Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Friday, February 27, 2004
I took Isabel with me last night to go shopping for a few presents for B's birthday tomorrow.
At one store, the cashier asked her what her name was. She replied, "I'm Isabel the Princess". The cashier thought that was really cute. She then asked Isabel how old she was. Isabel replies, "I'm 15." Ha! Girls are never honest about their age. Thursday, February 26, 2004
In preparation for our Winter Classic No Limit Texas Hold'em tournement tomorrow night, poker night last night was a mini tournement. The very first hand, two players duked it out, ended up with "all-in", and since they had the same number of chips, they were both all-in. D'oh! Fortunately we allow $15 re-buys. Corey successfully turned his rebuy into 2nd place, which won him $55. Dee, who was the Patron Saint of not winning Texas Hold'em tourneys by always being the last person to go out before the money (ie if 3rd place pays something, he'd go out 4th.) finally got that monkey off his back, winning the tourney and $110.
I think my best move was to not rebuy in, so I only lost $20 instead of $35. Apparently we have 22 confirmed and 35 possible for tomorrow, should be a lot of fun. 1st place wins 60%, that will probably be over $300. My goal is to drink enough of the hosts' beer to make my money's worth. Interestingly, the first tournement, I was sloshed and noone else was drinking, and I tied for 1st. The second time, I was sober and went out early. A rank newbie was the only one drinking, and he ended up in 2nd. My theory is drinking makes me play poker better. Or maybe it's an insignificant sample size, but it'll be fun. Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Sad. Two of my good friends from high school are brothers, and I hired their little brother as one of my student helpers nearly 4 years ago. After 4.5 years of college, he's 2 classes away from a History degree. He's been doing PC/Mac helpdesk computer support for 4 years, and he's dropping out of school to go work at a copy shop.
His father owned a copy shop for a number of years, and one of his brothers has been doing it for over 20 years. We call it the Curse of the Green Button. It's like coal mining. If your father did it, you may hate it, but you're doomed to repeat it. Crickey. I just don't understand spending all that time at college and NOT graduating. It's not like he's got an insurmountable hurdle ahead of him, he needs two friggin' history seminar courses... Ga-freakin'-hooba. Monday, February 23, 2004
Well, I'm mostly healed, just a little ache. Uff. I laughed when I read that tubal ligations are 3-1 favorites over vasectomies for permanent birth control. Cowards, the lot of them. Those numbers swing in favor of vasectomies when income and education increase, however. Friday, February 20, 2004
I'm feeling a lot better today, but still sore.
I hate not being able to pick the kids up. At least I can sit on the couch with a pillow on my lap and read to them. I should be able to pick them up in a few days. I watched "Ghost Dog" yesterday, a friend had loaned me the DVD. (He found that our local Safeway sells old rental DVDs for $10, and on Tues or Weds or someday they do 2 for 1, so he buys lots of marginal DVDs for $5.) It was alright, but a tad too arty and way too long. Thursday, February 19, 2004
Ah, I feel much better today. Just gotta be careful with the boys, and take it easy while they heal. When I go downstairs to sit on the couch I bring a pillow to protect my lap from over-enthusastic Isabel and Harry who both miss me terribly.
As for the question about how we came to decide to have no more kids, it wasn't easy. Both B and I come from large families, I have 5 brothers and she has 3 siblings, so a family of 2 kids seems strange to both of us. A big issue for me is the fact that B turns 36 this month, and I'm 36 in April. If we were 30 I am pretty sure we'd have more kids. As it is, we're getting to the point where problems with pregnancy become a lot more prevelant. Personally, I think that Downs kids are a sad mockery of what humanity is, and keeping Downs' kids around is a lot like keeping a pet human. They're never going to be significantly smarter than a dog. I just don't think it's right. If we'd had a down's baby, we'd almost for sure have gotten divorced over it, since B would keep it, and I would absolutely refuse to raise it. I'm very happy we didn't, because that's about the only major issue we disagree on that strongly. If we'd had more options, we'd have waited a little longer before getting me fixed, but we already tried an IUD with disasterous results, and the pill gives B more migraines. We were down to condoms, which both of us hate. This is the best option. The only possible scenario I can imagine where I'd want to have more kids now is if B and my kids were all killed in an auto accident or something, and I remarried a 25 year old. Fortunately, the odds of that are slim to none, and slim's on vacation. Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Holy sweet mother of god. That hurt real bad. Uff-freakin'-da.
It's like getting kicked in the nuts. Hard. Only with fire, and a knife. And a hammer.
Testicle festival.
No, not the one in Montana where they eat Rocky Mountain oysters, those sick cowboys. I'm gettin' neutered this morning. Or spayed. Or vasectomised, whatever you wanna call it. Owowowowow. The boy's ached all day yesterday just thinkin' about it. I always knew they had a mind of their own. Less than two hours to go. Tuesday, February 17, 2004
It was a fun busy weekend, but I didn't have as much fun as the 2,271 couples who got married at San Francisco's city hall this past weekend. I'm very proud of San Fran's mayor for standing up and saying that California's state constitution guarantees equal rights, and I wholeheartedly agree. I'm also proud of those City Hall workers who volunteered 12 hour shifts each day over the weekend to get those 2,271 couples married before a possible court injunction this morning. Let's hope the court does the right thing. Too bad Seattle couldn't have this moment. Or Tulsa, or Fargo.
Bridget and I talked about this issue a bunch over the weekend, and we both agree completely. All the arguments against gay marriage boil down to the same arguments used against blacks, and it's just not right. Gay or straight, white, black, or any other ethnicity, we're all humans, and we all deserve to be treated fairly. Back to my weekend. B and I had a great time on Friday night. We had babysitting, so we went out to dinner, then afterwards it wasn't even bedtime for the kids yet so we needed to find someplace else to go, since we were NOT going to waste babysitting. We called up a friend to find out where the new ultra-trendy dueling piano bar was, but when we got there at 8:30 it already had a line outside, which we weren't willing to wait in. We ended up down in Pioneer Square, where none of the music seemed worth the cover charge, until we ended up at F.X.McRory's, where I spent many an evening in my youth. It was fun to be back there, where I first learned of the wonders of whiskey. On Saturday night, we had a little dinner party with our downstairs roommate Sophie, her boyfriend, and some friends of his who just got back from 5 years in Uganda. Sophie spent the whole day making handmade pasta and sauces, so dinner was delicious. Much wine was drunk, and since I was the only one who hadn't been to Africa, they all had a great time talking about different stories from their times there. The new couple seemed especially relieved, since they were originally from the East Coast anyway, so besides the returning-to-the-US culture shock, they were in a completely new environment anyway, and it was good for them to have people who understood. After dinner we hit my single malt scotch collection. I'm afraid to report that my bottle of Bunnehabhain had it's last rites performed, fortunately I have a 1l bottle as back up that my mom got at a duty free on her last trip. It's always fun to have someone visit who appreciates single malt whiskeys. On Sunday B had a bridal shower to attend, and fortunately for me Peggy, my mother-in-law, was visiting for the weekend since I had a last-minute invitation to a bachelor party, and she was able to babysit while we were both gone. The bachelor party was a blast. The groom is a lawyer, and we met at the bar next to his law firm. It's on a dock on Puget Sound, and one of his friend's pulled up in a 48' Bayliner cabin cruiser, which we loaded up with booze, beer, snacks, and strippers, and proceeded to go bar-hopping via boat. I know a lot of waterfront bars in the area have docks, but I'd never been bar-hopping via boat, and it was awesome. A very good time was had by all. I didn't touch any of the entertainment, thank you, since I'm happily married. I asked the groom to be how much that boat cost, and he said with the electronics package it runs about $550,000. Holy shit! Fuck me that's a lot of money. I would have guessed $125k, maybe $150k. It just goes to show you that boat prices go up exponentially with size. It did have three nice staterooms, a large covered living room, a covered bridge, a flying bridge, and a nice zodiak boat with a crane. Uff-freakin-da. It's good to be the king. Friday, February 13, 2004
Today marks seven years since B and I first started dating. It's been seven very good years.
Warning: Disgusting parenting story below, avoid if that's not your bag, baby. On Wednesday night, B woke me up at 11:45pm (I'd been asleep for half an hour) because she was having really bad pains in her chest. To her it felt like when she used to have gall stone attacks when she had a gall bladder, but that didn't make sense. She wasn't dizzy or tingly or numb anywhere, so I didn't figure it was a heart attack. We both knew if we went to the ER it'd be 4am before she saw a doctor and all symptoms would be gone. Finally we called the on-call doctor and she was told that it was probably just a really bad case of heartburn and to take 3 pepcid washed down with maalox. Sure enough, that did the job. I finally got to sleep around 1:15am. At 2:30am Harry woke up screaming again, I had to go downstairs and find his passie (aka binkie aka "soother") that he'd thrown overboard. Little bugger. Just what my lack of sleep needed. Yesterday B didn't feel that great since she didn't get much sleep and she said the pain the night before was "worse than childbirth" since it had been constant and thus no relief between contractions. Ugga. Just as we sat down to dinner she had to get up, she felt nauseaous. She went upstairs and I had dinner with the kids. We were afraid she'd gotten the bug that Katie had the day before, with blowout diarhea. Sure enough, a few minutes after dinner Isabel screams out from her room where she had been playing with Harry. She's been potty training pretty good, so she was only wearing panties and pants, no diaper or pullup. B had noticed her grabbing her stomach a few times. Well, I get into her room and she's standing there, looking totally pathetic. "Daddy, I had an accident!" She was half crying with embarrasment. I immediately smelled the situation. Blowout explosive diarhea in her pants. Lovely. I start calming her down, explaining that it's not her fault, everything was OK, I'd get her cleaned up. I carefully picked her up, carrying her to the kitchen. I had her stand there while I got some wipes, a diaper, a towel, a washcloth, and headed back to the kitchen. I cleared the sink, stripped her clothes off, and had her stand in the sink while I hosed her down, getting her cleaned up. B came down and took the towel-wrapped now-clean girl away to be diapered and put into jammies. I proceeded to clean up the mess, rinsing out all the clothes that were devastated. You know, diarhea stinks, badly, but it really doesn't hold a candle to cleaning up vomit. Barf's stomach acid reek just does something to me, raising my gag reflex and making ME want to technicolor yawn. Diarhea is just gross, not nauseating. Afterwards she explained to B that "Mommy, I had a storm in my tummy". That's about right. We were worried about the kids having some stomach bug, but they both seemed fine this morning, so our best guess is she had a bad reaction to eating an entire handful of sand from the sandbox on Weds. We tell her not to, but if you turn your head for a minute you can look back and her face is covered with sand. Gah! Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Ok, people in my neighborhood are bizarre. Sure, that includes me, but there are currently 4 houses on my block that not only have their christmas lights still up, they still run them at night. In mid February. There are another 4-5 houses on the next block up doing the same. At one of the houses on my block they have a large 6' or so plant centered in their front window. This plant is covered in Christmas lights, which are lit every night. Crazy.
Last night I was watching my TiVo while B was upstairs watching Judging Amy (shudder). It had recorded a show I'd never heard of called "Starcade". Oh my freakin' gods. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. Apparently it was a show during 1983 that was basically a game show, where they would pit a team of some geeky kid and his geeky dad against another geeky kid and his geeky dad, in a contest of playing video games and answering video game trivia... Holy sheepdogs. It's mind boggling. You have to see it to believe it. Tuesday, February 10, 2004
You gotta love how little fact-checking goes on in news reports.
There is John Kerry, running for President. He was a Viet Nam vet, in the brown-water Navy commanding gunboats on the Mekong Delta. He was decorated, earning 3 purple hearts and a silver star. There is Bob Kerrey, a former senator from Nebraska. Also a Viet Nam vet, he was in Special Forces, admitted to committing atrocities at the CIAs command, and earned the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award. In this article about Bush's shameful military career, they list John Kerry as having won the Medal of Honor. Um, no. I'm surprised they don't list him as a popular comedian from Cleveland with a sitcom...
Man was I feeling lazy last night. I ended up watching a bunch of TiVo, the latest episode of "Mail Cal"l with R. Lee Ermey, last week's episodes of "Law & Order" and "L&O: SUV, err, SG1, err SVU", "Las Vegas" (which seems to have jumped the shark midway through their first season, but I did like their disclaimer that "No Jean Claude Van Dams were injured or killed in the making of this episode", and "Diving With Sea Monsters" on the Discovery channel with the kids. Harry and Isabel particularly liked that one.
Bridget made chicken pot shepherd's pie, basically chicken pot pie with mashed taters and shredded cheddar on top instead of puff pastry. Very tasty. I'm halfway through reading Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" which is an overview of the fates of human societies over the past 15,000 years. Basically why Europe and Asia have kicked so much ass, and why Africans, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders got their butts kicked. No, it has nothing to do with IQ, and everything to do with fortunate geography. Monday, February 09, 2004
It appears that Howard Dean is out and John Kerry will get the Dems nomination. My state had caucuses this weekend, but since I'm not a democrat, I don't get to participate. For the past 70 years Washington had an open primary, where anyone could vote for anyone, but the Democrats and Republicans successfully sued to overturn that, saying it wasn't fair that the common scum could select the candidate they wanted. They want only loyal party members to get that privledge. I suppose I could have found out if the libertarians were having a caucus, but they invariably nominate wack jobs so it doesn't really matter.
I finally found a page with Kerry's views on the issues. I disagree with him about a few things like gun control and gay marriage, but all in all he's good enough to vote for. I find it amazing how fiscally unconservative the Bush administration has been. After years of decrying tax-and-spend Democrats, they're going for the insane lower-tax and over spend method, racking up over a half billion dollar deficit. Sheepdogs. B and I had a pretty typical weekend. Well, maybe a little busier than normal, three dinner parties in three nights... Friday they came to my office so we could go to the monthly work kegger thrown by the graduate students. I was playing Halo when Isabel walked in, she asked "What's that, Daddy?" so of course I replied, "Daddy's killing things, honey". The beers were very tasty, BigTime breweries Coal Creek Porter and Bhagwan's Best IPA. Mmmm-MMMMM! After we left the kegger we went to a dinner party with B's baby group friends. That was a lot of fun, the kids were left in the living room where the four 3 yr old girls and Harry proceeded to tear the cushions off the sofa and jump up and down like jumping beans. Meanwhile, the adults sat around the table eating and drinking and trying to ignore any destruction occuring in the next room. I got to hold Asher, a very cute little 8 month old boy. I don't think Harry was that small at birth... heh just kidding. After we got home, the plan was to put the kids to bed and let Grandma watch while we went to a movie with friends, but they were so excited that Grandma was there we had to just leave and let Grandma put them to bed herself. Fortunately they always behave for others. We went downtown to Pacific Place mall where we met up with three of our friends for the 9:40pm showing of Miracle. I'm a sucker for sappy sports movies, and this one was no exception. I don't even like hockey, but I sure remember when that happened. My favorite credit was Al Micheals as himself. Man oh man he looked younger 24 years ago. After the movie got out just after midnight, our one friend had to leave cuz he had to work on saturday morning, but the other couple and us went across the street to Vons, a martini bar. Back when B used to work for a contractor for US West, which is across the street, they'd go to Vons after work all the time. Our friends are engaged and the ones getting married in Vegas next month, so we talked and talked and talked until finally they threw us out at 2am. Saturday night we threw a dinner party for some of my old female friends from college and their husbands and kids. It was a lot of fun as well, great food (it was a potluck, B made a bunch of teriyaki chicken legs and I made a pair of rotisseriere chickens with lemon and rosemary.) and lots to drink. On Sunday afternoon we visited with B's cousin, her army national guard unit has been activated and is at Fort Lewis preparing to leave for a year in Iraq later this month. Sunday night we went to my friends' parent's place for his birthday dinner. It's always a good time, except his mom can't forget my bottomless appetite when I was a teenager, so she cooks for an army. I did my part, eating five pieces of yummy fried chicken. Thursday, February 05, 2004
I recently finished Jon Hoffman's "Chesty: The Story of Lieutenant General Lewis B. Puller, USMC".
Chesty Puller was the ultimate Marine. The most decorated, he won an unprecedented 5 Navy Crosses for valor in combat. His career stretched from just after WWI fighting banana wars in Nicuragua and Haiti through WWII in the Pacific and Korea, where he led troops in in the landing at Inchon and held everything together during the withdrawl from the frozen Chosin Reservior. Until this book, the only biography of Chesty was "Marine!" written in 1961 by Burke Davis with Chesty helping, and that book, while a lot of fun, wasn't exactly honest or fair. As the legend of Chesty Puller and his exploits was told and retold, the stories kept being exaggerated, and the media would print it as if it was the truth. The next time someone did a story, they'd use those "facts", and pretty soon fact and fiction was blurred. Jon Hoffman did an amazing amount of research to find out the real facts as best he could, and the honest biography of Chesty is plenty amazing enough. Chesty's son, Lewis Burwell Puller, Jr, tried to follow in his father's footsteps, joining the Marine Corps as a Lieutenant in Vietnam, but barely two months into his career he stepped on a land mine and blew his legs off and most of his arms. Amazingly he lived, but the resulting addictions to painkillers and alcohol, and the depression eventually got him, he killed himself in 1992 or 1993, not too long after winning the Pulitzer for writing "Fortunate Son", his autobiography. One thing that really interested me was the fact that Lewis B Puller Jr named his son Lewis Burwell Puller, III, and he was born in 1968. That means Chesty Puller's grandson is my age somewhere. I'd love to hear how his life is going. I also read "Jarhead" by Anthony Swofford. It's a quick read about a Marine Scout/Sniper who served in the first Gulf War. I laughed a lot, it gave me a lot of flashbacks to life in the Marine Corps in general and Desert Storm in particular. I tell you, life as an active-duty non-rate would really suck. It's not bad in the Reserve, I was able to live a normal college student life 28 days a month, and be a Marine two days a month. One thing that made me laugh about "Jarhead" was all the rave reviews about what an "honest" portrayal it was. Pshaw. You can't convince me he wasn't exaggerating for effect many times. Just because you don't always portray yourself in the best life doesn't mean you are honest. Monday, February 02, 2004
We hosted a fun superbowl party yesterday. A dozen adults and seven kids running around. Before the game I tivo'ed the World Poker Tour match a few of my poker buddies watched it with me. It seems like watching poker has got to be boring, but with the camera showing what hole cards everyone has, it makes it much more interesting. Even Bridget, who doesn't play poker and has no desire to, got into it.
Speaking of poker, a buddy of mine got the most amazing hand online. He was dealt a pair of eights. The flop was another 8, a 10, and a 3. He's got trip 8s, a great hand. The turn shows another 10, so he's stoked, he's got a full house. The river shows, unbelieveably, the last 8. He's got four of a freakin' kind. He of course bets it up, figuring the guy who is betting with him has a 10 and thus a full house. Wrong! The guy happend to have a pair of tens. Yup. He freakin' lost his 4 of a kind to a higher 4 of a kind. Amazing. |
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