luv and such

So, I am a pretty practical guy.  It drives my fashion (I always wear sensible shoes), my politics and even my romantical side.  I understand that lots of things go into driving our economy so I am proud to do my part and participate in the Valentine’s day festivities…but my practical side kicks in too.

Emily and I have been buying small things the past month or so and calling them early Valentine’s day presents (there were some great after-Christmas sales, afterall).  Still, being ever-so-slightly brighter than a toaster over (which I also got in an after-Christmas sale), I knew that I had better have something in hand for the Mrs. come Valentine’s morning.  The boy and I went to the local big-box purveyor of Chinese goods and I quickly spotted my prize.  You see, Emily has been complaining about having only one small non-stick pan in which to cook my eggs and sausage in the morning.

China-Mart had a super deal on 2 Farberware non-stick pans and their bases were even coated in red enamel…and folks think I don’t speak the language of love!  I proudly placed my take on the cashier’s stand and she looked at me funny.  I sort of figured she was a bit jealous of the catch my wife had found, but I usually can’t read women very well.  Anyhow, we headed home and I hid her present so she would be surprised!

Just like a kid on Christmas morning, I woke early and fetched my gift and woke Emily and presented her with her apron and the new red pans.  At that point, things get a little fuzzy.  I guess she must have slipped getting out of bed, or maybe she had a nerve twitch, but somehow, the pan handle must have fallen into her hand and as she swung her arm to catch her balance, the pans whacked me in the head.  I don’t remember much else except waking up in a hospital bed with IVs stuck in my arms.

So, while my Valentine’s day was somewhat unusual, I am sure Emily liked her new pans and I saved us some cold hard cash by pocketing the pudding cups and packs of crackers that came with my hospital meals…all in all, I’d say it was a pretty good Valentine’s day!

6 Comments

warren, February 15th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Family, Fun

Gather round the old “fire”

I have gone on and on about our old house.  There are a hundred (or more) tings wrong with this place and we are working, slowly but surely, through most of th big ticket items.  The house has a great fireplace with a huge chimney that is, unfortunately, not in great shape.  I don’t think it is going to fall down anytime super soon, but we’ve been told by chimney-folk that burning a fire would hasten its failure, what with the expansion and shrinkage and all from the temperature changes.

Speaking of shrinkage, I can’t say the word without thinking of this:

Anyhow, until we get around to fixing the chimney, we won’t be burning any fires. But gee whiz, on days such as these, sitting around a warm fire surely sounds nice. Our house is a little short on insulation so heat is pretty precious around here. In lieu, of a real fire though, we have devised a new scheme to allow us to enjoy our own little “fire”.

When we get a hunger for hotdogs, we fire up the portable utility heater.  It is mostly safe and makes for a mean wienie roast.  Marshmallows work pretty well too though they smell worse when they fall onto the heating coils.  The best part about it is that there is no smoke to contend with as we gather round…

When Emily feels like a cup of hot cocoa, we don’t have to fool with heating a pot on top of the wood stove.  Oh no, we simply break out the hair dryer and let it blow!  She can have lukewarm cocoa in a mere 18 minutes!

7 Comments

warren, February 3rd 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Family, Fun

(tap, tap, tap)…is this thing on?

Gee whiz, here it is 2010 already!  I haven’t been too faithful about writing since last year!  We’ve had snows and melts and we are back to snow again.  The temperature is only like 12 or something so it’s too cold to even go outside and complain about how cold it is.  The good news is that I have decided not to complain any in 2010.

Now if only all the dang annoying people would just leave me alone, I’d be set!

Anyhow, in typical style, we welcomed in 2010!  Don’t tell anyone but I think Emily secretly slipped into the broom closet during the festivities to down a few martinis.  I have evidence too:

Don’t her eyes look a little odd to you?  Of course, there are these too:

So, now on to today…we got the early morning wake-up call telling us that school was cancelled today.  So, here I am sitting here in the cold, writing this before I go in to work.  Everyone else is sound asleep in the jammies dreaming of sugar-plums and Dinah Shore and grizzly bears on roller skates.  The snow is once again stacking up and the wind and cold don’t help…but remember, I am not going to complain in 2010!  Instead, I think I will try to catch a quick nap and see what dreams turn up on my drive in to work!

8 Comments

warren, January 5th 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in Family, Fun

Adams…Grizzly Adams

With the holidays, I have been pretty absent from all things Internet.  We’ve had family in town and really enjoyed our Christmas celebrations.  Last week, I mentioned one of my Brother’s traditions in which I participated this year.  We grew beards from Thanksgiving to Christmas, then shaved them off in pieces.  I had never grown a beard before so this was a new adventure for me.

So, without further adieu, here is a pictorial record of the transition:

Where I started...December 20, 2009

Gee whiz, my chin was cold!

Check out the handsome guy on my brother's left!

Perhaps a future in pro wrestling?

Yeah, I can't explain it either...

So, when Abigail finally saw me clean shaven, she told me she liked me better the other way.  Lots of people did in fact and that sort of gave me a complex…don’t you like the “real” me?  Do I need to hide my face under a beard?  Oh, the blow to my psyche!

12 Comments

warren, December 31st 2009 | Tags:
Posted in Fun

Hair? On Warren?

I haven’t needed a haircut since 1996. I hadn’t paid for one for several years prior to that but, in 1996, I shaved my head and started to build the empire that is “Warren” today.  Hair and the idea of hair have both always sort of eluded me and been a bit of a question in my atrophied brain…what is the point of hair anyhow? I get by without it quite nicely. In fact, I am more aerodynamic that most hair-endowed folks (I like to call that a hair disability). Hair is just such a nuisance…you have to style it and dry it and cut it and if you wear a crash helmet, you have to worry about helmet head. I just don’t get hair.

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Although I don’t get hair, I do get people – and that, friends, is why I program computers. Anyhow, my dear brother, who always had a full mop of hair, has a tradition where he doesn’t shave between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In the time between Christmas and New Year’s Day, he shaves his face-mane in parts, each day leaving an interesting facial-hair style (see some of the possibilities).  Since I get people, I know that he must feel conspicuous being the only one in our family to participate.  This year, being the kind and gentle brother that I am, I have decided to take part in the tradition as well.  I stopped shaving on Thanksgiving and have been growing this luxurious  set of whiskers since.  You can see the reverse progression up through yesterday.  The white stuff you see on my chin is not gray hair…no, no, friends, that is snow that got stuck in my beard while I was sled riding with the kids.  I am nowhere near old enough to have gray hair…losing my hair is one thing, but gray hair?  I think not!

So, what about it folks?  Do you have funny traditions?  Do you grow a beard?

11 Comments

warren, December 21st 2009 | Tags: ,
Posted in Fun, Thoughts

Are you out of your mind?

Yeah, I licked it too!

Yeah, I licked it too!

I have been absent on this blog for the last few days.  I’ve been sick but I think we have sort of honed in on the possibility that I have/had some combination of  asthma/allergies/a chest infection…and just experienced a significant episode of it.  I go for more tests in the coming weeks to determine if it is asthma or if Emily has been making me inhale spiders in my sleep.  Anyhow, in addition to being sick, I also went to Las Vegas for a business function.

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My co-worker and I left early on my birthday (Wednesday).  We left my house at 4:45 am EST and arrived in Las Vegas at 10:30 am PST.  That left a bunch of time for exploring the area before our work stuff started on Thursday.  I had never been to Las Vegas before so we decided to explore.  I don’t gamble particularly so we avoided all of those sorts of sights…I mean, I played a few slots and a couple of rounds of roulette (I came back $1 ahead!) and visited all of the casinos because each is a spectacle in its own right.  But spending significant time in casinos was not a part of my plans for this trip.

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After doing extensive web research in the 10 minutes prior to heading out on the town, we determined that we needed to visit the Stratosphere tower and ride the roller coasters atop the building.

Check out videos of other riders here, here,  here,  here, and here.

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The Stratosphere is a fairly tall building in the Las Vegas skyline.  It tops out somewhere around 1100 feet tall.  There are three rides at the top that are sure to make some folks cry and others wish they had brought a change of underclothes.  I have always been into thrills (cheap or otherwise) so this was right up my alley.  Like all such fun things, the proprietors of the rides have automatic cameras set up to capture the looks of fear on riders’ faces.  I have absolutely no sense whatsoever so, rather than being scared, I put on my goofy face for the camera…

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The Big Shot ride that jerks you straight up in the air was pretty cool but not in the least bit scary to me.  Heck, I was already super high in the air…what’s another 100 feet?  It was cool though to be about as high as you can legally get in Las Vegas.  The views were incredible.  The ride lifts and drops riders several times very quickly so unlucky folks get a chance to travel up and down through their own vomit several times.

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Aftert he Big Shot, we rode  X-Scream.  Follow the link and you’ll get a better description of the ride than I can provide.  This ride was pretty extreme.  It was awesome flying out over the edge of the building over and over.  And luckily for riders, there was no puke ride-through…it all fell to the folks standing on the ground below wondering what was going on atop the building.  Yuck…anyhow, we didn’t really get sick but we had  great thrill in both cases.

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We got into all sots of other stuff in Las Vegas and I will share some more tomorrow.  In general though, I am super glad to be back home in WV!

7 Comments

warren, December 8th 2009 | Tags: ,
Posted in Adventure, Fun

Our first indoor allergy-maker!

Tomorrow is my birthday…it’s not a big one…not a decade mark, but I am pretty happy to celebrate another year.  Both Emily and I have been around the sun a few times though and had never experienced a live Christmas tree.  We never had live trees growing up because I am allergic to everything.  Of course, I grew up in the woods so I was surrounded by evergreen trees, but they were never in the house.  Anyhow, since I have been so sick the last month or so, I decided that a new tree can’t possibly make me feel any worse than I already do.

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We loaded up the kids in the van and headed to the Capitol Market in Charleston, one of WV’s best farmer’s markets.  This time of year, the sell only one thing…Christmas trees!  We wandered through hundreds of trees looking for the cheapest price….erm..I mean the best shaped tree.  About 2/3 of the way down the market, we happened upon the cheapest…erm…best shaped…trees.  We talked to the folks working there and they told us where their trees were grown (locally) and their price was good so we picked out a tree.

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The guy working there ran our tree through the wrapping machine and offered to run Isaac through as well.  I told him I would pay him $10 extra to run both kids through but we measured and his machine would not quite handle their size.  I bet for $20 he would have made it work.

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Anyhow, we tied the tree atop the van and proceeded to cruise over all of the hills and curves back to the house.  Neither of us wanted to look back fearing we’d see our tree rolling down the hill towards the next car in line.

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We made it home and I manhandled the tree into the house and set it into the new tree stand we bought.  The kids cut the tree-wrap into hundreds of tiny pieces that were left strewn about the house.  Emily cut the last bit of the wrap as the kids and I cowered in fear of the tree’s opening.

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We put lights on the tree and, of course, the kids started to fight.  The good news is, they seemed to fight in rhythm with the Christmas carols we had playing so it felt like Christmas indeed!

So far, allergies have not been a factor and I have not yet keeled over dead.  I am not any better, but I am not much worse either!

So, do you set up a tree?  Live or artificial?

17 Comments

warren, December 1st 2009 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Family, Fun, Nature, Thoughts, WV

Flight Lessons

A few years ago, we were feeling sort of goofy at the office so we decided to have a paper airplane flying contest around Thanksgiving.  Our office is on the top floor of our building so we have a lot of potential to fly a plane quite a distance.  At the time, we decided that the contest would be an annual tradition.  Three years later, we decided to have the 2nd annual paper airplane flying contest…

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In the first contest, I had a superior design but was adversely affected by wind currents and unexpected air inversions.  My plane landed in a tree that grows right beside the building.  Another fella with a primitive design fly his plane nearly to the river…the Mississippi River that is.  Anyhow, a week or so ago, we decided to have a pre-contest practice run where I once again flew my superior design directly into the same dang tree.  The pre-contest drove me nuts…first place was won by the new girl in the office…again with a primitive design.  Second place was taken by another guy who threw a box lid off the roof.  You see, the only rule was that the plane had to contain some paper product.

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Since my superior design didn’t even really show for the fight…I mean flight, I declared the contest to be void.  We had the “real” contest on Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  This time, I decided I was absolutely going to win…I brought a special plane:

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Guess what…we had the trim on the control wrong and this plane flew right into the same dang tree…how can I lose with a powered plane?  Soon, that tree will meet its end!

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Anyhow, the box-lid thrower this time threw a roll of toilet paper off the roof…and it did very well.  I think next year I will go simple rather than superior!

9 Comments

warren, November 30th 2009 | Tags:
Posted in Fun

My wife has CDO

I know that mental health issues are no laughing matter, but I have to tell you about Emily’s OCD, or, as she likes to describe it, her CDO (that’s OCD in alphabetical order).  She has all sorts of quirks, but one in particular is especially funny and evident throughout our house.

We’ve been doing some home repairs and replacing stuff that just plain needs replaced.  One of those things is the switch and receptacle covers.  It’s really a trivial matter unscrewing one or two screws, pulling off the old cover, adding the new, and replacing the screws, right?

Well, it’s a different story in our household with Emily around.  I can do the first 3 steps of the process, but Emily insists on putting the screws in place.  You see, in our house, the screws can’t simply be replaced….oh, no…they must be installed such that the slot of the screw is perfectly vertical.  People are pretty good at determining whether  something is vertical.  By no means are we perfect, but one would think that “eyeball vertical” would be vertical enough to satisfy Emily’s screw-vertical-slot-OCD.  You’d be wrong…

We have outfitted a flathead screwdriver with a small torpedo level so she can be certain that the screws are vertical, “as God intended them to be.”  I understand when folks are particular about things.  I really do get it.  But I also like to have a little fun now and then as well.

So, here’s my experiment.  I am about to loosen one of the screws in the switch cover in our bedroom.  I’ll time how long it takes her to find and fix the “problem”.

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Let’s see, it’s 9:52pm…

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HA!  10:19 and the “problem” is fixed!  The best part is that she spent 20 minutes going through the rest of the house seeing if I had messed with any other screws!

14 Comments

warren, November 20th 2009 | Tags: ,
Posted in Family, Fun

Is egg nog supposed to grow hair on your chest?

I haven’t always loved egg nog, but I love it now.  I am not sure when it started…I suppose it just grew in time (sound any like Elizabeth on Pride and Prejudice?).  When I was a kid, my parents (mostly my Dad) ate sardines and buttermilk and scrapple and egg nog.  It all just seemed like stuff that wasn’t supposed to be ingested.  But in time, the lure of the egg nog alone won me over.

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I am not much of a drinker regardless of what some of my posts may suggest.  My entire family has been sick for the last hundred years or so…or maybe it’s just been the last 3 weeks.  Anyhow, I was in Rite Aid the other day picking up motrin (which is absolutely magic on fevers) when I spied with my eye, a bottle of Evan Williams egg nog.  I got a little giddy when I saw it because I figured I would be a better connoisseur of egg nog having tried every variety I can find.  And yes, before you ask, I do have high hopes of being a world famous egg nog master…more on that later.

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So, I hauled my bottle of spiked nog to the counter where the cashier lady quadruple wrapped my bottle in bags so no one on the outside world would know they sell whiskey and such there (I guess).  I gently cradled my new baby in my arms and buckled him into the car for the trip home.  Once home, I cleared the top shelf of the refrigerator and carefully placed the bottle to let him chill.

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Later on  in the evening, the moment of truth arrived.  I prepared my finest dixie cup and attempted to open the bottle of nog.  Mr Williams must have had a much stronger grip than I have because I could not open that bottle for the life of me.  I can’t imagine the terror that must cause someone who…uh…really needs egg nog.  Anyhow, I finally found the proper tool to disengage the lid and I poured out my portion and took a sip.

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In my opinion, Mr Williams produces one of the absolute nastiest things I have ever tasted (and remember, I have licked a lot of bells!)  As you know, a dixie cup is not very large, but I could not bear to finish my sample.  Down the drain it went.  And by the way, I happen to have a good deal on a partially used bottle of nasty…any takers?

Ok…sorry, I thought not.  If you want to read something more useful, take a look at a post I wrote over at Not Dabbling in Normal…

7 Comments

warren, November 19th 2009 | Tags:
Posted in Fun
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