had him at 4 and then scored with a kick). then the grappling round. 5 mins with the 21 year old i talked about earlier who also happened to have wrestled 4 years in high school. i tapped him out with a leg scissors to his neck. so if you haven't figured it out yet, yes i am bragging. its nice to have old friends that will bring you back down though, one of the other black belts said "hey, you looked good out there. Very light on your feet.....for a fat guy!" i am paying the price now for all of this. i am very sore. pretty much every thing hurts. my ribs from me being slammed into the ground repeatedly. my legs from doing so much high kicking. my neck arms and every thing else from all the holds and general tweaking i went through. and my bad knee is still stiff and swollen from...well being a bad knee and going through all this. all in all it was great and i will have fond memories from this for a long time.

sure i can do that, no problem

next week friday the martial arts school i go to will be haveing a huge test. 8 people will be testing for their black belt. i will be one of the judges at the test. that is not the problem. the problem is is that there are 3 really big guys testing. one of them is about 6'5" and 325lbs. he is a mountain. the other 2 are father and son and both are about 6'4". the reason this is a problem is that as the only black belt on the panel who is over 200lbs i will be expected to fight all of them and do a lot of their self defence. i will have to do 3 different types of fighting. Tae Kwon Do(which is the style we study), karate, and grappling. they(the fighting styles) all very greatly from each other. if it was just one i would not be worried, but im not in the best of shape(yes round is a perfectly good shape) right now and by the time i get done with all 3 i anticipate being a bit wore out. my instructor noticed me stretching last night and asked me "trying to get it back?" i said some thing about being ready for the test and he said after a moments thought, "oh, yes. well i guess ill leave you to it." and he just turned and walked a way. i hope that means he is confident in my ability and not "your out of luck sucker! you should have started sooner." i am quite sore from the added work outs and hard kicking i have been doing. do you think its possible to loose 30lbs by next Friday?

here we go again.....again

So I've started to try to lose weight again. i am up and down so much it drives me crazy. what is really dumb, it that i know what to do to get and keep the weight off. i just don't do it. all i have changed so far is that i have restricted my soda intake and i have lost 2.5 pounds in 3 day. haven't changed what i eat at all, and haven't started working out yet, just stopped drinking soda. i hate starting from scratch again....again. oh well, its my own fault so i should just shut up(not likely) and get to work. i did tell trent that i was committed to being under 215 before he leaves on his mission later this year. i started at 255.5 on Sunday. so about 41 total. sounds like fun right? Well maybe not fun exactly. Its going to suck. but i guess it like i told some one the other day, training isn't always fun(although some times it is), wining is fun. So i have to find some thing to win.

oh the shame

So I'm a little ashamed of my self. last night at our big fam Christmas party there was a boy just the same size as mark. they got to rough housing. the other boy started it. mark was trying to be good and not get into trouble for fighting. the other boy had no such restraint, putting mark at a disadvantage. mark finally decided to do some thing about it and the shoving mach started. mark got shoved down(to which i had a mental groan). mark kept hold of the kid by the caller of his shirt and threw him to the ground(to which i had a mental Cheer). mark started to get up when the kid caught him off balance making mark bang his head on the floor(concrete covered with thin carpet). that was the end of the altercation because mark was hurt. so i was ashamed for liking it when mark pulled the kid down with him but, I'm more ashamed because i was really hoping he would punch the kid in the face. actually what i am ashamed of is the fact that I'm not ashamed about any of it. i wanted mark to deck the kid. he earned it fair and square. i think he would have except he started the confrontation trying not to get in trouble. it sucks how trying to be good can some times put you at a disadvantage.

face face face

who knew i still had a face under the hair. i know it sounds kinda weird but i kinda forget that i have a cleft in my chin some times. and my upper lip his huge. i shaved on a whim the other day and remembered why i like to keep a beard. shaving sucks. i would rather keep my legs shaved than my face. the dimple in my chin and lip are hard to shave. i could not hardly get all the whiskers off. and the spot right under my nose was almost impossible. I'm glad my wife prefers me with facial hair. she actually complains just a bit on the rare occasion i shave. and she makes fun of my "huge upper lip." it kind of scared me this past Sunday when a member of the bishopric stopped me and asked if i would come and speak to him about a new calling. i though, "oh great, its like they where waiting for me to shave so they could give me some new calling." (obviously they don't wait for you to shave to give you callings) i had visions of having to keep shaved for the next few years. but it wasn't one of those callings so, joy of joys i get to grow my beard back. we really should count our blessings. God works in mysterious ways. speaking of that. i feel very humbled and blessed that we where brought a care package from the church again this year. there was easily a few hundred dollars worth of food and other stuff they brought us. it means a lot, as Renae just got done paying the bills and we are very short of funds(not unusual). so here is me proclaiming my gratitude on the WWW for the blessings my fam has received.