One of the coolest Christmas presents I received this year was a package of five uncleaned coins from Dirty Old Coins.  It’s been a lot of fun to spend the past few days cleaning centuries of dirt and gunk off of them in order to reveal…

well, nothing.  Looks like all of the five coins I received are what are called “slugs”, coins worn so smooth that no detail remains. 

Still, they’re old.  Ancient even.  And being the history buff that I am, it’s pretty neat to hold a little bit of history in your hand. 

The first in an ocassional series.

If dad gives me a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and then forgets to wipe off my face afterwards, I can smear peanut butter all over his sweater and he won’t notice until he gets to work.  Fun!

Okay, I think I’m projecting.  This is probably a life lesson from me.

Guitar Hero 2 has a Spinal Tap song (Tonight I’m Gonna Rock Ya).  How cool is that?  I’ll be able to educate young Andrew in the classics without him even knowing!  Right now he and his friend are playing along to Spinal Tap, and just finished playing something by Motley Crue (Too Young To Fall In Love, I believe). 

Hee hee… my son the metalhead.

The first in an occasional series. 

If you eat Crayola Color Explosion paper, it turns your face blue.  The good news is it’s non-toxic.  The bad news is it takes awhile for the color to wear off.

My son looks like he’s been eating Smurfs, apparently.  I’ll see if I can get Elaine to send me a picture.

- anything longer than a 15 minute car ride requires a Dramanine for Andrew.  This means you cannot go to Best Buy without dosing him.

- you forgot that Best Buy has “24″ on sale… $19.99 per season.  That means you could have bought two seasons of “24″ for the same price that got you one season of “The Office”.  And no matter how funny “The Office” is… it doesn’t have Jack Bauer.

Here’s hoping your Christmas is filled with laughter, joy, reverance and appreciation.  As a special gift to my family… here’s Catherine playing dress up with a couple of her presents.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good day!

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Twas the day before Christmas, and all through the house

the kids were determined to make their Dad grouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care

I have no idea how we fit seven stockings up there.

I in my hoodie, and my ballcap

was in no way going to get a long winter’s nap.

With James helping type, and Catherine trying too

I send this Christmas wish from me to you:

Merry Christmas, and thank you again for visiting the blog. 

John at Wiredhub fixed the problem lickety-split, so I think we’re back in business. 

To celebrate… here’s a pic of Andrew, since Kevin said he hadn’t seen him in awhile.

Okay, the hosting company is aware of all the wordpress problems.  Not only can you not leave comments, I can’t see them even if you could.  Hopefully this will get fixed sometime today.

I was going to upload a picture of Andrew… but I can’t even do that!  Bah.  Stupid blog.

First of all, I’m having some problems with WordPress that’s affecting my ability to see any comments that might be in the moderation queue.  I’m working on it, but I don’t know when it’ll be fixed.  Sorry ’bout that.

This post by Glenn reminded me that I haven’t mentioned I bought Orson Scott Card’s Empire. 

I found the first 2/3′rds of it to be pretty good, but the ending left me flat.  It seemed rushed for some reason.  Maybe I was just expecting more of a Harry Turtledove-style trilogy (or octagony as the case may be with Turtledove), but I would have liked to see the plot stretched out for another book. 

I’d also forgotten about Ferrigno’s Prayers for the Assassin, which I’d meant to pick up when it came out.  Might be time to head to Barnes and Noble tonight.  I’m on vacation and I have nothing new to read, which seems like a good excuse to buy a few books… regardless of how soon Christmas will be here.

I seem to recall a series of books that explored similar themes, but for the life of me I can’t think of the name of the author.  Joel Rosenberg sounds familiar, but I know it’s not this Joel Rosenberg… although he’s a great science fiction writer in his own right.

Nevermind.  Found it.  Joel C. Rosenberg.  The Last Jihad.  The Last Days.  The Ezekiel Option.  Woohoo… sequels!  If not Barnes and Noble, I’m at least headed to the local library. 

I take a week of vacation… and I get sick on the first day.  Oh well, at least the audience doesn’t have to put up with me sounding like a sick moose. 

Actually, I don’t think I’m doing that bad a job with Elaine gone.  It would have been nice if James had actually decided to take a nap yesterday and today, but we’ll persevere.  Anyway, I snapped this picture a few minutes ago because it amused me.

Let’s count the errors I’ve made in the picture, shall we?  First of all, Catherine’s breakdancing on the coffee table, which is a no-no.  James has managed to completely disassemble the couch cushions and is using them as a hill for his race cars.  It’s 1:30 in the afternoon and the kids are still in their pajamas.  And they’re watching the stupidest show on television and enjoying it. 

Man, I hope Elaine doesn’t read this post.

I got a settlement offer in the mail yesterday.  Apparently our insurance company’s been sued in a class action lawsuit, and they’re offering settlement terms to all injured parties, and I guess I apply.

The thing is though, I really like our insurance company.  Despite two total loss claims in the span of six months, our rates never got hiked.  I have only good things to say about our insurance company… so I’m saying no to the free money (which translates out to about $132 bucks) in favor of not punishing a company that’s treated me well. 

I guess it’s my way of rejecting the stupid lawsuits that are filed every day in this country.

Elaine left for New Jersey this morning to visit her sister.  I’ve already been pooped on, screamed at, and been on the receiving end of at least three major meltdowns. 

It’s worth it though.  We found out earlier this week that Elaine’s sister has at least two more tumors in her breast, which means mastectomy.  The chemo’s proceeding, but she still has four more cycles to go.  I want Elaine to be able to spend as much time as possible with her sister.  Dealing with four kids is the least I can do. 

Just read an email from Sara who said that the Tumbleweed in Stillwater is closing in December.  Bummer.  I didn’t spend a lot of time there while I was in college (actually hung out at this coffee bar called the Dark Mave), but I did go a few times. 

Actually when I was 18, I managed to pick up a 42-year old woman at the Tumbleweed.  Yes, I’ve always had a thing for older women.

Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday… hopefully there was a lack of reading as well. 

I was a little late to our Thanksgiving dinner after the annual “Unexpected Holiday Trip to the Emergency Room”.  This year’s trip was kind of lame (stomach pain), especially when compared to trips we’ve taken in the past (the Year of the Knife was probably the most exciting).  Regardless of when I got to sit down, it was still great to break bread with my wife and children, my mother, my mother-in-law and her husband, and our friends Brian and Claire. 

I have so much to be thankful for.  A wonderful family.  A job I look forward to every day.  Good health.  Great friends (and that includes you, the reader of this).  When I stop and think about the blessings in my life, I get chills.  So yesterday (and today) I gave thanks to God for all of the wonderful things in my life, and prayed that I will try to be worthy of all of the blessings that I have.  I also want to tell you that I realize how lucky I am to have you reading these words, knowing there are a billion other websites out there you could be visiting.  Thank you for stopping by. 

Since my mom’s in town, we’re going to try and do the typical tourist things today.  Andrew (the 6-year old) has been getting into rocks lately, so I’m taking him and my mom to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.  Hopefully everyone else in D.C. will be at the malls, and it won’t be too packed. 

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More specifically, I hate leaves.  19 bags worth, and that’s just from the FRONT lawn. 

I’ve been busy working today. 

I went to my first NHL game over the weekend.  The Capitals played the Rangers at MCI Center, I had free tickets, so Marshall (from OnTap) and I took in the game.

I’m pretty impressed with MCI Center.  Andrew would really like to go see a Wizards game, but the cheapest seats are $40, which is about twice what I would normally pay for nosebleed seats.  But after seeing the place in person, I think even in the upper levels you get a pretty good view.  So while I’m no fan of the NBA, I’ll probably plunk down the $80 and take him to a game soon.

As far as the game goes… well, it was a little bit better than those Blazers games I loved to attend.  I don’t follow the NHL at all, but living in the D.C. area you hear about Alex Ovechkin.  The kid lives up to his hype.  I was even more impressed with Olie Kolzig, the goalie for the Caps.  He was amazing, only allowing one goal (and that was during a Rangers power play when the Rangers had pulled their goalie.  6-4’s gonna give you a bit of an advantage). 

The final was 3-1, and then it was time to get home.  I had taken the Metro in because I’m too cheap to park, so I was expecting to have a crammed ride.  It was pretty tight for a couple of stops, but by the time we’d gotten to the Pentagon metro stop (about halfway home for me) I was able to find a place to sit. 

All in all, not a bad night.  A boring blog post, but a nice night.

I do have a lengthy rant I’m hoping to post later today, but in the meantime… here are the twins in their halloween costumes.  You can’t really tell, but James is a monkey.

And here’s Catherine in her cat costume.

Catherine’s developed an obsession with both her Halloween hat and a harmonica she found. 

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Some of you may know that Elaine’s sister was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.  We got the news that the cancer has spread, and more surgery and chemotherapy are needed. 

The good news is that the doctors believe she can fight this, but if you’re the praying kind, I’d appreciate any thoughts that could be sent her way. 

In addition, Elaine is going in for her first mammogram tomorrow.  I confess to being more than a little nervous, so I’d also appreciate positive prayers that everything turns out fine. 

Thanks. 

**Update**

Just heard from Elaine, who’s on her way home.  Apparently we should here something in about a week, which to me sounds like a good sign.  After all, if there was something immediately noticable, I’m fairly sure they would have said something today. 

And no, don’t point out the fact that I’m assuming, rather than going on facts here. 

What’s the one thing that can get me blogging again? 

Avoiding yardwork. 

A windy day yesterday meant the trees in front of the house dumped a week’s worth of leaves on the yard in about three hours.  I’ve gotta get out there and start raking, but I figured a new post was in order. 

A quick response to Steve, who, because I’m not blogging about the things that he thinks I should be, believes I’m avoiding a number of issues.  There’s a very simple reason why I’ve not blogged much about elections, or Mark Foley, or North Korea, or Harry Reid, etc.  There are other people doing a much better job of covering those things.  I haven’t blogged about Santorum being down 15, and I haven’t blogged about the netroots and Ned Lamont getting clobbered in Connecticut.  You can’t goad me into blogging about things when I know I’m not going to provide anything new or different in terms of information or commentary. 

The fact is I just don’t have a great deal of time to blog anymore.  When I do (and I’m going to start budgeting some time every day to put up a post or two), it’s going to be a) something that isn’t really being talked about and/or b) something that I can provide some unique commentary on.  I expect that means you’ll be seeing more 2nd amendment related items, but I think I’m also going to be delving into the world of pop culture a little more.  And even though this might bore you, I’m probably going to be doing more parenting blogging than I have in the past. 

The other option is to just stop blogging altogether, but I really don’t want to do that.   

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, blogging has been light for the past couple of weeks.  It’s not writers block as much as it is information overload.  Home life is very busy, work is very busy, and the blog’s been suffering. 

Rather than gnash my teeth and pull my non-existant hair out, I’m just going to step away from the blog for a few days.  I’ll be back, but probably not until the weekend.