19 Weeks 1 Day: Officer Babysitter

I heard on the radio today that the Portland police will be putting a bunch of resources into watching for people who don't have their children in the proper booster seat. Really? What the hell happened to cops protecting us from dangerous criminals? Now they sit on the side of the road and look for people who aren't wearing a seat belt or people who don't have their kid in a booster seat. Do we not have any real crime going on? I mean, I understand that a child can be too little for a regular seat belt and they could get injured, but really isn't that the parent's responsibility to do that? Not a tax paid babysitter. I don't need a babysitter telling me what device I should put my child in and when. I'm an adult with some common sense, I know what I'm doing. How about you go out and stop some real crime! Not just sit on the side of the road and wait for revenue building, ticketable offenses to occur.

And what kind of person decides that they want to be a police officer and then is okay with doing that kind of BS. You're all proud to serve your community, you graduate the academy and then you're handed that assignment. What a load of crap.

19 Weeks 0 Days: Imagine All The People

Dear Baby,

God is not going to save you. Just like politics, only you can make things happen for you. God is not going to reach down and clear a path and make everything work out for you. There will be no series of lucky breaks that are really God looking out for you. Everything good that happens to you will be due to your own hard work and determination. Just like anything bad that happens is not because some Devil is trying to tempt you into a life of sin. It will be because you got lazy or unfocused or unmotivated or something like that.

I've been thinking about religion because I heard a pastor on the radio today who believes that the President should die because he is not making abortion illegal and therefore he is killing babies. ??? Though, when asked if, since he is in a position of influence, someone kills the president because of his preaching, should he be held responsible? Of course he said no, because he's not responsible for someone else's actions. But the President is responsible for the actions of an abortion doctor? What kind of double standard is that? This pastor also believes that gays should be put to death AND since the bible says that any child who curses their mother or father should be put to death, that we should be carrying out that little biblical rule as well. And he is the reason I question Christian teachings so much. This guy, as stated on his web site, has no college education, but has most of the bible memorized. He is a fanatic, who has no other life experience, who read the bible over and over and decided to start a church and did. And now he preaches his own interpretation of what he reads in the bible. There is no qualifying process. He just wanted to preach, so he does. And he preaches a bunch of evil, hateful beliefs and people are flocking. That's Christianity? That's the message that "Christians" are looking for? And that is the religion we are supposed to base our moral standards on?

We really are better off with no religion. My biggest pet peeve is when people say, "well, with no religion, how would we know right from wrong?" I'm not religious and I know right from wrong. And who's to say that what the bible says is right or wrong is so. Killing your child when he curses his mom or dad seems wrong to me. I think we as human beings can figure out what's right or wrong without any of the many religious trying to jam it down our throats.

So, Christianity; this thing, this belief, this ideal that is all about morals and God doing good things has spokespersons in the media preaching that the President should die, gays should die, and children should die. And these rules were created by the guy who's supposed to be guiding you and making good things happen? No. You're doing good things for yourself.

So don't sit around praying to some imaginary giant to make things happen for you, because you'll be sitting around for a long time. You have to get up and do it on your own. God isn't making it happen, the government isn't making it happen, not even I can make it happen. I'll support you in whatever it is you want to do, but I can't do it for you.

And not all Christians are like the aforementioned crazy pastor. I'm lucky to know a lot of Christians who have, um... brains. But it's the few extremists in the group who really sour the whole idea to me. Don't discriminate, a cool person who happens to be Christian is still a cool person, but if you happen to meet anyone like crazy pastor, RUN! Run like you've never run before.

18 Weeks 6 Days: Back on Track

Dear Baby,

I tried to play it cool when I first found out that you were on your way. It was about 3 days and then I found myself standing in the shower yelling "FUUUUUUUCK!" up at the ceiling. Then I panicked. I needed a new career and all these things in our lives need to change. And so I ventured forth into an unknown of dress shirts, ties and insurance sales. Even though I kept telling myself that I was doing this for you and that I didn't care what I do for a living as long as I made a good life for you, I couldn't force myself to be happy. I could try to convince myself all day that being a general contractor was not a good job to have while raising a family, but I couldn't make myself believe it. I missed it. I was cramped up in a cubicle, dreaming of being outside creating something with my bare hands.

And I then I figured something out: Why should I teach my child that it's acceptable to be miserable at work just to make more money? I don't want to send that message. And I don't want to do something I don't love doing all day long. So I ripped of the neck-tie noose and because free of that cubicle! Instead of having a dad that brings home a lot of money, you're going to have a dad who's happy and think that's far more important. And if I just focus on what I'm doing and be smart about how I advertise and get referrals, I could be much more successful than I am now. And it's not even like I don't make very much money. In the time I've owned my business I have made a lot of money. There are just slow periods that scare me. But there are a lot of other things I enjoy doing that I can do on the saide, from home, that can supplement the income. I'd like to build furniture and sell it. And I'm learning HTML & CSS right now to improve my own website, but maybe I could do a little web design on the side. It couldn't hurt and I love doing that kind of stuff. I love creating.

So I hope that I can stay organized and build my business up enough for you to have a comfortable life. I'm doing everything I can while still staying happy.

18 Weeks 0 Days: Do It For The Kids

I have been slacking off big time when it comes to working. I know I want to get into a different industry so I can make a decent living without killing my back, but it's been a lot harder than I thought it would be to adjust to the different environment. I'm having a hard time getting motivated. I tell myself over and over that I have to do it for my family but I just can't seem to muster the get up and go I did when I started my contractor business. I'll have to see how things go this week and if I can't get things going I'll have to really reevaluate what I'm going to do. I'm going to do everything I can to really push myself.

17 Weeks 2 Days: Who Are You... Ou, ou... Ou, ou.

I really wanna know...

We met up with our good friend Gainen and his two sons, Caden and Jake (and no one else... Heather) at the OMSI so we could check out the CSI exhibit. Unfortunately, it was supposed to be for ages 12 and up, but the lady working the door said that one of the sections was more kid friendly so we went through that one. Basically there are three crime scenes and you have to go through and collect evidence and solve the crime. The one we went through was just bones found out in the desert, so you collect trace evidences at the scene. The only lame part was that you don't REALLY collect evidence, you just look at a model of the scene and you are blocked off from actually going in the scene. But then you go around to all these lab computers to inspect the evidence that you "collected". It was fun. Then we went around and played with all the science exhibits and let the boys play with the science stuff. Then Gainen took the kids to the play area while Krystal and I went through one more CSI crime scene. It was basically the same and was starting to get crowded so there was more waiting to use the lab computers. This scene was of a car that crashed through a living room, but the guy in the driver's seats injuries didn't seem to match with crashing a car. It was interesting. Then we got some food at the OMSI Cafe which a little bit more expensive that if we had gone somewhere else, but it was convenient since the OMSI is in an area of Portland that has businesses without really good parking.

The CSI exhibit made me miss watching CSI. Krystal and I used to rent the DVD's and just watch entire season's over a weekend. Back in our tiny studio apartment in California that cost almost as much in rent than our 2 bedroom house does now. Anyway, Maybe we can get the old first season and watch it for nostalgia's sake. We can watch it with the baby, because I don't really care about our kid seeing death. I know a lot of people tend to shield their kid from dead, most of the time they end up lying to their kid to shield it from death, but the lying seems just as bad. Why is death such a terrible thing? We're all going to die. It's a natural part of life. I guess those same people spend a lot of time shield their kids from sex or nudity as well. I just don't get it. It's all natural. It's all stuff that is much more accepted in European countries and turns out much more open minded, mature children. That's my opinion. You can't shield your kids from things and then expect them to be mature and understanding of them later on.

16 Weeks 5 Days: They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

What the hell is up with cartoons these days? Are they for adults or kids? I can't tell most of the time. Is it Total Drama Island or Total Drama Action? Is it for kids or is it just for elitist hipster twenty-somethings? I don't even know. Same with Drawn Together and Sealab and Metalocolypse and Aqua Teen Hunger Farce and The Venture Brothers and Superjail. There's a cartoon about a jail?!?! Let's face it. The Cartoon Network is not for kids anymore. I mean, it is for kids, but not little kids, like "young adult" kids with horrible music taste and dyed black hair with a layer of bleached hair underneath.

So let me get this straight: I'm about to have a child and the one channel they won't be allowed to watch is the Cartoon Network? What kind of backward world are we living in?

And why do all the new cartoons have the shittiest drawing in existence? Here's the rule: If you can't draw, don't become a cartoonist. Because eventually those loser hipsters are going to realize that they are, well, losers and they're going to go get real jobs and become contributing members of society and they won't be watching your cartoon any more. And then you won't have anyone to watch your poorly drawn cartoon, because the hipster fad will be gone and when you are a hipster there is some chemical in your brain that makes things that look or sound like shit, much more appealing.

I digress. I was complaining about cartoons, not hipsters. I wish someone would make some real quality cartoons actually geared towards children. And not this Dora the Explorer crap (newsflash, Dora and Explorer DON'T RHYME). We don't need a bunch of lovey multi-lingual, let's try so hard not to offend anybody that our cartoon becomes useless BS. We don't need a Sesame Street where Snuffleupagus can be seen because everyone is paranoid that their kids will be encouraged to have invisible friends. Who cares?!?! It's called an imagination, maybe if you had one you'd see how horrific these cartoons are! I can't believe that I have to complain about the cartoons.

Where is Tranzor Z when you need him?

16 Weeks 3 Days: Babies in Politics

Dear Baby,

Don't waste your time on politics. People have always gotten all freaked out of various political ideas that our government may put in place. It doesn't matter. It's not going to "destroy the country" as so many people say. If they reform healthcare, it won't destroy the country. But I'm for health care reform, so I'm biased. Well, I was against the war in Iraq, still didn't destroy the country. The billion dollar financial bailout didn't destroy the country. gays getting married won't destroy the country.

The point is, that 90% of the time, it's business as usual when it come to running the country. Things change here and there and those policy changes work well for some people and don't work for some people. Some people are okay with them and some are morally opposed to them. And sometimes those changes don't work for a majority, or raise our deficit or get a bunch of soldiers killed, but they have never completely destroyed the country. We have been a country for a while and we've gone through depressions and booms and wars and times of peace and law changes and democratic presidents and republican presidents and protests and you name it. None of it has destroyed the country. Short of getting nuked, I don't think anything will.

But people like to freak out. If something is happening that they don't like, they have to spin it so it's going to have the worst possible outcome. Reforming healthcare is going to DESTROY THE COUNTRY! Really? Even if it's not a perfect plan, you really think it's going to turn the US into wasteland. Because that woud be a destroyed country, if that's not what you mean, then stop saying that. You think that a couple of gays getting married is going to destroy the country? Because there is so much sanctity in marriage now with our drive thru weddings and reality shows about bridezillas and who wants to marry a millionaire and wife swap. Right. And if we're so dead set on following god's will, what's up with all the multiple children due to invetro fertilization? God made you infertle, so now it's okay to go against god's will. I see.

Basically, the country is going to keep moving forward. We're going to make some changes. Some will work, some won't. But none will work for everyone. There is no one thing that is going to make 100% of the population happy. We're a mass of different people from different upbringings and different cultures. So there is always going to be an unhappy group. But for the most part, some things will change. Most things will stay the same. And the country and it's people will keep on living. And some of the problems in our country now weren't create entirely by our government. Wall Street dug it's own hole as did the auto industry. Those were huge corporations that got too greedy for their own good and didn't look to the future. Sure, the government could have changed some regulations, but ultimately it was their decisions that got them where they are.

Work hard, plan for the future and have fun whenever you can. Do those things for yourself, because nobody is going to make those things happen for you. Not the government, no matter how much you protest.

15 Weeks 6 Days: My PC Days Are Short Lived

For my new job at Farmers Insurance, their online quoting program is not compatible with a Mac. So I had to go out and buy a cheap PC laptop and I can tell you that within the first 30 minutes of using this piece of crap I was ready to pull my hair out. I haven't used a PC in years and I haven't owned one in probably 7 years. I cannot believe people use these things. And I'm not a computer programmer, so I won't get into what is better than what with regards to computer programming, but for the average computer users. The people who just use computers for regular daily routine or general business use, I cannot fathom why these things are still in use. From the minute I started it up there were pop ups and I got the wireless internet to work and then it stopped an I had to jump through hoops to getting back up again and the constant asking of me to make sure my virus protection is up-to-date. Virus protection??? Oh right, I normally use a Mac. And still things are constantly popping up asking me to check this or asking if I should update that. This has got to be the highest maintenance device I've ever used. And PC people always boast about how simple it is to make your PC run smoothly if you know what you're doing. That's the point! I don't know what I'm doing! I like using a computer that just works even though I don't know what I'm doing. Why is that such a hard concept to grasp. Do you think my Mom or my Grandma are computer programmers with the ability to reconfigure their system to work correctly? No! Why should they be expected to do that in order to make their computer work? You wouldn't buy a brand new car and be expected to give it a tune up and add a couple of air bags for protection as soon as you got home with it? Would you? You expect that thing to perform perfectly right off the lot.

I think we have become way to accustom to the idea that our computers are full of bugs and problems and just exept it way too easily. And as I type this on my piece of crap, PC laptop, I'm realizing that Internet Explorer has no auto spell checking. Sweet, I get to run a spell check program after I'm done typing. What is this, the 90's? I guess it's time to download Firefox. Or, I can just save this and go log in on my Mac and have it auto corrected... Yeah, that's better!

15 Weeks 0 Days: A Letter About Time Travel

Dear Baby,

I wish I could travel back in time so you at least grow up when I did. I mean, I'm sure it would be cool to grow up in the 50's or 60's, but even my childhoods was a simpler time than now. I'm glad I grew up at a time when there was no internet. I'm sure it existed even when I was a little kid, but it wasn't in anyone's houses. I remember when I was in my mid teens I think I knew one person who had America Online at their house... And their dad was a doctor! That was like a big deal. But before that, there was nothing. If I needed information, I had to go to the library. If I wanted a job, I had to dig through the newspaper then drive around town putting in applications... That I wrote out by hand. If I wanted to go to the movies, it was back into the paper. And if I wanted a date, I had to actually meet a girl in person and TALK to her face to face. It was nerve wracking and you could get rejected in person, but it built character and social skills that are far lacking today. There was actually work involved in getting anything done. And I think that our society has grown too used to the instant gratification that modern technology brings. In reality, it's supposed to save us time and make us more productive, but has it really? Has sitting on a computer all day, growing pail and allergic to sunlight really made us more productive?

This is why I can't get into social networking sites online and I get frustrated by the amount of time I spend online no matter what. I always think it's too much. It's because I remember before the internet and I think of those days as better then now. I liked when you had to go out into the world to do stuff. I wish I was out doing stuff right now, but the damn internet has got me in it's clutches.

And what about exercise? When I was a kid, I had no other entertainment than to run around outside. Sure there were video games and television shows, but they sucked. So we would walk 2-3 miles to go into town and hang out. Is there any kid living today that would walk two miles? And I was a very thin teenager. I had teachers in school think I was on drugs because I was too thin. But then the computer came about and I turned into a fat bastard. And as these "conveniences" become more prominent, as video games get better and more realistic, the fatter a nation we become. Plus, we just had so much fun. Me and my buddies, running around town, causing trouble, playing music in bands, going to local shows. And that was in a small town where there was nothing to do, think of all the possibilities here in Portland.

Even now, as I sit here and type this letter I can feel myself getting fatter and lazier. But by the time you are in your mid teens, there will be computers that you stick on your head so you just think you're doing something. There will be no movement or leaving the house required for existence. At least not in this fat country... Every other country in the world still goes outside.

14 Weeks 6 Days: The Internet for Children

I can't wait to see what the internet is like when our kid gets old enough to use it. At the rate things are going that will be like 2 years old. It will have it's own facebook and myspace page. Because a 2 year old needs that. I think we should just put ourselves ahead of the curve and get it a facebook page the day it's born. Then it can brag to it's friends in kindergarten about how it had a facebook page first and how many more "friends" they have. Of course by then there will be some other fad site that everyone will be using. And those social networking site are a good place for kids because that's how all the people who use them act. Like drama obsessed high school kids. And we can aslo get it a cell phone the day it's born so it can twitter every move it makes.

-1 hour ago: just pooped
-2 hours ago: woke up from a nap
-4 hours ago: going to take a nap
-5 hours ago: sucked on mom's boobie
-7 hours ago: just pooped

It would be awesome. Because we need constant updates of what everyone is doing all the time? I don't even have constant updates of what my wife is doing, why do I need it from anyone else?
And I can't wait until our kid pisses off some other kid somehow and that kids parent goes online to under an assumed name to try and get back at our kid.

Man the internet is full of such greatness. I understand why so many people spend all of their free time on it.

Here is a great article about the evils of social networking, including how sites like facebook really disconnect people more than they connect them. I associate connecting with people as a personal thing, not a sentence that gets sent to everyone you know. It seems like social networking sites work best for people who have trouble facing real people in person. It's easier to hide your real self with a computer. And I know, I was using it for a while. Even Luke Skywalker turned to the darkside for a brief moment, but the fact that I wasn't enjoying any moment of it was the important part. I can't handle communicating with people on a mass scale. And using the computer to comment on one persons opinion is a good way to make everyone misunderstand everything you say. If someone is important to me, I'll find out what going on with them on a personal level. If you don't have time to catch up with me on a personal level, then you aren't my friend. Everyone else I am more than happy to send the occasional email or make a phone call from time to time. If you ever want to know what's going on with me on a personal level, email me or call if you have my number. And no this blog is not me personally. It's just a collection of random ideas that maybe krystal, myself and our child(ren) can read some day in the future. Or other people that are not so lucky as to be my "friend" can read if they are in a similar situation. I get quite a few hits from people who just search for a similar topic and read this. Maybe it helped, maybe it didn't. I don't care.

With Friends Like These, by Tom Hodgkinson