So proud

Powerkitten has her state honors band the rest of this week. It's gonna be an awesome experience for her. I'm very excited and very proud. She's kind of nervous and dreading it, but I think she'll have fun. I can't wait to go to her concert Sat. night.

I'm still here!

Sorry, but I've been super busy and really stressed and they blocked all blog access at work. Maxim mag, too. Most of my fav sites. Bastards. More later.

It's almost Hump Day!!!!!!

Yes! Halfway to the weekend!!!!! I can't wait. I get my taxes done tomorrow night. I hope I'm going to get as much back as last yr. I should spend it on hookers and booze. I won't of course, but I think it would help me out more than anything else would. I hate being a good responsible person. Of course I will be spending at least a little of it on booze. Speaking of which; I have a new fav drink. Don't laugh but I LOVE a good bloody mary. I had many Friday night. YUMMY! Good buzz, too. I've been doing great the last two weeks going to the gym as much as possible. I am feeling awesome. I must admit I'm looking much better as well. It's a work in progress, but I'm very happy with the progress so far. Bill is pretty sick this week. She'll miss her 3rd day of school tomorrow. I took her to the Dr today. She has an upper respitory bug. She's on antibiotics now. She's running a pretty nasty fever and that is very, very odd for her. It's killing her that she can't sing. Poor kid. I wish I could do more for her. She's my tuff girl, she'll be back to normal in a few days. I don't have the kids this weekend and I really wanted to party and enjoy both nights, but now I'm chaperoning the band's 1st ever movie night. Not quite what I had in mind, but it will be fun, just sobber. Then Powerkitten is goingto spend the night at home. I still may go out after that. There are bloody mary's to be drank! Maybe a loose woman to pursue.

Hi

Sorry I haven't posted in over a week. I've been busy and tired. Nothing really new going on.
I've been reading, too. One of the best things I have ever read was a little book I read the other night. "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. It's a lot like the video of his "Last Lecture" but different enough to be worthwhile. Well, everything about it is worthwhile. God took a hell of a man when he called him home. I wish I could have known him. Everyone should read it. One of my fav parts was when he said that everyone basically has one of two personallity types. You are either an Eyore or a Tigger. God help me I have always been a Tigger and I think for the most part I still am. Lately though I do find myself being more of the Eyore type. I need to work on that. Only Tiggers can make a whole year their bitch!
I did do my good deed for the week though. Dulcinea was talking to me about a boy who is crazy about her. She is afraid she might be falling for him, too. She wanted my opinions on some things related to that. I took the road I should have taken and talked to her as the person she needs me to be in her life, not the person I wish I was but shouldn't be. So now I think she has a BF because I have hardly heard a word from her since. I hope she is happy and that he is good to her. He'd better be,I'm big enough to snap him like a twig if he isn't.
To all my Iggles fans, I'm sorry your team isn't in the Super Bowl. Not real sorry though. Sorry. I am shocked the Cardinals got there.
To my fav SCB in Germany; I love you and miss you. I am so very happy that you are having fun and doing the things you really want to do. Do me one fav though: Keep singing! Sing every damn day. On a stage or on a bus. In an opera house or in a train station. When you are on that bike going thru Europe, sing as loud as you can from a mountain top just for me.
Speaking of singing, Bill (Kid2) has a song she loves to sing loud and proud. I need to video tape it and put it on YouTube. It's the kind of song that makes every father proud of their 13 yr old daughter. It's the kind of song that when people hear her singing it, they want to rush out and make me father of the year because I have let my daughter hear the song, let alone memorize it and sing it. (she found it and learned it before I'd ever heard the song.) You need to look up other people singing it. From "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" she has mastered the song "My Unfortunate Erection". Nobody on youtube sings it as well as my 13 yr old daughter. Yup, it's true. It makes me a worse parent than letting her sing songs from "Avenue Q". I will say that Powerkitten and her do sing a wicked duet of "If You Were Gay" but I wish they'd quit singing it to me!

It's too fucking cold and other ramblings.

It's so FUCKING COLD! I HATE COLD!! I HATE WINTER!!! This winter is so crazy, one day it's 50, the next it's 9. Too up and down, even for Kansas weather. I am starting to think this means we are going to have a crazy assed tornado season this spring.

Kid1 has still not come down to earth. I am so proud of her. She amazes me with how good she is. Since last yr she has really started to develop a hell of a work ethic on her music. She's going to need it now. It's funny how most people, esp at the school, don't realize how hard these kids work. I'll give you a glimpse of her life for the spring and all this is on top of school. Mon. nights she has her clarinet lesson. She'll mainly focus on her state solo music then. Tue and Thur she'll practice with her pianist for her state solo. She has started working on the music the HS band has for state competition. Her local honors band meets every Sun and she has their music to work on. (That is the one she will slack off on a little.) In early March she has a scholarship audition. Now she has her state honors band music to work on. She will really want to be good on that. The last week of Feb she will spend 2 1/2 days working with that band and then they will have their concert. First week of Apr she has reg solo comp and three weeks later she should be at state. Oh, and at the solo comp she is in a clarinet choir and a woodwind ensemble, both of which she is incharge of so she picks the music, who's in it and schedules practices. Oh, and she's in jazz band where she's learning tenor sax. Plus there is a Sat at the local college where tons of clarinetists will gather for a workshop. Don't forget to throw her first prom in there. I think that's it. I'm exhausted just typing it. The only two things I put anywhere near that much work into at her age was basketball and drinking. Mainly the drinking.

Do you know why Ken and Barbie have never had kids? Ken comes in a different box.

So who has big exciting plans for the weekend? Eagles fans can't count watching that joke of a NFC championship game. Somebody has got to be having a great time doing something. Preferrably somewhere WARM!!!

I had something I wanted to say at this point, but I don't remember what it was. Oh well. It will all work out.

Kid1 is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll keep this short because it's the middle of the night and I should have been in bed two hrs ago.
Very short version: Kid1 is 4th chair in the state music educator's honors band! Excited doesn't describe either of us right now. I'll probably post more later.

Internet friends and other things.

I'm glad the week is over. It's been a challenging one. Ups and downs but mostly downs.

The biggest part of it was the loss of my friend/coworkers mother. It's been an up and down 6 months for her and the last few weeks have been brutal on Jim. She passed away late Tue night. I feel so bad for him. He knows it's for the best and he is glad she's not suffering. It's been hard watching him go thru all this and I have felt so bad I couldn't do more for him. Then the funeral was Sat. and due to Kid1's audition I couldn't go. I feel like crap for that. He understands, but still. My mom did fix 6 pounds of meatloaf and 3 pounds of scalloped patatos for his family dinner today.

Him being gone so much has made work a challenge. With him gone so much I have been trying to keep up with my stuff and as much as his as I could. It's been pretty stressfull. I think I did a decent enough job at it all. We'll see.

Of course there was Kid1's big audition yesterday. She really wanted this one. I thought she had done a great job preparing for it. She's worked pretty hard. I thought she was pretty calm and ready to go yesterday. As we sat outside the room we heard so many kids go in there and sound like shit. I mean, these are honors musicians and they should sound great. There a few that were before her that literally sounded like beginners. They sucked. So she went in the first room to play the prepared piece. (In the 1st room you play the same prepared piece. In the 2nd room they play the chromatic scale, the days selected scale and sight read. You go by # and not name and never see or talk to the judges.) She went in the 1st room and I listened thru the door with 20 other kids getting ready to go. She NAILED the first part of the song. A couple of kids commented on how awesome it was. So I walked down to the 2nd room. (I have a hard time listening to her at these things. I get really nervous.) When she came out of the room she was damn near in tears. According to her, she nailed the 1st part, took a deep breath while thinking she was really "on" and then the nerves and the shakes hit and she really blew the rest of it. She is very hard on herself, so I don't know how bad it really was. So she went in the 2nd room and I listened to her play the chromatic scale. Her best scale. She's awesome, most days. Yeah, this time she played it like she was back in 6th grade. She did a good 2nd scale (G) and nailed the sight reading. She came out shaking and near tears. So we went back to the gym and got her stuff as she beat herself up. We got to the doors to go outside and I took her tag off and told her to scream, cry, yell or whatever before I open the doors, because once we go out them it's done. I took her to get ice cream and we drove to the Russell Stovers factory store and then the 1 1/2 hours home. We got fat and laughed and had an awesome time. She really is one of my best friends ever. It was a longgggggggggg and stressful day but sonce we shared it, it was all good.

So Saturday night after taking Kid1 to hermom's I had planned all week on drinking. By the time I was headed home I was so tired I thought it wasn't gonna happen. I stopped and bought some wave runners on the way home though. I thought 1 would knock me out. No, 1 woke me up and made me thirsty. I drank #2 while fixing my dinner. In 3 hrs I had drank all 6. Not having more, not being tired and not wanting to drive to the store I then started on irish whiskey. Jameson's. I think I had 1/3 of the big bottle. I felt great. Slept like a drunken baby. Woke up with my first hangover in a long time. it kind of sucked.

I had some stuff to do all day before getting the girls. But then mid afternoon I got a call from Dulcinea. She wanted to go to lunch. So I took her to lunch at a nice Chinese place I'd never been before. It was awesome. We had a nice visit. Very up and up. I maintained the relationship that I should with her. Then the fortune cookies came. I held them out and let her pick. Her fortune was cute and a good idea. The whole add the line "in bed" before or after didn't work too well with her's and I didn't bring that game up with her either. Then I read mine. I had to bite my tongue not to laugh. On the back in big letters it said "DRINK" then I read the fortune "Bide your time, for sucess is near." I kid you not. I didn't even think of the "in bed" thing. I read this line sitting across the booth from Dulcinea. Under my breath I said "OMG" or something like that. She asked what i said and I brushed it off as nothing and changed the subject.

Then to end my week I learned tonight that a friend of mine finally lost a long and brave battle with cancer. She is one of those people that I have never met in person, but I have known for a few yrs on this contraption. A kind and wonderful human being who lived life to it's fullest. The adventures she had in her 20' and 30's are amazing. I wish she'd have written a book. It would make an awesome movie. She is the kind of person who touched everyone who ever met her, be it online or in person. She made such an impression on me the last few yrs. Then her battle to the very end has been inspirational. I feel her loss as much as I would somebody close to me that I see every day. I never thought that it would be possible to feel feelings like that for someone you never met in "real life" untill I lost a very good friend at Christmas last yr. I am sure he was the first person there to greet this woman today. I'm sure they are hiking on some awesome trail right now and enjoying the other side. God bless them both.

Friday night the pep band had 80's night. I thought I'd post a pic on me while I fed them dinner.