Christmas as a child for me was one of the best times, it was always very special around our house, there were games to be played, gifts under the tree, the hot fire blazing and just a wonderful warm feeling of “home”. Jenn and I would write letters to Santa and throw them into the fireplace and watch them burn as the flames turned beautiful colors and the ashes shot up the chimney into the night sky towards the north pole, it was pure magic. We would leave the cookies and milk for the big man to eat, always in the kitchen on the table, he was always very messy, leaving crumbs and such. But that’s was OK, he was in a hurry. I remember peaking out my window after I went to bed. My window was on the 2nd floor of our house and it over looked all the houses and I had an amazing view of Cratloe Woods which was on a huge hillside off in the distance. I really had one of the best views from my bedroom, it was prime Santa viewing too. Getting to sleep was always difficult, full of excitement and wonder.

In that excitement and wonder one Christmas eve night I had this wonderful idea of putting my stocking on my bedroom door handle, and I would leave the door cracked. This way Santa would have to come to my door to fill my stocking and I would see him, genius right? But what if I was asleep? This had to be fixed, there was no way I could stay awake, the rule goes, “he knows if you are sleeping and he knows if your awake” So I would need to be sleeping, but I needed to be quickly awoken to catch him. So I stood up on top of my bed and reached up to the top of my bedroom door and strategically placed all the actions figures I could find along the top. He-Man, Skeletor, Luke, Darth, Chewbacca, and a Transformer, ohh yes, this was perfect, my band of brothers, my elite ambush team of heroes. Santa would be captured by the same toys he had left from Christmas past, it was perfect. He would open the door and be clobbered by my Merry Men. He would never see it coming.

The next morning my stocking was gone and my men scattered on the floor. I couldn’t believe it! It did not work. My stocking was down stairs and my toys all under the tree. My plan had failed. Santa had come and gone, and I failed to see him in person. My mother on the other hand had a few words for me, it would seem she moved my stocking before she went to bed for the night and wanted to check on me, my poor mother fell victim to my trap, and was belted and clobbered by my elite force. She was not happy about it. Santa escaped, and it is probably just as well, for if he had taken the beating she had, I would not have gotten all I got that year. So kids, its not worth it, just let the big guy do his job. Merry Christmas.

I missed video Friday this week, so I am posting one day late. The last time I shot a gun I think I was 10 years old, I have never shot a hand gun. From the video, you can see I do not do this very often, but it sure was fun!! Thank you Doug for taking me to do this. It was A BLAST!

My wife loves her some dessert, and I am not talking about me. I am talking about ice-cream and sweet things like that. So last night at about 8pm we thought it would be a nice treat for us to go to Cracker Barrel. Just her and I together to have a nice dessert out alone. Desmond was in bed, and a sleep for the night, her folks kept a listen out for him, we would only be gone an hour tops.

As we pull in we noticed it was busy for being so late, we approach the “host” but he really could have been a hostess if you now what I mean. He was polite to us. He reached for the menus, we told him we did not need any as we were just going to get dessert. He seats us, and we wait, and we wait some more, we play a few games with the little golf-tee games they have on the table. We wait, we start to look pitiful, so we try to catch the eye of some wait staff as they scurry around helping others. We sit, and sit, and finally I start waving my hands to a manager who walks by, she waves back and keeps going. Wow lady, I am not waving at you because I want to say HI, I am waving because I want my dawg’on Frosted Mug Sundae with Carmel Swirls, this ain’t social hour lady! This is “I got no kid to claw at my food and screaming at me and I can eat in peace finally!” She must have saw that look, because she comes over.

I am a soft spoken person, and really very polite when it comes to pointing out a problem with service. I tell her, “Hey we have been here a while (15minutes), and no one has seen us yet, no drinks or anything”.  I am an easy customer, maybe too easy. Her reply was this “ohh well you don’t have any menus, if you don’t have menus we assume you have been helped, that’s how we can tell. If I was to look at you I would think you already had been serviced.”

Ohhhhhhhh really? So its “my fault, no one has seen me yet?” Of course how stupid of me to think it was not. I should have taken a menu when asked if I needed one, pretended to look it over, put it down and THEN I would have got service. I did not know there was protocol to follow in getting service. Like a secret handshake of such. I must have missed that in Eating Out 101.

So our food comes, quickly and its great I might add. With that our “Mr. Hostess” his name is ridiculously long “Quintarious” or something like that. He walks by us and all I hear is “Oh Ma Gaaawd” and snaps his fingers or whatever “Mr. Hostess’s” do when they are mad. Jackie and I look at each other, and wonder what his deal is. Later I see him throwing his arms in the air in disgust about something. It was very humorous. He makes his way over to our table and randomly says ” I didn’t seat y’all, did I seat y’all? I didn’t give you menus?” I tell him he did seat us, and we declined menus. He walked away. As we leave we both  separately get a dirty look again from him. We both are kinda in shock at this, seriously? Why the look?

This is where Jackie is better then I am, because I was ready slap the girl right out of him, but she reminded me that Jesus loves him too, and that my friends is why I love my wife so much, because she always sees the good in people. No matter how ugly they can be.

I like good service, and we got great service from our waitress when she was told to serve us, but on a management level and a host level Cracker Barrel failed last night. I guess these “crackers” crawled into the wrong “Barrel” last night.
Ok thats my quarterly rant, thanks for listening.

Aww the sweet smell of Irish stew for breakfast, that’s a glorious smell I am not smelling at the moment. I mean really lets get serious, who would eat stew at 7am in the morning, no thanks. Today is as you know St. Paddy’s day. Today I wear my green, wear my new hat, and enjoy being Irish, but honestly I get to do that every day, so here is a goofy picture of me just for fun. Yes I look this ridiculous everyday, its a gift.

Each year we do Secret Santa at work, last year and this year have been the first years for me participating in such an event. Last year I had fun with my person, and gave them a Christmas to remember. This year would be no different. The person I got was decorated beyond a winter wonderland and got gifts and little jingles to go along with the fun.

However, I was in for a surprise this year, because the person who got MY name had a few tricks up their Christmas Sleeves, and as we geeks like to say….I was about to get pwned. It would seem that a certain person (APRIL!) used my nagoh.com posts and information against me and exploited my most deep and intimate secrets that I share on here. Her gift to me included a photo album of my Christmas adventures as Gregory The Goat, old memories were brought back, and a fresh new story unfolded before my eyes. I had no idea being a goat could be so much fun.

I also got a huge stash of candy ALL MY FAVORITES and I also got a nice starbucks gift card which I am VERY excited about. So thank you April for being the best Secret Santa ever, you have upped your game, and given me a run for my money! Merry Christmas!!!

This post is a life lesson post. Reader Discretion is Advised. I will share with you some of the things to NOT do. Honestly I am pretty sure only I could do or make some of these mistakes, but I am sharing with you just in case you are as careless as I am sometimes.

Life Lesson #1: If you have muscle pain in your upper thigh, a good massage can do wonders. Even a self massage. If you have another person to give you an upper thigh massage, all the better. However if you are wifeless or still stuck on 1st base like I was at the time, then a self massage on the upper thigh will have to do. I was in this situation at one time, I had pulled a muscle and needed some relief. I got myself some Icy Hot Cream and applied it to my thigh, it felt glorious, and took away the pain. However when applying this miracle cream I must have accidentally brushed against my boys (yes them boys) for they too begin to enjoy the self medicating action of Icy Hot. What first felt like a cool breeze on a summer day turned into an all out fire storm of hell and furry! Sweet Mother of Goat Fur the pain that flooded through them was something of an unholy nature! I ran for the sink I dropped my pajama pants and I jumped up on the bathroom counter top and I started splashing water as best as I could to put out the Dante’s Inferno that was lighting me on fire from the inside out! There was no relief in sight I screamed, and cried, and begged for mercy. For 30 plus minutes I endured torture, like piranhas and hot sauce eating and melting them away forever. Alas but they were OK, and the coolness came back, and the tears dried up, and I spoke into the phone and I told Jackie I would have to call her back. (Ohh I forgot to mention, she was on the phone with me and this was one of our first phone conversations, its a wonder she married me.) So ever since then I have not used the icy hot product, it scares and I stay away from it.

Life lesson #2: Hemorrhoid Cream is not exactly the same as athletes foot cream. One afternoon I came home from school and told my mom my feet were itchy and she informed my I possibly had some sort of athletes foot. There was cream down in dads bathroom drawer and I should use it. So I go into his drawer and pull out the first tube of cream I see. It has a big fancy name on it, comes with a most excellent attachment device on it. This must be it. The attachment device screws on the top, and makes a long looking snout type thing, plus it has holes in the side for the cream to come out. I am thinking this is pure genius, as it must be for between the toes, you know, those hard to reach places. So I am sitting in the kitchen just going to town on my feet and toes with this tube of cream. My mom comes in and looks at me and says, “what on earth are you using that for?!” Me being completely clueless like I am go “what?” it was then, we sat down and had a heart to heart talk about hemorrhoids and fancy tops to tubes and how they are not meant to be stuck between ones toes. It was then I proceeded to the shower, and crawled up in the fetal position and cried and prayed for forgiveness for violating my feet in such a terrible way.

Life Lesson #3: Growing up I had bad acne, its true, this gorgous completion of mine was a mine field of puss and volcanoes. Eventually I was put on some hard hitting stuff called Accutane. I also had to be on birth control, it was that serious. It dried me up like a weed, and for 6 months it was torture, but it fixed the problem. Anyway before accutane, I tried everything, including a bottle of stuff called “sea breeze” this was like napalm for the face. It stung like the fury of a 1000 hornets, no pain no gain right? Well it has a very similar look of mouth wash. I would always leave it by the sink of course. One day my Dad goes to brush his teeth, and then I hear a screaming come from their like that of a small child. He comes out of there yelling with the bottle in his hand, “what is this!?” he says. I explained, he was not pleased. It left his mouth and lips blistered for a week. So never leave that stuff out by the bathroom sink. Actually just don’t buy it it does not work.

So there you have it. My life lessons that I have learned for you, so you do not have to make the same mistake. Trust me, its not worth it.

I consider myself a pretty tech savvy guy. I have managed to make a living at it. It brings in a steady paycheck and I can pay the bills. I also consider myself pretty smart when it comes to troubleshooting problems. I can tackle most any problem (not math) and come up with some sort of fix or solution for it. It has taken years to master this, and become efficient at it. I enjoy it, and am proud of this skill I have.

However, for some reason unknown to me I have been dealt the dummy gene when it comes to laundry. It drives Jackie CRAZY! I just can’t for the life of me do a load of laundry without screwing it up. I either wash something at the wrong temperature, put the detergent in at the wrong time, I mix up the colors, I don’t put the “special” undies in the “special” bag so they don’t get ripped to shreds! Same goes for the dryer, I dry to high, I dry to low, I shrink a shirt, you name it. I have done it. My latest accomplishment? Leaving a packet of kleenex in a pocket. I thought I was being so smart by washing all my work clothes and my favorite hoodie together. I would have a nice clean outfit ready to go in the morning. I stay up extra late so they are all done. Come 11:30 I am tired and ready to go to bed. I get my clothes out of the washer to put in the dryer, and this is what I find! ugh! It’s like a poodle exploded in my washing machine! I take my hoodie out and shake it, and poof! the poodle just exploded in my laundry room. Tissue everywhere. I can hear Jackie’s voice in my head, “you should have checked your pockets”. As usual, she would be right. I should have. I thought about it even, but that didn’t help me now. How is it so complicated? Its not like we have a fancy washer or dryer, it has 1 button, 1 freakin button! Ok and a dial. At best buy the other night I saw a washer dryer that had like a million buttons, and a LCD screen that probably called you on the cell phone or sends you an email to let you know the status of your “special undies” when they are on spin cycle, I bet they like that. Anyway here is my mess. I will just add it to my list….my long, long list.

There will be two versions of this story….I promised Jenn I would not read her version until I wrote my version. This could be very interesting.

Friday night my sister told everyone she had a hot date with her brother, I was alarmed at this because I didn’t know we had a brother. She cleared up my confusion, she is sweet, thanks Jenn. We had a big night planned, so I am going to take you through our evening. You should know that Jenn and I have a unique relationship. We “get” each other. We find the simplest things extremely funny. This can turn into some very interesting situations and strange looks from outside people. The first order of business was to go see the new James Bond which was really good. I am a cheap date and refuse to buy anything at a movie theater, she on the other hand bought a plate of nachos and a coke. She put an extra straw in the cup so we could share, again so sweet. After my first sip I informed her that to cut down on any confusion as to who’s straw was who’s, that I went ahead and spit in my straw. Smart right?! Also the nachos were completely smothered in cheese, so much so that there was not enough chips to soak up all the cheese! I could not in good conscience let all that cheese go to waste. So I start scooping with my fingers and shoveling it into my mouth, I have no shame. Jenn with a mortified look on her face says “your not going to wait until the lights go out?” With a big grin on my face and cheese on my chin…..I say “uhhh noooo” then I look to my right and see a lady from my HR Department who I work with, and her preacher husband. I thought the blue croc fiasco was bad…..now add a cheese covered technician to the mix, who is at the movies with a woman who is not his wife, sharing nachos and coke. Doh!

We then moved on to Kohls and Best Buy to find a gps system. Can you believe we went to both stores and could not find one? Seriously, its like we needed a GPS to find a GPS. We gave up and moved on. After that we went to American Deli to eat a baby lamb. Nothing like eating a small baby animal wrapped up in bread and lettuce while the wife is out of town. I have a secret love affair with fast food while she is out of town, sorry baby, I’m weak. And the baby animal was delicious. PETA can’t get too mad, it was served on Peta Bread. American Deli also puts this secret salt on their fries, I think its laced with crack. It is REALLY good. Jenn and I decided that the salt is made of dehydrated baby lamb tears, that have been crystallized and turned into magical salty goodness. We laughed until the entire restaurant was looking at us. If they only knew what they were eating.

I should point out that I was driving my awesome purple honda for our date. Bond aint got diddly on that. Its the ultimate date mobile, because with all the inside door handles broken I was forced to be a gentleman and open the door for my sister all night everywhere we went. As she was unable to. It was not until the end of the night when I went to drop her off at home that I realized I could just roll down her window and she could reach out the window and open her own door! Genius! So thinking she would think the same logic as me I roll down the window and look at her and say “ok, get out” She sits and looks at me like I am just crazy. She sits, and sits, and finally says “are you sure” I am all “yeah get out, goodnight” so she starts climbing out the window, like one of the Duke brothers! So there you have it, James Bond and Daisy Duke go on a date in a purple honda, eating creatures great and small. Good times. Love ya Jenn.

I have something very important to say…… Jackie and I have decided……………………..and to even make things more complicated, we have decided to………………..so I hope you can understand. Desmond also……………….yup he sure did! It was……………………….and we were just so………………….Mom and dad could not believe it when…………………………..they cried. Scooter lost her…………….and now she has to lick her……………………………..by herself. It just is a sight to behold. Today when I got up I looked in the……………………………………….I completely freaked out! I will have to call the doc on………………………………………..then he should be able to explain……….. Yesterday was really difficult for all of the………………………………………………so we just let them be. Tomorrow should be better. Jenn, thanks for the………………………………….it helped a lot. Ok I better sign off now, the WIFI signal is very spotty, it keeps dropping off…………………………………….I hope you got all that!! Breaker 1-9 over and out.

Remember when you were a teenager and you did things to rebel against your parents? You might have dressed a little different, you might have done things you would not dare mention on a blog because they are totally reading it right now, and will be calling you on the phone to ask you what you did that they do not know about…..the phones ringing already, I am not answering it mom, call Jenn, she did much worse!  I was such a rebel back in the day, how so? I grew my hair long. Ohh yes, I was such a B.A.

The bad thing about long hair is, people judge you. My best friends dad totally hated me and disapproved of me hanging out with his son because I had long hair. He also blamed everything bad his son did on me, because I was a bad influence. The truth of the matter is, HE was the wild one, and I was the one trying to keep HIM out of trouble. As soon as I cut my hair, his dad totally approved of me, and now I was acceptable to hang out with him. Go figure. I grew it out one more time after that, and then cut it for my most recent job.

That was over 5 years ago. I have made attempts to grow it out, but always get very frustrated with it. There is an awkward period when growing your hair out. The phase when you just do not know what to do with it, as one person told me at work the last time I tried, she said it looked like a tupay. I cut it the next day. This time I have avoided such comments, and have remained strong during this process. It has almost passed its awkward stage and I am in the home stretch.

Like with any hair do, there are good days and bad days. I am looking for some good days. One time Amy said I looked like a movie star, who the heck doesn’t want to look like a movie star? That was like 7 years ago… I still hold that compliment in my top 5. Thanks Amy. Or you could call me Dwight Yokem (you got a lot a ground to make up for that one Danyelle). Where I am going with it I have no idea. I am trying to save a buck during these hard times. So I thought I would have some fun with it. So now that all the attention hogging politicians are done hording up the polls and blowing campaign money out their badunkas. It is my turn to get in on the action. So cast your vote! Be honest it is completely anonymous. (wink, wink) I can’t give you a sticker, and I can’t promise you that your vote matters, I may do the complete oposite of that you vote for, isn’t that was politicians do? But I promise there are no lines to wait in. Here are the two candidates up for election. One looks innocent, and one looks like trouble. You DECIDE!

Ohh and 10 points to whoever can guess the post title song title.