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It’s Monday again. I would say it was back to work, but you have to have a day off in order to come back to work. Since I haven’t had one this month, let’s just call it a continuation of a loooong week. But, I can’t complain. It was Christmas this last week and even though I really wanted to have it off so that I could spend the day with the family, it was still very nice. Let’s start on Christmas Eve. I had had to be at work at 10, so naturally my wife started getting stuff ready at six in the morning when I got off work. She started with making Christmas cookies and candies. (Yes, I am still working my way through them) I don’t know what she did after that because I was asleep. But, since Christmas dinner was at three and it was ready, I’m assuming that was what she was doing. Everyone was supposed to wake me up at a little before three, but I woke up a little after noon. I had a bunch of presents I still needed to wrap, so I worked on that until it was time to go downstairs. We’re talking about my wife’s side of the family, so naturally no one showed up on time. (If it would have been my side of the family, only half of them wouldn’t show up on time, and I would probably be included in that half) But, eventually the house filled up. We have a bunch of Cowboy fans amongst the family, so we watched the Cowboys get trounced as we ate. Afterwards, we got all the kids together to decorated cookies. When they were finished, it was the adult’s turn. (They made more of a mess than the kids) During the decorating, I was supposed to announce that I was going to work so that I could sneak upstairs and put on the Santa costume. I forgot to let anyone know I was going, but no one noticed anyway. When I came down, I handed out candy canes and let everyone take pictures with me. My granddaughter, who is deathly afraid of anyone in a costume, wouldn’t come take a picture with me by herself, but she got really close to me and just stared. She even let me touch her nose. After I left and came back downstairs, she kept coming to me all night telling me that I was Santa. I tried telling her that I wasn’t, but she didn’t believe me. Then, when the kids took her home, she stayed up until two in the morning. They tried to get her to go to sleep, but she kept asking them if I was Santa. She didn’t want to take no for an answer. But, back to Christmas Eve. After decorating cookies, it was time to open presents. When I first married my wife, twenty years ago, her family opened all their presents on Christmas Eve at midnight. It only took me a couple of years to show them that my way of opening them on Christmas morning was better. So now, we open the presents to each other in early evening so that all the separate families can go home and have Christmas with their families. Halfway through the gift exchange, (There are a bunch of people on my wife’s side of the family, so it took a while) I started falling asleep in the chair. So, my wife woke me up and sent me off to take a nap before I had to go to work. But, it was still fun.
I got off work at six and woke everyone up so that they could get ready. It took four trips to load all the presents into the car. (I should have gotten a big box or a basket) Then, we drove down to my son’s house. Since the baby stayed up very late on Christmas Eve, she didn’t want to wake up on Christmas morning. It was about 8:30 when we arrived and like me, they went overboard getting the baby gifts. The tree was very full and looked wonderful. It took the baby a while to get into it, but eventually, she started opening her presents and waking up. We spent a couple hours at my son’s house and then we went to Dennys. It’s a restaurant that is open twenty four hours a day. Since most everything else was closed, it was packed. Still, we got a seat right away and the service wasn’t too bad. The food on the other hand wasn’t the best for me. Everyone else liked it, but I thought I would try something new and as it turns out, I should have ordered something that I knew I liked. Oh well, next time. After eating, I had to go home to go to sleep so that I could go to work that night. It was only a little after noon, and I had a lot of time to spend with the family, so even though I had to work, it was a fun Christmas.
The Christmas dinner for my side of the family hasn’t happened yet. For some reason, time snuck up on us and by the time we started organizing it, we didn’t have any time left. Then, after we had it all settled, I learned that I was going to have to work straight through New Years and wasn’t going to make it. So, it’s my fault that we didn’t get together. But, we’re going to have a Christmas in January dinner this year. That gives us a paycheck to recover from the real Christmas and hopefully I’ll get a day off.
My youngest daughter started working this year. When she first started, she said that she was going to save all her money to buy a car. But, she didn’t take Christmas into consideration. She is very generous and wanted to get everyone something. So, she spent at least two whole paychecks buying presents. She even got half of her class at school something. Then, on Christmas, she was kind of disappointed that her brother and sister didn’t get her anything. But, she understands that it isn’t what you get that’s important. And, she still had a good Christmas.
I got my wife a Wii with the Super Mario game. We went to one of her cousin’s house one time and saw them playing with one and ever since, she’s wanted one. She’s even talked about getting one a few times, but something always came up. So, I thought it was about time to get her one. She was very surprised when she unwrapped it. After dropping me off to go home and sleep on Christmas, she was going to take it back to my son’s house to play on his big screen TV. Well, as they were setting it up, they discovered that the sensor was missing from the box. It said that it was included on the box, but it was missing. So, they were going to take it back to the store today, but for some reason, today was just as busy as Christmas, even though she only had to work half a day. So, hopefully we can get her a new one tomorrow.
Well, I better get to work. It’s been a few very sleepy nights for me at work, so I haven’t been working on anything. I guess it’s time to get back into the grind. However, I might start working on one of the other books tonight. I’m only a few chapters away from finishing the River of Magic, but I haven’t been very excited about working on it lately. Other books have been creeping into my brain and I’ve been thinking about them more than the one I’ve been working on. So, it might be time to shelve the River of Magic for a week or so and see which other one starts working out. I think I want something loud to listen to for background music so I’m putting Tesla, Cinderella, Twisted Sister, and Def Leopard into the playlist tonight.
-Thom
Monday, December 26, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Dec 19
http://www.thomnichols.com/
Let’s start off with the Broncos. Yes, we lost to the Patriots. We came out like gangbusters in the first quarter, but then we fumbled three times in the second and they took advantage of each of them. We never recovered after that. There was an opportunity for another fourth quarter comeback, but it just didn’t happen. The good news is that the Raiders also lost. That means that we are still in first place in our division. We play the Bills next and then KC. KC should be an interesting game. Kyle Orton moved over to them and he was playing very well. They spanked the, until Sunday, undefeated Packers. So, it should be a shoot out between our quarterback and our former quarterback. Either way, I’ll probably have to work and miss it. That’s what happened this week. I don’t know what it is about Christmas time, but everyone at work loses their mind. They always seem to take that time to quit or get fired. (Can you believe it my bosses fired someone the week before Christmas) Then, I get stuck with working through the holidays. I think I’m going to request next Christmas off now because I don’t think I’ve been off for one in about six or seven years.
I tried to get a little Christmas shopping in today. But, I couldn’t seem to find anything I was looking for. I did manage to spend a bunch of money, but I still need to get a bunch of stuff. I wanted to go shopping over the weekend with my wife to get the main things and then spread out a little more over the week to get the stuff she doesn’t know about, but work botched that idea. I get paid on the Thursday before Christmas and I think I’m going to skip sleeping that day to go out again. Then, after that I work twelve hours on Friday and both days of the weekend. Nothing like waiting to the last minute.
I managed to see my daughter after she got back from the army. She’s doing very well. She’s talking about going to school, and also going to another MOS class in the army. It would broaden her prospects when she goes active as an officer after college. It’s only six weeks, but it’s in Sacramento. Out of the cold and onto the beach, it must be nice. But, she also did something this week that helped my youngest daughter. The two of them brought one of their friends down to the recruiting office and began the process to get her signed up for the air force. We had checked out the air force when my eldest was looking at a military career. The recruiter began explaining the benefits and opportunities and it lit a fire under my youngest. She had heard it before and was excited about going in when she graduated, but over her school year, she had lost interest. Now that she had a refresher, she became excited about it again. She asked me to take her to the recruiter the next day to get the process started for her. We did, after a long talk to make sure that was really what she wanted to do. She was a little disappointed when she found out that there are some things she has to do before they’ll sign her up. But, she’s still excited about it. Since she doesn’t graduate until May, we have plenty of time to work on the requirements. Hopefully, we’ll get it done. Can you believe it? I might have two kids following in my footsteps. Now, all I have to do is get my son to join and that will be everyone.
My granddaughter is still freaked out by people in costumes. The kids tried taking her to sit on Santa’s lap. They got the picture, but she was crying. Then, one of her cousins had a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. She likes going, but the whole way up she makes sure to tell everyone to make sure that Chucky doesn’t come over near her. She’ll have a birthday on January 1st. My wife wants to have it at Chuck E Cheese, but the baby flatly refuses. She’ll be four on the first, maybe next year she won’t be as afraid of costumes.
The kids might be working on a new baby. They’ve been talking about it for a while now. (Personally, I hope they hurry up, but my vote doesn’t count. I want a bunch of grandchildren.) I hope they decide soon. I think it is better to have the kids close to the same age. I think big gapes prevents them from being as close. When they are young and going through the same things, I think they can relate more. But, that’s just my opinion.
I’ve slacked off on the River of Magic last week. But, I expect to pick it back up this week. It’s coming along really nicely. I just need to get past these lazy days that just jump out at me. It might be the holiday season, but I thought of a really good Christmas book. That might have been part of the reason I’ve been slacking off. I was going to work on Gremlin Planet after I finished River of Magic, but I think I might squeeze the Christmas one in first. I’ll have to give it a few pages too really make the decision though.
Well, I guess I better get to work. I’m putting Chicago, Quiet Riot, Motley Crew, Prince, and Rush into the playlist for background music tonight. I’ll see you next week.
-Thom
Let’s start off with the Broncos. Yes, we lost to the Patriots. We came out like gangbusters in the first quarter, but then we fumbled three times in the second and they took advantage of each of them. We never recovered after that. There was an opportunity for another fourth quarter comeback, but it just didn’t happen. The good news is that the Raiders also lost. That means that we are still in first place in our division. We play the Bills next and then KC. KC should be an interesting game. Kyle Orton moved over to them and he was playing very well. They spanked the, until Sunday, undefeated Packers. So, it should be a shoot out between our quarterback and our former quarterback. Either way, I’ll probably have to work and miss it. That’s what happened this week. I don’t know what it is about Christmas time, but everyone at work loses their mind. They always seem to take that time to quit or get fired. (Can you believe it my bosses fired someone the week before Christmas) Then, I get stuck with working through the holidays. I think I’m going to request next Christmas off now because I don’t think I’ve been off for one in about six or seven years.
I tried to get a little Christmas shopping in today. But, I couldn’t seem to find anything I was looking for. I did manage to spend a bunch of money, but I still need to get a bunch of stuff. I wanted to go shopping over the weekend with my wife to get the main things and then spread out a little more over the week to get the stuff she doesn’t know about, but work botched that idea. I get paid on the Thursday before Christmas and I think I’m going to skip sleeping that day to go out again. Then, after that I work twelve hours on Friday and both days of the weekend. Nothing like waiting to the last minute.
I managed to see my daughter after she got back from the army. She’s doing very well. She’s talking about going to school, and also going to another MOS class in the army. It would broaden her prospects when she goes active as an officer after college. It’s only six weeks, but it’s in Sacramento. Out of the cold and onto the beach, it must be nice. But, she also did something this week that helped my youngest daughter. The two of them brought one of their friends down to the recruiting office and began the process to get her signed up for the air force. We had checked out the air force when my eldest was looking at a military career. The recruiter began explaining the benefits and opportunities and it lit a fire under my youngest. She had heard it before and was excited about going in when she graduated, but over her school year, she had lost interest. Now that she had a refresher, she became excited about it again. She asked me to take her to the recruiter the next day to get the process started for her. We did, after a long talk to make sure that was really what she wanted to do. She was a little disappointed when she found out that there are some things she has to do before they’ll sign her up. But, she’s still excited about it. Since she doesn’t graduate until May, we have plenty of time to work on the requirements. Hopefully, we’ll get it done. Can you believe it? I might have two kids following in my footsteps. Now, all I have to do is get my son to join and that will be everyone.
My granddaughter is still freaked out by people in costumes. The kids tried taking her to sit on Santa’s lap. They got the picture, but she was crying. Then, one of her cousins had a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. She likes going, but the whole way up she makes sure to tell everyone to make sure that Chucky doesn’t come over near her. She’ll have a birthday on January 1st. My wife wants to have it at Chuck E Cheese, but the baby flatly refuses. She’ll be four on the first, maybe next year she won’t be as afraid of costumes.
The kids might be working on a new baby. They’ve been talking about it for a while now. (Personally, I hope they hurry up, but my vote doesn’t count. I want a bunch of grandchildren.) I hope they decide soon. I think it is better to have the kids close to the same age. I think big gapes prevents them from being as close. When they are young and going through the same things, I think they can relate more. But, that’s just my opinion.
I’ve slacked off on the River of Magic last week. But, I expect to pick it back up this week. It’s coming along really nicely. I just need to get past these lazy days that just jump out at me. It might be the holiday season, but I thought of a really good Christmas book. That might have been part of the reason I’ve been slacking off. I was going to work on Gremlin Planet after I finished River of Magic, but I think I might squeeze the Christmas one in first. I’ll have to give it a few pages too really make the decision though.
Well, I guess I better get to work. I’m putting Chicago, Quiet Riot, Motley Crew, Prince, and Rush into the playlist for background music tonight. I’ll see you next week.
-Thom
Monday, December 12, 2011
Dec 12
http://www.thomnichols.com/
Well, it’s another Monday. The last week went by pretty quickly. Not a lot happened except for me being stuck at work. I had to work both days of the weekend and it looks like I might have to work next weekend too. At least that will give me some extra Christmas money and then some Christmas recovery money.
Speaking of Christmas, I’ve only bought a few things so far. (I’ve been working so much that I haven’t had time) It’s still too early for me to go really Christmas shopping. Right now, my wife wants to go with me. We’ll get the presents we planned on getting. But, when it gets closer to Christmas, I’ll do my real Christmas shopping. That’s the fun part. I’ll sneak around and buy everyone an extra little something. I won’t put in here what I’m planning because someone might read it. But, after Christmas I’ll let you know what I did.
My daughter is coming home from the army on Thursday. She was supposed to get here on Wednesday, but now it’s going to be day later. That’s ok, it’s just a day. She’s planning on taking December off and then she’ll start work and college. She has mentioned a little concern that she didn’t really want to get into over the phone. It might be because she has already made arrangements with my son to move into his place when she gets back. He got a bigger apartment so that she will have a room. The problem with that is that she has an opportunity to go to West Point. Can you believe it? A kid of mine going to West Point, I can barely believe it. But, that’s on the other side of the United States. If she takes it, she can’t fulfill her responsibility to my son. Or, she might not want to give up the money she’s making as a soldier. If she begins school and takes a meaningless job, she won’t have a lot of free time and not as much money as she has had for the last six months. So, she might want to go right into active duty. Or, she just might want to take some time off from everything. But, she does have responsibilities so, that would be even more difficult. I am just speculating, so I guess we’ll find out when she gets here. I am sure that she’ll make the decision that is right for her. She’s a smart kid. (Or I should say a smart woman now)
Everyone has been sick over the last week or so. (Everyone except me, he he he) I shouldn’t have said that, because now I’ll get sick. My granddaughter and daughter came with me to go visit my mom last Monday. They ended up sleeping in her bed and got her sick. But, it looks like everyone is recovering from it nicely. Hopefully, no one will be sick on Christmas.
We bought a little tree to fit in our little apartment. We got some lights and decorations, but we haven’t put them up yet. I think we’re going to get that done tomorrow. Then it will really start looking like Christmas. Whenever I drive around, I see all kinds of houses decorated and one of these days one of them is going to me mine. I plan on having all kinds of lights and an inflatable Frosty and Santa Claus out in the yard.
It’s football time. The Broncos did it again. We beat the Bears. That makes it six in a row. We’re like 8-5 now. We went from last place in our division to first and when we beat the Patriots next week, we’ll clinch our spot in the playoffs. This was a very weird season and the only bad thing I can say about it is that it is almost over. It seems like it just started, but we only have three more games left in the regular season. After the Pats, we have the Bills and then KC. I hope Tebow and the team can take us deep into the playoffs if not all the way. The only good thing about the football season being nearly over is that baseball is right around the corner.
Well, I better get to work. I’m nearly done with the River of Magic. But, (Bad News) I won’t have it ready before Christmas. So, that means that I’m not going to hand out copies of it and my last book for Christmas presents. It’s my own fault. I took about six months or so off from writing anything. This year coming up will be a good one, or a better one. By next Christmas, I should have three or four books to give away as presents.
That means that it is time to get busy. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m going to put a bunch of disco music on tonight for background reading. Shhhh.
-Thom
Well, it’s another Monday. The last week went by pretty quickly. Not a lot happened except for me being stuck at work. I had to work both days of the weekend and it looks like I might have to work next weekend too. At least that will give me some extra Christmas money and then some Christmas recovery money.
Speaking of Christmas, I’ve only bought a few things so far. (I’ve been working so much that I haven’t had time) It’s still too early for me to go really Christmas shopping. Right now, my wife wants to go with me. We’ll get the presents we planned on getting. But, when it gets closer to Christmas, I’ll do my real Christmas shopping. That’s the fun part. I’ll sneak around and buy everyone an extra little something. I won’t put in here what I’m planning because someone might read it. But, after Christmas I’ll let you know what I did.
My daughter is coming home from the army on Thursday. She was supposed to get here on Wednesday, but now it’s going to be day later. That’s ok, it’s just a day. She’s planning on taking December off and then she’ll start work and college. She has mentioned a little concern that she didn’t really want to get into over the phone. It might be because she has already made arrangements with my son to move into his place when she gets back. He got a bigger apartment so that she will have a room. The problem with that is that she has an opportunity to go to West Point. Can you believe it? A kid of mine going to West Point, I can barely believe it. But, that’s on the other side of the United States. If she takes it, she can’t fulfill her responsibility to my son. Or, she might not want to give up the money she’s making as a soldier. If she begins school and takes a meaningless job, she won’t have a lot of free time and not as much money as she has had for the last six months. So, she might want to go right into active duty. Or, she just might want to take some time off from everything. But, she does have responsibilities so, that would be even more difficult. I am just speculating, so I guess we’ll find out when she gets here. I am sure that she’ll make the decision that is right for her. She’s a smart kid. (Or I should say a smart woman now)
Everyone has been sick over the last week or so. (Everyone except me, he he he) I shouldn’t have said that, because now I’ll get sick. My granddaughter and daughter came with me to go visit my mom last Monday. They ended up sleeping in her bed and got her sick. But, it looks like everyone is recovering from it nicely. Hopefully, no one will be sick on Christmas.
We bought a little tree to fit in our little apartment. We got some lights and decorations, but we haven’t put them up yet. I think we’re going to get that done tomorrow. Then it will really start looking like Christmas. Whenever I drive around, I see all kinds of houses decorated and one of these days one of them is going to me mine. I plan on having all kinds of lights and an inflatable Frosty and Santa Claus out in the yard.
It’s football time. The Broncos did it again. We beat the Bears. That makes it six in a row. We’re like 8-5 now. We went from last place in our division to first and when we beat the Patriots next week, we’ll clinch our spot in the playoffs. This was a very weird season and the only bad thing I can say about it is that it is almost over. It seems like it just started, but we only have three more games left in the regular season. After the Pats, we have the Bills and then KC. I hope Tebow and the team can take us deep into the playoffs if not all the way. The only good thing about the football season being nearly over is that baseball is right around the corner.
Well, I better get to work. I’m nearly done with the River of Magic. But, (Bad News) I won’t have it ready before Christmas. So, that means that I’m not going to hand out copies of it and my last book for Christmas presents. It’s my own fault. I took about six months or so off from writing anything. This year coming up will be a good one, or a better one. By next Christmas, I should have three or four books to give away as presents.
That means that it is time to get busy. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m going to put a bunch of disco music on tonight for background reading. Shhhh.
-Thom
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Dec 1
http://www.thomnichols.com/
It is the first day of December and I have been negligent again on updating my blog. I’m getting to be really bad at this. So, I am going to blame it on the turkey. I ate too much turkey over Thanksgiving and because of it I’ve become lazy. But, now that it is over, I’m back to normal.
Since I’ve already brought up turkey, let’s get into Thanksgiving. The big news was that my daughter came home for the holiday. It was great seeing her, even though it was only for a few minutes. Just kidding. She did spend some time with us, but she also had to split her time between a bunch of people. I guess I’m just being jealous. I got off at six in the morning on turkey day and had to pick her up at the airport at ten. So, at nine, I rounded up everyone that was coming and we set off. My granddaughter had a cold, but she still wanted to come. So, she wanted me to hold her the entire time. We waited by baggage claim carrousel number four and it took her forever to get there. We were out by eleven, so it wasn’t really that long. She looked good in her uniform, but she had some problems getting out. It turned out that her company wasn’t going to sign her out in time to catch the ride she arranged with the other soldiers because her flight was later than theirs. She was pretty upset, she spent a lot of money on the tickets and she really wanted to come home. Without catching the ride, she would have had to come up with taxi money all the way to Atlanta which for one person was over $260.00. She couldn’t afford it. But, her friends came to the rescue. They all pitched in and she made it out.
We spent Thanksgiving day with my wife’s family. After dropping everyone off, I went to get a few hours sleep. Thanksgiving dinner was at two O’clock, so it really was just a couple of hours. It went really well, everyone showed up. I fell asleep after dinner in time to go to work again that night. I had to work the next night as well, so I really didn’t get to see my daughter very much. We had Thanksgiving for my side of the family on Saturday. It was also very nice. Everyone was there except one of my sister’s daughters. She is fighting with the rest of the family and we didn’t think she would make it.
The Broncos are kicking butt. We’re in second place and now the rest of the city is on the Tim Tebow bandwagon. He still struggles throwing the ball, but he’s managing wins. Our defense is really taking up the slack. We’re holding the other teams to very low scoring games giving Tebow a chance to get the offense fired up. I missed last week’s game because I had to work. But, I’m off this week, so I get to see them on Sunday.
Speaking of work, it looks like we’re going to get screwed out of our bonus this year. The new company said that they were going to grandfather us in so that we didn’t lose our sonority and it would be as if we had already been working there for all the years we’ve been here. Well, when I took my vacation, I didn’t get paid for it. Now that it is Christmas time and the one year mark has passed, the company is supposed to give out a yearly bonus. But, they are saying that we’re not going to get it because we have to work for them for a year before we’re eligible for it. So, it looks like everything they have promised us so far was a bunch of crap. On the brighter side of work, one of the guys is taking three weeks off to go out of country to spend Christmas with his wife’s family. So, that means overtime. Without the bonus, I’m going to need it. If anyone read my blog entry about last Christmas with this company, you’ll know that I was screwed over then as well as this year. At least this year it wasn’t as badly as last year. Hopefully that is a trend and it will get better next Christmas. If not, I’ll probably be fired or something next year.
My youngest daughter is still working at the movie theater. She still likes it. She got her first paycheck the other day and I took her to the bank to set up an account. If it was my first paycheck, I would have already spent it. But, she still has more than half of it left. She worked a lot of hours over Thanksgiving, but she’s only part time and doesn’t have very many hours this week. She’s saving her money for a car and we’re going to go halfsies on it.
My granddaughter seems to be getting smarter and smarter every day. She’s using big words I wouldn’t think a four year old would even hear much less use and use correctly. She’s also started using the phone a lot. She knows mine and my wife’s numbers and has been calling us a lot lately. When she first started I thought it was her mom or dad calling us and then just handing her the phone. But, she grabs my wife’s phone and calls me and I’ve seen her grab my phone and call my wife. The other day, she was sitting on my lap while we were playing on the computer and she had my wife’s phone. She called me and we spent about half an hour talking to each other even though we were right there beside each other.
I have been really pounding out pages on the River of Magic. It’s going to be done this month, but I don’t think I’ll have time to include it as a Christmas present to everyone. We’ll see.
Well, I better get going. I’m just putting the internet radio on today for background music because I have a lot to do. So, next week, I’ll try to remember to update my blog on time.
-Thom
It is the first day of December and I have been negligent again on updating my blog. I’m getting to be really bad at this. So, I am going to blame it on the turkey. I ate too much turkey over Thanksgiving and because of it I’ve become lazy. But, now that it is over, I’m back to normal.
Since I’ve already brought up turkey, let’s get into Thanksgiving. The big news was that my daughter came home for the holiday. It was great seeing her, even though it was only for a few minutes. Just kidding. She did spend some time with us, but she also had to split her time between a bunch of people. I guess I’m just being jealous. I got off at six in the morning on turkey day and had to pick her up at the airport at ten. So, at nine, I rounded up everyone that was coming and we set off. My granddaughter had a cold, but she still wanted to come. So, she wanted me to hold her the entire time. We waited by baggage claim carrousel number four and it took her forever to get there. We were out by eleven, so it wasn’t really that long. She looked good in her uniform, but she had some problems getting out. It turned out that her company wasn’t going to sign her out in time to catch the ride she arranged with the other soldiers because her flight was later than theirs. She was pretty upset, she spent a lot of money on the tickets and she really wanted to come home. Without catching the ride, she would have had to come up with taxi money all the way to Atlanta which for one person was over $260.00. She couldn’t afford it. But, her friends came to the rescue. They all pitched in and she made it out.
We spent Thanksgiving day with my wife’s family. After dropping everyone off, I went to get a few hours sleep. Thanksgiving dinner was at two O’clock, so it really was just a couple of hours. It went really well, everyone showed up. I fell asleep after dinner in time to go to work again that night. I had to work the next night as well, so I really didn’t get to see my daughter very much. We had Thanksgiving for my side of the family on Saturday. It was also very nice. Everyone was there except one of my sister’s daughters. She is fighting with the rest of the family and we didn’t think she would make it.
The Broncos are kicking butt. We’re in second place and now the rest of the city is on the Tim Tebow bandwagon. He still struggles throwing the ball, but he’s managing wins. Our defense is really taking up the slack. We’re holding the other teams to very low scoring games giving Tebow a chance to get the offense fired up. I missed last week’s game because I had to work. But, I’m off this week, so I get to see them on Sunday.
Speaking of work, it looks like we’re going to get screwed out of our bonus this year. The new company said that they were going to grandfather us in so that we didn’t lose our sonority and it would be as if we had already been working there for all the years we’ve been here. Well, when I took my vacation, I didn’t get paid for it. Now that it is Christmas time and the one year mark has passed, the company is supposed to give out a yearly bonus. But, they are saying that we’re not going to get it because we have to work for them for a year before we’re eligible for it. So, it looks like everything they have promised us so far was a bunch of crap. On the brighter side of work, one of the guys is taking three weeks off to go out of country to spend Christmas with his wife’s family. So, that means overtime. Without the bonus, I’m going to need it. If anyone read my blog entry about last Christmas with this company, you’ll know that I was screwed over then as well as this year. At least this year it wasn’t as badly as last year. Hopefully that is a trend and it will get better next Christmas. If not, I’ll probably be fired or something next year.
My youngest daughter is still working at the movie theater. She still likes it. She got her first paycheck the other day and I took her to the bank to set up an account. If it was my first paycheck, I would have already spent it. But, she still has more than half of it left. She worked a lot of hours over Thanksgiving, but she’s only part time and doesn’t have very many hours this week. She’s saving her money for a car and we’re going to go halfsies on it.
My granddaughter seems to be getting smarter and smarter every day. She’s using big words I wouldn’t think a four year old would even hear much less use and use correctly. She’s also started using the phone a lot. She knows mine and my wife’s numbers and has been calling us a lot lately. When she first started I thought it was her mom or dad calling us and then just handing her the phone. But, she grabs my wife’s phone and calls me and I’ve seen her grab my phone and call my wife. The other day, she was sitting on my lap while we were playing on the computer and she had my wife’s phone. She called me and we spent about half an hour talking to each other even though we were right there beside each other.
I have been really pounding out pages on the River of Magic. It’s going to be done this month, but I don’t think I’ll have time to include it as a Christmas present to everyone. We’ll see.
Well, I better get going. I’m just putting the internet radio on today for background music because I have a lot to do. So, next week, I’ll try to remember to update my blog on time.
-Thom
Monday, November 14, 2011
Nov 14
http://www.thomnichols.com/
Ok, I’m not sure what the problem was, but it was our 20 year anniversary this last week. Twenty years is a long time and I wanted to do something special for my wife. We were talking about it and we were thinking about going to Vegas or going up into the mountains. We would have liked to take a week off and go to somewhere special like Hawaii or something like that. But, a lot of things happened this year and we had limited funds. Every time I thought about putting some money aside, something would come up. So, on our anniversary, I took my wife to spend the day at Walmart and to make it extra special for her, I let her go by herself and stayed home watching football. After she got done shopping, I wanted to take her out to a nice restaurant and then maybe take her to a movie or something since we didn’t go anywhere. So, I got free tickets from my daughter who works at the movie and bought her a hotdog at the theater and a diet coke. (It was a large diet coke) I’m such a romantic.
Actually, we didn’t do anything for our anniversary. When we first got married, we attempted to go places on our anniversary, but something always got in the way. So, over the years, we stopped trying to go anywhere and just bought each other presents. This year, a lot of stuff really did happen. So, we’re going to put off celebrating it until early next year. We need to survive Christmas first and then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do.
My eldest daughter couldn’t wasn’t able to keep her surprise in. She told us that she is going to fly in for Thanksgiving. She’ll arrive on Thursday in the mid morning and doesn’t have to return until Sunday. So, we’ll have a big Thanksgiving at the in-law’s house on the day and a big Thanksgiving on Saturday with my side of the family and she’ll be able to attend both. It should be pretty nice.
The Broncos won again against the Raiders. That’s two games in a row. We haven’t won two games in a row in years. The whole town is excited. We play the Jets on Thursday night. My son thinks he might be able to get tickets to the game. It will be nice to see another game. I won’t be able to stay for the whole thing. I have to work that night so I’ll have to leave early. Still, half a game in person is better than no game.
I had to take CPR training again. My card hadn’t expired, but when I received them in the mail, I just threw them away. I only got them in the first place for work. When the company switched over to the different company, they required us all to be CPR compliant. So, since I couldn’t produce the cards to prove I’d taken the class, them made me take it over. The company instructor was very adamant about the class taking anywhere from seven to eight hours. He said that there was no possible way for him to reduce the class to anything less than seven hours. The company didn’t want to pay all of the employees seven or more hours and pay for the class, so they have been putting it off until they could get a new instructor and force the guy to reduce the length of the class. It only took eleven months, but they finally got him to assure them it would only take five hours. They signed us all up for eight o’clock in the morning on a Sunday. Most of us were a little upset because it meant that we were going to miss the Bronco game. So, when we got there, the guy was complaining and told us that he was mistaken on the time and it would take us at least six hours if not seven. But, he announced that anyone that was re-qualifying could test out of it if they thought they could pass. I really didn’t want to stay for the whole day, so I volunteered. (I was the only one) There were four tests and I whipped through the first one. There were a lot of questionable questions, and I really didn’t remember most of it. So, naturally, I missed about half of the questions and failed the first one. I took my time on the other three and only missed two questions. So, the instructor said that I was going to have to stay for the portion of the class I failed. He said it should only take about two to two and a half hours and then re-take that portion of the test. That still got me out at the beginning of the game, so what else was I going to do. The instructor tried to start the class. He pulled out his little remote control, aimed it at the DVD player, and hit play. Nothing happened. Twenty minutes later, he couldn’t figure out how to operate the equipment and decided he would just read us the information from the book. I’m sure he knew his material, but he stumbled quite a bit as he tried to relay it to the class. He read a lot of it from the book and then just grabbed the tests and started asking questions from it. When he ran out of stuff to talk about, he had finished the class in two and a half hours. I got home right after the kick off.
My brother called while I was in the CPR class. His computer got a virus and he wanted me to pull it off. So, I went to his house and picked it up. I started messing with it tonight and I think I got it completely pulled off. I rebooted it several times and left it sitting. So, if it wasn’t completely gone, I should know by tomorrow morning. I also installed a malware remover so he can run it once a week. He has five kids and if they were anything like mine, he’ll need it.
I saw two very disappointing movies this week. The first was the Immortals. It looked like it was going to be really good. It was a good action movie as long as you didn’t pay any attention to the story. They really pushed the limits of the myth, but that’s expected in movies. But, the main premise of the movie was totally irrelevant. I’m glad that I didn’t pay to go see it. (My daughter got us free tickets because she works there) Then, I took my mom to see the movie In Time. Its storyline was also really weak. It wasn’t what I expected. The characters did illogical and stupid things and there wasn’t enough action. So, that’s two strikes at the theaters. I hope my next one is going to be a good one.
Well, I haven’t put a lot of time into my book, so this week I’m going to buckle down and get going on it. I only worked on it one last week and the week before. So, I’m putting Night Ranger, Pink Floyd, Eagles and ZZ Top into the playlist for background listening and I’m going to get started.
-Thom
Ok, I’m not sure what the problem was, but it was our 20 year anniversary this last week. Twenty years is a long time and I wanted to do something special for my wife. We were talking about it and we were thinking about going to Vegas or going up into the mountains. We would have liked to take a week off and go to somewhere special like Hawaii or something like that. But, a lot of things happened this year and we had limited funds. Every time I thought about putting some money aside, something would come up. So, on our anniversary, I took my wife to spend the day at Walmart and to make it extra special for her, I let her go by herself and stayed home watching football. After she got done shopping, I wanted to take her out to a nice restaurant and then maybe take her to a movie or something since we didn’t go anywhere. So, I got free tickets from my daughter who works at the movie and bought her a hotdog at the theater and a diet coke. (It was a large diet coke) I’m such a romantic.
Actually, we didn’t do anything for our anniversary. When we first got married, we attempted to go places on our anniversary, but something always got in the way. So, over the years, we stopped trying to go anywhere and just bought each other presents. This year, a lot of stuff really did happen. So, we’re going to put off celebrating it until early next year. We need to survive Christmas first and then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do.
My eldest daughter couldn’t wasn’t able to keep her surprise in. She told us that she is going to fly in for Thanksgiving. She’ll arrive on Thursday in the mid morning and doesn’t have to return until Sunday. So, we’ll have a big Thanksgiving at the in-law’s house on the day and a big Thanksgiving on Saturday with my side of the family and she’ll be able to attend both. It should be pretty nice.
The Broncos won again against the Raiders. That’s two games in a row. We haven’t won two games in a row in years. The whole town is excited. We play the Jets on Thursday night. My son thinks he might be able to get tickets to the game. It will be nice to see another game. I won’t be able to stay for the whole thing. I have to work that night so I’ll have to leave early. Still, half a game in person is better than no game.
I had to take CPR training again. My card hadn’t expired, but when I received them in the mail, I just threw them away. I only got them in the first place for work. When the company switched over to the different company, they required us all to be CPR compliant. So, since I couldn’t produce the cards to prove I’d taken the class, them made me take it over. The company instructor was very adamant about the class taking anywhere from seven to eight hours. He said that there was no possible way for him to reduce the class to anything less than seven hours. The company didn’t want to pay all of the employees seven or more hours and pay for the class, so they have been putting it off until they could get a new instructor and force the guy to reduce the length of the class. It only took eleven months, but they finally got him to assure them it would only take five hours. They signed us all up for eight o’clock in the morning on a Sunday. Most of us were a little upset because it meant that we were going to miss the Bronco game. So, when we got there, the guy was complaining and told us that he was mistaken on the time and it would take us at least six hours if not seven. But, he announced that anyone that was re-qualifying could test out of it if they thought they could pass. I really didn’t want to stay for the whole day, so I volunteered. (I was the only one) There were four tests and I whipped through the first one. There were a lot of questionable questions, and I really didn’t remember most of it. So, naturally, I missed about half of the questions and failed the first one. I took my time on the other three and only missed two questions. So, the instructor said that I was going to have to stay for the portion of the class I failed. He said it should only take about two to two and a half hours and then re-take that portion of the test. That still got me out at the beginning of the game, so what else was I going to do. The instructor tried to start the class. He pulled out his little remote control, aimed it at the DVD player, and hit play. Nothing happened. Twenty minutes later, he couldn’t figure out how to operate the equipment and decided he would just read us the information from the book. I’m sure he knew his material, but he stumbled quite a bit as he tried to relay it to the class. He read a lot of it from the book and then just grabbed the tests and started asking questions from it. When he ran out of stuff to talk about, he had finished the class in two and a half hours. I got home right after the kick off.
My brother called while I was in the CPR class. His computer got a virus and he wanted me to pull it off. So, I went to his house and picked it up. I started messing with it tonight and I think I got it completely pulled off. I rebooted it several times and left it sitting. So, if it wasn’t completely gone, I should know by tomorrow morning. I also installed a malware remover so he can run it once a week. He has five kids and if they were anything like mine, he’ll need it.
I saw two very disappointing movies this week. The first was the Immortals. It looked like it was going to be really good. It was a good action movie as long as you didn’t pay any attention to the story. They really pushed the limits of the myth, but that’s expected in movies. But, the main premise of the movie was totally irrelevant. I’m glad that I didn’t pay to go see it. (My daughter got us free tickets because she works there) Then, I took my mom to see the movie In Time. Its storyline was also really weak. It wasn’t what I expected. The characters did illogical and stupid things and there wasn’t enough action. So, that’s two strikes at the theaters. I hope my next one is going to be a good one.
Well, I haven’t put a lot of time into my book, so this week I’m going to buckle down and get going on it. I only worked on it one last week and the week before. So, I’m putting Night Ranger, Pink Floyd, Eagles and ZZ Top into the playlist for background listening and I’m going to get started.
-Thom
Monday, November 7, 2011
Nov 7
It’s Monday again and time for a blog update. Like always, visit my website at www.thomnichols.com and let me know what you think. I have changed it up a little. I think I’m going to add some stuff this coming week.I should probably do this tomorrow, because it will be my 20th wedding anniversary. Wow, twenty years, that's a long time. But, that will give me something to talk about next time. So, here goes.
I helped my son move into his new apartment this week. They’ve had their old place about a year and a half. When they moved out of our place, they only had a room full of stuff. Now, they’ve accumulated an entire house full. It’s amazing how that stuff adds up. They did most of the work. I was just helping with the big stuff, beds, dressers, washers, etc… I was supposed to go down there at the beginning of the week, but one thing led to another and I didn’t make it until Friday. So, they moved stuff over little by little over the week. One day, I was dropping my granddaughter off and she saw them taking a load over. She went crazy telling me to hurry and help her out of the car seat because they were moving without her. I barely got the door open and unstrapped her when she was running for the new place.
My wife had to work some overtime shifts this weekend. The Saturday one was a graveyard and the Sunday one had her coming in at three in the morning. So, her sleeping schedule was thrown all out of whack. I tried to give her the house on Sunday so she could get some rest by going over to my son’s house to watch the games. He was having some trouble with Comcast, his cable company, but managed to get it working before the game started. At first, it was close. It seemed like it was going to go like the last couple of weeks. But, they started running an offence that was more conductive to Tebow’s quarterback style. He still has trouble throwing down field, but they gave him more short passes and screens. We managed to stay neck to neck with them for the first two quarters. That was when I had to go pick up my daughter from work. So, I didn’t get to see the entire third quarter. But, that didn’t matter because in the fourth quarter, they kicked butt. We ended up winning by a couple touchdowns. It was a very good game and it was a divisional game that, even though we are in last place, we are only one game out of first place. Yeah, I know how that sounds.
When we got home, after picking up my daughter from work, we tried to be quiet. It didn’t work. My wife woke up and didn’t get a chance to go back to sleep until late in the evening. I was surprised that she didn’t just come home and crash. Instead, she went out with her sisters and had a few drinks at the restaurant with them. I’m sure she’s asleep now. She probably dropped off as soon as her head hit the pillow.
My daughter started working at the movie theater. Her first day wasn’t very glamorous. She had to clean out dirty toilets and maintain the women’s restroom most of the day. But, her second day was much more satisfactory. They taught her the background part of the concession stand. She didn’t get to work the register, but she got to make the food. After that day, she said that she wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to eat at a theater again. She said that it wasn’t disgusting how they made things, but they ripped people off. Her first duty was filling the nacho trays with chips. They gave her a whole class on how to arrange the chips so that it looks fuller in the tray using as little as possible. Then, she graduated up to hot dogs, chicken wings, bagel bites and other prepared foods. She didn’t even get to popcorn until she was almost off. She said that she likes the concession stand part of it, but it isn’t as busy as maintaining the theaters. She said that there was constantly a movie ending where they had to go and clean up the seating. She said that the usher part was what kept her more busy than anything else. But, she likes it and I’m sure she will like having a paycheck.
Our computer woes are continuing. My son’s laptop stopped booting, so he brought it over for me to look at. It ended up he had some kind of virus that wiped out his entire hard drive. I ended up having to do a complete restore. So, everything he had on it was gone. He said he didn’t have anything really important except pictures. I think we’re going to get him an external hard drive for Christmas this year. That way he can back up all that stuff onto it in case his computer crashes again. That is what we did with our computers. The kids were always downloading music and movies and stuff. I would come home from work all the time to find out they had inadvertently downloaded a virus. In fact, the girls didn’t have their laptops for more than a few months before they started getting viruses on them. So, I have two externals because we have ten gigs of music and I don’t know how many thousands of pictures. (About ninety percent of which are the baby) We need a new baby we can spoil and take pictures off. But, that might mean that I would have to get another hard drive just for him or her pictures. (My wife goes crazy with the camera and babies) My youngest daughter has been hinting about wanting a Kindle for Christmas. There is a new one out there for only seventy nine dollars. We might think about that for her. My eldest daughter will be home for Christmas, but she’s been gone for so long I don’t know what she’s going to want.
But, the cat is out of the bag. My eldest daughter lost her wallet in Georgia last week. She started carrying it around in a little backpack instead of a purse and left it in a taxi. She called to let us know so we could help her cancel credit cards and request new SSN and driver’s license cards. So, my wife naturally went into her account to make sure that no one had started charging stuff on it. While she was in there, we saw an airport charge. My daughter has been telling us that she was going to stay in Georgia for Thanksgiving because the army wouldn’t let her come out. But, from the amount of the charge, it looks like a round trip ticket. We figured that she was either going to come out and surprise us or she was going to fly her boyfriend out there for the holiday. But today, the cat came out of the bag. Her boyfriend let it slip that she was coming out. We’ll still act surprised, but it is going to be very nice to have her back even if it is just for a few days. She’ll have a four day weekend, so I hope she can spend the entire time out here.
Well, I better get back to work. I’m nearly halfway through the River of Magic. It is coming along very nicely. If I continue to work on it, I should have it finished by the end of November. But, like today, I didn’t get much sleep and don’t really feel like working. Last week I only managed to write one day out of the week. So, I’ll have to put in twice as much effort tomorrow and not let it turn into another week like that. I’m putting Cinderella, White Lion, Scorpions, and Dokken in the playlist tonight. I need something loud to keep me awake and I think those should do it.
Until next week,
-Thom
I helped my son move into his new apartment this week. They’ve had their old place about a year and a half. When they moved out of our place, they only had a room full of stuff. Now, they’ve accumulated an entire house full. It’s amazing how that stuff adds up. They did most of the work. I was just helping with the big stuff, beds, dressers, washers, etc… I was supposed to go down there at the beginning of the week, but one thing led to another and I didn’t make it until Friday. So, they moved stuff over little by little over the week. One day, I was dropping my granddaughter off and she saw them taking a load over. She went crazy telling me to hurry and help her out of the car seat because they were moving without her. I barely got the door open and unstrapped her when she was running for the new place.
My wife had to work some overtime shifts this weekend. The Saturday one was a graveyard and the Sunday one had her coming in at three in the morning. So, her sleeping schedule was thrown all out of whack. I tried to give her the house on Sunday so she could get some rest by going over to my son’s house to watch the games. He was having some trouble with Comcast, his cable company, but managed to get it working before the game started. At first, it was close. It seemed like it was going to go like the last couple of weeks. But, they started running an offence that was more conductive to Tebow’s quarterback style. He still has trouble throwing down field, but they gave him more short passes and screens. We managed to stay neck to neck with them for the first two quarters. That was when I had to go pick up my daughter from work. So, I didn’t get to see the entire third quarter. But, that didn’t matter because in the fourth quarter, they kicked butt. We ended up winning by a couple touchdowns. It was a very good game and it was a divisional game that, even though we are in last place, we are only one game out of first place. Yeah, I know how that sounds.
When we got home, after picking up my daughter from work, we tried to be quiet. It didn’t work. My wife woke up and didn’t get a chance to go back to sleep until late in the evening. I was surprised that she didn’t just come home and crash. Instead, she went out with her sisters and had a few drinks at the restaurant with them. I’m sure she’s asleep now. She probably dropped off as soon as her head hit the pillow.
My daughter started working at the movie theater. Her first day wasn’t very glamorous. She had to clean out dirty toilets and maintain the women’s restroom most of the day. But, her second day was much more satisfactory. They taught her the background part of the concession stand. She didn’t get to work the register, but she got to make the food. After that day, she said that she wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to eat at a theater again. She said that it wasn’t disgusting how they made things, but they ripped people off. Her first duty was filling the nacho trays with chips. They gave her a whole class on how to arrange the chips so that it looks fuller in the tray using as little as possible. Then, she graduated up to hot dogs, chicken wings, bagel bites and other prepared foods. She didn’t even get to popcorn until she was almost off. She said that she likes the concession stand part of it, but it isn’t as busy as maintaining the theaters. She said that there was constantly a movie ending where they had to go and clean up the seating. She said that the usher part was what kept her more busy than anything else. But, she likes it and I’m sure she will like having a paycheck.
Our computer woes are continuing. My son’s laptop stopped booting, so he brought it over for me to look at. It ended up he had some kind of virus that wiped out his entire hard drive. I ended up having to do a complete restore. So, everything he had on it was gone. He said he didn’t have anything really important except pictures. I think we’re going to get him an external hard drive for Christmas this year. That way he can back up all that stuff onto it in case his computer crashes again. That is what we did with our computers. The kids were always downloading music and movies and stuff. I would come home from work all the time to find out they had inadvertently downloaded a virus. In fact, the girls didn’t have their laptops for more than a few months before they started getting viruses on them. So, I have two externals because we have ten gigs of music and I don’t know how many thousands of pictures. (About ninety percent of which are the baby) We need a new baby we can spoil and take pictures off. But, that might mean that I would have to get another hard drive just for him or her pictures. (My wife goes crazy with the camera and babies) My youngest daughter has been hinting about wanting a Kindle for Christmas. There is a new one out there for only seventy nine dollars. We might think about that for her. My eldest daughter will be home for Christmas, but she’s been gone for so long I don’t know what she’s going to want.
But, the cat is out of the bag. My eldest daughter lost her wallet in Georgia last week. She started carrying it around in a little backpack instead of a purse and left it in a taxi. She called to let us know so we could help her cancel credit cards and request new SSN and driver’s license cards. So, my wife naturally went into her account to make sure that no one had started charging stuff on it. While she was in there, we saw an airport charge. My daughter has been telling us that she was going to stay in Georgia for Thanksgiving because the army wouldn’t let her come out. But, from the amount of the charge, it looks like a round trip ticket. We figured that she was either going to come out and surprise us or she was going to fly her boyfriend out there for the holiday. But today, the cat came out of the bag. Her boyfriend let it slip that she was coming out. We’ll still act surprised, but it is going to be very nice to have her back even if it is just for a few days. She’ll have a four day weekend, so I hope she can spend the entire time out here.
Well, I better get back to work. I’m nearly halfway through the River of Magic. It is coming along very nicely. If I continue to work on it, I should have it finished by the end of November. But, like today, I didn’t get much sleep and don’t really feel like working. Last week I only managed to write one day out of the week. So, I’ll have to put in twice as much effort tomorrow and not let it turn into another week like that. I’m putting Cinderella, White Lion, Scorpions, and Dokken in the playlist tonight. I need something loud to keep me awake and I think those should do it.
Until next week,
-Thom
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Nov 1
http://www.thomnichols.com/
Yes, it’s Tuesday again. I’m going to blame the lateness of this blog on Halloween even though it didn’t have anything to do with it. I was just being lazy on Monday and didn’t even think about it until it was already Tuesday. But, speaking of Halloween, I have a couple of cute antidotes. The first one was when I was taking my granddaughter out trick-or-treating. We had been building it up for weeks. We had her costume about a month in advance. She was beautiful. Naturally, she dressed up as Cinderella. She is a Disney Princess freak. She was Belle last year and she will probably be one of the other ones next year. The kids took her trick-or-treating at the schools. My daughter’s high school was doing it for all of the neighborhood kids and they went to the college. I usually go over to visit my mom on Mondays and then sleep in the evenings so that I can stay awake all night at work on Monday night. So, I cut my visit short so that I could go to sleep in the afternoon and go trick-or-treating with my granddaughter in the early evening. So, I was asleep when they went to the schools. About six o’clock, my daughter and I head down to my son’s house so we could take my granddaughter out. She was still excited. She got a lot of candy already, but she was anxious to get some more. We took her to the very end of the apartment complex and up to the top floor. Our plan was to go around the whole complex in order and hit every door. We trudged up to the top floor and knocked at the first door. A guy with a scary clown mask came to hand out the candy. My granddaughter took one look at him, screamed and started running away crying. She was so upset she wouldn’t go to anymore doors. In one fell swoop, I traumatized my granddaughter for Halloween and clowns, a very productive evening.
Today, my granddaughter came over so that the kids can begin moving stuff over to their new apartment. She woke me up and we were playing for a while. Then, she wanted to watch some cartoons. So, I put them on and went out into the living room. She had a small bag of Halloween candy sitting on the table. I resisted for a loooong time. It had to be at least ten minutes. I started rummaging through it looking for something chocolate. I found a couple of good ones before I heard her little feet bounding toward the living room. Quickly, I threw the bag back onto the table as I stuffed the candy into my pockets. She saw me trying to hide them and knew I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. She faked me out by asking for something to drink. As I was pouring her some tea, she went for my pocket. I almost dropped everything trying to catch her little hand. The only way I could get her to forget about what was in my pocket was to bribe her with a Popsicle. It’s bad when you get busted by a three year old. But, in my defense, she is almost four.
I guess it is time to get the Broncos out of the way. Last week, we suffered through three quarters of booooooring football before we got to the last seven minutes where Tim Tebow pulled off a miraculous comeback to win the game in overtime. Well, this week, we had to suffer through four quarters of bad football to come away with a 45-10 loss. It was so bad, I took a nap through a whole quarter of it only to discover we were farther in the hole than we were when I started my snooze. If you can name it, the Broncos couldn’t do it on Sunday. I don’t want to say Tebow is a bad quarterback, but with his college success, he should be a better quarterback than what he has displayed so far. I know he hasn’t had the practice with the first string guys like he should have had and they threw him in earlier than they would with a normal quarterback. But, come on. We need to do something before next week’s game.
In baseball, the Cardinals took the World Series. The Texans had the series won in game six, but allowed the Cardinals to come back every time the pulled ahead. They took it into extra innings and then lost it. Both teams are really good, and I can hardly wait until next year. (Especially if football is going to be this disastrous)
It looks like everyone is going to be able to call me four eyes again. Yep, I’m going back to glasses. I started wearing them about six or seven years ago. Then, they either stopped working or I broke them or something. Since the kids and my wife all need glasses or contacts, we concentrated on getting them. My wife has worn them since she was a kid and the kids were in school and needed them more than I did. So, it worked out. But now, I have to hold a TV dinner box way out at arm’s length in order to tell how many minutes it needs to cook and what sections I have to cut the film off of. I’m a big reader also, and I’ve had to hold the book farther and farther away lately. So, since we’re paying for the insurance anyway, we might as well use it.
Speaking of glasses, (This is probably why the issue of my glasses came up in the first place) my daughter went on a camping trip over the weekend. She came back with her only pair of glasses broken. She got new ones today. We would have gotten them for her on Monday, but it was Halloween and my wife had to work late. Besides, it was a lot of fun watching her search for something. But, she has some new ones now and she looks good in them. I, on the other hand, am sure I will look like a dork when I get my new ones.
My son and daughter in-law started moving to a new apartment today. I was supposed to go over and help, but my granddaughter woke me up early and my wife had to go get my daughter glasses, so I ended up sleeping in late. They have until Friday to be out of the old place, so I’ll go over and help them tomorrow. I’m sure if we get the big stuff moved, they can get the little stuff. The biggest trouble is getting moving boxes. No one wants to pay for them, so they’ve been hitting up the fast food restaurants. My brother works in one and said he would save him some. But, it was Halloween and they forgot to go get them. (Man, that Halloween is a good excuse for almost everything)
Well, it is snowing out tonight and I don’t really feel like doing anything. So, I better get to work. I’m putting in a bunch of different songs into the playlist. I’m choosing them on the basis of if I would put them in a list of my top one hundred favorites. (That is a hard thing to come up with by the way)
-Thom
Yes, it’s Tuesday again. I’m going to blame the lateness of this blog on Halloween even though it didn’t have anything to do with it. I was just being lazy on Monday and didn’t even think about it until it was already Tuesday. But, speaking of Halloween, I have a couple of cute antidotes. The first one was when I was taking my granddaughter out trick-or-treating. We had been building it up for weeks. We had her costume about a month in advance. She was beautiful. Naturally, she dressed up as Cinderella. She is a Disney Princess freak. She was Belle last year and she will probably be one of the other ones next year. The kids took her trick-or-treating at the schools. My daughter’s high school was doing it for all of the neighborhood kids and they went to the college. I usually go over to visit my mom on Mondays and then sleep in the evenings so that I can stay awake all night at work on Monday night. So, I cut my visit short so that I could go to sleep in the afternoon and go trick-or-treating with my granddaughter in the early evening. So, I was asleep when they went to the schools. About six o’clock, my daughter and I head down to my son’s house so we could take my granddaughter out. She was still excited. She got a lot of candy already, but she was anxious to get some more. We took her to the very end of the apartment complex and up to the top floor. Our plan was to go around the whole complex in order and hit every door. We trudged up to the top floor and knocked at the first door. A guy with a scary clown mask came to hand out the candy. My granddaughter took one look at him, screamed and started running away crying. She was so upset she wouldn’t go to anymore doors. In one fell swoop, I traumatized my granddaughter for Halloween and clowns, a very productive evening.
Today, my granddaughter came over so that the kids can begin moving stuff over to their new apartment. She woke me up and we were playing for a while. Then, she wanted to watch some cartoons. So, I put them on and went out into the living room. She had a small bag of Halloween candy sitting on the table. I resisted for a loooong time. It had to be at least ten minutes. I started rummaging through it looking for something chocolate. I found a couple of good ones before I heard her little feet bounding toward the living room. Quickly, I threw the bag back onto the table as I stuffed the candy into my pockets. She saw me trying to hide them and knew I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. She faked me out by asking for something to drink. As I was pouring her some tea, she went for my pocket. I almost dropped everything trying to catch her little hand. The only way I could get her to forget about what was in my pocket was to bribe her with a Popsicle. It’s bad when you get busted by a three year old. But, in my defense, she is almost four.
I guess it is time to get the Broncos out of the way. Last week, we suffered through three quarters of booooooring football before we got to the last seven minutes where Tim Tebow pulled off a miraculous comeback to win the game in overtime. Well, this week, we had to suffer through four quarters of bad football to come away with a 45-10 loss. It was so bad, I took a nap through a whole quarter of it only to discover we were farther in the hole than we were when I started my snooze. If you can name it, the Broncos couldn’t do it on Sunday. I don’t want to say Tebow is a bad quarterback, but with his college success, he should be a better quarterback than what he has displayed so far. I know he hasn’t had the practice with the first string guys like he should have had and they threw him in earlier than they would with a normal quarterback. But, come on. We need to do something before next week’s game.
In baseball, the Cardinals took the World Series. The Texans had the series won in game six, but allowed the Cardinals to come back every time the pulled ahead. They took it into extra innings and then lost it. Both teams are really good, and I can hardly wait until next year. (Especially if football is going to be this disastrous)
It looks like everyone is going to be able to call me four eyes again. Yep, I’m going back to glasses. I started wearing them about six or seven years ago. Then, they either stopped working or I broke them or something. Since the kids and my wife all need glasses or contacts, we concentrated on getting them. My wife has worn them since she was a kid and the kids were in school and needed them more than I did. So, it worked out. But now, I have to hold a TV dinner box way out at arm’s length in order to tell how many minutes it needs to cook and what sections I have to cut the film off of. I’m a big reader also, and I’ve had to hold the book farther and farther away lately. So, since we’re paying for the insurance anyway, we might as well use it.
Speaking of glasses, (This is probably why the issue of my glasses came up in the first place) my daughter went on a camping trip over the weekend. She came back with her only pair of glasses broken. She got new ones today. We would have gotten them for her on Monday, but it was Halloween and my wife had to work late. Besides, it was a lot of fun watching her search for something. But, she has some new ones now and she looks good in them. I, on the other hand, am sure I will look like a dork when I get my new ones.
My son and daughter in-law started moving to a new apartment today. I was supposed to go over and help, but my granddaughter woke me up early and my wife had to go get my daughter glasses, so I ended up sleeping in late. They have until Friday to be out of the old place, so I’ll go over and help them tomorrow. I’m sure if we get the big stuff moved, they can get the little stuff. The biggest trouble is getting moving boxes. No one wants to pay for them, so they’ve been hitting up the fast food restaurants. My brother works in one and said he would save him some. But, it was Halloween and they forgot to go get them. (Man, that Halloween is a good excuse for almost everything)
Well, it is snowing out tonight and I don’t really feel like doing anything. So, I better get to work. I’m putting in a bunch of different songs into the playlist. I’m choosing them on the basis of if I would put them in a list of my top one hundred favorites. (That is a hard thing to come up with by the way)
-Thom
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