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Thursday, October 13, 2016

Monday, September 12, 2016

happy monday to me

It's been tough finding the time and/or energy to keep up with this blog, but I'm still pretty active on twitter if you want to keep up with me. Here's a little update on whats been going on.


So my kids have gotten so big and so smart. It's still amazing to watch them learn and grown every day. They're not without their challenges and there's days I want to pull my hair out, but I wouldn't change it for the world.


Big news time:
I reserved my ticket for CAPCON 2017! I'm so excited to join the community for what will end up being a weekend of very interesting experiences. I've read a bunch of posts and recaps of years past, but I'm still not sure what to expect. I'm thankful that a good AB friend of mine is willing to share a room with me and show me the ropes. Should be interesting.


I had a rather scary and expensive morning so far. On my way to work I all of a sudden felt what I thought was my front tire bursting, followed by a grinding as I drove in bumper to bumper traffic. Thankfully I was able to quickly pull to the side of the highway and inspect the damage. To my surprise there was no damage to my tire or rim which left me puzzled.

I could barely make out any damage in the darkness of early morning, even aided by my cell phone light. (can you even call the thing on my pocket a phone anymore?) I got back in my car and texted my wife, who was still sleeping as it was 5:45 in the morning. "Something broke on my car" was all I wrote, I didn't know else to say. I really didn't have any more information to share.

We had a brief conversation about how to get a tow truck through our chosen armed services financial institution, and hung up. A police car pulled as we hung up and I reiterated my confusion and lack of information with "Something broke on my car." He seemed puzzled and took a look himself. After driving forward a couple feet he determined my brake pad had exploded and said he would help me off the highway to a gas station.

After parking and looking again, his description seemed correct, so I found a garage next to the nearest train station so I could still get to work. The grinding stopped after I felt and heard some more metallic stuff break off my wheel. I'm not sure if this was good or bad, but for some reason I felt better about driving it and considered driving into work and dealing with it later. My wife advised against it and I pulled into the mechanic's parking lot. I snapped the following picture and felt considerable worse about my situation.


That would be the head, I believe they called it, completely free from the rest of the rotor. I had to wait almost an hour for the mechanic to open, but when he finally looked at it, he was rather surprised. Apparently this is very rare, especially since they determined it was caused by heat and stress, and not a physical object.

Yay me.

I left it with them and caught a train to work. I was only 90 minutes late, but I was supposed to be teching a show this morning so my director had to cover. Not terrible, but lost hours means lost money. And lost hours due to a problem costing lots of money is an issue.

The not so fun part came later when the mechanic called and of course tried to sell me on a ton of stuff I didn't need, and couldn't afford. He said there was some visible stress fractures on the other front rotor and suggested at least replacing both along with my nearly dead pads. I agreed and should have a fixed car by the time I leave work.

Happy Monday to me.

Monday, June 13, 2016

the strangest thing that's ever been inside my diaper

This article started with a question posed during the Big Little Podcast Diaper Show Part 2. I asked this question to my twitter followers and got some pretty awesome answers including, plugs, food, someone else's pee, and bubble wrap. Anyway, on to my answer for what the strangest thing that has ever been in my diaper.

The strangest thing that has ever been inside my diaper is not even close to what you'd imagine. In the beginning of my obsession with diapers I used to make them out of anything I could get my hands on. I remember being about six years old and having a wooden toy, fairly gun-shaped, that of course was used as a gun during many of my childhood imagination play sessions, ie the beginning of Toy Story 3.

Well, I was also experimenting with different ways of making diapers because I was too young to buy any. Of course, at this point in my life, I don't think buying any was even in the back of my mind. I didn't even really understand what was going on, and I didn't really realize they made diapers for adults. I did use to steal some from my grandmother's stash of baby diapers for my cousins, of which there are now 30, and the youngest is currently about 25 years younger than me, but I digress.

One of the things I used to make my own diaper was one of the blankets we kept on the living room couch, I'm currently sitting next to that very same blanket actually. Why can't I ever buy anything that lasts this long? I digress again. So I found some comically large safety pins in my house and used them to fasten the blanket around me as if it was a diaper. Since it was a blanket that the whole family used to keep ourselves warm while watching TV, I couldn't just pee in it or anything, so I had to improvise.

Well one thing led to another and my improvisation turned towards simulating a messy diaper. I don't know how it happened, or what my thought process was, but one day I decided to try that wooden toy gun looking thing. I strapped on my blanket diaper and stuck that wooden toy down the back of it.

The funny thing about that is, well I guess there's a lot of funny things about this, but I remember liking it so much that I did it once in awhile for years. I kind of wish I knew where that wooden toy was today, but I'm sure it got thrown away years ago. Probably for the best.

Saturday, May 7, 2016

mother. in. law. in. town. day 5

All the tickets

Today is my sisters boyfriend's birthday. We work up around the normal 730 am to the lovely cries of my youngest wanting to be let out of her crib. She's smart enough and agile enough to climb out herself, but we put her in a sleeping bag at night to keep her warm. She likes to roll around and throw the blankets off so she used to wake up freezing during the winter.

My wife spent a good amount of time today doing homework while I brought the kids outside to play. My oldest was sad that there was no more snow, but she tried sledding down the backyard anyway. Obviously she didn't get very far, but it gave me a good workout pushing her down the grassy hill, and pulling her back up again to keep the dream alive.

I feel like I checked the time about a hundred times hoping it was time bronco to my sister's boyfriend's birthday party. We were meeting my parents and my sister and her boyfriend at a local sports bar/fun center for dinner before we would part she in the "fun center" portion of location. This place is pretty sweet actually. Good food and a bunch of arcade games, along with a small big ball bowling alley in the back. The best part of this situation is that my mother-in-law (MiL) offered to take the kids home after dinner so my wife and I could enjoy ourselves.

Dinner was hectic, but you kind of expect that when you're eating with 2 toddlers. After dinner we showed the kids the games and let my oldest push a bunch of buttons. She was excited but had no idea what she was really doing, or have any idea she was winning. She probably doesn't even understand what winning is yet. Anyway, she pushed a bunch of buttons and some tickets came out, but she was on to the next game before even registering tickets were dispensed.

Eventually we had to be the mean parents and put the kids in a car to go home while we got to stay and play. My youngest was just happy to be sitting and sucking her thumb. My oldest was very unhappy about the situation, but parents need breaks sometimes.

After the kids left we bowled a couple games with 5 other people, and about 8 spectators. It was a busy lane. I won the bowling overall, but that's not surprising since I basically free up in my grandfather's bowling alley. My whole family is pretty good; my mom was even in a tournament on tv.

After the bowling the real action happened. The 6 of us who were left started playing the arcade games. I watched as my sister and her boyfriend played Jurassic Park for probably 10 minutes, or maybe I should describe the time elapsed by how much money was spent. My sister and her boyfriend played Jurassic Park for about $20. We later moved on to games you can win tickets from. Or, as I like to call them, games you can win imaginary currency from that you won't end up spending on anything interesting, if at all. One of our first big wins of the night was Deal or No Deal. My sister and I doubled up at the beginning and walked away with the winning case, and a cool 400 tickets!



That was my pick from the start, my sister was a little hesitant, but I held strong. After that amazing win, my sister's boyfriend and his friends cleaned up the jackpots from 4 other games before we finally called it quits around 12:30 am.

Our ingenious plan was to have my mother-in-law take our kids home in my car, and we would get a ride home with my sister and her boyfriend. We figured we could drink as much as we wanted and didn't have to worry about driving home. Well, we were both about done with being there by 11pm, and my wife didn't end up drinking because she wasn't feeling too well. So we stayed out way longer than we wanted to for basically no reason. Oh well, live and learn, then get Luvs.

Monday, May 2, 2016

mother. in. law. in. town. day 4

No padding is sexy now

Thankfully it's Friday. I went in super early this morning and got out at 1pm. I ended up meeting my wife, kids and mother-in-law (MiL) at a Japanese restaurant near the local mall. This would have been a great time for a late lunch, but I had already eaten at work before I left. I work in a hotel in Boston so I get free food every day. I wouldn't pass up the amazing chicken parmesan they make.

The restaurant we went to was one of those hot pot restaurants where you order a large bowl of broth and a bunch of raw ingredients. You then cook the ingredients in the broth on a stove top burner in the center of your table. It makes this amazing soup/stew concoction that always tastes amazing.

Anyway, after lunch we spent a few hours walking around the mall. My wife needed some new clothes, my kids needed new shoes, and we wanted to get ideas for my oldest's 3rd birthday in a month. Speaking of my oldest daughter, she is adorable, and very smart. She also can navigate an escalator without hesitation or help. She doesn't, however, quite understand that escalators only go in one direction. Well, she might understand now after I spent what felt like 5 minutes explaining it to her at the mall.

See, the down escalator was broken, insert Mitch Hedberg joke here, so after we rode the escalator up to the second floor, my daughter decided she had to go back and see her mommy immediately. Since she didn't quite grasp the idea that an escalator was a bit different than a regular set of stairs, she proceeded to turn right around and try to go down the up side. I had to drag her away kicking and screaming as she tripped trying to get her feet on the moving stairs. It took a few minutes of explaining, but she finally agreed to go with me to find a working down escalator or elevator. Some day later I'll tell her about adolescent daddy who used to run up and down the opposite side of the mall escalator with his friends. Best not mention it now.

We eventually found my wife and MiL and found our way to Victoria's Secret where I saw this new promo in the store window. I can't say it's not correct, but hey padding is definitely sexy!



After leaving the mall, our afternoon was fairly uneventful and there was no talk of last night's events. My MiL did mention that she has my birthday present to give to me early because she won't be around for my actual birthday. So that should be pretty good. She's a good present giver.

mother. in. law. in. town. day 3

Just butting in

I was up and out of the house real early today. After an 11 hour day, I got home around 8. My wife called me soon after, having just left class, suggesting that we go out when she got home. I had to decline because I needed to get up at 4am the next morning. At this point, my alarm would be going off in about 7.5 hours. 

I took a seat on the couch to watch a bit of the Red Sox with my dad and mother-in-law (MiL). My wife got home soon after and I knew something was wrong. She was dressed pretty nice. It's not that her dressing nice is wrong, far from it, it was that she had dressed nice to go out with me. I only turned her down because I had to be at work at 6am. So she quickly went upstairs to change and my MiL came over to me on the couch. 

"You should go see your wife, she went up stairs crying because if you. She said. 

"Holy shit." I mouthed to myself. She was doing her typical butting in the middle of things that aren't her business. 

I hate when she does this. 

My wife was already changed when I got upstairs. I apologized for not being able to go out tonight and she seemed ok with the sitiation, albeit still sad. I went to bed after and started to wonder just how long I had to put up with this. 

Thursday, April 28, 2016

mother. in. law. in. town. day 2

An unusual phone call.

This morning was rather uneventful. It was actually nice to have my mother-in law (MiL) around to help entertain the kids so they don't get themselves in trouble. I left for work around 930am and that was that.

I din't hear anything from home during the day, but I got what should have been unusual phone call on the ride home, but it was all too familiar with my MiL around.

Soon after I got on the highway in Boston my mother called me. The call started with the usual pleasantries, where are you (she also works in Boston but takes the train half way home), how's traffic, good luck driving because it's a parking lot around here. There was a slight pause in the conversation, you know the pause where someone should say goodbye now but they don't, so you awkwardly wait for something to happen. The worst is when one person startes saying "Well I should get going now..." right as the person on the other line starts asking you a new question, hoping to keep you on the line a little longer, but I digress.

After a brief pause my mother asks "So is everything ok with (your wife) and (your MiL)?"

Oh god I thought, it begins. "Umm, yeah as far as I know. Why? What's up?" Hoping it's nothing major. I always hate walking into a fight that I know nothing of. Believe me, I've done that way too much in my life since I met my MiL.

"Oh nothing really," THANK GOD "she's just TMI all the time, you know?" That's a really good way to describe her actually. Why didn't I think of that.

"Yeah everything is ok I think. I haven't heard anything from (my wife) all day." I replied, trying to make myself feel better about my inevitable bad time.

The inflection in my mother's voice worried me. I felt like there was something she wasn't telling me and I was going to walk into a shit storm when I got home.

I pulled in the driveway as my nanny was pulling out. I was glad to know my kids were asleep. I love my kids and I miss them when I'm working all day, but it's nice not to have that added responsibility sometimes. I know my fellow parents can attest to that. I had a lot on my mind as I entered the house. What could have happened today? What will I walk into? What crazy TMI was my MiL sharing today?

I walked in, greeted everyone, and quickly went up stairs to change. Since I wear a suit and tie to work everyday, I wanted to be in comfortable clothes to face the shit sandwich I was about to be fed.

Well I wasn't fed a shit sandwich. I was fed left over Chinese food while we discussed the so so quality, lack of boneless spare ribs, and too high a price. My wife came home in the middle of this discussion and stated she had a ton of homework to do, but wanted to play a round of a new card game we just got, Funemployed, before she started.

That's an excellent idea! I thought to myself. The last thing we need to do is sit around and discuss whatever happened that my mom was worried about.

We all went down stairs and laid out the game. It's a great game, if you haven't heard of it. It's very similar to another game we play called Snake Oil. Anyway, each person takes a turn being a hiring manager and draws a job card. The other players have to chose 3 of their qualification cards, from their hand, and play them as their best qualifications for this position. Of course these are more detrimental than beneficial in some cases, and I'll link you a video of a hysterical playthrough here.

So we played this game for at least 90 minutes and it was hilarious! Bonus: turns out my wife has no idea what my mother was talking about. She is no more weird than normal. Yay...i guess.