Couple weeks ago I struggled through the labyrinthine torture that is the Google/Blogger comment sign in (seriously, I had to fight a fucking Minotaur) to post a comment on Steph's Traveling Spishco blog (now defunct, but go see the New! Improved! SPISH!). In this comment, which you can no longer read, I gave notice that I was going to issue a challenge at a later time, which now I may need to take back even though I never got around to issuing the actual challenge in question. Y'see, Steph and Pat and their coo coo cadre of circus monkeys are going to sell their house in Hell, NV and plan this epic and vaguely aimless journey around the country in an old RV they found down by the river. You all may think that's just bonkers, but those of us who know them a little bit think this plan is just about right. Anyway, the point is that their intended eventual destination at the end of this preposterous cracker cart ride is some convention in the mountains of North Carolina next September. This is significant because my handsome family takes our vacation in the delightful Outer Banks of that fine state about that time every year. Thus, my challenge that I had thought would be fun and clever was that after their banana trader convention they could mount up one more time in the old Winnie and trundle on over to the beach & hang out for a day or three.

But now I don't know if it'll work! Casey got into the new fancy school for kids with super powers and autism, and that starts up again after the summer break in August. We don't want him to miss school, so I don't know if we're going to make it to the beach in September- it may be in August. But, if we can work out the timing, the CHALLENGE STANDS. I know we'll have some extra rooms. Or maybe they'd rather sleep in their wheelie-tent with their transient road friends. No drifters in the pool, please! What am I running- a hobo jungle?

LOOK- I'M IN FRANCE TRYING TO FIT IN

Tags: Travel OBX Pals Lame challenges Fake pictures from France

Normally I'd just give you a list of all the sexy things that have happened since the last time I bothered with this thing, but there has been too many sexy things for just one entry, so I'm gonna break it down into component sexy bits over several entries. I think that's what the kids are doing these days with their Twitters and whatnot. This will all be very schizo and unorganized. You'll have to come to grips with that.

Been all over the place recently. First, we went to a wedding in beautiful New Jersey, which is not at all the cesspool the Sopranos led me to believe. Special shout out to the town of Basking Ridge, where every single person I met was the friendliest person I ever met. When the janitor at the temporarily closed train station drops what he's doing to provide you detailed instructions of the best way into New York for an overnight stay you know you're in a friendly town. You may say he was just painfully lonely and happy to have somebody to talk to, but I say he was painfully friendly, and since I'm an excellent judge of character I know I'm right and you obviously have trust issues you need to speak to your therapist about. Anyway, some pics from the reception.

PLANTS


MARRIEDS

We went on our usual vacation last month to the OBX, and that was just super. There was this tropical storm that was supposed to give us all sorts of problems, but that was some weak sissy storm if I ever saw one. It was good & windy for half a day and that was it. I'm conditioned to wake up before God does, so I was able to get this sunrise. He can't sneak 'em past me anymore.

YOU HEAR ME GOD? I'M WATCHING YOU

More to come soon- my Indians are coming on to stomp the Yankees again. Better start drinking!

Tags: Pictures Travel Pals Sports What?

It should be noted that I started this more than a week ago, and here we are, gettin' it done.

1. Great day in Autism! We've been having some minor breakthroughs in communication with Casey-Bean over the past few weeks. Nothing huge or particularly noteworthy to anyone but us and his therapists, but good nonetheless. Until today that is! While Bean was playing blocks with Ty-Ty, Becky and the in-home therapy person, he started counting them with actual numbers! You had to kind of know what you were listening for, it wasn't a clear "Six-Seven-Eight..." thing, more like "Isss-Ewehh-Eeehh..."; but from what I am told he started at six and went all the way to fifteen. Becky was super happy the therapist was there to hear it too, because sometimes it is easy to hear him utter some random noise and assign some meaning to it, even though it was really nothing. Like yesterday when he was throwing a balloon around yelling "BA-BA-BA", Becky insisted he was saying "ball", but he says BA-BA-BA a lot with no balls around to speak of, so I don't think so. Or that time I swear he said, "If the cast of MTV's The Real World truly exhibits the moral and social depths of character typical of young America today, we have nothing to worry about. Our future: COMPLETELY SECURE. What a remarkable set of go-getters they've assembled once more." I immediately shouted into the kitchen, "Honey- Casey's making sarcastic remarks to the TV again!" She said he was just blabbing nonsense, but I heard what I heard.

Anyway, he also may have correctly defined a block as "yellow", and also identified another as "circle". It is a cylinder of course, but people yell at me when I correct autistic children. Fine. Close enough.

I swear- it is our "close enough" attitude that gets us into trouble. "How closely linked is Iraq to terrorists?" "Close enough!"

2. Tyler news to not leave him out! He is now saying "please" (the magic word) occasionally without being prompted. This is huge, it has been like extracting teeth from an angry badger.

3. Amazing New Feature! Up there at the top you'll note there is a new thing on which to click, it is a new grand experiment! "Right Here, Right Now" is a photo gallery that will be updated often. I will be utilizing new technologies to do this, namely the internet and a camera. If you've not heard of these things yet- don't worry, you will. Gonna be big. I also predicted Star Wars would be a major hit when I was five years old, so my track record here is quite good.

Gadget side note- the reason I'm psyched about this new feature is because the iPhone can update this gallery on the go; just take the photo, add a caption & send it on its way from anywhere. I can post from the phone, but not unpost from the phone (currently). This will lead to many embarrassing photos posted whilst drinking, so I'd check back often, or at least before I get around to editing the gallery from a computer later. Fun! Right now there's several day's worth of crap there I've posted while testing things out. Here's an RSS feed too, but you don't get the pretty transition or download options that way.

4. Project update! Got the theatre brochure job back from the printer, came out great! There's usually a bit of a let down when I see a print version of projects because the print versions rarely have the vibrancy of the images on screen. Not this time though- thing POPS! That's nice. Here's the cover:

Want to see the whole thing? PDF version here. It's all flattened out, so you have to imagine it folded up.

5. It's only 2-1/2 weeks until OBX vacation! Little later than usual this year, hopefully we won't get chased by a goddamn hurricane. But because we're rolling the dice & going to the Outer Banks in the heart of hurricane season (and after the start of school), the rentals are dirt cheap. We always stay in a fairly nice place there, but this year it's like a fucking beach palace. HUGE. Completely ridiculous, especially since it will just be we four and my parents. But if I'm going to ride out a hurricane, I want to do it in style while watching a flat panel TV in each room. I'm going to sleep in a new bedroom every night. There'll probably be pictures.

6. Speaking of travel- this weekend we are ditching the kids and heading to New Jersey for a wedding- one of my old high school chums is gettin' hitched. We're gonna stay an extra couple days and hit the Big Apple- Becky's never been, and I've been there once like fifteen years ago. I hope to catch a glimpse of He-Man doing something heroic. If that happens, there'll be pictures. Hey Amy- is Mendham close to you?

7. Important TV News! I found Heroes just entertaining enough to overcome its more annoying qualities (which are numerous). Every time I thought I'd give up on it they introduced some plot twist that kept me coming back. Won't be so tough to keep my interest next season though- Kristen Bell has signed on for at least half the new episodes. And LOOK! Since I typed The Name, I get to post a hot picture. That's the rule, I didn't make it up. ALL THE PLAYAS IN THE HOUSE SAY YEAH!

YEAH!

Tags: Pictures Gadgets Autism Kids I Am Professional Travel Kristen Bell TV

I'm in my favorite local (sort of) bar, boozing it up all alone on a Saturday afternoon. Becky's got the kids in Columbus visiting the sisters and I'm left to my own devices today. Also, in bigger news, I'm all caught up with work. I stayed up until three every night this week and just DID IT. My last thing was a new illustration for the hot sauce guys. Somehow these two mega-italian dudes (real characters, I like them a lot, plus they pay fast) who needed a label illustration for some hot sauce they invented got my name & I drew a three-quarters naked girl riding a donkey for them a year or so ago. Evidently the sauce for which I made up this illustration for has won some awards and is quickly becoming very popular. So much so that they contracted me to do illustrations for four other new varieties, as well as a new variation of the original girl-on-donkey drawing that will be reproduced huge and mounted on the back of a bus they just bought to travel around the country in. Fun stuff! Here's the new art if you're curious-

You might be thinking that this girl's feet are impossibly tiny. That's because the hot sauce guys have absolutely no interest in feet. Boobs? You bet. I recall several conversations the first time I drew this- "This is really great. Really. But, uhh-" "Let me guess, you'd like to see bigger boobs." "YEAH!, I mean, yes, the boobs could be bigger."

Yay! My pizza just came. BRB-

Okay, I'm back. A few things about Mark's Time Out Grille, the bar at which I currently sit. First, it never seems like it should be the right place to go, but invariably it is. I don't know why exactly, there are a few closer places I like just fine, but something is always wrong with those places. It's not like I get out a lot, and certainly almost never without the wife & kids, so I've learned not to take any chances when it comes to sitting someplace drinking by myself. The music here is never something I would pick myself, but it's always just right, They just played the whole first disc of Billy Joel's greatest hits, most of which I haven't heard in a long time (mostly because I was never that big a fan). I must say that old Billy (as opposed to the "new" Billy songs that came out after 1982. God I'm old) sounds better every year as pop music becomes more soulless and generic. Can you believe that these were "pop" songs when they first came out? Weird. Another thing- they are totally disregarding the new Ohio law that says there can be no smoking in public buildings. At all. Under Penalty of Law and fines and public stoning and all that. But there are people lighting up all over. I actually voted for that law (which I regret now because it's a fascist hypocrisy and a lot of businesses are hurting because of it) because I don't like to smell bad when I get home. But, for some reason, Mark's wouldn't be right if I didn't smell bad later. So that's all good. AND- the pizza is excellent. No lie- some of the best around.

I've been on internet hiatus since basically October, so I've missed a few things. Mostly boring things. Xmas was good, except that Becky bought WAAAAYYYYY too many toys for the boys. I was actually mad at her for it, but not because of the money- toddler toys really don't cost very much. It was just so much stuff, they'll never play with it all. They aren't even into opening presents yet, so Becky spent like three days wrapping all the presents and she & I ended up opening all of them as Ty & Casey jumped on couches and spilled apple juice. Casey especially couldn't care less about any of the new stuff, he liked the abacus that was the very first thing we opened for him and still hasn't played with any of the other crap. And all the new toys take up so much room in our house, you can't walk anywhere anymore without tripping or breaking an ankle on something plastic that was made in China or India or Mexico. I have broken five ankles since New Year's. Of course, Becky was upset with me because I was upset with her, and words like "SCROOGE!" and "YOU HATE CHRISTMAS!" were thrown around, but whatever. I have a feeling that no matter what agreement we come to before Xmas about a limit to what we're getting the kids, it will be egregiously broken by the wife every year, so I guess it's best not to fight it.

In October my brother & I took sort of an impromptu long weekend trip to Florida to visit our grandparents. I drove the whole way from Cleveland and back. That was a lot of driving, but I'm a creature of the wheel on these things. We could have flown, but it was cheaper to drive, plus we needed an excuse to come & go when we wanted. I love my grandparents, but a little goes a long way, know what I'm saying? They aren't getting any younger, and we felt we needed to get down there when we could. It was a good trip overall. Here's a picture I got from their neighborhood-

THERE'S FLORIDA!

I had written a whole long thing about how awesome and transcendent the Fiesta Bowl with Boise State beating Oklahoma was, but then my program here crashed and I lost most of it. I'm not the only loser here though, NO- it is you, dear reader, who is the biggest loser now. But, shit happens and I apologize for nothing. It was a really inspired paragraph, though. Lots of drama and whooping like an idiot and whatnot. Oh well.

Now it's Tuesday and I'd better post this thing. I leave you with the Xmas present I made for the grandparents this year, click this for the Tyler & Casey 2006 movie. I was trying to embed it into the actual text here, but I haven't got that worked out just yet. So, it's a 28mb QuickTime link for YOU! Might take a while to download. Patience....

Tags: I Am Professional Pictures What? Good Times Lunch Travel Sports

SIGH. SIGH.


SIGH!!!!!!!

The OBX trip was awesome, and Tropical Storm Ernesto only blew us one day. He was rough and I'm a bit sore. In the end he left like they all do, and all we could do is wipe ourselves off.

The worst part of being back is the underwear; the soft cotton grasp of responsibility imprisoning my privates.

SIGH.

Tags: Kids Pictures Travel

WiFi- there might just be a future for this technology.

I'll post some pics soon- the kids are total road trip troopers, we're amazed!

Plus- I'm not wearing any underwear. That's right.

Tags: What? Travel

We go on vacation this coming Saturday! Whoop! That means that there will be a work related disaster that will happen about 3:30 on Thursday. Awesome! Can't wait!

Our Destination: Same place as always- the starkly beautiful and increasingly pricey Outer Banks of North Carolina. Thing about the OBX though- sure, rentals cost kind of a lot, but there's not much else to do there except hang around. So it's not like you're going to spend a fortune after you get there, by the time you get to your rental house or whatever you've already spent 90% of the money you're going to on your vacation. It's a terrific place. Maybe I'll get all poetic about it in a future entry, but I still have a week of The Suck to go first, so I don't want to get all wrapped up in it just yet.

I will tell you this though- we are yuppie scum. Like, more so than before. We did something I swore I wouldn't do and bought a friggin' DVD player for my car. Two screens, the works. I've even got the sound running through my car stereo, so it's BOOMY! and DYNAMIC! in there like a movie theater. All so my kids can watch Blue's Clues and Laurie Berkner videos on our road trip. God DAMN I'm gonna have spoiled kids. Growing up I was lucky to have a spot in the car with a seat belt when we went places. No lie- I rode in the back of my folk's old Ford Pinto (the station wagon, not the hatch back) with the dog to New York one time because she used to get anxious in the car and somebody needed to rub her ears so she wouldn't bark until she threw up. Good times! Actually- those really were good times. I'm not just saying "Good times!" when the times were clearly not good for hilarious comedy like usual. Anyway, I'm just a set of those stupid giant spinning rims away from rolling like those hip-hop rapper superstar type people you folks are so fond of, like Hammer-Time or the guy who did "Who Let The Dogs Out? WHO?--WHO WHO WHO?" I don't know why you like that song so much, it's totally gay. Everybody hates it when you put that CD in at all our parties.

There's links for some people over there on the right. I totally read all these blogs all the time, like constantly. That's why it takes me so long to post things here, because I'm so busy reading all these other blogs. Naked*.

Oh- and HA! I have some funny new family style drama to post about later. And it will be later, 'cause I got to GO.

Tags: Good Times Travel Kids T.V.