I read some more of Con$umed last night and then, following my own advice to watch some lighter fare, I plopped in … Donnie Darko? This movie is crazy, but good. But there in the stack of DVDs to watch is Little Miss Sunshine, Stranger Than Fiction, Bottle Rocket … why did I pick the movie about the crazy teen that has an imaginary 6 foot tall bunny rabbit trying to teach him about time travel and encouraging him to commit arson and vandalize his school? Which actually kind of sounds funny now… But still, I need something silly. My buddy Bill at work has prescribed The Simpsons Movie this weekend. Which going to a movie alone could be even more depressing. I think I need some sort of tube filled with anti-depressants that I could be put under induced sleep until all this heals.

We played the number one team in volleyball last night and lost. We played fairly well down two teammates, 4 against 6. We were able to put up at least 22 points each game (games are to 25), but the miscues due to tired bodies trying to cover too much ground wore us down. I was frustrated out there, but it was more of a manifestation of what’s going on in my life seemingly played out in this game…I’m thinking too much. One of Van’s good buddies, Tucker was at 3 Beach and they had a blast running. Tuck is a great kid – really well behaved, silly, and he’s also a totally kinetic boy (just like Bubs). He always says hello to me whenever I see him around town, “Hi Van’s Dad.”
I got some changes done to the eMaint SSIS package, some more work on the new client, and additional changes to the OSC curtain rods site. I really need to hit these projects hard, but again with tomorrow in the back of my head it’s difficult to concentrate on anything right now.

Tonight is the last night my son will be with me until the next visit or Christmas time. With finances what they are (and so much still unknown), it’s tough to plan on a trip right now. This really is the worst of my fears coming true. My family will soon be gone and I’m paralyzed financially to do anything right now. I’ll just keep working hard and hope for the best I guess. This sure does suck one.

Also, I sent out an email to some of my fellow bloggers yesterday, but then I realized, I don’t have everyone’s email addresses, so here’s what I sent out…

I wanted to send an email out to some of my favorite reads and let you know that although I love reading your posts, I’m having a tough time right now. So please don’t be offended in any way if I don’t comment the next few days.

Wednesday I’ll be flying my son to Georgia and I’ll get to see my daughter in the airport for about 3 hours. Unless I can afford to fly down there between now and Christmas, I won’t see either one of them until December 26th. I’m sure I’ll be down there as much as possible. I have a couple of family members and a friend or two that work for various airlines and promised buddy passes. But I’ve learned to not rely on promises too much.

I love all of you and if anyone asks, tell them something really cool. Make it up. You know like, “oh man, Van, he’s touring with White Snake now, you know being wild.”

Doesn’t have to be White Snake, someone cooler would be better.

Reality is I’ll most likely be either huddled over my Mac and PC working until umpteen thirty in the morning or curled in the fetal position calling for rosebud.

• The Childhood Goat Trauma Foundation
• How to Make a Secret Hollow Book
• Books Shaped Like Packs of Cigarettes – please don’t make children’s books

Yesterday was like a mini-Christmas for my son. He woke up and got his toy lantern and model airplane. Then our neighbor gave Bubs some of her son’s toys (and as it turns out, the ones that Van loves to play with when he’s over there). He got a million-gagillion army men, some inflatable instruments, and a drum machine that Bubs loves. I’m going to record some of his jams somehow.

Whew, I got a ton done yesterday – changed the sediment filter after noticing my water tasted a little sedimenty, did laundry, fixed the HTML I had fucked up on the curtain rods site when integrating OS Commerce into the design, did an estimate for a change in scope for the new client, fixed an issue with the legal websites, paid bills, put together the model airplane with my son, went grocery shopping, strung my guitar, got a tablature book for my guitar student, did the day job, played volleyball, went to the library, and got a call from the shitty neighbor about Yogi barking during the day(again).

The last really pisses me off. This guy runs some pool motor of some sort every night until 10pm one week a year, talks on his cell phone loudly on his back deck constantly, plays Jimmy Buffett and country music on his outdoor speakers, has an electrical wire that is laying in my yard (I told him about this 3 years ago when I moved in), has these rocks that are sliding into my yard constantly(into the kid’s sandbox), and…this one really pissed me off – I agreed to let him trim back one of my trees so less leaves would fall into his pool. When the tree service came out (I wasn’t home) he turned all of my trees in the backyard into telephone poles. This sucks because I like laying in my hammock (when he’s not polluting the air with Buffett) and I’ve got no shade at all now. And then there was this clown (the neighbor, not an actual clown) blowing leaves off of his freaking roof every morning early. Now see if you can guess how many times I’ve called him to complain? Zero. You know why? Because we’re neighbors and you know what, I give him a break.

The guy just flat out shouldn’t be in Medford Lakes. We have small yards here. The houses are close together. Kids are outside making noise often. People are on the whole are outside a lot. Kids and parents are riding bikes to the beaches. There’s noise but in my opinion, it’s all good noise. I love it. I love that kids are outside here. Unstructured outdoor play is so good for kids. This is a community where everyone respects bedtime and if someone has a problem, you go knock on your neighbor’s door and talk to them. Not this passive aggressive answering message leaving crap.

His wife and kids are awesome. My son is over there a lot and their son plays over here often too. I hate that this guy has to be such a tool. I could think about cutting that wire in my yard, something drastic, or start calling to complain about everything, but you know what? This guy’s attitude punishes himself – I don’t need to do a single thing. I feel bad for him really, not angry. He doesn’t have anything better to do than call a guy trying to figure out how he’s going to keep on keeping on to complain about a dog barking? Sad. The only change I’m making is I’ve turned my answering machine off. Anyone who needs me (and I actually want to hear from), knows my cell number.

After Grace’s guitar lesson, I plan on teaching Bubba the finer art of cooking break and bake cookies. This is so he can make them for Viv and his Mommy when he moves down there. Cookie making was one of my lame ways of doing something nice for them. I usually would make them when any migraines came along or when I knew Viv and his Mommy needed something sweet after a tough day. Bubba loves to help and learn stuff, and we’ll have some cookies at the end of it all.

I broke no wrists last night at my volleyball game. Sandy was there to watch with her big green cast. We played really well and again lost the first game only to rally and win the next two. My serve was looking great until the last game and I could feel my shoulder getting tired (at least that’s the excuse I’m using). My bread and butter is a knuckleball serve, which when I do it right you can tell because the person bumping it on the back line makes a sudden adjustment right before the ball arrives. But when I miss it and hit it with too much thumb, it weakly lands in the net. The nice neighbor (Heather) that gave Van all those toys really had a good game.

• Universe
• Step One, Get the Pig Drunk…then shoot him in the air…what?
• DieKus – haikus made from photos of grave stones are being plastered all around NYC, which make more sense than getting a pig drunk and firing it into the air.
• Speeders Have Small Weiners

After reading Bubs the two comics we made together and a chapter in his book about the space shuttle, I waited for him to go to sleep and I snuck in his tooth fairy presents – a model airplane and a small lantern for his camping trips.

I encoded an AVI of this video for the Battleship New Jersey (it’s on the front page now). Many thanks to Vodkafish for his help in doing this. I also had a small emergency for NitroVideo, involving an actress complaining about her video being posted. After troubleshooting a couple of permissions issues, I was able to take care of that too. I’ve got lots of work to do for the new client and I need to fix all the HTML I messed up while fixing OSC into the curtain rods site. I’ll sleep one day probably, but I have to keep making money to pay for all my misery.

Speaking of that misery… I’m really in a bad place right now. Bubs came into my office while I was working yesterday and he told me again how he doesn’t want to be away from me. He cried hard and buried his head in my chest. I’m so paralyzed by all of this. The immediacy of all of this has me numb and unable to think. I feel like an old sail that is all ripped apart, left up, and the wind just kind of blows through me, kind of mocking that I used to be able to move. I hate this sail. The whole boat sucks. The S.S. Me.

I got to see Viv yesterday on iChat and that was awesome. She’s so beautiful. Yogi was in the office and heard Dana’s and Viv’s voices and was all perked up looking for his girls. We blew kisses at our monitors.

This morning I finally took some pictures of all the bikes at camp. Today was wacky hat day at camp too, so there’s a bunch of silly pics I’ll post. I’ve got a volleyball game tonight, hopefully all my teammates will come dressed as the Michelin Man to protect themselves from the wrist-breaking loser.

• Giant Rice Paddy Art
• Ugly Outfits New York – seeking to prove that not everyone in NY is fashionable

I feel so bad. I found out yesterday afternoon that Sandy, the victim of my volleyball trampling, has a broken wrist! I’m going to drop off a get well gift of some sort, just need to make sure she’s not a diabetic (for chocolates from Reilly’s).

Bubba and I made a new ComicLife comic, (Bubba Saves the Battleship!) to send to Viv. We also discovered while eating corn the other night that Bubba has another loose tooth (right in the front). For bed, I read the comic we made and then we read another chapter of the space shuttle book.

Every night after Bubs goes to bed, Yogi and Ziggy do this routine to try and get my attention and some petting. Yogi does his Bear in the Big Blue House impersonation of getting all up in my grill. Then he gets mildly scolded for personal space invasion, which leads to him staying exactly as close but looking the other way. But he can’t resist looking over at me, so I usually end up rubbing his big orange fuzzy head again anyway. Ziggy flops all over the place to get his tummy rubbed. And they usually end up all snuggly together, which is pretty cute.

I got one of the new client’s MySQL schema built last night as well as a new feature for the legalhelp websites too. Which amounted to around 6 billable hours, not bad really. I’ve got a lot more work left on my plate for sure though. The OS Commerce store needs a lot of attention right now, I should be able to get it done by Sunday. But I’m also not going to sacrifice any Bubba time to do so.

I watched The Number 23 after finished up all the geeky work and watching the first four innings of the Phils-Pads game. The movie was decent, it could have been better, but the plot was very familiar to a lot of plot twisting thrillers you’ve seen recently.

• Apocalypse Oz
• Celebs Photoshopped to Dumpy Normalcy – the Johnny Depp one is great, as is Jennifer Anniston

Man, I feel bad. I ran over a woman last night. The good news is it was playing volleyball and not driving, the bad news is I probably messed her wrist up pretty bad. She had just bumped the ball straight up on the back line, I ran back from the front to help it up to the net. She stayed put after bumping it and watched the ball. I called the ball, but she was still there. Ergo, I ran her over. Poor Sandy was left on the sand (ha, Sandy was probably sandy after …sand..yeah…not so funny) clutching her wrist in pain. She tried to keep playing and got it wrapped, but when another Laker showed up, we made Sandy go home and take it easy. I really feel bad about that aside from the fact that it’s just not nice to pummel girls, but also because Sandy works with her hands.

We ended up winning the next two games and we were even down two players (so it was 4 against 6). While I was playing Bubba was having a blast swimming and running around 3 Beach. When I was done playing, Bubba  saw me coming all sweaty, sandy, and bloodied (from throwing myself around the court, not from the collision) and he smiled and ran into the water, making me come get him. He knew I wasn’t wearing swim trunks, so he thought he was safe. Obviously, he didn’t see Daddy run over the lady and didn’t understand just how damn crazy I am. I came flying into the water after him and tackled him in the cedar water in a giggling pile.

We got home, took tubbies, got me some Advil, and read a couple more chapters of his space shuttle book.

I worked on all of the projects a little bit, but my back was killing me for some reason (oh yeah, I’m fucking 36!) and I stretched out on the couch and read some more of The I Chong and whimpered in as manly of a fashion as I could.

I did do one thing right yesterday (besides the time with Bubs), I go to the library pretty much every day. And I’ve mentioned my odd selections and the jokes I get about farting dog books or combinations of My Little Pony DVDs with zombie horror DVDs. Well I thanked my favorite librarian, Nicole for being nice to me. I’ve found it’s really good for you (and those good people in your day) to take a couple seconds to say thanks and that you appreciate them.

So this weekend I need to kick some patootey on all my projects. I need to get my bike chain replaced by LarryMac (tonight hopefully). I need to read and play with Bubba lots and lots. I need to make some more music. I need to get a new set of strings for my acoustic, get a lesson and tab book for Grace (my guitar student), and try not to think too much about that next week will be my last week with my son.

• CleanIsHappy – caution, heineys!
• Smoker’s Bib
• 15 Unfortunately Placed Ads