Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can feel Ireland. Even though I have lived more of my life here in the United States, a huge part of who I am and “how” I am is from those roots of my up-bringing. A child growing up in Ireland from 1978 to 1990, and a child growing up in America from 1978 to 1990 have two complete different perspectives on the world. There is a culture gap I missed out on. Movies, Music, TV Shows and School. You might think three of the four things I listed would be weird things to point out, but a lot of kids here were raised on this stuff. Espically TV and Movies.

I think I saw maybe five movies the whole time I was in Ireland. Two of them were in the theater. “The Jewel of the Nile” and “Santa Clause” in 1985.

Music, well….I was a huge Michael Jackson fan, that didn’t go over so well for my cool factor when I moved here. They forgave me because I had an accent, so I quickly bought Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer, ohhh Yeah, now I was cool. TV Shows were more for grownups so I didn’t watch them much at all.

Dressing was an issue for me. I learned that mistake when I wore the same shirt to school two days in a row. “Excuse me if I currently only have five shirts to my name. I just came from the other side of the world and carried a set of encyclopedias onto a plane instead of an extra pair of pants!” By day three I switched it up and I wore my Irish football jersey to school, and some kid said, “Are you trying to be like that Irish dude?” I was like “there’s another Irish person here! Oh thank God! Where is he!?” but I was the Irish “dude”. Another good rule to follow is to not ask the guy in front of you for a “rubber” not unless you want to get the strangest look ever. In America it is called an “eraser”, good to know.

Some words I learned pretty quick that I had never used before in a sentence were, “butt, gross, yall, cool, bad, nasty, and duh, don’t have a cow, and Man” everything was “Man” aww man, cool man, ok man, sure man, your such a dork man, ohh yeah, “dork” that was a new one, and instantly I knew I was one. Crap! (crap was a new word also).

The Pledge of Allegiance was another new thing for me. A kid in my class wrote it down for me so I could read along in the morning. In Ireland we would say the Lords Prayer each day. I just thought this was the American version of that. One thing had defiantly not changed, American students say the pledge with about as much enthusiasm as Irish kids say the Lords Prayer.

I really had a lot of catching up to do, and some days were more painful then others, but I would not change any of those experiences for anything in the world. Like I said, it’s a huge part of “who” and “how” I am today, and I think I turned out OK, Maaaaan.

Im too tired to blog about it.

And I mean that in the best way possible. Last week I had the most amazing, I mean AMAZING! Chicken Cordon Blue lunch that anyone could ever ask for. It really is hard being a Network Technician to a school system with over 10,000 computers, and last week I had just about had enough of ctrl-alt-del this! function F4 that! and right click your mama what? So out of nowhere I get a pleasant little surprise phone call from my “favorite sister-in-law ever!” for an invitation to lunch at her house. “Well heck ya!” I say and I promptly show up to eat lunch, and hang out with my nephews. I have always been a big fan of the crock-pot, but Danyelle took the crock-pot experience to a whole other level, a tender breast of chicken wrapped in ham! and a delicious sauce that made me want to slap my momma! This is every “man who is married to a vegetarian” dream come true! I woofed it down, but was too polite to ask for more, because she has four hungry boys to feed and I had better not push my luck, but I was honored to have been given this glorious treat of a lunch. It was exactly what I needed to get me through the rest of my day, double clicking and undeleting the many, many work orders of the day. Thanks so much Danyelle!

Put that in your crockpot and smoke it!

P.S. Amy, Kelly and Jennifer, you are also my favorites!

This blog entry is sponsored by Domino’s! (for no apparent reason, it’s just funny)

If your family throws a party and calls it a “Meat Hole Party”.
You just might be a redneck.

If you are asked to bring your own shovel to the party, because it’s required!
You might be a redneck.

If the hole digging part of the party gets cancelled and you just eat a great big pile of meat instead.
You might be a redneck.

Ok, so we are all not rednecks, but we sure do know how to party down like some!

What on earth is a BiScunkie you might ask? Well its this delicious new Biscuit\Scone\Cookie Amy made and Jackie named. Jackie got to taste these amazing little treats 2 days ago, and then thought it would be fun to torture me with how great they were and eat them all before allowing me to enjoy. So I placed a special order with Amy the master cook for my very own batch. Amy said they were an accident, I say they are the work of a genius. I think Amy might be on to something with these little jems. Anyway BiScunkie is the word of the week, so giddyup!

So we took a little trip on down to Cocoa Beach this past weekend, the trip down is always a long one, because we always leave at about 4pm. We took a different way down this time, that took about 30 miles off the drop, but no time saved. There were lots of nice little towns on the way down. During one point Jackie and I had just swapped out driving because she does not like to drive at night. As we merge onto the on ramp we find ourselves in a sticky situation. 2 trucks and 2 bikes ahead of us are unable to merge, so get run off the road. The bikes gun it out in front of an 18 wheeler that we are fighting to merge with, then all of a sudden the 18 wheeler starts to jack knife, there is smoke and gasps from all, Jennifer breaks into prayer in the back seat, and Jackie just keeps informing me how bad this situation is about to get. We can laugh about it now, because we are all safe, thank God, but in the moment it was a little scary. No one hit anyone and all finally found a lane to be in.

I was reminded of all the times when we would go on Family trips, mom would open up her bottle of Holy Water she kept in the glove compartment, and she would just start flinging it around the inside of the car, there was no warning, just BAM!! Holy water in the eye! there would be little beads of water on the windows like it rained, but inside the car. We did not have Holy Water Friday night, but we were being watched over.

Florida was a blast, we soaked it up in the pool and hot tub out back, took a stroll down along the beach and at the mall. The weekend was a smashing time, and a good Birthday time spent with mom and dad.

Today is my Mom’s birthday! So as promised I would do a limerick for everyone on their Birthday. My mom will be the 1st to kick this new tradition off, so mom here is your Birthday Limerick!

I currently have a mother named Lorna
who used to live right round the corna
she raised me well even though I gave her hell
and now she soaks up the sun down in Florida

We love and miss you lots!
Love, All of us!

So when I last left you all I was on my way to the Orthopedic Specialist because my wrist was hurting. It all started last week when I noticed it being a little sore to do simple things like turn on the shower or tie my show lace. I ignored it and just played it off as a little sprain or something like that. Well as the week went by and the moving took place I woke up Tuesday night with the most horrible pain in my wrist and was unable to bend or really move it much at all. I went to the doctor and he informed me that I have fractured my Scaphoid Bone in my wrist. It does not show up on the x-ray, because this bone is tricky to see in a two-dimensional image. All I know is it hurts like a mother-nard! This bone is commonly broken in people from the ages of 20-30 and ten times more likely to be broken in men. It is also one of the hardest bones to heal due to it being one of the hardest bones to break. So I have to wear this splint/brace for two weeks and go back to get another x-ray. So how did I get this injury you might ask? Well I thought I got it moving, but I remember it hurting during the move, then I remembered the two little buggers and their famous last words, “Uncle Greg, throw me again!” I think it was the E-man who did it, he is just getting to big, and we played pretty rough last week in the pool we had fun though! Sorry E but your tossing into the pool by Uncle Greg days are over. For a wonderful educational break down of the Scaphoid bone head on over to this link.

So last night after having a long and rough day Jackie and I decide we were too tired to cook and would like to just go out to eat, so it was a toss up between Fuddruckers and Cracker Barrel. We went to the cracker. I really wanted a nice big juicy hamburger, with bacon and cheese, so that’s what I order. 40 minutes later we are given some biscuits to hold us over. 40 MINUTES! Ok, so now I’m cranky, as if I was not already cranky, I was turning into the Angry Dizzy Hulk. So finally here comes my food, woohoo a great big juicy hamburger with seared sourdough bread, just how I want it. As my plate touches the table, I see my burger, but there is no bun, no lettuce, no tomato, no mayo, no nothing! I look up at the waitress and said ” are you serious? no bun?” In my mind I am thinking, who on Gods green earth orders a big nice fat juicy hamburger with no bun? So they bring me a bun, about 5 minutes later, but now its just cold, and the meat tastes funny, so I have convinced myself that this lo-carb meat (which is what they gave me, do I look like I need lo-carbs?) I tell the manager it tastes funny, I do not like lo-carbed meat, he insists that they use 100% big fat juicy cows just like the rest of the burgers they make. Whatever dude, this aint no bubba burger I can tell you that right now.

Ohh and one more thing, “Operation Bust Your Butt” has developed a new injury, I seem to be unable to bend my wrist today, it looks like I may have a bad sprain, so off to the doctors I go today, go me!

Ok I am done moaning now, thanks for listening.

Sooooooo, we moved homes. It was a total spur of the moment thing, its like when you see something you like and just know that it will be very difficult to come across something like this again so you have to jump at the opportunity. So there you have it, new house, new school year, things are just in full swing. “Operation Bust Your Butt” really started last Monday when Jackie and I made about two dozen trips in the little pickup truck and brought over what we could over during the week. Then on Saturday morning at 7:30am I picked up “the beast!” a 24 foot UHAUL truck. To make it even more fun this gigantic truck was a stick shift! So as I get into this bad boy I notice that the stick shift is like 6 feet long, it was like pole vaulting and driving at the same time! It also didn’t have a 4th gear; I just had to skip that gear when I got to it. Oh and 1st gear was reverse. I loved that truck, we really bonded. The one set back in moving was when I dropped the huge 100 year old dining room table on my big toe! I felt a new level of pain I had yet to experience, I saw spots and said lots of things about Holy MOnkies, and Blinking Nora’s. It is fine now, just has a nice color to it. In record timing we were able to move a house and unload into a new house by 10:30am. That is a 3 hour moving record. HGTV would be proud! Emmett got to ride in “the beast” with me; he was just a grinning and giggling the whole time as to how high he was up above everyone else, and how loud it was when pushing through the gears.

Thanks to all those who helped, Jackie and I really appreciate it very much.

So just before Jackie and I are about to take a nap after all this hard work, we realize that Scooter is missing. Panic sets in, because this is a new place, and it’s also a very big open area. I give the mail man my cell and ask him to call if he sees her. About an hour later, I am almost out of gas, and I am exhausted from the heat, I get a call from a man who says he has scooter on his back porch she was one street over from the new house, she’s tired, but OK, he fed her some cat food which she loved, and drank a ton of water. Scooter is now home safe, but grounded! “Operation Build a Fence” is about to get underway.