Shades of Grey

The sky was full of multiple shades of grey today, and lots of blue. It can only mean one thing.

Wait for it.

Coming on down the pike, any time now.

Here it comes...

SNOW TOMORROW!!

Not just a few flurries either, but two to four inches of the white fluffy stuff.

Can I get a Hell Yeah!

And you thought Spring was here.

Silly people. Silly, silly people.

Did You Know Yesterday Was The First Day of Spring?

Neither Did I....

This can STOP now!!

Blizzard!!

Another Blizzard of '08! What to do, what to do?

Well, I like to stay at work and wait for the traffic to clear up. Okay, like may be too strong of a word in this case. However I have had the experience of driving in this weather and it taking over three hours to get home. So, why not stay at work for those three hours and get paid for it? Seems logical to me.

"Pop Music. New York, London, Paris, Munich..."

Guess what I'm listening to?

I just asked our cleaning dude how the traffic was outside, he more or less grunted that it was bad. Maybe I should just spend the night here. NOT!

Now I'm listening to "La Grange" by ZZ Top. Cool. I'm digging it. Really, I am. I love this station, it's number 12 on Sirius satellite, called Super Shuffle, and they play any and everything. Pretty cool if you like variety. However, if you can't handle going from Ted Nugent to the Dixie Chicks, then you might not like it as much as I.

Is the election over yet? I told my family I was going to vote Democrat, whoever it is, if John McCain gets the nomination. My son said I sound like Rush Limbaugh, I said is that what Rush is saying? He said it was, and I said well at least he agrees with ME! :-)

LHS want McCain to win, and I personally have problems with him, McCain, not my son. He is really weak on immigration and soft when it comes to spending. He also set the first amendment back by co-sponsoring the McCain-Feingold bill, to keep people from spending their own money, on whomever they choose. Oh well. It's not like I'm going to move to Canada or anything. As I have said many times before, I don't like anyone that is running for president this year, so I'm kind of blase about it. Talk to me when it gets closer to November.

Wow, just went from the Four Tops singing "Bernadette," to Taco singing "Putting on the Ritz." See what I mean? Cool.

Oh well, I better head out, otherwise I will be stuck here all night.

See you on the backside, maybe. (Ed: What does THAT mean?)

18-1!

As much as I dislike the Giants, I do find it funny that the Patriots lost the Super Bowl, and now have to live with the fact thatthe were thisclose to being immortalized with a perfect record.

Now the downside...

We will still have to listen to the 1972 Miami Dolphins brag about their perfect record. Ugh. Nothing worse than a bunch of old football players talking about their past glory, against some pretty crappy teams.

Back to the upside...

Football season is over (with the exception of the Pro Bowl, but who really cares about that game anyway?) and I can start looking forward to the 2008n version of the Denver Broncos!!

Here's a shocker! It's snowing again! I think that this is the most snow we have had at this time of year in a while. Kind of nice, if you ask me. If you ask Maggie, she'll say "Daddy, can summer come back now? All this snow is so cold!"

I would say that I didn't go to work all weekend, but I would be lying. I went in for a few hours today, I think I missed it. Now that is talking crazy and I should take a mental health day, don't you think?

I hate black licorice, with a passion. In fact, I will run away screaming like a little child if anyone comes by with the stuff. Guess which of my children are now keen to hat idea? Yep, the nearly two year old, #6. I think that someone needs to be grounded, or at least put in a timeout. I'm not talking about #6, either.

Got a new Wii game today, it's too bad that Lent starts on Wednesday. :-) It's Mario and Sonic at the Olympics. Again, it's too bad that Lent stats on Wednesday.

Fantasy Baseball starts tomorrow, I think. That meams I will have to send out invitations to join, so if you want to be invited let me know. Otherwise, disregard this past paragraph.

Found out that I missed my Ministry Formation class yesterday. That stinks, because if this is a class that I missed last year, then I will have to drive up to Rockford. The good news is that I seem to recall the class, well at least I recall the assignment and it sounds like it is the same from last session.

Here are a couple of "action" shots with the Wii. We had some friends over last night and they got us hooked on the Olympic game. No, I'm not going to mention that Lent starts on Wednesday again.

The first is LHS and Cuddlebug in a running race. See how fast they are running? Of course not. My camera was set for action, so the ISO was at 400, or something like that. I actually used to know, but with today's digital cameras, it looks like someone running. Isn't technology grand?



Next up, we have Benjy, Ashley and Ashley's mom playing along. Actually, I think that Ashley's mom was more of a cheerleader during this event. :-)



#6 isn't playing a game, but he saw the camera and started saying "Cheese." That's what he calls a camera, plus he looks cute too. I read somewhere that cute kid pictures help increase visits to a blog, so there you go, my moment of cute. Way to go #6.



Can I just tell you that writing captions for those pictures was harder than normal. For some reason Blogger is showing me my pictures in HTML, so I hope I got them correct.

That's it from the far-west suburbs of Chicago.

Have a blessed night.

I Love My Job, i love my job...

What fun it is to be here and have to deal with the "Big Guy's" edicts, that he sends out while he is on vacation.

The man is one that is lacking in some serious intestinal fortitude, and leading me closer and closer to that ultimate decision. Do I need this crap, or what?

I have taken more abuse from angry employees today about some silly little letter, that I wrote under his direction, about overtime. Funny thing is, I can see both sides of the coin here. The ones that are complaining the most, are the ones that he feels are abusing it. Whereas the others could care less. Interesting. Maybe he has a point. Only time will tell I guess.

Diving home last night was fun, in fact it was a breeze. I was surprised at how nice the drive home was. Nothing like the peaceful sound of snow crunching under your tires, to the beat of some ancient and mysterious tune. What fun.

This morning. Whole different story. Morons to the left of me, and to the right! You would think that people that live here would know how to drive on the fluffy, well cruchy and slippery, white stuff. It's not even the first snow fall of the season. Oh well.

Did I mention that I Love My Job?

A Continuation, of sorts...

I just realized that I never finished my post from the day before. I must have really got distracted. Also, I can never trust the boss when it comes to snow - he's such a wuss. Seriously, I mean he blew a fuse in his brand new Jeep - for the radio, and instead of fixing it himself he wants me to go to the dealer with him tomorrow.

"It's a fuse. Why don't you just replace it?"

"Too cold."

"Yes, but you have a HEATED garage!"

"Yeah, but..."

Okay, sidenote here. This man claims to have been everywhere and done everything. At least enough to one up everyone on their stories. I don't doubt that he has done what he says, and the like. BUT. Shouldn't he be able to replace an effing fuse in his car? Yikes. Plus, he buys this jeep because of it's great turning radius.

It does have that. But it rides like an old stagecoach. There is no doubt that I have felt every bump along Army Trail Road and Gary Ave in my mind. Ugh. I especially hate it when I ride with him on a full bladder. Need I say more.

Okay, so when he told me there was a quarter of an inch of snow on the ground, I fell for it and panicked a bit. I feel so stupid. Sure there was that amount of snow, that had drifted to about a quarter of an inch. But this was your dry fluffy snow. No need to panic, at all.

At least I wasn't late picking up Benjy, that would have been bad. Think of what I would have missed. You'll just have to read below to find out what I am talking about, I guess.

Where was I? Oh yeah, #1 wants me to get Bon Jovi tickets for us to see these ageless wonders in concert at the United Center. No thanks. "Besides you are so far behind in your school work that I may take one of Benjy's friends with me to the Hawks game!"

"That's not fair."

"Neither is life, my boy, neither is life."

Okay, I didn't actually say all that, just played it in my head, then I wrote it down. Now all I have to do is get him to read my blog.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Crap! American Idol is on tonight, isn't it? Gotta go!

Yeah right.

More Birds!!!

Okay, I know that the first pictures aren't necessarily of birds, but maybe they are and you just can't see them! :-)

Truth time! These are from a little while back when we had a lovely ice storm hit the entire area. These pictures come courtesy of my favorite photographer, well at least favorite photographer that I know personally, well.. Okay, not looking for any trouble here. So, it's my favorite nature photographer - that I happen to know. :-) As you may be able to see, the above picture was taken from the Galena territory on December 14. Looks warm doesn't it? Well, that is all covered in ice and it isn't very warm.
Spectacular image of a tree just standing there, taking all the punishment that nature can dish out, if you go to Lady of the Rose, you can see another icy image. Pretty cool actually and a well-taken photograph, that won a prize at the Sandwich Fair.
Don't think anyone is home. Or if they were, they ain't coming out!

Finally! Birds!! Here are a couple images of one of my favorite birds, the Northern Cardinal - these guys are, well uh guys. Yep, for some reason God made the male cardinal the attractive one. You see, the female is kind of just another brown-ish bird. Oh you can still tell one, by it's shape, just not the reds.
Below, is a Red-Bellied Woodpecker, as you can tell by the second photo.

Lastly, it is a Black-Capped Chickadee. Gee, I wonder where it got it's name from?

Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

More posting to follow.

Snow!!!

Yea, the first 'big' snow of the seaason! We got about five inches, I would guess maybe more of the beautiful white powder! Gotta love it!

Okay, I know, not everyone loves snow and truth be told, I will be cursing the stuff come February, maybe even January if the meds don't work. :-) Let's put it this way, on a scale of 1 to 10, January rates a -3. I hate January, hate it, hate it, hate it.

Lucky for us, it is still December, so all is still calm and bright... A song in the making, no doubt. :-)

I think that this has happened before, but I completely forgot what I was going to write, and write about. Is senility prominent in people my age? Don't think so, but something is up, for sure. Back to snow talk....

Snow (Hey Oh) by the Red Hot Chilipeppers is a great song. At least in my humble opinion.

EL was so excited about the snow, and driving in the snow, and getting whitewashed that it was very hard to figure out how old she really was. Kind of cool, when you think about it. I mean how many people get excited about driving in this stuff? Or shoveling it? Or getting buried in it by your roomates?

Yes, we did send her for her "random drug test" right after that, but...

I find it amazing how fast the time goes the closer we get to the end of a year. Especially when planning a social calendar... dinner over there, dinner over here, to gift, or not to gift. These are not only the questions that come up during this time of year, but also the things that we have to deal with.

More later...

Tigger-rific

We have this little Tigger, and when you press his hand he sings the Tigger song, you know the one that goes " The wonderful thing about Tiggers,..." Anyway, Danny loves it, in fact he loves it so much that he will play it over and over again. Cool.

Way better than watching Barney, or the Wiggles, again and again.

Well half of the duo from down south are gone, which means that we are getting closer to being on our own at the PITA ranch. Where, surprise, surprise people aren't as happy as the big cheese thinks they are. What o do? Do I let him know so that he can spaz out about it, or should I just keep it to myself, and you fellow readers? Personally, I think that I will just kind of chill out for a while, besides I might get a lead on a position in Huntsville if I keep it cool, you know.

Not much else to say, other than no big revelations with Jesus this morning, although I was quite the tired one. Stayed out with the dynamic duo and the big cheese eating,drinking and being merry. Saw the first snow flurries of the season - I still haven't broken out the jacket yet. (Don't know why, so don't ask). I think today it got up to forty, it's supposed to be the same tomorrow.

I wonder if I am not typing the keys hard enough, because I noticed that a few words were misspelled up there. Oh well.

Nighty-night