Good and Bad

During our moving process, we've dealt with a lot of people from a lot of different companies for different reasons. Some experiences were good, others you can say were below satisfactory. Here's a list of things good and bad from the past few weeks.

Good - Dish Network
We got hooked up yesterday with Dish. We have a Tivo. Life is good. How did we ever live without Tivo? (And I'm saying this less than 24 hours after we have it hooked up.)

Bad - Dish Network's Installation Guy
He wanted us to pay him 10 bucks under the table for hooking up our living room, and it probably took him 2 minutes to do. We didn't even want our living room hooked up. He kept saying "Don't forget, you owe me ten bucks.", and when it was time for him to go, he said "You owe me 10 bucks." It was a bit confusing since we just made him a check for $49.99. When we only had $2 in cash and offered to write him a check he said "No, 2 bucks is better than a check." Should I be concerned that this guy knows where I live? He's going to start following me around yelling "I want my eight dollars!"

Good - The Orkin Man
I didn't know how much we needed the Orkin man. He sprayed for bugs Wednesday morning. By Wednesday evening there was a 3 foot pile of dead ants by my back door. Plus I found out that dog that was annoying us when we were moving in was actually a large spider.

Bad - AT&T
Give me my DSL hookup before someone gets hurt! Also bad is that When you call these people you end up getting transferred four times and none of the people know what the previous person told you or what you're calling for. Plus without the internet, it's not like I can find my way around here with Google Maps. I think we ended up in Arkansas one day while we were looking for a Sears.

Good - Moving into a house
It's pretty cool to look at your sink and think "Hey, that's MY sink."

Bad - Paying for the house
I'll be how old when that sucker is paid off?

Good - Helpful neighbors
The next door neighbors watched our kids for a couple of hours while we unpacked some stuff. Also, the Crookstons drove clear to the DFW airport in the middle of the night, even risking their lives by driving through the crime infested streets of Dallas (the news is scary hear) to help me drop our rental car off. You guys are too cool. I swear I'll get that wagon back to you before you move.

Bad - Having to talk to our truck driver while our stuff was unpacked
Let's say our driver's name was Al. Al liked to talk. A lot. Some of Al's favorite topics included how to handle the war in the Middle East (kill everybody, whether by nuke or by ground forces). Overthrowing the government (Al says he was a history major, and that's what they did back in the day, or something). The menace of a dog was just having a good time (I still wanted to make it disappear). Wyoming is full of oil (Huh?). We have enough oil in the US to supply us for 50 years (Al's a history buff and a geologist). I don't know what else he talked about because I poked out my ear drums after an hour or so.

Unpacking

We are now in our house. It is a complete disaster area at the moment. Since the movers packed us up, we really don't know where anything is. Plus they marked the boxes weird, so you never know what is going to be in it. They marked one kitchen box "Pot and Pans". There was like one cookie sheet in it, and the rest of the box was spices and cups. Eventually we'll get it all unpacked, and then I can listen to the "Radeo" on my "Stario".

When the guys were unloading the truck, there was a neighborhood dog that came to our house and decided to hang out. It wasn't so bad except it kept getting in the way, went into the house a couple of times, and terrorized the children. Yeah, the kids weren't too thrilled to have a big dog hanging around our front yard. Andi is crazy scared of dogs, and as of Saturday morning so is Dylan. The worst thing about the dog is it wanted to play with Dylan's stuffed lion. The same lion that Dylan carries with him everywhere and doesn't like to go to sleep without. Stupid dog.

So, some day we'll be hooked up with DSL in our house, and I'll be able to put pictures up. Until then, it's all text, baby.

Quick Update

We made it to Texas and we are alive and kicking. The kids are driving Sam crazy in our temporary apartment, but it's all good because tomorrow we're going to close on our house. We're doing a final walk through on the house in the morning, and then at noon we're going in to sign the papers on it, and it'll be ours (after 30 years of payments). We're excited to finally get into it. Hopefully they will have the blinds installed by the time we move in. If not, we may have to devise a temporary curtain to go over the bathroom windows. I'm sure the neighbor would appreciate it.

That's a Liquid?

Monday, the moving guys showed up to pack and load up our stuff. They did do a pertty good job. However, I was a bit confused by some of the things that they put in the liquids box. (They couldn't take any open liquid containers.) Here is a list of some things that ended up in that box:

A yellow ceramic duck.
Razor cartridges.
A pregnancy test. (It's positive by the way)
An electric razor.
Feminine hygenie products.
Q-tips.
Cotton balls. (Just kidding about the pregnancy test being positive.)

What, are the moving guys from Oregon or something? I guess when our kids are going to school and learning about solid, liquids, and gases, we can let them know that the yellow duck is a liquid.

Snapfish.com Pictures

A while ago, a coworker of mine showed me snapfish.com. It's a place where you can upload pictures from your computer and order prints. Turns out, other people can go there and see the pictures and order prints too. So, I figure this will be a quick way to let people see pictures of my obnoxious children. So, here's a link to it. You have to sign up on the website to be able to get to them, just so you know. I'll also stick this link on the right side of the page so you can get to it later on.

Click here. If it doesn't work, let me know, and I'll . . . I don't know.

Family Pictures

Yesterday we got some family pictures taken in Reno. It was good fun. Peyton was being really cute. Andi and Dylan were acting like they were 2 and 3 years old. We got a good family picture and some of Dylan and Peyton. We tried to get one of the three kids together, but they weren't cooperating, so none of them turned out. D'oh! Here is what we ended up with. If you want to order some prints, I can let you know how to do that.

Cleaning

The last couple of days we have spent cleaning our apartment. Here are some things I've noticed while cleaning the apartment:

If sun block spills on your table and it's not cleaned right away, it somehow eats the varnish off the table. Oops.

It's not fun to clean 2 1/2 years worth of dirt off of white walls.

My kids write on the walls way too much.

It's probably a good idea to wash your hands before you eat lunch.

Where did the kids get all these toys from?

The air filter for the ventilation system may need to be changed more often than once every year and a half.

How old was that pineapple in the fridge? It had turned pink. Woah.

I still might need those old college text books one day.

Amonia + Bleach = Oops

Today Should Be a Holiday

Alex Smith makes me miss Steve Young

Why should today be a holiday? Because tonight the Steelers and Dolphins play in the first regular season game. Football is back, baby! And right now, the 49ers are undefeated! Woo hoo!

I'm thinking this season will be better than last season was. Not for my team, for me. Here in Nevada, we're in the Bay Area broadcasting region. The network games we got were the games that featured the Raiders and the 49ers. Sure that's great, I had a chance to watch all of my team's games last year. But my team went 4-12 last year, and it wasn't pretty. How many times can you watch the guys you're cheering for totally screw up before you lose your mind. (About 10). And it's not like I could change to the channel to a better game, because the Raiders were always on the other channel, and the Raiders ended up 4-12 too. Not good watching. It was either the Silver and Black nightmare or the Red and Gold train wreck. Since we're moving to Texas after week 1, we should be able to see some better games this season. When I say we I actually mean I, because I don't think Sam is as excited about watching football as I am.

One important note: The kids and I were in the car yesterday and we passed a Junior High school where the football team was practicing. Dylan shouted out "Touchdown!!!" That's my boy!!!

As far as the 49ers chances of winning this year. I think they have a good chance of getting the first pick in the draft next year.

A State I Dislike

Over Labor Day Weekend, we had the chance to drive to Northern Idaho to spend some time with Sam’s mom and sister. The drive up there was rather long, 780 miles long (which is nothing compared to driving anywhere from Texas). It took us 12 hours to drive there. Unfortunately, about 350 of those miles were in what I think is the worst state in the nation. That State is Oregon.

Oregon really just ticked me off. 330 of those miles were nothing but straight flat road. It wouldn’t have been so bad, if the speed limit in Oregon wasn’t 10-15 mph lower than its surrounding states. On a road in Nevada that had a limit of 70 mph, in Oregon for some reason it’s down to 55. Most people don’t even come close to obeying that speed limit (because most people aren’t 90 years old). But it’s low enough to keep you going slower than normal, just in case a cop is around the corner.

They try to make it up to you by putting signs up calling you a pet name like “Dear”, except they misspelled it “Deer”. How dumb are these people?

Plus, they don’t even let you pump your own gas at the gas stations. I pulled up to one, and this guy who looked like Hurley from “Lost” raced me to the pump and asked me for my card. Hey man, I realize that most people in Oregon probably can’t figure out the complex piece of equipment that is a gas pump, but I think I can handle it. I gave the card to him because I may have looked like a pork chop to him and I didn’t want him to eat me. You never know what the Oregonians (is that right?) are thinking.

Maybe I’m a little bitter for having to drive through so much of Oregon, yeah that’s probably right, but I just don’t like Oregon. We should give that state away to Canada. Would you miss Oregon? I wouldn’t.

Worst Diaper Ever

This is a little story about a bad diaper Dylan had. You don't have to read if you don't want to.

Over the weekend, Dylan wasn't feeling very well. He kind of had a case of diarrhea. Pretty bad. We had to change his diaper a ton of times on Friday, and by the end he was in so much pain he was turning himself upside down while we were wiping him. He wasn't doing so well.

Saturday morning, I got a really rude awakening. Dylan smelled some kind of bad, and his pajamas looked like he had spilled something on himself. So, I go to unzip his pajamas to change him, and WOAH!!!! He had a movement during the morning, and he was sleeping on his belly. Somehow, the poo barely touched his diaper and spread upward, up his chest clear up to his armpits. The poor guy was just covered in poo.

I tried to do my best to breathe through my mouth and avoid smelling this. (It was some kind of bad.) I tried wiping him down with baby wipes, but after five had barely made a dent in the situation, I threw him in the tub. I washed him up really good. Andi kept saying that she wanted to get into the tub too, but I kept telling her that she certainly did not.

Oh, he also threw up on me Sunday morning. I think he's doing better though.

Why do I mention this? Because I want to share my joy with others. This should also be a great pro-birth control example for my brother-in-law who is getting married in November.