Monday, September 3, 2012

Sep 3

As always, check out my website at: www.thomnichols.com

That was a busy week. I had two days off. (Woo Hoo!!!) So, Saturday we got off to an early start and went to the movies. It had been a while. I hadn’t even seen any of the commercials or previews and didn’t recognize any of them. So, my wife chose the movie. Big mistake. She wanted to see Apparition. She said the previews looked good. As it turned out, it wasn’t. The story was sorely lacking. In the one scene you saw the ghost, it looked pretty good, but overall it sucked. Better luck next time. My daughter took my granddaughter to a cartoon movie and they liked it, so it wasn’t a total waste.
After the movie, my daughter stayed to work and we took my granddaughter to the Taste of Colorado. It is a yearly celebration where they close off all the main streets downtown and put up a carnival. There were rides, games, tons of things to eat and booths selling everything. There were a lot of radio stations and large companies that were giving away free stuff as well as having places to sign up for bigger prizes. My granddaughter got her face painted and a little butterfly airbrushed tattoo with sparkles and glitter. My wife got an anklet of magnetized stones that is supposed to help with circulation. We saw some real good artists and street performers. It was very fun but very crowded. It was my first time going even though I’ve lived here for like twenty years.
On the bad side, we saw two kids getting into a fight. One of the venders broke it up and started yelling for security. The two kids were all bloody and wanted to get back into it, but there was a pretty big crowd around and the vender was doing a good job of keeping them apart as he continually yelled for security. After the kids moved off in separate directions, two security guards came out of the crowd. They were watching and no one realized they were security. Also, while we were getting my wife’s anklet, we saw a man looking at the jewelry next to us. As soon as the lady took my credit card and turned around, he handed off a necklace to a woman next to him. He went one way and the woman went the other. We saw them a few minutes later looking at another booth. I felt like going over there and snatching the necklace back. It sucks when people like that ruin fun events like that. Then, the venders have to raise their prices to cover their losses and the public end up not being able to afford going to things like this.
On the lighter side, the Taste of Colorado began right next to my building. On Friday as everything was kicking off, (It was a four day event, Friday – Monday) a truck parks in the street right next to us and it was full of cases of potato chips. The company, Smart food, was giving away free chips to everyone that was exiting or walking past. So, one of our guys goes by and they give him four bags of chips. They were the big bags too, not the 99 cent ones. Upon his success, one of the other guys goes out and tells them he’s getting them for everyone. They give him four bags. So, the boss sends out the new guy to get some more. Instead of four bags, the new guy comes back with two cases of chips. Emboldened by his success, the boss goes down with one of the guys and talks them out of two cases each. So, we have six full cases and a bunch of loose bags of chips running around here. I had come in early and witnessed the whole thing. I thought that there would be chips for everyone all weekend. Nope, when those guys got off, they all took all the chips. That always happens, the graveyard guys and the weekend guys are always left out in the cold. And, that really upsets the guy I work with, so after the day guys left and before the chip guys left, he went down there. I was watching him and to me it looked like he was arguing with them. But, the guy jumps up on the truck and pulls down four cases. Then, they talk some more and he jumps back up on the truck and pulls down two more cases. When my fellow graveyarder came back, he only had three cases. He told me that the guy gave him all six cases, but he didn’t want to be as greed y as the day people. So, we each took a case and left the other one for the weekend people. But, the truck was going to be there all four days, so I’m sure the weekend people got their share.
Yesterday, my sister in-law called and offered us Rockies tickets. They were up on the third level, but they were still good seats. We were under the shade. By the time we made it down to the game, it was already the start of the fourth inning. In the third inning, the Rockies scored 7 runs. It sucked missing that, but the rest of the game was really good. We were neck and neck all the way to the end. In the ninth, we were up by two. The Padres scored one and there were two people on base before we made the third out. I was hoping for extra innings. But, I’ll take a win any day. We took two games from San Diego which was nice, but we lost today against Atlanta. So, we are back to 23 games under 500.
After the game, we went out to get a slice of pizza. It was just the two of us, so we didn’t want to get a whole pie. So, we went to this place in the Stapleton area. It used to be the airport, but they turned it into a rich community. At least the pizza isn’t that expensive. While we were there, a really tall guy came in and all of the pizza makers came out to get a look at him. They were falling all over him and giving him anything he wanted. I know I’ve seen him, and I know that there are several Denver Nugget basketball players that live in the Stapleton area. So, I think I saw someone famous, but I didn’t really recognize him and don’t know who it was.
All of the kids are doing well. Nothing really good or bad happened to them that I know of, so I don’t really have anything to report in that area. My wife started her new schedule today. She doesn’t like it as much as she liked her old place, but it’s not permanent. She’s still planning on doing the bartender thing. But, she also always doesn’t like new places until she’s been there for a while and then she ends up loving it. So, we’ll see.
I’m almost finished with Slider. I’m still setting my deadline as kickoff of the first Bronco game on Sunday. So, I better get cracking. Since the Police were at the Taste of Colorado, I’m putting them in the playlist for background listening tonight. See you next Monday.
-Thom

Monday, August 27, 2012

Aug 27

As always, please check out my website: www.thomnichols.com
Yes, I know it’s been a few weeks since I’ve updated my blog, but I’ve been working a ton of overtime and haven’t had a chance. So, today let’s start off with some current events. The Rockies spanked the Dodgers 10-0. I know, we’re not doing great. We’re still 23 games under 500, but we’re slowly climbing out of the hole. We don’t have a shot at a post season, but at least we can be spoilers for other teams and get as close to 500 as possible. The Broncos are looking real good. We’re 1-2 in preseason, but it is preseason. Our starters look really good. All three of Manning’s drives scored this Sunday. It would have been nice to have him and the other starters play into the second half, but I would also not like to see them get hurt before the regular season, so it’s ok. We only have a week and a half before real football starts, the waiting game is on.

It looks like September is going to be as busy as August was concerning overtime. This week, I only have six hours, but you never know what’s coming. It would be nice if they put up the schedule more than a few days in advance, but what can you do?
Let’s see what’s going on with the rest of the family. My granddaughter started preschool today. She looked so cute in her little backpack and new school clothes. I don’t know how it went, but when she got there, she didn’t cry at all. My son said that she saw some other little girl crying and went up to her and told her that they only had to be there for a few hours and then they could go home. I think she’s going to make a lot of friends.
My eldest daughter came back from her two week obligation with the Army Reserves. She was in California desert and it was extremely hot. She’s back to work at Safeway now. She didn’t start college this term, but is expecting to next term.
My youngest daughter started college this term. She had a bunch of general education classes, like we expected. Most of them are ok, but I saw her doing one online the other day and I asked her which one it was. She said that it was (Public Speaking). I about fell out of my chair laughing. How could public speaking be an online course? I can just imagine coming in one day and finding her reading a speech to the computer. I’m all for online classes. They’re convenient and sometimes necessary, but public speaking? I always thought that a requirement for that class might be to speak in public, but I might be wrong. I think they could have chosen a different class to put online.
My wife has a new position in the company in a different building. She’ll start it at the beginning of next week. (I think that was what she said) I think she’ll like it. And, it will help regulate her. She doesn’t get much sleep when she works the overnight shifts and then changes to the day or evening. She is still going to go to bartending school, however. That will be evening hours, but it won’t be hours that jump around so drastically. The only thing we’re waiting for on that is her finishing up at the dentist. For some reason her dentist decided to go and have her baby before she could finish up on my wife’s teeth. But, maternity leave can’t be much longer. I’m pretty sure she has an appointment in the second week of September.
I have two brothers, the one two years younger than me likes his new job. Coincidentally, this month he is the bar manager. One of the first things that they told him is that all bartenders steal. His main job as supervising them is to limit the amount that they steal. He isn’t supposed to catch them and fire them. He is just supposed to try to keep the stealing down to a minimum. Probably because the next bartender they get in might steal more than the one they already have.
My youngest brother is still looking for a job. I’ve suggested he come to my company because they are desperate for people. We get a little bonus for referring people, but they need warm bodies so badly that they have more than tripled the amount that they give us. So, it works out good for both of us if he goes in.
I still haven’t talked to my sister. It’s been months and months. We’re not mad at each other or anything. It’s just that neither of us are good at calling. I keep telling myself that I’m going to email her, but whenever I get in front of that computer other things pop up and I forget.
I’m really cruising along on my latest book Slider. I’m on chapter 17 and that should be done today or tomorrow. I was going to try and have it completely done by September, but that’s not realistic. Now, I’m hoping to have it done by kickoff of our first regular season game. That gives me about two weeks. It’s not a long book, so I should make it by then.
And, speaking of books, I better get started. I’m wasting daylight. So, I’m putting Heart, BTO, Dire Straits, and Stray Cats in the playlist for background listening. Hopefully I’ll see you next week.
-Thom

Monday, July 30, 2012

July 30

Time for a new blog entry and don’t forget to go visit my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/
Ok, I don’t know why I’m still following them either, but the Rockies are now 26 games under 500. We lost all three games this weekend. One of them we even got seven runs. Unfortunately, the Reds got nine. We were totally shut out on Friday which really sucked. Sunday, we only made two runs to their seven. All in all, it was a bad weekend. Since the All Star break, we were winning one game out of each series. But, we couldn’t even manage that this time. We were off today, but we’re starting up with the Cardinals tomorrow then the Giants and the Dodgers. Our prospect for winning any of them doesn’t look good. The best thing I can say for the Rockies at the moment is that we aren’t last in the league. Houston still holds that honor, at least for now. They are 34 games under 500. (Man I can’t wait until football starts.)
My wife started her new schedule this week. She worked all graveyards. It was nice being home at the same time with her, but I don’t think it agreed with her very much. She’s not a night person and didn’t get very much sleep the entire week. This week she’s working the afternoon/evening shifts. I hope they work out better for her.
My son had an interview today with a moving company. He said it went well, but there were two other people interviewing for the same position. The other two guys had driver’s licenses so he thinks they might have a better shot at it. But, he’s eligible for his license in a few months and the job didn’t require one. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
My eldest daughter is in California with the Army. She’s in Palm Desert, but she said it wasn’t as hot as she expected. I hope that lasts. She left her car here and they bussed them all out there. She said it took 26 hours. That had to have sucked. As for her car, I felt it was my duty not to ignore it, so I’ve been driving it around here and there. It’s a really nice car, but it keeps yelling at me to put my seatbelt on. I also had to take the head rest off of the seat. It was angled forward and very annoying. I’m sure there was a way to tilt it back, but it was just easier to take it off.
We bought my youngest daughter her school supplies for college yesterday. She’s the first of my kids to go and we didn’t really know exactly what she would need, so we got a little of everything. So, she should be ok. When we got home afterwards, however, she said that she was already thinking about changing her major. I know most kids change it two or three times their freshman and sophomore years, but she hasn’t even started yet. I’m sure she’ll figure it out and will be all right.
My granddaughter has decided that cars should stop making glove compartments because no one wares gloves anymore unless it’s snowing and then they only wear them to play outside.
Since this might be our last weekend together for a while, (My job is going to have a bunch of overtime for the next two or three months) we decided to go out and enjoy ourselves. So, my daughter got us tickets to the movies. Total Recall and the new Bourne movie hadn’t started, so they dragged me to some new dance movie. Step up something. That’s the problem going to the movies with a bunch of girls. They thought it was good. There was even a preview for another dance movie and they were excited about going to see that one too. I’m going to have to go home and watch Die Hard or something just to get the dance movie out of my system.
Well, that about sums up my week. Slider is cranking on very nicely. I’m on chapter nine today. So, I’m going to put ELO, Rod Stewart, the Beach Boys, and Joan Jett in the playlist tonight for background listening.
See you next week.
-Thom

Monday, July 23, 2012

July 23

Please check out my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/
It must suck to be a new person at any job. We, of course, get the leftovers from every other company. Saturday morning when I was leaving work, the guy that took over was one of our latest new guys. He was trained for five days and he’s got about a month or so behind his belt now. As I was leaving, he picked up the 31 day folder and very seriously asked which slots today’s reports would be in. I could almost see where he would be confused if this were February, but it’s July. There are thirty one days in this month. Oh well, enough about new guys.

I took my granddaughter swimming this weekend. We had a great time, but I forgot to put on some sun block. Yes, I’m a hurting puppy right now. My granddaughter barely got a tan, but I’m a lobster. It’s weird how you can have such a great time and not even realize that you’re cooking. I’m so burned that even the bald spot on the top of my head is red. I barely even wanted to move today. But, my granddaughter wanted to play today when she came over this evening so, what could I do? We just played inside.
The Rockies are still doing horrible. My brother and I went to the game on Tuesday. We had a great time, but the Rockies lost. They were playing the Pirates and if I remember correctly, we dropped two of the three games against them. We’re playing Arizona today. When I left it was like five to nothing or something like that. It was in the sixth, and I haven’t even looked up the final score yet. But, I’m sure it’s not good.
My wife finally decided she’d had enough at work this week. She requested a transfer and tomorrow will be her last day. I could give you a list of reasons, but the biggest was that she wasn’t appreciated. She does… or did… so much for them and all she ever heard were the negatives. It was time for her to go and do something else anyway. She’d been there for over five years and she’s has wanted to do something different for a while. Now is her perfect chance.
My girls have been talking about getting an apartment together. They were going to move into the basement, but I guess that idea is out. One of their cousins might move in with them. They’ve always been close and he graduated at the same time as my youngest.
My son has started talking about getting a job. He did odd jobs, but he was mostly a stay at home dad. But, now that my granddaughter is going to be going to school, there isn’t a need for him to stay at home. With two full time incomes, they will be able to afford to do a lot more.
I went to see Batman on Saturday. It was good, but I didn’t like the Bane character. I didn’t like the storyline very much. I did see a preview for the new Superman movie. Let’s hope it isn’t as gay as the last one. Maybe they’ll even include a fight scene in the new one. The movie that does look good is the new Total Recall. I can’t wait for that one. I think it comes out next week or something like that.
We spent the whole morning at the dentists on Saturday. I got off at six and my wife got off at seven. Her appointment was at seven thirty and we just made it. She was just supposed to get x-rays and a consultation on the work she needs. Instead, they started the process. Even though we were there for so long and I almost fell asleep in the waiting room, it was better that they started. That way my wife won’t be able to back out. And, the insurance paid for much more than they were going to last year. So, after she gets hers done, I’m going to go in and get mine done. Mine will be much more, because I don’t think the dentist has a procedure that I don’t need. Yes, I haven‘t been to a dentist for more years than I have fingers.
Well, on a happier note. I’m on chapter 7 in Slider. It is developing very well. I usually only work on it for about two hours a night, but lately I’ve been putting in an extra hour. So, I hope that continues. I’m putting Twisted Sister, Ratt, one Helix song (I’m sure you know which one. There was only one good one) and Motley Crew in the playlist tonight for background listening. So, I’ll see all of you next week.
-Thom

Monday, July 16, 2012

July 16

As always, check out my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/


What a week, what a week. Let’s start off with the big news. My eldest daughter bought my granddaughter some goldfish. Then my wife and my daughter went in halfsies (Yeah, halfsies isn’t a real word, even if you stick a v in there instead of an f.) on a small tank. My granddaughter named them Rosie, Juliet, and Pretty Head. They told her to feed them every other day and take care of them. Well, she took that to heart. She usually stays over at our house on Friday’s so the kids can have some time to themselves and we can get in some quality granddaughter time. But, when she heard that her mom and dad were going to go out, she complained all evening about going home so that she could watch them and so they wouldn’t be lonely. So, we broke down and took her home. After she got there and found out that her parents weren’t going to leave her home alone to watch her fish, she started begging to come back.
I went to see the Spiderman movie today. I think I like the actor who plays Peter Parker much better than the old guy. They did a great job on the Lizard and the special effects. I’m looking forward to the next one. I’ll probably go see Batman next week. The previews looked really good. I also want to see the new Bourne movie, even though Jason Bourne isn’t going to be in it. (I don’t see how they can have a Bourne movie without Jason, but I’m not running things.) The action and effects look like it’s going to be really good. But, the best special effects I saw in the previews are the new Total Recall movie. It looks like it’s going to be great. I liked the old one a lot, but this one looks like it’s going to be great.
The Rockies started off with a bang after the All Star Break. They took apart the Phillies in that first game. They brought up a double A player (Rutledge) and he did really well. Then, after that big win, they lost the next two and dropped the series. Today, they’re taking on the Pirates. It was a close game all the way until the fifth. They scored one and we scored four. We held them off until the ninth. At that time, I had to take my granddaughter home, so I was listing to it on the radio. Of course, they go into a rain delay with one out and two people on base for the Pirates. I just checked the score before I started writing this blog and we’re tied 4-4. But, it’s the bottom of the ninth and we have one man on first with no outs. I got my fingers crossed. Tomorrow, I’m taking my brother to the game. One of the guys I work with came back from vacation in Mississippi, but he got in late, so I traded shifts with him. I worked this Saturday and he’s going to work for me tomorrow. So, I get to see the whole game. Well, looking at the game on the computer as I’m writing this, I see that the new guy, Rutledge just got out. I’ll keep you informed as the game and blog progresses.
My youngest daughter turned down a job at Subway. She had a great interview and they offered her a job. But, she decided not to take it. I’m actually glad about that. She’s starting college in August and working two jobs would be a little too much in my opinion. I would rather her focus on her studies so that she isn’t overwhelmed.
Speaking of August, my wife is organizing an end of summer barbeque. Wait a minute, Giambi singled to center sending Rosario to third. We have two runners and only one out. Anyway, it’s not going to be her family or my family, we’re going to put them both together and have an us against them kickball or volleyball game. It should be fun. Since we haven’t told anyone yet, if anyone is reading this from either family, this is your heads up. My wife is going to reserve a park and she’s already planning her menu. She told me that she wasn’t going to organize anything ever again after she helped do her dad’s side of the family’s family reunion last month. I guess that didn’t last.
On the subject of my wife, she finally got fed up with work and asked for a transfer. She was a little upset when I went to pick her up today. But, now that we talked it out and she really thought about it, it’s a good thing. They were really taking advantage of her and treating her badly. So, she’s going to take the transfer but start looking around at other options. I’m still voting for the bartender school. She’s a very personable person and she could make a killing in tips. I also mentioned bartending to my brother. When I take him to the game tomorrow, I’m going to mention it again. He’s having some problems now, and needs to find a job quickly. The Bartending School is only a week long and from the website I saw, they have an incredible placement record.
I know you’re on the end of your chairs wondering about the end of the game, so here goes. Dexter Fowler hit a sacrifice fly to score the winning RBI.
My wife just called. There was a horrible accident at my son’s house. One of my granddaughter’s goldfish died. She tried talking to my wife, but she was crying too loudly to be understood. It looks like we’re going to go to the pet store and pick up a new one.
Well, that’s about enough for today. I’m on chapter 6 of Slider, so I’m going to work on that tonight. I’m putting Stray Cats, U2, Reo Speedwagon, and 38 Special into the playlist for background music tonight.
See you next Monday
-Thom

Monday, July 9, 2012

July 9

Like always, please visit my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/
It’s the All Star Break and we really need it. The Rockies are sitting at 33-52, not the score we wanted to see them at ending the first half of the season. I missed the Home Run Derby, but hopefully I have it recorded. Carlos Gonzales didn’t win. He was the only one from the team that was in it. He only hit 4 homers. But, that’s better than none.

We had a family reunion on my wife’s father’s side. It was a two day event, but I only went to the second day. On Saturday, one of the guys didn’t show up for work and wouldn’t answer his phone, so I had to stay until eleven. So, my wife went by herself while I slept. The second day of the reunion was more fun anyway. We had a barbeque at the park. It was a very cloudy day, but it didn’t rain. My wife was one of the three organizers, so I helped bring tables, chairs, and most of the food. A couple hundred people showed up. I recognized some of them, but I mostly didn’t know anyone. Luckily, there was a volley ball net. We got a game together and it was pretty fun. There were way too many people on each side, but it just made for a better game. After a while, three quarters of them went to challenge another section of the family to a game of kickball. I was going to go, but I was having too much fun with the volley ball. We ended up staying all day. My wife had to get up in front of everyone and talk over the microphone about her side of the family. She was pretty embarrassed and kept it quick. Her dad had a great time with his relatives. My wife said that she was never going to volunteer to be part of the organizers again, but towards the end they said that they were going to have another reunion in two years. Yep, she’s one of the organizers. At least she has two years to recover from this one.
The bad news of the week is that my brother lost his job. He has five kids and can’t afford to be out of work. He applied at Safeway, but his wife is trying to get him hired at her company. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. The whole thing happened at the worst time. He called me asking if he could borrow some money for rent. But, I had just put all of our savings into a down payment for my daughter’s car last month. So, I couldn’t help. But, I called him over the weekend and he thinks he can scrape together at least enough to pay the landlord. That just means he needs to find a job right away and squeeze his belt for this month.
One of his boys and one of my nieces had a birthday this week. I’m not sure what my brother did for his son’s birthday, but from the posts on Facebook, it sounds like my niece went gambling to celebrate. There was a post that said my nephew was up four hundred bucks in Roulette.
More bad news, my son and daughter in-law aren’t pregnant. I was all ready for a new baby. So, I guess they just have to keep practicing.
I’m still on chapter four of Slider. I should finish that up today or tomorrow and start of chapter five. It’s still looking like a fun book. So, I guess I better get started. That means that it’s a wrap for last week’s events. I’m putting Eddie Money, Meatloaf, and the Eagles in the playlist for tonight’s background music.
-Thom

Monday, July 2, 2012

July 2

Like always, please check out my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/

Ok, since we did good news last time, let’s get the bad news out of the way this time. The Rockies lost again tonight. We only took one game from San Diego over the weekend and now we lost the first game to the Cardinals tonight. We’re 19 games under five hundred and if we lose tomorrow and San Diego wins, which they did today, we’ll slip into last place in our division. The only good thing that happened today was that Carlos Gonzales was picked to go to the All Star game in Kansas City and will participate in the home run derby. I like the derby and I hope he does well. And, hopefully we can come back from the All Star Break and turn our season around.
My brother starts his new job tomorrow. He was so excited they’re going out and buying a new car. He told me what kind it was, but I don’t remember car stuff. So, all I can tell you is it is a hybrid.
The kids still haven’t given me a finite answer if they are expecting or not. I’m still going with a yes.
My eldest daughter’s first car payment booklet came in the mail today. There were so many pages in the thing it took two little booklets. Her first payment is on the 12th. Then, it’s just a million more to go. Welcome to the adult world of bills.
My youngest daughter is going down to the college campus tomorrow to pick up her book list and student ID. I hope the books aren’t too much. They won’t let her get them on a Kindle or IPad which I think is stupid. More and more colleges and high schools are going to them. She should be able to choose if she wants to or not. And, we have that Kindle just lying around. It would make things so much easier.
Something strange happened today when I looked at the schedule. Somehow, I have another week with two days off. That hasn’t happened in I don’t know how long. I still have some overtime, but it is only a couple hours in the morning. So, instead of getting off at 6am I get off at 8am. Let’s see how long that’s going to last.
We had a mandatory meeting this Saturday. It was only for three hours, but it was right in the middle of the day. So, my wife dropped me off so that she could have the car. My daughter was going to take her and her friend out to the movies. When I got out of my meeting, I was supposed to walk over and meet them in the lobby of the theater. So, I brought my book and sat down on the little bench. I had to wait for about an hour and found that I couldn’t concentrate on my book. The movie theater is located on the 16th street mall, so there are always a few strange people in any of the stores. But, for some reason, every time the door opened, very flamboyantly gay men started pouring in. Where I was sitting, I could hear all of their conversations as they stood in line and bought tickets. They were all aflutter about going to see a movie called Magic Mike. I’d never heard of the movie, but when I asked my wife about it. She told me it was about male strippers and there was quite a bit of nudity in it. She’d already seen it a couple of times. I told my mom this little story, so now she’s going to go see the movie. She’ll probably run into my wife who wants to see it again.
I didn’t get to see a movie this week, so I’ll make sure to go to Spiderman this coming up week. It comes out tomorrow. So, that’s about it this week. Next week we have a family reunion on my wife’s side of the family. I’ll let you know how that goes.
I’m on chapter 4 of Slider. It’s coming along nicely. So, I’ll work on that tonight. I’m putting ELO, April Wine, and Ratt in the playlist tonight for background music. So, I’ll see you next Monday night.
-Thom

Monday, June 25, 2012

June 25

As always, please check out my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/

Let’s start with the good news. The Rockies just beat the Nationals in the first game of their series here in Denver. The score was 4-2. I was able to see most of it before I had to go to work and it was a very good game. Our starting pitcher did very well. The other guy’s pitcher was good too and for a while I thought we were going to be in trouble. But, they had a great inning 5th and 6th inning that put us up and then we stayed there for the rest of the game. Let’s hope we can continue this win for the rest of the series and longer. The only bad thing that happened was that Scutaro got beaned in the head with a pitch. It looked like he wanted to stay in, but they took him out. We’re still like sixteen games under five hundred, but the road back starts with that first game.
I managed to go see three movies this week. It’s nice not having a ton of overtime for once. Anyway, I went to see Prometheus, Rock of Ages, and Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. I am happy to say that I liked all three of them. Prometheus was the best of the three. I went to see it last Monday. (Not in 3D) I knew it was going to be a prequel to the Alien series and they did a really good job story-wise. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again. I had heard a lot of bad reviews about Rock of Ages, and I really thought that Tom Cruse was a bad choice for this type of movie. So, I figured I would go for the music, which was awesome. They picked a ton of great songs. The story was pretty predictable, but they had a lot of subtle jokes that really made it worthwhile. I went to Abraham Lincoln today, my daughter took me. She’s so sweet. It was pretty good, and I’m looking forward to reading the book. I have it at home, but it is low on the priority list. There were some things in there that were a little out there, but overall, it was a good action flick.
I had two whole days off this week. I can’t remember when the last time that happened. I should have taken advantage of them better, but one of them I literally didn’t do anything the entire day. I was so lazy it’s not even funny. For the next four days, I have a little overtime, but it’s barely enough to mention. One of the days is for three hours on Saturday, my day off. But, it’s a mandatory meeting set up by the office, so I have to be there. I’m sure that there is going to be a bunch of overtime coming up in the near future. Our supervisor who works the second shift has put in her notice so the morning people are foaming at the mouth for promotions. Depending on who gets it, there might be a few more resignations. And, both of the other guys at night have been expressing their intentions of leaving. One of them has already interviewed with another company but hasn’t told anyone yet. The other guy told me tonight that he talked to someone in the office and they are going to try to get him something by the middle of this week. He also said that if they don’t give it to him, he is gone. We’ll see.
I can’t confirm one way or the other if the kids are pregnant yet. But, on Saturday at my brother in-law’s graduation party barbeque, my daughter in-law made a point not to drink anything. I asked my son, but he didn’t give me a definite answer. So, I’m choosing to believe that they are pregnant. That would put the new baby arriving early next year.
Not much is happening with my girls. They’re both just working and surviving the heat.
My wife took her parents to go visit her brother on Sunday. (My lazy day) She had a good trip, but they took our car to make the visit. So, the in-laws left us their truck in case we needed to go anywhere. So, around lunch time, I sent my youngest daughter out to get us something to eat. Well, she only gets a few feet when she realizes that the truck has a flat. It was like three hundred degrees out. I got the truck up on the jack, but can’t find my father in-law’s lug wrench. So, I can’t get the tire off. As it turns out, he lent it out and never got it back, so he uses a ratchet. But, the worst thing was that me and my daughter were out lunch. We tried to call my other daughter to go pick us up something, but she had just eaten and she lives pretty far. So, we ended up having pizza delivered. It was good, but I ate way too much. That always happens. I’m a sucker for bread sticks.
Well, that’s about all that happened this week. I’ve started the third chapter of Slider and it is looking really good. I’m going to work on it tonight, so I’d better get busy. I’m putting a variety of heavy metal songs in the playlist, most of them are from the Rock of Ages movie. It’s a little heavy on Def Leopard and Cinderella, but there are a lot of other good songs in there.
See you next Monday night.
-Thom

Monday, June 18, 2012

June 18

As always, please visit my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/
Happy belated Father’s Day. I had a nice father’s day. It was about 900 degrees outside, but we still had a barbeque. Thankfully, we had canopies and large beach umbrellas to keep the sun off of everyone. The wife and I had to work the overnight on Saturday into Sunday morning, so we didn’t get much sleep before the little party, but it was still fun. I only managed to stay awake until about ten that night, but the little woman went to a movie with her sisters and didn’t get back until about midnight. She had to work at six in the morning today, so I’m sure she’s dead tired. I got up with her this morning to go visit my mom. (Mondays are mom day) I took a nap when I got home to get me through tonight, but my wife is still up and around.

The only bad thing about Father’s Day was the Rockies lost again. I don’t know what’s up with the boys, but they are not having the season they should. Like everyone else, I’m blaming the pitching. We don’t have consistent starters and there isn’t a standout among them. They signed Francis back to the lineup last week. He was good a few years ago and I was sorry to see him leave. But, he hasn’t performed in the games he’s started. Hopefully we’ll get De La Rosa back soon. But, since there isn’t much to say about baseball, that’s about it on the subject.
The kids are doing well. My son let me in on a little secret. They don’t want anyone to know yet because it isn’t confirmed. But, my daughter in-law might be pregnant. They’ve been trying so this is good news. I think he said that she was going to the doctor to confirm today, so they might have already told everyone by now one way or the other. I was asleep, so I’m out of the loop. I’ll let the world know next Monday one way or the other.
My girls both have been sick this weekend. My youngest daughter got a bad case of allergies. Of course she insisted that she didn’t have allergies because she hasn’t had them before. But as soon as she started taking the allergy pills she became better. My eldest daughter must have eaten something bad. She was running back and forth to the bathroom all day yesterday and even called out of work today. She looked much better this evening, but she still didn’t want to eat anything.
It looks like the overtime at work is going away. (for a week at least) That means that I have a regular schedule this week. The paychecks have been nice, but I’m betting two full days off in a row are going to be better. At the very least, I’ll post this blog more regularly.
I also started writing again. I was working on Gremlin Planet, but yesterday I decided to redo the chapters I’ve put down on Sliders. I think it is much better now and I think I’m going to continue with it for now. Speaking of which, messed up the links for my latest book, River of Magic. Let’s see if I can fix that this time. For ebooks, click Here. For regular books, click Here.
I guess I better get started. I’m putting 38 Special, Foreigner, and April Wine in the playlist tonight for background listening.
See you next week.
Thom

Monday, June 11, 2012

June 11

As awlays, please visit my website at http://www.thomnichols.com/
It has been well over a month that I have posted a new blog entry, so this might run a little long. But, I have a gnarly headache, so it might not. The reasoning behind my serious breach in keeping you all informed of life at the Nichols residence was mostly due to working a butt-load of overtime. There were times when I didn’t get any days off during the weeks. Then, I had a normal week, but that was just laziness on my part. Now, I’m coming off of two weeks straight without a day off and I figured I better post something or the one or two of you out there that actually reads this might find somewhere else to spend a few minutes.

Let’s start with the big news. River of Magic is out and ready for anyone to buy if they want. Here are the websites. Book or ebook The book version is $14.00. Sorry it’s so much, but it was the minimum price they would allow because it is a long one. The ebook is only $5.50. If anyone wants the book version, I get a discount, so I can get you a copy for about $9.00. You just have to email me and let me know. It’s still a lot, but it’s the best I can do.
Now, on to the kids. My youngest daughter has officially graduated from high school. It was a pretty nice ceremony with the exception of the long speeches. One of the graduates giving a speech couldn’t pronounce the word valedictorian, but it did add a little humor. When one of the graduating girls finished her speech and went to sit down, her chair slid off of the raised platform and she tumbled backwards off the stage. She ended up being ok, but she must have received a hard thump on her head. She didn’t return until the end where she got her diploma.
Since freeing herself from high school, my youngest enrolled in college and has been working very hard at the movie theater. She might even start a second job in the mornings with a company she worked at while she was at school. I don’t want her to work too hard, but she wants to stay busy over the summer and prepare for college. She wants to have a car by the time she starts, and we’re saving for the down payment, but we have to finish off paying our car before we can take out another loan. The good news is that it should be paid off by January. My youngest decided to make an extra car payment here and there to speed everything up. I told her I didn’t want her to spend her money like that, but she really wants a car. We’ll see.
Speaking of cars, my eldest daughter bought a new car. It is a 2012 alien Kia Soul. It is a really nice little car. It is a standard (So that her brother and sister can’t borrow it). And, it drives really nice. It had 55 miles on it when she got it so it’s brand new. Alien is a shade of green and green is her favorite color, so that worked out. It was the last standard they had on the lot, and we had to walk all the way into the back to find it, but she fell in love with it almost as soon as she saw it. She told me she filled it up the other day and it only took twenty dollars. I’m so jealous. It takes at least fifty for me to fill up the SUV. I knew I should have gotten a smaller car.
My son and daughter-n-law haven’t been up to much, but my granddaughter is getting too smart. Just yesterday, she was climbing the stairs to get to our upstairs apartment. There are nineteen steps, and my wife always counts them with her as they walk up. Yesterday, I was watching through the window as she was coming up alone. She was counting, but when she got to the last step, she was already on nineteen. She stopped and looked at that last step. She knew that something was wrong, so she looked down as if she were going to go back down and start over. But, then she shrugged, said twenty, and took the last step. She starts school this coming up year, which will be nice. Right now, she’s just happy that the swimming pool is open.
My wife has been busier than I have been. She was worked some overtime, but her schedule was more wrapped up in the graduations and the graduation parties. She put in a lot of time and effort and MONEY. Yes, kids are expensive. But, everything should be slacking off now that its summer.
I went over to my mom’s today for a visit. She’s doing ok, but she’s been without internet and TV for the last week. She said she finished seventeen books in that time. Speaking of books, we went over to my brother’s house and he loaded me up on books he wanted me to read. I think I have about seventy lined up now that I’m supposed to read. He still hasn’t found a job yet, but he’s on his third and fourth interviews with a few places. For the jobs he’s applying for, it’s a long process. But, he’s still upbeat. I think I would have pulled all of my hair out if I was out of work for six months. But, he bought furniture a couple of months ago and even repainted the inside of his house. My other brother is having some mechanical troubles with his car. He took it in to have the breaks looked at and they said that the breaks disintegrated when they took the tire off. They told his wife that it would cost $1,100.00 to fix them. Needless to say they were taking advantage of her. He took it somewhere else and it cost half of that. My sister is coming to town over the fourth of July. We haven’t seen her since last year sometime. That’s going to be fun. She’ll stay about a week.
Over the last month, we did manage to go see two movies. We saw Snow White and the Huntsman and MIB3. They were both thumbs up movies. And, it’s about time. Not counting the Avengers, which was awesome and deserves three thumbs up if I had three thumbs, the last few movies I’ve gone to were a little disappointing. It is very nice to see some good ones. I did miss a lot of good ones along the way. So that means I’ll have to rent a bunch if I ever get some decent time off.
Baseball has been a little disappointing. I don’t think the Rockies have been over five hundred this year yet. We were about ten games back when we started to rally last week. We even took the first game from the Dodgers. But since then, we’ve lost five in a row, dragging us back to where we were. We’re sitting at 24-35 right now. The only good news in that is that we’re still over the Padres. (My brother’s team) We’re playing three games against the Oakland A’s starting tomorrow and then Detroit after that. Hopefully we’ll start that winning streak and get back on the plus side very soon.
I’m seven chapters into Gremlin Planet, but I’ve taken two weeks off this last week because of work or laziness, I’m not sure which. But, I’m going to start up again tomorrow. I would begin again today, but I have to help the guy I’m working with keep his job so that I don’t have to cover for him along with everyone else. He has this certification test on basic stuff that he doesn’t know, so I’m writing down the answers for him. If I don’t start on Gremlin Planet tomorrow, I might work a little bit on Sliders. I’ve finished two chapters on it, but over this weekend, I’ve decided I want to go in a different direction with it. So, I’m going to re-outline and redo it. So, we’ll see what happens.
I guess this one wasn’t too long. I’m putting in something to keep me awake in the playlist tonight because I didn’t get a real good night’s sleep because it is soooooo hot. I’m putting in Tesla, Van Halen, Motley Crue, and AC/DC. That should do it.

See you next Monday night
Thom

Monday, April 23, 2012

April 23

As always, please visit my website at http://www.thomnichols.com/
Yeah, I know. There was no baseball today. The game was rained out. I was bummed too. So, the Rockies are going to play the Pirates tomorrow as scheduled and then a double header on Wednesday. If you need an update, we took two games from the Brewers over the weekend which was nice. We’re one game over 500 at the moment and everything is beginning to come together.

I had a horrible weekend. I got off of work at 6 in the morning on Saturday and tried to sleep for only a little while. I got about four hours from 8-noon. Then, I tried to stay up so that I could sleep in the evening because I had to be back at work at 6 in the morning on Sunday. I fell asleep about 10 or 11pm and woke up at 3am. I was really dragging the whole day. It was a 12 hour shift, but it was all overtime. When I got home on Sunday I didn’t even want to eat. I just turned on the TV and was out by 8.
The worst thing wasn’t the lack of sleep or the weird hours. The worst thing was that my right eye swelled up. At first it wasn’t hurting or anything. So I figured I got bit by a spider or something. But, around midmorning today, it started irritating me. I was visiting at my mom’s house and had to leave early. I had to put something on it. My wife usually has stuff, so I called her and she told me where this gel stuff was. The only problem was I had to put it in my eye. I pulled down the bottom lid and there was this big white sore on the inside. I put the junk in and it stopped the itching, but everything became very fuzzy. I decided to just rest. By the time I went to pick up my wife, it was crusted shut. My other eye works fine, so I went to work. Now, everyone is asking who clocked me. It looks like I have a black (Purple) eye.
On the good news side of the day, my mom got her electricity back today. She has been having problems for the last month or so with the electricity shutting off. None of the breakers were tripped, the electricity would just go out whenever she turned on her TV or bathroom light. She finally got the apartment maintenance to come look at it and he immediately knew what the problem was. He said that about a month ago one of the maintenance people installed a new outlet in the bathroom and kitchen of most of the complex. He said he’s had to fix about a hundred of them. So, during that entire month or more when my mom was having problems, she would call the office and complain. They would always blow her off with one excuse or another. If they knew that over a hundred of these things were broken, they should have sent someone over to look at it the first time she called or even sent someone out to all of the apartments that were upgraded to make sure it was working. The only way she got them to come out this time was to tell them that her refrigerator wasn’t working and she had to throw out all of her food. But, it is fixed now. She still isn’t going to buy anything for a few days just in case.
More good news, my youngest daughter finally filled out some paperwork for her college tuition. She’s getting about three thousand more than we originally expected. So, she’s starting at the same time as my eldest daughter. (Not the same classes though) My older one wants to be a teacher or a social worker or a psychologist. My younger one is going for a double major in computer science and linguistics. I hope they all do great.
My youngest daughter is taking a bunch of AP tests. (Advanced Placement) They qualify for college credits so she might not have to take some of the math, science, and English classes. That will be nice. She has a full schedule over the next couple of weeks. There are only 18 school days left in high school. She has the tests, the prom, and graduation. We’re also going to throw in a graduation party in there somewhere. My wife keeps telling me the date, but I can never remember. My daughter wanted to do something different for her graduation. She wanted the whole family to get together and go camping. It wouldn’t be the last gathering, but it would be her last gathering as a high school kid. But, we found out that we have to reserve the campgrounds a year in advance. So, camping is out. Now, we’re going to have a picnic party over by Lakeside. My wife already reserved the area with the benches.
We went to a Rockies game during the week last week. We took my daughter and my granddaughter. At first, my granddaughter didn’t want to be there. She is still afraid of people dressed up in costumes, and we had some awesome seats. They were in the 4th row right beside the Rockies dugout. We could have thrown peanuts at Todd Helton on first base if we were mean people and wanted to waste some perfectly good peanuts. The game was great, but Dinger the mascot came over before the game started so he could say hi to all the kids. Well, my daughter freaked out and during the whole first few innings constantly asked if Dinger could climb the little fence between the stands and the field. We assured her that he couldn’t, but she didn’t settle down until the clapping and cheering started. She did manage to spill two pops and mangle a hotdog. Overall, it was a very fun day. We should be able to get those seats again. They are season tickets and they belong to someone at my wife’s job. He can’t go to all the games so he sells them to her very cheaply. They even come with a parking pass. I had to work after the game, so we left right before the last out. It was in the hopes of getting to the car and avoiding as much traffic as we could. But, there was a little secret passageway out of the stadium parking. It took us a back way where there was only one other car. We bypassed all of the traffic and if I would have gone from there to work, I would have made it with time to spare. But, I had to take everyone home so I was only an hour late.
I’m a couple of chapters into Sliders. It’s turning out to be a fun book. I think I’m defiantly going to do it first instead of Gremlin Planet. So, I better get going. I’m putting some Grateful Dead, Elo, and Journey in the playlist tonight for background music. I’ll see you next Monday.
-Thom

Monday, April 16, 2012

April 16

As usual, please visit my website at http://www.thomnichols.com/
Let’s get it over with. The Rockies lost again today. That’s ten games in the books and we’re 4-6. It’s not the way I wanted it to start, but it’s still just the first ten games. I really would have liked us to sweep the Padres, but they beat us today 7-1. That put them at 3-8. Yes, that’s embarrassing. The worst part is that the Padres are my brother’s team and he’ll probably be obnoxious until we kick their butts tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, my wife got us four tickets in the fourth row right beside first base. We had a couple of these tickets last year and they are phenomenal. The game starts at 6:40, so I had to arrange it with the boss at work to be late about an hour. So, it better not rain. We went to the game on Saturday against the Diamondbacks. We got there a little late, but it was ok, the game had a rain delay. The Rockies were kicking butt for the first four innings. Then, it started raining. My wife pulled out about fifty dollar store ponchos. (One size does not fit all) We got everyone mostly in them, but it just started coming down to hard. If we wouldn’t have had my granddaughter with us, we might have stayed longer. But as it turned out there was another rain delay as soon as we left. When we got home, the game resumed and everything switched around. The Diamondbacks were doing everything right and they switched the game from a 5-0 deficit into a 5-6 lead. I was at work for the rest of the game, but I was on the edge of my seat. Todd Helton finally hit a two run homer to win the game for us. But it was a nail biter. Since we lost today, I’m expecting us to kill the Padres tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll have Carlos Gonzales back. He’s been out with strep throat for the last two games. But, he was at the field tonight. So, there is a good chance he’ll play tomorrow.

Not a whole lot happened this week. My eldest daughter had to do her army weekend this weekend. It was Friday, Saturday and Sunday instead of just the two days. I didn’t know they had three day weekends, but she said that there can even be four day weekends if they want. They didn’t say that in the recruitment office. But, she’s getting paid for it, so I don’t see the real problem. They did tell her that they are sending her off to computer school in a few months. They had told her that before, but this time it is official. She’s got orders and dates. She’ll be going to Arkansas. Yes, I did warn her not to go anywhere barefooted. (Ticks all over the place in that state)
MY youngest daughter is trying to get a new job. She’s still keeping the one at the movie theater, but she needs something in the day when school gets out. She needs it for two reasons. (No, one of the reasons isn’t because I want to work her to death) She’s going to save all the money from her second job for college and since she works nights at the theater, she doesn’t want to end up sleeping all day.
My daughter in-law is also looking for a new job. I haven’t heard if she’s found one or not. But, she came over this weekend to update her resume. It’s my fault she couldn’t do it on her computer. I originally made it, but I used Microsoft Project and she doesn’t have that on her laptop. So, when she opened it, it looked like a bunch of gibberish. My youngest daughter converted it so that she could work with it and I assume that they got it all finished. I should have been more helpful in the whole situation, but the Rockies were on upstairs. (I’m such a bad person)
My granddaughter and I spent one of the days this weekend sneaking around and eating one of her chocolate Easter rabbits. We had to do it on the sly because we hadn’t eaten lunch yet. Her grandma doesn’t like her eating candy before eating real food. (Especially that much chocolate, I didn’t think there was anyone that could eat more chocolate than I could.) So, every time my wife walked by, we had to pretend to be on our best behavior. She never found out.
My wife also had to work a little overtime today. They made her go in at 3 in the morning. I don’t know what it was about this last week, but it was overtime central. I put in three 12 hour days and had to work on Saturday. It sucked. But, I’ll have a good paycheck coming up next Thursday.
I didn’t quite make my ten query letters. But, I did get eight of them out. I know I messed up on three of them, so those were a waste of time. I always seem to do that. I don’t like the business end of it, so I must subconsciously sabotage myself. But, now that they are out of the way, I can sit back and wait for the rejections and get started on my next book. I was going to work on Gremlin Planet, but a new one has been creeping around in my head and it wants to come out first. It’s called Sliders and it seems to be a much more fun book than Gremlin Planet. So, I’m going to throw down a few chapters and see how it works before I make a real decision. So, I better get started on it. I’m putting the Eagles, Rush, Stray Cats, and Dire Straits into the playlist for background listening. I’ll see you again next Monday.
-Thom

Monday, April 9, 2012

April 9

As always, please visit my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/
Well, today was a bust. Can you believe the Rockies lost their home opener? We didn’t just lose. We were shut out. The score was seven to nothing. It was the first time we’ve ever been shut out on a home opener. To make matters worse, we lost to the Giant’s worst pitcher. It wasn’t pretty. We’re only 1-3 for the season so far. Not the start I was hoping for. So, I’m going to attribute it to start of the season nerves. We’re at the beginning of a nine game home stand, so everything should be better from here on in.

On a better note, I messed around with the taxes this week and arranged it so that we don’t have to pay. The last time I looked at it, we were down 24 dollars. But, it worked out so that we’re getting a little back now.
Even better than taxes: today is the day that I send out the River of Magic to all of the literary agents. I’ve decided to send it out to a couple of dozen this time instead of the two or three I usually try. I’ll get more rejection letters, but it was a New Year’s resolution of mine to try harder to get published. So tonight, all I’m doing is researching agents.
Easter was fun. I found out that Easter was Sunday sometime last week. Usually I’m right on top of those kinds of things. But, this time I didn’t put any money aside or even pay attention to the calendar. When I found out how close it was, I didn’t know what I was going to do. So, on Saturday, I charged everything. We had a card that we’ve been trying to pay off just sitting there doing nothing, so I used it. Surprisingly, I didn’t max it out. (That’s not like me. Usually, I would have used every penny on it.) Instead of going all out, we got the kids a small wire basket and some candy. We went a little bigger on my granddaughter. We got her a princess basket with a little tea set in it. We went to Walmart on the day before Easter to get the stuff and naturally it was packed. There was so much stuff and customers in the aisles that it was hard to move around. When we were looking at the basket for my granddaughter, a family of three adult ladies and four or five kids tried to move past us. Naturally, we stepped back so that they could squeeze through. As they were walking by, one of the ladies picked up the basket we were looking at and started walking away with it. The princess basket was the last one on the shelf and we were almost decided on getting it. After the lady picked it up, we wanted it twice as badly, so my wife started after her. It would have been a really good fight, my wife is a scrapper. But, the lady set it down and turned away. My wife snatched it up and put it in our basket. I was surprised that she didn’t at least shout at the women. But, we did have a lot more shopping to do.
On Easter, we went to the park. All of my wife’s sisters and their families showed up and we had a barbeque. It was fun. We hid eggs and the little kids hunted for them. We played kickball and football. Everyone except for me got a little too much sun. I had on sun block. I was sticky, but I was safe. I only had to return to the house twice for forgotten stuff. But, the game was on, so I tuned the radio to it and got a little Rockies action. It’s funny. There is a perfectly good park right next to my wife’s parent’s house where everyone gathers. But, we always go to a park that is miles away.
My youngest daughter had to work on Easter. But, she got us into the movies for free to watch American Reunion. It was hilarious. I think I like having someone in the family that works at the theater. Speaking of work, my eldest daughter got a job finally. She’s working at Safeway and her first day was today. I didn’t get to talk to her to see how it went. But, my wife stopped by to pick up some groceries and saw her. She was bagging at the counter. My daughter in-law quit her job today. She was being hassled by a boss because she’s planning on getting pregnant and having another baby. The boss was constantly over her shoulder telling her that she might as well quit because she wouldn’t be able to do the job pregnant. I guess she put up with it for a while, but she finally had too much. Maybe she can go to work with my daughter at the movies. Then, we’d probably live at the theater. Especially this summer, all kinds of good movies are coming out.
Well, I better get to work. I’m putting Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Tesla, and Ratt in the playlist for background music. Until next Monday…
-Thom
P.S. Happy Belated Easter

Monday, April 2, 2012

April 2

As always, visit me at http://www.thomnichols.com/
Oops, it looks like I totally forgot to update my blog last Monday. I guess that means that we’ll have a nice long one today. Let’s start with something that happened last week. I found out that I am not a very nice person. It happened at work. As an overnight security guard, we’re supposed to kick people off the property who are sleeping. The idea is to keep the transients away and make the buildings look more professional. On this particular night, one of the other guards called over the radio that he was kicking two teenagers off the property. I swung the camera around and watched him point out a place for them to go. They left and that should have been the end of it. The other guy did what I would have done and what he was supposed to do. He didn’t say anything about it later on and I pretty much forgot about the incident. When we were relieved at the end of our shift, instead of going downstairs to leave, he started walking across the plaza. I asked him where he was going and he said that he was going to go buy those kids breakfast. Then, it dawned on me that they were just kids and they were homeless. But, I know that I wouldn’t have even thought of helping them if I was the one that was kicking them off of the property. I would have just kicked them off and not thought about them. The rest of the week, I noticed a lot of little things that other people were doing for other people. In each case, I wouldn’t have thought of helping. I really need to reevaluate the way I live. I never considered myself a bad person, but I’m defiantly not a good person either.


Speaking of not being a good person, I’m not even a good dad or grandpa. It came to my attention over the weekend that next Sunday is Easter. Usually, I am on top of holidays especially Christmas and Easter. But, this year it just snuck up on me. I haven’t saved any money or bought any little toys or candy for Easter baskets. I don’t know what I’m going to do. The kids are a little big for baskets, but I would like to get them a present or something. I usually spoil my granddaughter. We were walking around in the store yesterday and she was showing me all of the stuff she wants the Easter Bunny to bring her. We found chocolate rabbits with big ears and a bunch of other candy. I think I’m going to have to float a bill until next payday so I can at least get her something. With the older kids, I’ll probably take them out to eat as a family. We haven’t had one of those in a while. I’m sure I’ll get them something small, but it will be small.

On the family home front, it looks like the kids have to wait for a whole month before they start working on the new baby. My daughter in-law had the birth control removed and they doctor told them to abstain from “practicing” for a whole month. They’ve both given up drinking and the occasional cigarettes so that there won’t be anything in their systems to cause any troubles and they’ve started taking vitamins and stuff the doctor recommended. So, it looks like it might be a late February or early March baby. Since Leap Year was this year, a Leap Year baby is off the table. That would have been kind of cool, a birthday every four years.

Spring break is finally over. My youngest had a hard time getting up for school today. In her defense, she worked until midnight the night before. I went to pick her up at about fifteen or twenty after so she didn’t get a chance to get a really good sleep. It took me about ten times to wake her up this morning.

My eldest daughter is still struggling with finding a job. She went to apply for a police academy program today. I didn’t get to see her to find out how it went, but I’m sure she did well.

Today was my Goddaughter’s son’s first birthday. I didn’t get to go to it because I was upstairs sleeping. But, my wife said that it went ok. She and her mom did all of the cooking. I would have liked to go, but Mondays are not a good day for me. I have to sleep in the afternoon so that I can be awake all night. Still, the party went off nicely. There were a lot of people and my wife made pot roast. She snuck me up a plate before the party and it was really good.

We went to my brother’s house this weekend. He had a new game called Werewolves. It was pretty fun. It takes a lot of people to play and it is different than most games. Everyone is selects a random card and it tells them if they are a villager or a werewolf. There are other characters but that would take too long to explain. Anyway, after everyone knows who they are, everyone has to close their eyes and pretend that they are asleep. The game mediator asks a bunch of questions. The main one is who the werewolves are and who they want to kill. When the mediator finds out everything, he pronounces it daytime and everyone wakes up. Whoever the werewolves choose to kill is dead and the villagers have to guess who the werewolves are. They villagers hang who they think it is and then go back to sleep. The game continues until the werewolves kill all the villagers of the villagers kill all the werewolves. There is more to it than that, but I’m not selling the game and don’t get a commission so that’s all I’m telling you about it. All you really need to know is it was pretty fun. It did get us together as a family even though my other brother didn’t show. We had cookies and fruit and hotdogs. It was nice.

My son sent a lot of shoes and clothing for us to give to my brother that didn’t show up. They’re hand-me-downs, but my son usually only buys nice clothes and designer shoes. He also takes care of his stuff, so they’re in really good shape. But, my brother’s kids missed out. I’ll probably drive them around in the back of my car for a month or so before I break down and go to his house and give them to him.

I received the corrections for the River of Magic today. There were a lot, but most of them were just quick fixes. I tend to forget some of the small words when I’m typing so I have to insert a lot of “in, to, of, the…” But there were some sentence structures and continuity discrepancies. I would have brought them in today to fix, but I have such a headache that I don’t think I’m going to do anything except this blog. I have been working on Gremlin Planet. I’m seven chapters in and it is coming along nicely. But, I have Sliders running around my head. So, I might throw down a few chapters of that when Gremlin Planet isn’t looking.

Well, it’s getting kind of late and I haven’t even mentioned baseball yet. So, here goes. Opening day is only days away, Woo Hoo!!!!!! In case you’re wondering, yes, I can’t wait. We did have an incident over the weekend. Our old ace pitcher Ubaldo was throwing to one of our star players Tulo when he hit him in the elbow with the ball. Both benches cleared as the teams started fighting. It was a mess. Ubaldo has always been a little wild, but he fires it off at 100+ miles an hour. Everyone was worried that Tulo wouldn’t be able to start on opening day. But, at the game today, one of the announcers said that he would. So, I only have to drudge through the rest of this week for the first game. I think we’ll have a really good year. Of what I saw today, we didn’t have a good game. But, it’s still spring training. One of the announcers asked our coach Tracy if he thought that spring training was going by too quickly. He said it was, but I think it’s dragging. It’s probably because they don’t televise enough of the games.

Ok, I’ve rambled on enough. I’ll try not to forget next week’s blog.

-Thom

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Mar 20

Like always, visit my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/
Let’s start off with the best new. Yes, you guessed it. Payton Manning is officially a Bronco. That means that we have already won the division and made the playoffs this coming up season. We still have to find out what Tebow’s fate is. Personally, I would like to see him stay with the team. He’s only in his third season and he isn’t making that much money NFLwise that is. He could learn to be a much better quarterback under Payton and then when Manning retires, he could step right in. I know he probably doesn’t want to sit on a bench and be a backup quarterback for that long, but he took us to the playoffs and we need a strong second stringer just in case.

I’m listening to the Rockies right now. We were spanking the Padres until the fifth inning. They made five runs and now in the sixth we’re losing by two, 8-6. But, there is still plenty of baseball left to play tonight. I still haven’t been able to see an entire game this preseason. But, now that they are closing in on the end of the month, they’ll televise more and more of them. We got tickets for the April 14th game from my nephew’s school. We’re taking everyone that wanted to go from both sides of the family. But, right after we paid for the tickets, one of my buddies called saying that he had a chance of getting four first level tickets for that same game. If they weren’t family, I would have ditched everyone for the good tickets, but we had to invite family. Oh well, it will be a good game. The boys are playing the Diamondbacks. I have been trying to keep up with the new guys. A lot of them look really good. I can’t wait until opening day.
My daughter got us tickets to the movies over the weekend. It’s nice to have someone working at a theater. We saw Safe House with Denzel Washington. It was action packed and pretty good, but the ending was very predictable. Watching the previews, I found that there are quite a few good movies coming up. One in particular was worth mentioning. It was the fourth installment of the Bourne Identity. I love those movies and I’ve wanted to read the books for some time, but I just haven’t been able to squeeze them in on my reading list yet. But, the thing worth mentioning in this movie was the fact that Jason Bourne, the character the movies are named after, isn’t even in the movie. I’m sure he was in the books, but they had some other guy who was supposed to have gone through the same program Bourne went through as the main character. I don’t think it’s going to be as good as the first three, but we’ll see. It still looked good.
The kids all went to the Children’s Museum today only to discover that it was closed. So, they went to Chuck E. Cheese instead. The wife and I weren’t invited, so we didn’t go. Now, the girls are going to the movies tonight and even though I’m at work and couldn’t go, they didn’t invite my wife. I think something must be going on. They’re fazing us out or something.
It looks like the boss is looking to fire someone. He’s been grumpy and abrasive to everyone over the last few days. That’s a sure sign that he’s looking to make a change. I haven’t been on the receiving end of the abuse, but the graveyard shift has been mentioned a few times. There are a couple of the guys that have taken the brunt of it and if I were them, I would keep my head down. I don’t think the boss really cares who he’s going to get rid of as long as he gets to fire someone. That means that there is going to be more overtime coming up.
I’m taking the day off today. I just don’t feel like doing anything today. Maybe I’ll put together an online puzzle or something. But, tomorrow, it will be back to work. I’m re-reading Nymph Planet because I lost my list of important stuff for that book. I remember cutting that book down to try getting it under 100,000 words. But, now that I’m rereading it, I really don’t like it. I might go back through it and put it back to the way it is supposed to be. But, I’ll do that after Gremlin Planet. So, I’ll see you again next week. I’m not putting anything into the playlist tonight or at least right now, because the game is still on. So, until next week,
-Thom

Monday, March 12, 2012

March 12

As always, visit my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/
It was a long week. We had one person quit and another get fired, so I had to work all weekend. But, I can use the overtime so I’m not complaining too much.

There was some good news today. My nephew came home from school with a flier for $2.00 tickets for a Rockies game on Sat the 14th of April. His school always has them available at the beginning of the season and I have a lot of nieces and nephews that go to that school. So, we usually take advantage of it and get as many tickets as we can. The seats are up in the nosebleed section, but they’re not that bad.
Speaking of the Rockies, they’re going to start televising the games starting on this Saturday. So, they better get some people in to fill the open shifts for the guys that aren’t here anymore. I’ve been waiting for months for baseball to start and I want to see them in action. We played San Diego today and spanked them 11-2. We have a bunch of new players and I can’t wait to see what they can do. It’s going to be a good year.
Not a whole lot happened this week. My eldest daughter is still looking for a job. She’s seriously considering going active duty. I would prefer her to stay a reservist and go to school, but she can always go to college while she is in or later. I just don’t want her to lose the opportunity. But, she is getting pictures and messages from her friends that are active and they are in Hawaii and Germany and places like that. Having her see the world would be just as good as going to school.
My youngest daughter flubbed up her work schedule over the weekend. She thought she was supposed to go in at 6, but was supposed to be there at 11. She didn’t tell me if she got in trouble or not. So, if she did, it couldn’t have been too bad. She still loves her job and even got some of her friends hired. Now, she likes it even better. And, best of all, she might be able to get me one of those Avenger’s posters when the movie comes out. That will be cool.
My son and daughter in-law bought some new furniture. They picked out a nice dresser for their room and a small dresser and mirror for the baby’s room. I think they used their income tax return, but I’m not sure. I would use mine for something, but I’m not getting anything. We’re planning on playing around with it, maybe trying married and filing separately or something like that. But, I don’t have any high hopes. We only owe 24 dollars, so I should be glad it’s not more and just pay it. Maybe this weekend, we’ll see.
My granddaughter went to the zoo over the weekend. She went with one of her friends and the little girl’s father. My wife was all weepy dropping her off. The father isn’t a stranger, we’ve seen him before and we might have talked to him. But, it’s still a little disconcerting dropping her off with someone that isn’t family. But, she ran to her little friend and they went inside holding hands and playing. So, she had fun.
My wife and the girls went to see that Navy Seals movie. They said it was good. I hope so, because I’m going to drag her back to see it, because I want to see it. That is, as long as I get a day off fairly soon. There are a bunch of movies I want to go see. I might have to talk my wife into sneaking into another one after we see the Navy Seals one. I used to be able to talk her into it when the kids were younger. She always got nervous, but do you know how expensive it is to take a family of five (Sometimes plus one) to the movies. If the entrance doesn’t break you, the concessions will.
My brother took me to his used book store today. It wasn’t too bad. He has a credit there of nearly two hundred dollars. He can use it against half of the purchase and since the books are only three or four dollars, I got four books and it only cost me eight bucks. Not too shabby. They were in really good condition too. I found a new series by a favorite author that I didn’t even know about and the first in a series of three where the third one isn’t even written yet. I go through about a book a week, so I might have to give that book store another look pretty soon.
River of Magic is finally printed and turned in to my editor. Hopefully there won’t be too many corrections and I’ll be able to get it out to agents next week. I’m going to make a much greater effort this time. Hopefully it will work out. Until then, I’ve started on Gremlin Planet and that one is turning out to be pretty fun. I’ll work a little bit on it tonight. But, it’s Monday and Mondays aren’t very good days for doing anything. We’ll see how it goes. I’m putting Aerosmith, Cinderella, and Slaughter in the playlist for background music and I better get started. See you next week.
-Thom

Monday, March 5, 2012

Mar 05

Like always, visit my site at: http://www.thomnichols.com/
Good news and bad news. The good news is that I completely finished the River of Magic last week. (That was why there wasn’t a blog entry last week. I wanted to get it finished and didn’t do anything else.) The bad news is that I couldn’t get it printed. We got a new printer and it’s really nice. It’s an HP Officejet 4500 G510g-m. The old printer was a dog. It would have taken me all day to print it, so when I started I was glad we had the new one. I printed the first page, a cover page, to test it and watched to make sure everything was going correctly. So, I stared at it and stared at it, but nothing came out. I checked everything. It was connected correctly, and since it is a work printer and I’ve seen things printed from it before, I began to grow concerned. I tried printing a test page from a different document and my first page printed out. Wearily, I tried to print another page. It worked and it came out a little faster. So, concerned about getting it all printed because this one looked like a dog too, I started pumping out the pages. I didn’t them one at a time because I was printing on both sides. I managed to get 18 pages printed before I ran out of ink. I put in a new cartridge and it actually picked up speed. I printed all the way to page 104 before I ran out of ink again. Putting in another cartridge, I began to grow concerned again. This was the last cartridge and I still had 150+ pages to go. I knew that there wasn’t going to be enough ink. So, I printed out up to page 168 before I stopped. I couldn’t run work out of ink or someone might start wondering what I was doing. So, now I’m stuck. I don’t have anywhere to print out the rest of the pages. I tried logging into the maintenance computer downstairs. I set it up and put a slow, but sturdy printer on it. When I got down there, I tried my old password, but someone had changed it. I found the new one written down, but I must have typed it in wrong because I ended up locking up the sign on. So, I decided to wait until after the weekend and try again today. Either they changed it from what they have written down, or I’m just an idiot because I locked it up again. My brother offered to print it for me, and I might have to use him as a last resort. But, I’m going to try a few more things here before then.

While I’m waiting on getting River of Magic printed, I’m going to start working on Gremlin Planet again. A new book has been rattling around in my head. It’s going to be called Sliders. But, I’m not really ready for it yet. But, from what I’ve been thinking, it sounds pretty good.
More good news, it is baseball season finally. So far, I haven’t been able to see any games. If they’ve televised any, I’ve missed them. But, I did have to work some overtime this weekend, so I have an excuse. I tried pulling up a spring training schedule for the Rockies tonight just to see what they’ve been doing and catch up on their news. But, I had a lot of trouble finding it. The only thing so far that I was able to get score wise was their win today. I know they tied their first spring training game, but I couldn’t find it written down anywhere. When I’m done with this blog, I think I’ll continue looking. That way I can find any games that are going to be televised before I go crazy.
My brothers and I went down to my mom’s house today. It was the first time we’ve all been together in a long while. We were supposed to have a get together on Super Bowl Sunday, but my youngest brother couldn’t make it. So, we spent all morning talking. Like all families, they had their ups and downs. But, overall, I think everyone is ok. Then, I took my mom out for lunch to this new for me little Mexican fast food restaurant. My mom had been there before and it was pretty good. I might have to go back. I would put the name in here, but I don’t remember what it was. It was something like Fresh Something or Something Fresh. Like all restaurants, however, the pictures they put up on their menu board was much better than the actual meal. But, it was good.
Last week my son and daughter in-law bought their first car. It was a 2007. Everyone kept asking what kind and stuff like that. All I know was that it was red and it looked nice. The best part of the car buying experience was that they provided complementary cookies, granola bars, popcorn, and water. My granddaughter and I went out of there with stuffed pockets. (Oh wait, that might have just been me) But, they also had a really nice massage chair. We played around in that for quite a while. We probably would still be there but some other people came in that were buying a car and wanted to use it. So, we spilled popcorn all over the place and went out to eat our cookies. The kids did pick a really nice car though. It was big and roomy, but small enough to hopefully get good gas mileage. They said that it had some get-up-and-go and my wife said that she could do the tune ups because she found the spark plugs easily. I was lost on the technical side of the conversation, but I did notice that I could easily fit someone in the trunk. It was huge.
My eldest daughter had a good interview with a little Italian restaurant downtown here at the 16th street mall. She’s going for a delivery person. (They make a butt-load of money in tips because they deliver to all the huge office buildings downtown) But, they might find a place for her in a different capacity. She went over the interview with us and it sounded like she did really well. She’ll know by Wednesday. I hope she gets it, and not just because of their spaghetti. (Which was wonderful)
I fulfilled my main goal last Monday. I’ve been trying to convince myself to get more exercise. So, I made a resolution to bring the glider upstairs and actually use it for something besides a coat rack. My goal was to have it upstairs by the weekend, but I didn’t actually get it upstairs until Monday. But, I did take it for a spin. I planned on using it for an hour every day as soon as I wake up. That has always been the best time for me to exercise. I missed Tuesday and Wednesday, but I did get a good half hour in on Thursday. I’m not sure what happened on Friday. But, this week, starting on Tuesday, I’m going to use it religiously. If I can continue with it for a month, I’ll be alright. I just can’t let myself talk myself out of doing it. (That’s the hard part)
Well, I guess I better get going and do some work. I’m putting Guns and Roses, Rush, and Tesla in the playlist tonight for background music. I should add the Scorpions in there as well. The Scorps and Tesla is coming to Red Rocks soon. I heard it on the radio. That would be a good concert.
Well, until next Monday night, See ya.
-Thom

Monday, February 20, 2012

Feb 20

As always, check out my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/
Wow, I’m not sure what I ate today, but you can all be glad that you’re not here with me tonight. (I said that holding my nose) It’s Monday night again and time for my blog entry. Not a whole lot has happened this week. This is always a desperate time of the year, football is over and baseball hasn’t started yet. But, we’re muddling through.

My wife is back to a normal schedule this week. And that means that since my daughter doesn’t work tonight, she got off at six, I get to use my car. Woo hoo!!! Speaking of cars, it looks like my son is going to buy his first car tomorrow. The kids went down to the dealership today to see what they could get. I’m not going to tell you the make or model, because that kind of stuff doesn’t stick with me. They could have stenciled it into my forehead and I still wouldn’t know ten minutes after we left. But, it’s a $13,000 car and their payments will only be about $230 a month. They think they can swing that along with all of their other bills, so we’re going to go down and co-sign for them tomorrow.
I managed to finagle the taxes we owe down from $600 to $24. I’m happy about that. But, we’re going to have to do something for next year. I’m sure my youngest daughter is going to work all year, so she’ll do her own taxes and we won’t get anything from her. We’re still thinking about getting a house. Hopefully that will give us a nice credit and we’ll adjust our W4 forms pretty soon. We keep saying we need to do that, but neither of us have spoken to our HR people yet. I’m blaming mine on me working nights and sleeping during the days. Even though I haven’t called yet, I’m going to go with them being closed every day after I wake up.
It snowed again. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for me to have to shovel.
My youngest daughter took us all out to the movies yesterday. They all went to see the Vow. It’s a girl movie that I was really looking forward to missing. So, while they went to it, I went to see Chronicle. It was pretty good. My movie got out before theirs and I had to wait for over a half hour for them to come out. But, it was ok. All of the movie employees gave me quite a few dirty looks as I stood there next to the counter. No one came to try kicking me out or anything, but they kept a good eye on me.
My wife rented some DVDs from the Red Box today. When she brought them home, she popped them into the Wii only to find out that the Wii won’t play them. We had given our DVD player to my eldest daughter about a month ago, so now it looks like she’s going to have to play her movies on her computer. She doesn’t like that.
I’m still in the re-read portion of the River of Magic. I doubt if I’ll get it finished this week, because I’m a slow reader. But, it should be ready next week. I’ll keep you posted. For now, I better get to it. I’m putting in Zeppelin, Floyd, and the Eagles in the playlist tonight for background music. Talk to you next week.
-Thom

Monday, February 13, 2012

Feb 13

Like always, please visit my website: http://www.thomnichols.com/
Fantastic news everyone. Yes, you guessed it. The official Rockies schedule was posted. It actually might have been posted before now, but today was the first time I looked at it. It is February 13th today and the first game is March 3rd. So, that means that there are only 19 days left until Spring Training and baseball. Yoo Hoo!!!!!

Our first game is against the Arizona Diamondbacks and it should be a great one. I don’t know anything about it yet, because I haven’t looked. But, I’ll let everyone know next week after I start reading what’s going on this week. So, enough about that.
The other great news is that the River of Magic is finished. I typed up the last page on Saturday. So, today I’m starting the re-read to make sure there isn’t any continuity or storyline problems, not to mention spelling or grammatical problems. There are usually more spelling and grammatical problems than anything else. When I’m typing, I’m usually going pretty fast and that’s not good. Sometimes my fingers are behind what I’m telling them to do and something gets forgotten or misspelled or even left out. So, I have about a week or so of the re-read and then it goes to my Editor (my mom). She’ll find everything that I miss.
I’m going to put in a lot more effort this time into trying to get it published the right way instead of just going right to self publishing. It’s about time to stop messing around. So, even though it’s finished, it might not be available for several more months.
The not so fantastic news is that I turbo taxed my return this last week. We’ve always had so many kids living with us that we’ve never really had to worry about getting a refund. Well, nearly all of the kids are out of the house and working. When I threw the numbers into Turbo Tax, we ended up owing $600.00 to federal but getting back about $20.00 from the state. Not very good news. So, we’re going to take all of the stuff down to H&R Block just to see if they can do anything for us. I hope so. Next, we’re going to have to change out W2 withholdings. We also want to try to get a house. We were expecting to try for one next year after my youngest went off to school, but we need that deduction, so we’ll try for one this year. That means that I need to start throwing money into our credit cards and stuff. We talked to the VA last year and they said that we almost qualified. They just wanted us to bring down a couple of the cards. We probably could have done it, but we were planning a trip and some other things and as it turned out, we maxed out those cards they wanted us to bring down. We still have some things planned this year, but I’ll plan them better this time.
Speaking of income taxes, my oldest daughter and my daughter in-law are going to get really good returns. I’m so jealous. My youngest had just started working and didn’t make enough to file this year. She will next year and the little bit we got for her will be gone, so we’re really going to be in trouble next year if we don’t get the house.
My oldest had her Army Reserve training this week. She had more to do than last month and they’re still trying to send her to another school. Since all of the military have pulled out of Afghanistan, the government is cutting military spending, so there isn’t much money to go around. They’re even kicking people out that don’t pass their PT tests and don’t measure up to their standards. My daughter is ok, but she said that there were about eight people in her reserve unit that didn’t pass their PT. They retook it over the weekend and only two of them passed the second time. She still hasn’t found a regular job yet, but she’s trying. The hard part for her is transportation. She really needs a car.
My youngest daughter is still working at the movie theater. She likes it, or I should say she likes having her own money. She likes most of the work, but some of it is kind of boring. She doesn’t like being the person that stands at the door taking the tickets because she can’t move around.
My wife had to work at a different building all last week and this week, so she had to be at work an hour early every day. It screwed up our transportation system, but we’re coping pretty well. It’s only a few more days anyway. She’s kind of tired of it because she loses an hour of sleep every night and can’t make it up during the day. So, she’s exhausted.
I taught my granddaughter a new word today and got in trouble. We were in the car when my wife went up to my daughter’s apartment to see what was keeping her. I made the mistake of saying that she probably walked in on my daughter and her boyfriend doing something funky. Well, my granddaughter liked the word funky and liked it even more putting the word monkey after it. So, when my wife came back down with my daughter and her boyfriend, she asked them if they were doing the funky monkey upstairs. I don’t think my wife is going to let me hang around with my granddaughter anymore.
My God daughter’s daughter had a birthday party on Sunday. It was nice. She’s getting pretty big. I think I got in trouble. I disappeared upstairs and ended up watching some TV. When my wife came up, she wasn’t talking to me. I didn’t intend on watching TV, it was just on and I got carried away. But, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so I’ll make it up to her.
That’s about all for today. I’d better get started on my re-read. The sooner I get that done, the sooner I can start on the next one.
I woke up late today and it took me a while to realize that I was running late, so I’m putting in some loud music in the playlist to keep me going tonight. Dio, White Lion, Dokken, AC/DC, and Slaughter should do it.
-Thom

Monday, February 6, 2012

Feb 06

As always, don't forget to check out my website. http://www.thomnichols.com/
Happy Monday everyone. I know that I didn’t post a blog last week, but I have a very good excuse. I was very sick. That’s the second cold I’ve gotten this winter. Usually if I get sick it’s only once, but I guess it was just my turn. This one was really bad. I thought I had it licked over the weekend. I stayed in bed all day Sunday and Monday. I took all kinds of day and night time cold stuff. But, Monday night and Tuesday it came back with a vengeance. The worst thing was that it got into my eye. All last week it looked like I was walking around with a black eye. I thought about telling everyone that my wife beat me up, but she didn’t like that idea. It’s much better now. It’s still red and it looks kind of droopy and it leaks like a faucet, but it doesn’t hurt or anything. All of the swelling is going down too. I think there was a sty in it or something. Maybe a spider bit me while I was in a drug induced stupor. Whatever it is, I can’t wait until it goes away. On Tuesday or Wednesday, I got off work and mixed up some Theraflu. I thought it wasn’t working because I expected it to knock me out. Trying to sleep, I ended up watching TV and tossing and turning. I know it was after ten when I finally fell asleep, but when I woke up, my cold was gone. That Theraflu worked like a charm. I took some more the next day, but I don’t think I needed to. I felt great. So, if I can just get my eye to work I’ll be at one hundred percent. I need to stop wiping it with my fingers. But, it’s hard to remember to grab a napkin all the time. My wife put some drops in there yesterday, and made me start carrying a napkin around. I’ve been pretty good at it today, but it is so much easier to just wipe it with the back of my hand.

It snowed big time over this last week. (Two days straight without a break) I had a great time getting off work and then spending the next hour and a half shoveling the sidewalks at the house. The first day, the roads were miserable. Thank goodness for four wheel drive. My wife got stuck in front of the house when she was trying to drop my daughter off at work. The ice and snow was sooooo bad, she couldn’t get any traction and slammed into the curb. (Better than slamming into a car or person) She had my daughter borrow a snow shovel from the corner store because neither of them wanted to go back to the house to get ours. They dug themselves out and by then the main roads were plowed.
The way we work out our car situation, because we only have one at the moment, is my wife takes it to work at seven. I get off at six, so I wait over at her building until she gets there. I take it home. My daughter takes it to work and parks in my wife’s garage. My wife takes it home at three. I take it to work when I go in at ten and park in my garage. Then, when my daughter gets off at about midnight, she comes and gets it from me. Then, we start the cycle all over again. But, since it was snowing like a monster out there, I didn’t want my daughter to drive home in the middle of the night with icy roads. So, I brought a blanket and pillow to work with me and made her sleep in the car until I got off at six. She said it wasn’t too bad, but very cold. (Before I get a bunch of nasty emails, it is an enclosed underground garage and I had a camera on her the whole time.)
We went over to my brother’s house for the Super Bowl yesterday. I’m not a fan of either team, but I just assumed that the Patriots would blow away the Giants. (That’s why I don’t gamble) The Giants ended up winning. It was a fun evening. While we watched football, the girls and the kids were playing some dance game in the other room. And, I have to tell you, that dance game was one of the better inventions of the year. It kept the wife busy and she didn’t complain about having to watch the game once. Someone should have thought about that years ago. We had finger foods and tacos. My mom brought some bacon wrapped chicken which was a big success. There was a whole platter of them and they didn’t make it until everyone got their plates ready. I know I nibbled on quite a few of them. The game pool was of course rigged. I don’t know how he did it, but my brother’s son won the first two rounds and nearly took home the big score at the end. My wife won the third round, so that means we stopped off at McDonalds on the way home. I wanted to get an ice cream, but somehow I missed out and only got an ice tea. My niece took home the big prize and my nephew didn’t even get a shout out for being close. (He wasn’t a happy camper) My other brother and his kids didn’t make it. Someone said something about him taking his wife’s birth mother to the airport. It’s too bad he didn’t show up, I had some money to give to him. Now, I’ll have to find some time to get to his house. He lives up north and I don’t get out that way very often. Actually, I don’t get anywhere very often. That’s the problem with graveyard shifts. When I wake up, the wife and kids are getting off of school and work, so I want to spend some time with them before I go to work. But, since I’m just waking up, we don’t go anywhere, or they went somewhere before they came home to wake me up.
While I was sick this last week, I had a little trouble walking and fell down the stairs at my house. There are nineteen of those bad boys and they are rickety and dangerous. But, that’s not the bad part. The bad part came as I was falling. Since I was on my way to work at the time, I was carrying the stuff I usually bring to work. One of those things is a book. The one I was reading at the time belonged to my brother. It was number three in a series and he graciously let me borrow it. So, when I was at his house on Sunday, I made sure to borrow a new book before I told him what happened to the old one. As I was falling, everything in my hands flew up into the air. Somehow, when it landed, it lost most of its back cover. I would have taped it back on or something, but I couldn’t even find the ripped part.
My granddaughter discovered knock-knock jokes. She’s only four, and she doesn’t quite get the idea of a joke. For some reason, the end of the joke always ends with poo poo or something like that. But, she’s so cute when she says them that I still laugh. She was very disappointed that one of my brothers didn’t make it to the game on Sunday because my brother has a daughter that is just a year or so older than my granddaughter. For the last two weeks, she’s been asking about her and verifying that she would be at the party. It was like her only reason for going. Then, they didn’t show up. There were still other kids to play with, but she always seems to fixate on my brother’s youngest.
My wife is working the six to two shift for the next couple of weeks. It’s throwing our schedule off, but it gets her away from her boss which is nice.
None of the kids are doing anything interesting, or I’ve been too sick to notice. I should probably ask them.
The River of Magic should be done this week or next week. I thought it was going to be finished by the end of last week, but I added a bit that I wasn’t planning on putting in it. I think it’s better for it though. We’ll see what everyone else thinks. So, on that note, I better get busy and finish it up. I’m putting Pink Floyd, Night Ranger, and the Steve Miller Band in the playlist tonight for background music.
-Thom