Long Time...

... no see. It's been quite a while since I've posted anything. I suppose I have grown complacent. That's too bad. I'll try to remedy that this year. I also need to apologize for the dearth of posts the last few months.

FYI: I got yet another sinus infection and I'm on meds for it. Becca has strep (yes, she's on meds too) and MJ is doing his best to drive us all insane. It is admittedly a short trip, but he's trying to get us there quickly.

Anyway, here's to wishing you all a Happy New Year! I hope it goes well for you all.

This post has been brought to you by the letters M, E, D, S, and the number 11.

Rough Couple of Weeks

It's been 2 weeks since I posted last and for that, I apologize. It seems I'm doing an awful lot of that lately.

Anyway...

After living through the hype and crap associated with that ghastly holiday last Sunday, we've come to understand that our son has a double ear infection and the rash he had for about 2 weeks was probably scarlet fever. To say that I'm not pleased with the various medical professionals who took a look at him, would be an epic understatement! WTF!!!

How does a trained medical professional miss these things? WTF, indeed!!!

He's on meds and seems to be a much happier little man now. We just need to get him to regain the weight he lost as a result of not feeling well and pack on some more to boot since he is a little on the small side. :)

I'll try to post a couple more times this week to make it up to my 4 followers and maybe 2 or 3 other readers.

This post was brought to you by the letters A, C, K, and the number 8.

Strange Glowing Critters...

We have suddenly acquired a family of 4 strangely glowing critters on our lawn. They appear to resemble reindeer and they each have a strange umbilical cord that attaches them to our electrical outlet. Oddly enough, they glow once attached to the above electrical outlet!

I suppose I'll claim they're aliens and that we've been invaded. Head for the hills folks, the aliens have arrived!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

This post was brought to you by the letters L, I, G, H, T, S, and the number 4.

Lights!

I put up Christmas lights today. Those of you who live here in Salt Lake city know that it was an unpleasant day to hang Christmas lights, but I'm pretty much done with the outside lights. In fact I can't do any more until I either borrow or buy an extension ladder.

Hopefully I can finish it off this week without too much trouble.

This post was brought to you by the letters S, N, O, W, and the number 3.

Matthew is 5 months old!

My son is 5 months old today! Go check out his blog to see what "he" had to say about it. :)

Anyway, today we observe Labor Day and we're planning to go on a hike and then spend the day in Millcreek Canyon having hot dogs cooked over a fire with family.

I can't say much bad about food that's been cooked over fire especially since I like fire quite a bit. :)

Anyway, I'll do my best to enjoy myself.

Perhaps I'll even post pictures or something. (yeah right!)

Anyway, this post was brought to you by the letters H, I, K, E, and the number 78.

Pioneer Day

Yesterday was Pioneer Day here in Utah. The state is celebrating the anniversary of the pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake valley. As a result, all state offices were closed, and there was a big parade. I took the day off and spent it with my family and in the process, helped a good friend who had some trouble with missed flights and needing a helping hand in a time of trouble.

It was all together an enjoyable day. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters B, O, O, M, and the number 45.

I'm Not Sure You're Supposed To Do That.

Here's an excerpt of a very recent conversation between my oldest princess and myself in which I explain to her that I'm trying to decide which of my offspring to eat for dessert. This threat is a daily threat with no actual backing, but it's fun to watch them squirm when I announce I plan to eat one of them. Here goes...

King Isepik: I'm trying to decide which one of my daughters to eat.
Pink Princess: [stops what she's doing and turns to look at me]
KI: I'm trying to decide if I should eat the oldest one or the youngest one -
PP: [blink]
KI: the tallest one or the shortest one. Perhaps I'll go with the one with the most visible teeth.
PP: That's me because Purple Dragon just lost a tooth.
KI: Maybe, but I can see the tooth that's replacing the one she just lost as well as the one that will replace the loose one she still has, so she has the most visible teeth.
PP: [blink]
KI: Maybe, I'll go with the one with the longest hair.
PP: [throwing the Queen under the bus - points] That would be Mommy.
KI: She's not my daughter.
PP: [blink]
KI: I can't go with the one who is the cutest, because I'd have to eat you both.
Queen: [interjecting herself into the conversation] Make sure whichever one you eat has the cleanest nose to cut down on the number of boogers you have to eat.
PP: [begins furiously blowing snot bubbles with her nose to increase the number of boogers in her nose]
Q: EEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!
KI: [I'm not sure you're supposed to do that] I'm not hungry...

I guess this means I'm not meant to eat either of them tonight.

Anyway, to those of you out there who are planning on celebrating tomorrows FAKE, MADE-UP, MARKETING PLOY - I say: Happy Valentine's Day. Please pardon me while I don my all black garb for the day and retch in the corner. To the rest of you, please join me in wearing black tomorrow in protest of fake holidays everywhere. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters V, D, and the number 14.

The Day After...

Hey, that was an old movie title. Hmm. Anyway, today is the day after Thanksgiving, also known as Black Friday and I'm at work. Apparently on some bad intel, I neglected to request the day off. Ooops! I will remember that for next year. :) Anyway, the Queen went off on a shopping spree and I was left to bring the little folk into work with me. They are currently quietly enjoying a movie here in my office. Once the Queen is done with her insanity, she'll come retrieve them.

There have been a few other developments over the course of the last couple of weeks as well. The Queen now has Bronchitis (she gets it about 2 or 3 times a year) and as a result, her mother was at out castle helping her last week and fell off my deck. It is about a 10-11 inch drop, but she fractured her right fibula and sprained (possibly fractured) her left ankle. That made Turkeyday really interesting this year since we celebrate it at the Queen's mother's place.

At least everyone liked my turkey. I'm glad of that and it turns out I could have started it a couple of hours later that I did, but who needs sleep, right? :)

Now that it's over, I just want to take a nice long nap, but I have to be here at work manning the fort. Luck for me, it's been really dead so far and I've already completed one of the two things I need to finish for the day. Once I'm done with that, I'll just surf the net until I can leave for the day.

What a week! I'm glad it's nearly over. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters M, W, O, and the number 5.

Memorial Day

Yesterday, We celebrated Memorial Day here in the United States of America. While I've never served in the Armed forces of America and I am not a fan of my nation's foreign policies, I believe in the people in our armed forces and I greatly appreciate what they do on a daily basis for our country.

I've had relatives in the armed services and friends in those same armed services. I hope the old friends I had are OK and I'd like to take this chance to thank them for their service.

Thanks to all our past and present military service men and women. It's a shame our country's policies put you in harm's way on a daily basis, but I thank you for hefting the mantle and doing a thankless job well anyway.

Thank you so much! Stay safe.

This post was brought you you by the letters U, S, A, and the number 4.

Mother's Day...

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there and a special Happy Mother's Day to the Queen. Loosing Nemo wasn't easy for either of us a few weeks ago. She's been a little edgy for a few days now and while I don't like it, I can understand it because I've been a little off for a while myself.

I could have done a better job with Mother's Day this year.

The fact is, I blew it. No Card. No Present. No Nothin'. I feel like an ass.

Happy Mother's Day to you all. Feel better, my Queen. I'm here. I'm sorry.

This post was brought to you by the letters M, O, M, and the number 4.

The Lumber Is Gone

The tree has been disassembled! It's nice and cozy in its box in the basement. The lights (lingerie) came off it pretty easily. :) We now have a lot more usable space in the living room now. It's a nice change.

If the weather will cooperate with me, I'll be able to take down the lights on the outside of the house, but it looks like that won't happen before February, if then. Oh well, such is life, eh? :)

This post was brought to you by the letters G, S, I, N, V, and the number 45.

Timber!!!

The Queen is stripping our Christmas tree. Soon, it'll be mostly naked and it'll be up to me to remove its lingerie and bed it.

For you gutter-minded folks, that means remove the lights, take the tree apart and pack it in its cardboard box. :) You should be ashamed you even thought that way about our innocent tree. :P

Anyway... The tree and its associated decorations are coming down and will soon be packed away.

This post was brought to you by the letters X, M, A, S, and the number 9.

Decorative LED Lighting

Recently, the Queen told you that I expressed an interest in replacing out Christmas lighting with efficient LED lighting. I am indeed interested in replacing all our lights with LEDs. LED light strings can burn for 50000 hours or more! That's a lot of years of use.

They can be used year round if you're just a bit clever on your use. They can be used on the edge of a deck or in flower beds as accent lighting. They can be used along walks to provide some ambient lighting to avoid tripping hazards. When arranged appropriately, they can provide nearly any type of lighting you could want.

These lights are also extremely efficient. When a string of 2000 LEDs is used for 8 hours a day everyday of the year, they cost just $50 a year to operate. That's a lot more efficient that standard lighting. Please view the Christmas lights they have to offer at HolidayLEDs.com for more information.

I'm likely to use them for hidden lighting on the deck I'll be working on this spring and summer. That way I can make much better use of my deck well into the night.

This post was brought to you by the letters L, E, D, and the number 2000.

Happy 2008

Happy 2008 to you all! Hopefully, it will be a great and productive year for all of us. :) Please remember to be responsible for you actions and words. Enjoy yourselves!

This post was brought to you by the letters D, Y, Q, X, and the number 6.

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

The Night Before...

It's the night before Christmas and finally, everything's wrapped and shoved under the tree where it belongs. I had to work today for a half day, and then I did the last little bit of shopping I needed to do to be sure the things I wanted to get for people were acquired without prior knowledge.

Since the Queen handles our finances, she'd notice purchases and harass me about going over budget. I didn't want that harassment, so I waited until the last minute to get what I wanted to get her. Either there were a lot of other people who felt the same way, or a ton of people who just waited until the last minute because each of the locations I had to visit were INSANE!

Anyway, I'm just glad it's over. Now I can just go to bed and wait until Santa comes to town and delivers for the Princess and the Dragon. :)

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Merry Christmas!

This post was brought to you by the letters H, O, H, O, H, O, and the number 8 (9 on foggy nights)

Winter

Happy First day of Winter! Today is the Winter Solstice which means the days will be getting longer from now until the middle of Summer! Yay! Perhaps it will motivate me to get out and about more. :) We can always hope, right? :)

Anyway, I wanted to wish you all Happy Holidays and good cheer to everyone.

This post was brought to you by the letters T, Y, M, C, and the number 12.

Turkey!

Tomorrow is Turkey Day! I get to cook the turkey! This bird is HUGE. Nearly 24 pounds of turkey meat waiting for me to season and shove into the oven.

JOY!

Anyway, I need to do some prep.

Later!

This post was brought to you by the letters T, H, C, and the number 23.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to the Queen! :) She is 29 today. :)

This post is brought to you by the letters Y, S, F, B, and the number 29.