My Best Laugh All Day

"Daddy I need a Drink!"

"What kind do you want?"

"I want a Root Beer Coke."

"Okay."

Daddy got out a Coke, popped the top and drank a third of it. Then Daddy got out a Dora the Explorer sippy cup, and filled it with Root Beer Coke. The bubbles came zooming to the top, and stopped just in time. I showed the Bear as they began to subside.

"It's drinking itself?" he said. "I don't like it to drink itself!"

Ladies and Gentleman... Gimme the Dirt!

Everyone has one of the shining moments in life when hundreds if not thousands of eyes are upon you, and something happens to you that embarrasses you to death.

In this post I am asking for submissions of the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you in front of a crowd.

To get things rolling, I will share one or two of mine.

1) After the Bear was born, we performed an ordinance for him that is traditionally done in front of the congregation at our church. It consists of officially naming the child, and pronouncing blessings upon them. To me, the weeks leading up to this event were some of the most spiritual I remember. I prayed alot, and prepared myself to be spiritually ready to perform this ordinance. Those I had asked to join me (Strude was there) gathered in a large circle, and the ordinance was performed without a hitch. I held the Bear up for the congregation to see, then resumed my seat. A few moments later, DramaMama leaned over to me and said. "Your fly is open!"

2) During college I took a Calculus class. One day I was sitting on the front row of one of those amphitheatre type classrooms. I felt a sneeze coming on, so I covered up for it. AAAAHHFFNNNERRRRRKKKK!!!!! SHPLORP! You may have guessed the result. I was trapped on the front row, no tissues within site, and a handful of hock. What made it worse was that it was early on in the class. I was stuck. I couldn't afford to miss the material being covered, so I decided to play it cool. I managed to make it to the end of class, then I rushed to the restroom. By now the hock had dried and shriveled. It was a lovely thing.

So now, the ball is in your court! Share your embarrassment with all of blogland (or at least the 4 people that read this blog.)

All I ask is you keep it clean. :)

Silly Willy Snotilly Old Bear

Pictured here is the Bear and his favorite thing in the world: His Pooh Bear.

Pooh Bear goes to bed with him, sits through Church with him, is loved without measure, and has been the recipient of the gross things that result from a child having a cold.

The other day when I returned from work, the Bear came running to greet me at the door as he does nearly every time. He was holding out his Pooh.

"Look Dad, Pooh got washed!"

"Pooh had a tubby?"

"No, in the washing machine."

"Wow, look how clean he is."

"Yeah, he's not boogery anymore."

If at first you don't succeed...

When the Bug was four, his cousin Ashley came over to play. The Bug wanted to play with his toy gun, but couldn't find it.

He and Ashley organized a search party of sorts, and set of in search of the elusive plastic rifle.

They searched for awhile with no luck. Ashley quickly became impatient because she didn't even know what it looked like.

The Bug went to the white board and began drawing her a picture of it. As you can imagine with four year old artistic skills, the result was quite amusing.

Come again?

We have all seen signs that made us do a double-take like "slow children at play." How rude! :)

I was driving past an elementary school a few days ago, and saw one that made me laugh.

It was on the big sign out front with the changeable letters. It read:

Bonfire for students
Friday 9:00 to 12:00
Bring 10

A Favorite Photo, My Favorite Girl

This my friends is a picture of DramaMama at her truest and most excellent best.

I love this picture.

Nothing is more beautiful than the love a mother has for her new child.

DramaMama went through an incredible ordeal to bring the Bear into this world. She spent the better part of two months in the hospital being induced, tortured, tormented, poked, and prodded. She endured excruciating pain to the point of wishing for death.

Yet after all of this, when the new little one was in need of an IV, the needle of which was as long as his wee little arm, DramaMama wept for him, not for herself.

The love in her heart is overflowing, and she gives it freely to the point of utter exhaustion. Her thoughts are for the well being of others and rarely for herself. Even when we are at our lowest point, she wants to help others who have it worse than we do.

She is a beautiful person both inside and outside. Her character is pure, her soul is pure, her love is pure. I am truly honored and blessed to call her my wife and my best friend. I kneel at her feet as the court jester in the Queen's royal court.

In many ways I feel unworthy of such a wonderful companion, and I thank the Lord for his love and guidance, and for bringing the two of us together.

I love you honey!

Now in light of DramaMama's latest post, please visit The Peebugg Press for some nice photos of DramaMama from yesteryear.

Outdriven by a two year old!

About ten years ago we were at Bear Lake with my Mom and Dad, staying at their condominium on the golf course.

One morning, Dad, the Bug and I went out to play some golf. The Bug was only two at the time, so he had a driver, putter, and golf balls made of plastic.

Dad and I would take our shots, then the Bug would put down a ball and whack it.

At one point Dad was watching a lady on the course and commented on how dumb she would feel if she knew that a two year old with plastic clubs can hit the ball farther than she could.

Bombarded by Rabid Spider Monkeys!

HA!!!! Now that I have your attention, give it up for my first renter on this blog. Lou from http://lifeaslou.blogsome.com/ I am new to this renting bit, but was surprised how fast people posted bids.

One unfortunate aspect of this is that only one bid can be chosen at a time, so you have to send all the others packing as it were, and they dont allow you to say why, they just get a rejection notice in their email.

I'm not so cold-hearted as all that, so if you got a rejection from me. HA HA HA HA HA! No wait... Um... Sorry!

This is all in good fun so I plan to keep it going. I'm interested to see how many people want to be associated with my oddball blog.

Oh Me Oh My, Where Have I Failed?

The Bear and I frequently have strange conversations, mainly because he is quite young, and says very unexpected things.

We were recently discussing that fact that he had turned 5, and I told him that I used to be 5 once just like him.

He replied, "no, you're a daddy."

I said, " I am now, but I used to be a little boy like you."

"But I'm big!"

"Yes, but someday you'll be bigger like me. and then you will be a daddy."

The Bear said, "Mama."

"Huh?"

"I want to be a mama."

I Have Finished My First Draft!

From concept in 2001 to first draft wrap-up tonight, there have been moments of good writing spells, and several not so good.

Up until somewhere this past October, there was still a very long way to go, and many holes and stupid things to fix.

Jill of The Write Way Home announced to blogland that she would be putting a serial online of a new book she was writing. That intrigued me, and I decided to start a new blog featuring one of the books I currently had in the works.

I decided to put "Black, White, and Shades of Gray" out for my blogging friends to read, critique, laugh at, whatever.

The problem with that was that I had less than half of the book actually written. Much of it was concepted, but still in idea form. Once it came time for chapter 7, I had a big project ahead of me. I basically had a hole in the middle of the book that was masquerading as the Grand Canyon.

I dived in and produced chapters 7-11 which for all intents and purposes were brand new. They included some long standing ideas, but for the most part were very new and fresh ideas. I then took an existing chapter 12 and spruced it up.

Starting in November, NaNoWriMo came about, so I put my online book project on hold for that challenge. That died after 3 days due to life and work. That began a dry spell that continued until today.

I finally decided to get back in the game, and I found that the story was right there waiting for me, and I feel that today was a great writing day.

I finished Chapter 13, wrote a whole new chapter for chapter 14, and revised the old chapter 14 to become the final chapter 15.

I imagine that there is more story lurking in my brain that can be added during a series of rewrites. I intend for the final book to be longer than these 15 chapters.

It is a great feeling to reach a level of completion after all of this time. I realize that it is really only a single step up a long stair case, but it is after all, a step up.

A Kick to the Curb, a Movement of Cheese

This week I had to be the catalyst toward someone losing their job. A few weeks ago we brought in a new "Golden Boy" (GB) that based on his resume and interviews seemed to be just what we needed.

After a few projects, it became very clear that he was not what he said he was, and was in fact a rather useless employee.

We handed him a moderate project just to see what he could do. All credibility flew out the window at the speed of the winds of hurricane Katrina. I gave him the tools and the code from a more advanced project, from which he should have been able to easily do his project.

Part way through the day, after many calls from him for assistance, I visited the boss, and told him what was going on. He had already pretty much come to the conclusion from his dealings with GB that he was on his way out.

At the end of the day, I hung back after GB left, and sought out the boss. He was on his cell phone, so I pointed to my office, and ran my finger across my throat, signaling that it was time to do the deed.

Yesterday when I arrived at work, GB was there. ARRRRGGGGHHHH!

Around 10:00 the boss called me into a conference room where we discussed the situation. He had me send GB in. I made myself scarce.

Half an hour later, I went back into my office thinking that there should have been plenty of time for GB to clear out his things and be on his way.

Lo and behold, he was sitting there WORKING!

I knew the boss was in the conference room with a client, but I interrupted them and asked if GB was still supposed to be back in the office at his desk.

He said yes.

Arooooooooo?????

Apparently the client showed up right as the exit procedure was going to happen, so the boss told GB to go sit in his chair and not to get out of it. (he was a wanderer, slacker and talker)

So a little later GB announced he was going to lunch.

Down the hall I heard the boss ask "Why are you out of your seat?"

A few seconds later the boss and GB entered my office, and I again made myself scarce.

This time the deed was done.

It takes a lot for me to suggest to the boss for someone to lose their job. In this case, however, it really needed to happen. GB had grossly overstated his abilities in his resume, and made it crystal clear that he was not the right person for the job.

In the past as a manager, I would worry over something like this, but this time I didn't.

I think I grew up somewhere along the line. There are times that even though the loss of a job is going to seriously affect a person, that it will be better for the company, and ultimately better for that person.

When I am working for someone else, my work ethic is very high. I work hard, and when there isn't a project to work on, I make a project to work on. I really get bugged at people that piddle around all day, and go talk to others, distracting them from their work.

I may be short sighted here, but it seems to me that if someone is paying you to do a job, that you would feel guilty if you weren't actively doing that job. I wouldn't feel right about sitting around while there was work to be done. Or even if there wasn't work to be done for that matter.

There is always something to do, like improving your skills, learning new skills, etc.

I have been given many projects at this job where I had no idea how I was going to pull it off, but I dove right in, learned the skills I needed to do it, and in most cases came out shining. Sometimes the challenges scared the crap out of me, but eventually I figured it out and created a solid result.

When I was younger, this wasn't the case. I hated change, and was content in my cubby hole. Then I read "Who moved my cheese?" Ahhhhhh, what a wonderful book! If you havent read it, get and read it. It will change your whole thought process, and empower you to move beyond your little box into a whole new wide open wonderful world of courage, strength, and adventure.

Make it a belated resolution to read that book! Do it! Do it! Do it!

Uncle Keith: Supplier of Terrorist Weapons

This is another letter to my family sent sometime in 1997. It is a little happier than the previous post. Please read it first before reading this one.

****
Hi all, If you are wondering about the subject line on this, I'll explain. As you all know, I spent the weekend in California in their nice rainy weather with Jimmy. Jimmy took a shine to Tony's wooden rifle that Keith had made for him, so Keith made him one too. He had Tony give it to Jimmy. So anyway, we took the wooden rifle with us when we left today, but Sandra doesn't like guns so she wouldnt let Jimmy have it there.

I took it with me and at the airport I put it on the xray thing that check the bags and scared the crap out of the girl there when she saw the profile of a rifle on the screen. It wasnt very big, but it still scared her. They called over the supervisor who gave me this look like death and told me that I had to go back to ticketing with it and have them put it in a box and check it. They didn't have a box, so they put it in a plastic bag instead. It was actually kind of amusing.

Jimmy had a blast playing with his cousins. He discovered the cash of wooden weapons right away and soon a pretty intense war was going on with Jimmy, Robert, and Tony. Jimmy was having a ball and had me rolling most of the time because of the way he would run sneakily around, and yell and scream, etc. They were playing a kind of hide-and-seek game as part of the war. Once he heard the others yelling when the hider was found he would take off and go shoot them.

He also discovered the roller skates. They were the kind that look like running shoes on wheels. They were about 8 sizes to big for him, but that didn't matter. He got pretty good and getting into them. He really got into his skating too, he would swing his arms like the speed skating ice skaters do, it was really funny. I had him always stay on the carpet so he could manage to stay up. To add to that, he would wear Robert's bike helmet too. He really looked cute. He looked sort of like he was in a roller derby.

Jimmy was a sad little boy when he had to go home. He fell asleep about a block away from Keith's house and woke up when I was getting him out of the car at his house. He started crying as soon as he realized where he was, and was saying that he didn't want to go to his new house. Inside he was still crying and didn't want to let go of me and he said "I don't want to be here". We got the new puppy in on it and that helped a little, but he really didn't want me to go.

It was really foggy and rainy up there in the mountains, so that was interesting. Everything went fine getting to the airport and dropping off the car. When I got back to Salt Lake, I put my hand in my coat pocket and found the key to the rental car. DOH! When I dropped it off, I saw a sign that said to leave the key in the car, and I thought I had. The guy there closed the door and it was locked. I told him that the key was in it. When I got home I called, they said the car was still sitting right where I left it and that they would add $10 to the charge on my bill because they had to cut a new key so they could get it into the lot. They said not to bother sending my key to them.

So all in all the trip home was a bit interesting. I really enjoyed my time with Jimmy, it was a lot easier to deal with this time.

Well, Talk to y'all later,

Dave
****

My brother replied to this email and said, "Good thing we didn't send him home with the hand-grenades!"

The Dark Mark

Over the past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about the early days with my son. He was for all intents and purposes ripped away from me when he was only 2. His recent visit stirred a lot of memories and emotions that surrounded that parting. I was digging through my funny file for a new blog when I came across a letter I had sent (of all things) as a Christmas letter to my family and friends that year.

This was probably the worst day of my entire life.

*****
Hi everybody, I wanted to tell everyone about what went on with taking Jimmy to California. I waited awhile to get some distance from it all. As Hamlet said, (paraphrasing) "Somewhere along the way here, I seem to have lost all my mirth." This has been a very difficult row to hoe, and the ground is a lot like that at Mom and Dads house... full of rocks.

I have found that when I am at work and just bury myself in it that my personality begins to surface again. When I am around family I kind of loosen up too. Overall though I find myself walking around with a scowl and pursed lips and clenched jaw most of the time. I was talking with one of the VPs at work the other day and he was asking me to do something and apologizing for bothering me with it. I told him that he apologizes too much. He replied that lately I have had "a lot of 'go away' written all over my face".

So anyway... here's the tale:

The week before I took Jimmy to California, I took the week off to spend with him. I let him decide what we would do, offering some suggestions of things I know he likes to do. We went to the mall a couple of times to have "rice and chicken". He loves to eat at the food court at the mall, and he always wants rice and chicken. We had a "beeg samwich" one day though (Blimpies). He wanted to ride on my shoulders a lot. It was always interesting going through doors with him up there. He would bend over which made him lean way forward which made me do the same thing.

On Thursday his Grandma took him for half of the day at her request. When I went to get him he kept saying something like "peedo". I had no clue what he was saying... Grandma finally figured out that he was saying "Play Dough"... he had been playing with some when I showed up. We played games on the computer and watched shows and played football, basketball, volleyball, etc.

Friday evening was when we flew to California. I did my best to get him to be excited about the airplane ride. He loves to fly, so I didn't want this to be bad for him. I personally had absolutely NO desire to go to California. We left my car at Park-n-Jet and rode the shuttle over to the airport. I didn't check any bags, I only had a carry-on for each of us. While we were waiting in line and sitting waiting for the flight, Jimmy was running around playing imaginary basketball and entertaining everybody there. He even dribbles.

Mom let me borrow the Etch-a-Sketch she has in her toybox for Jimmy, I had that out on the plane for him to keep himself busy. He calls it his "draw-er". He was excited to be on the plane because he knew the flight attendant was going to bring "pretzos" (pretzels). He decided he had to go potty right in the middle of the drink service, so we couldn't get to the restroom because the cart was blocking the aisle. He managed to hold on.

Sandra (my ex) and Eric (her new husband and future ex) met us at the airport... Jimmy saw Sandra and started crying, Sandra told him that he didn't have to go with her now, that he got to stay with me still, and that calmed him down.

I went and rented a car, and Eric went to get their car and was supposed to meet us to give me the car seat for Jimmy. We went and got in my car and drove around to meet Eric, and saw him drive back around the other side. We hurried after him, but couldn't find him... We drove around several more times and waited for awhile and he never showed up. I had my cell phone so Sandra was calling his cell phone and pager trying to find him. He didn't respond. So we eventually just decided to go to their new house which I wanted to do just to see what Jimmy will be living in. On the way there Sandra called the home number and Eric was there. I had to drive for almost an hour with Jimmy not in a car seat... I was not very happy about that.

I decided to stay in a motel that night instead of going to Keith and Belindas (my brother and his wife), because that would be an additional hour or so drive. As it was, I got to the motel at about 11:00pm. The motel didn't have a phone, and didn't even supply shampoo. I had some of my own though. Jimmy wanted to play golf... we brought his set from his new house to the motel with us. I finally managed to get him to bed. We had a king sized bed, but I got to sleep on the space about the size of a quarter because Jimmy is a major wiggle worm when he sleeps. I kept pushing him back over to the other side but several times during the night I got smacked in the face by a leg or arm as he was rolling around.

We slept in and didn't leave the motel until about 10:00 and drove out to Azusa. We stopped in San Bernardino at McDonalds to eat. Jimmy was being a big t-rex and taking dinosaur bites out of his food, it was pretty funny. It took a couple hours to get to Keith and Belinda's because there was an accident on the freeway. Jimmy fell asleep on the way.

When I got there, neither Keith or Belinda were home, but the kids were. Keith and Belinda were at their church helping get ready for the Christmas party that night. Jimmy didn't take long to join in with the toys, he had them spread from here to there quite quickly. We stayed in the guest house out back, and Jimmy found those toys which got spread from here to there. We went over to the church and help a little with the party setup. I think I flipped a switch to turn on a light and helped move the ladder a couple times... oooooo ever so helpful.

The party was pretty interesting, the gym was transformed into Bethlehem by a guy in Keiths ward that works for Hollywood. It was pretty cool. Everybody had to dress up in clothes for the time (or some facsimile anyway). I went as the Greek who wore tennis shoes. Jimmy was excited to go to the party because he got to run around when we were helping... he thought he got to run around again. The plan was to keep him around me, but he was here, there, and everywhere in Bethlehem that night. Keith introduced me to a guy there that works for Disney and we talked for awhile about getting me into animation, etc. He is going to get me some stuff on drawing Winnie the Pooh correctly. I got the impression that he was going to bring it to church, but he didn't. (This was the Pooh movie with the Skull-a-saurus I think)

The next day was Sunday and since their church didn't start until 12:30, I played with Jimmy. Jimmy was pretty good for church, but we spent the last 15 minutes of Priesthood meeting in the hall. I didn't put him in the nursery, because I wanted to spend all the time I could with Him... he didn't want to go in there anyway.

I didn't have much time after church before leaving. When it came time to leave I started getting emotional. I held on pretty good while I had Jimmy saying goodbye to everybody. Keith walked me out to the car, and once I said bye and walked to the car, I sort of lost it. That is a really horrible feeling to put your child in a car and drive off knowing that you are going to leave him and go away.

Jimmy fell asleep again on the way back to the airport. So when I dropped off the car I had to wake him up. He wasn't very happy about that. I needed to get the car seat out of the car, so I sat him down on my bag. He wasn't quite awake yet so he toppled right over and smacked his head on the ground. As I was calming him down a girl that worked in the car rental place walked up, and I had her hold him while I collected all my stuff. I got the car all taken care of then headed over toward the terminal. I had two big gym bags, a car seat and Jimmy to lug around. Eric and Sandra were just outside the rental place though. They informed me that I had already missed my flight. It was a half hour earlier than I thought it was. So we figured out what to do and Eric ended up buying me a ticket on another airline to get me home.

While he was gone doing that I was holding Jimmy and he still wasn't very happy. Sandra kept doing a peek-a-boo kind of thing to him and he kept saying "NO" and turning away. Then she started in on me saying that I was making it hard on him too because I wouldn't let him see her. I had no idea what I had even done, and she was ragging on me. So she told me that I was turning him away so that he couldn't see her. Like I am going to force him to look at her when he doesn't want too. She was mad because she said that I was teaching him that its okay to do that, and that I was brain washing him. I said several times lets please not fight, but she kept it up. I finally just said, "I am losing my son tonight, can we please not fight"... and that finally shut her up.

Eric came back with the ticket and said that we could negotiate how I would pay them back. Sandra piped right in and said that we aren't negotiating anything, that I was going to pay them back rag rag rag. Jimmy had to go potty, so Sandra went away. Eric said again that we could negotiate... I told him that she was just being hateful. She didn't say much from then on...

We decided to say goodbye there on the curb, since I had an hour and a half wait for my flight. So I took Jimmy and walked away for awhile and had to compose myself to talk to him. I told him that I loved him no matter what even though I wouldn't be able to see him very often. I really think he understood what was happening, because when I said will you come see me at Christmas he replied with a sad little, "yeah". After about 5 minutes I went and handed him to Sandra and turned and walked away. That was a very difficult thing to do.

I had a whole lot of "go away" written on my face through the rest of the trip home. The flight didn't leave Ontario until 9:30, and I had a stopover in Las Vegas for another hour and a half. Mom lent me her gameboy so I was playing that in the airport with all of the slot machines and whatever clanging and bleeping all around me. I got to Salt Lake airport at 3 AM, and got home at almost 4:00. I called and left a message on my managers voicemail informing him that I would be late and went to bed.

The next day at work was not fun... I archived myself in my office and did my best to be left alone.

I am doing okay all things considered, but I think it is going to take me awhile to get back to where I am enjoying life again. I went bowling Friday and sent my average into the hoinker. I haven't bowled that bad in a long time.

I want to thank all of you for your support and well wishes through this, it is very much appreciated. Even though its hard to know what to do or say in a situation like this, just being there usually does the most good.

Keith and Belinda, thank you for letting me stay there with you. That meant a lot to have some moral support there during the hard part.

Have a Merry Christmas everybody... I'll talk to you later.
****

The Bear that Slimed Chuck E Cheese

Yesterday, the Bear turned 5. He had a fantastic time all day. He was as cute as he could be at Chuck E Cheese's.

He got a little crown to wear and he had it on all evening. By the time we left, many of the "points" were bent down, and he resembled Jughead from the Archie comics.

When it was the Bear's turn to march around the place with Chuck E Cheese, he was so excited, he accidentally stuck his elbow in his birthday cake. Then he ran over and hugged Chuck E Cheese and slimed him with a large glog of green icing. It was a beautiful thing.

Later, they had a little stint of Chuck E says. One of the things they did was wiggle dance, and the Bear went for it and was shaking his moneymaker for all it was worth. Unfortunately, I didn't have a video camera with me. It was so darn cute, and we were rolling.

Daddy had a good time, and DogHouse Boy and DramaMama discovered a game that spewed tickets, so by the time we were out of tokens we had accumulated 1200+ tickets. The Bear got A LOT of smarties.

He was so funny all night. As we were going home, he asked if tomorrow it would still be his birthday. I told him that when he woke up it wouldn't be anymore.

he replied, "I want it to be my birthday... I NEED my birthday!"