Report card time!

Well its that time of the year. Report cards are coming in to mixed reviews, and mixed feelingd from the boys. Good old gavyn couldn't care less, kyle wants us to see it and tristens mysteriously did not come home.. Might have had something to do with the intervention that happened...

We have a cash for grades policy at our house. I feel weird about it, like I shpuld defend it, but the real world repays you for your hard work (upper management aside, still not sure what the deal is there) so why should I not pay my kids for doing well. My parents paid me and my brother for grades, 5$ for 80, 10$ for 90, and 20$ for 95+. I only got the 20 twice, once for graduating highschool with 98 in math.

Kyle was anxious to show his reportcard because he got 45% in science, since he studied the wrong thing for the final exam. I did something similar in my final year, got 50% on my first math test because I reversed the logic used... I was so mad that I aced everything, literally I got 100 on everything, every test, assignment even the gouvernment run final exam. Hopefully kyles mistake will spurn him as well, only time will tell!

Have I mentioned we are going to disney world? February for kyles birthday we are going for a week. My sweatheart found the deal and we booked it, hindsight being what it is, we prolly should have booked it to leave from mtl and not lga... Now I will have to drive to mtl, pick them up, drive back to nj. Get the plane, pretend to have fun, then do it again at the end of the trip. 24++ hours of driving in a week... Got to be a better way...

Still no joy on the house, talking about renting it out, but we would be losing 500 a month if we did, so not sure about that whole scene...

The evils od spell vheckker

What is wrong with the world today? Why are we so bad to ourselves and eachother?

I blame the automatic door opener. Now you never have to see your neighbors... No need to converse with them, no reason to get along with them, no reason to grow as a human being. We are, in general, extremely intolerant of one another. Its amazing that any marriage works never mind about 50%.

Are we genetically programed to be a bunch of hard ass jerks who can't cut anyone slack? My dad was and is pretty intolerant of others, its somewhat of a standing joke in our house, and of course my life has been modelled after him. He characterzes it as hating stupidity and stupid people, but really he's as intolerant as I am.

I worry about how my kids will grow up, I touched upon it before, how I didn't want to corrupt them as I was corrupted and so try and keep my intollerance to a minimum, but it comes out. Jenn has taught me to thinlk differently, to not get mad at the guy who cuts me off to exit the highway, to not think someone is a bad parent because they are out at 2am with their 4 year old, for all I know their apartment building burned down and they are walking to a friend/shelter. Maybe the guy who cut you off is lost, or taking directuons from someone on the phone...

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone right? If you've never cut someone off, never cut a line because you were in a hurry, then fine cuss them out and be righteous, otherwise cut them some slack and maybe when you need to be cut some slack maybe someone will.

Comb overs, seriously who are you kidding?

Comb overs, spray on hair, hair implants, all sad. I feel really sorry for people who lie to themselves. Its totally ok to lie to others when its worth it, but you should never lie to yourself.

Going bald is a fact of life for some of us, I am 5 years away from a fuzzy toilet seat and have a pact with my wife that if I ever start dressing strange, or combing over, that she will take me out back and shoot me. Interestingly enough, she didn't make the same deal, wonder why...

But seriously, people who comb over in the morning are really trying to fool themselves not us... My dad, to this day, maintains that when he used to comb over he couldn't tell he was bald, because it looks the same in the mirror, yeah ok pull my other leg so I don't have to limp home...

Similar but funnier is women who pad their bras... Are you hoping that by the time the bra comes off the guy is going to be too distracted to notice that your boobs went with it? There I suppose its more of a wanting to be noticed problem than lying to yourself, but still sad.

You are who you are, you can enhance yourself in all kinds of ways, but you should dtrive to be happy within yourself before going to those extremes.. And going through anything like that for someone else is insane, no one is worth that.

So Tristen, yes not son num 2 anymore, plays world of warcraft as well as me. He also knows that if he wants to talk to me, he can fairly reliably find me online and bug me there. He comes on the other day and wants to use my email adress to sign up for some game or other. I already get enough spam so I cleverly say "ask your mother if you can use hers", besides at least she can make sure he's not signing up for something he shouldn't.

"She already said no."

"So, why are you asking me then? You already have your answer."

See here is where lying used to work for me... I would ask my dad something preficing it with, mom said it is ok with her, but that I should ask you if I can ... Then go to mom and do the same.. Now they both agreed to let me do something they normally wouldn't. Worked like a charm until one day dads said, "I doubt that, REG?!?" And a grounding ensued...

Anyways, since that logic tract didn't work for him he changed paths.

"But kyle has one"

"Yes, but kyle is 13, don't use kyle as a reason you should have something. It wouldn't be fair to kyle if I let you have one at 11, since he had to wait till 13."

"To think, I look up to you"

Aha, so being nice didn't work, using the brother didn't work, let's try guilt... He should be a lawyer, serously.

"Lol, so now you are going to insult me to get what you want?"

At this point he logged off and I called jenn and told her I broke tristen... She later confirmed that tristen came into her studio and asked her how long someone his size would take to starve to death. Yep, flair for the dramatic.

Jenn is making a quilt! But she refuses to make it big enough for our bed, much to my annoyance... I want one for my jersey pad so I can sleep under her love every night, but nOooooooooooo... Sigh.

No insightful sign off tonight, too tired to be creative.

Do you wash your hands if no one is looking?

Interesting question, before you gice the instant and expected response of ewww of course, be honest with yourself if not me. Likely that is more of a question for men, if any are in fact reading this, than for women. But it also leads to an interesting discussion around right and wrong, and morals.

Why do we do things? I sparked an interesting conversation from my previous post which unfortunately I could not contribute to, so if you enjoy this and want to talk please post a comment. While most of my posts are mailed in from my crackberry on the way to and from work I do check occasionally to see if anyone is listening.

Anyways back to why do we do things. Why do we wash our hands after, obvious sanitary concerns, more interestingly why do we not wash our hands before... Its certainly a less sanitary world where your hands have been than the inside of your pants... But why do we do the things we do? Some of them are taboos, religious left overs, some of them have reasons.

This topic, fair warning, is going to spiral wildly out of control...

Why do we knock on wood when we don't want to jinx ourselves? Its a pagan belief that the sound scares away bad spirits who may otherwise hear what we don't want them to, and therefore cause us pain. Same reason we knock to enter a house, the portal into your home is protected, knocking scares away the bad things so the visitor has time to enter... Besides its just polite.

Why do we say god bless, or that german word I can't spell, when someone sneezes? Because we want to have god ward off any illnesses that might be following that sneeze, and besides its just polite.

So how many politenesses (lol stick around I make new words all the time) are based on pagan rituals? How many things do we do just because that is how they were always done?

I said before that I am analytical and that I like to look at things from a why perspective. When you do that, a lot of the unjustifiables come down to, just because. A lot of others make sense, even if outdated. Why can't jews eat pork? Not the religious reason, the real reason that was founded 3 thousand years ago... Because pork rots quickly in the heat, and can't be as readily preserved as beef and chicken, so stop eating it. What do we tell the people that own a lot of pigs, they are dirty animals that live in their own filth so should not be eaten. Conveniently ignoring the fact tjhat chickens eat their own filth, eggs, eachother (remind me to come nback to the definition of hen pecking some day), or cows, spend any time around living animals and you know that except how humans contain them, no animal enjoys its own filth.

So why then? Because 3 thousand years ago only a select few could read. There were no police, no government to speak of, the only way to control a growing population was through religion, and fear of your immortal soul. Funny how fear is used to control people, its used everywhere, every day. You wash your hands if someone else is in the room because you are afraid of what that person would think of you didn't. And yes, I do even if no one is around, I have kids...

More religion, why do christians eat fish on fridays? Because most of the apostles were fishermen. What better way to guarantee their livlihood and that of their children, than to make people eat fish at least one day a week. Maybe they knew about the benefits of folic acid, maybe not.

So do we do thingd because of fear? Religion? Because our parents told us to?

This is also how we know right from wrong. I tell my kids, you know what is right and wrong, you don't need me to tell you. If you look around to see if any parental unit is around before doing something you clearly know its wrong. The difference between a good person and a bad person, is the good person does what's right even if there is no one around to see. You stop at a red light at 2 am because its the right thing to do, even if there is no one around.

So really right and wrong, good and evil are fabrications placed upon us ny ourselves, by our society, religion, family... It is this distinction, and adherence to it, that differentiates us from all the other animals on this rock. My cat knows he shouldn't pee on my bed, but if he ever gets the bed alone, he does it anyways. My dog knows he is not allowed to eat our of the garbage can, but if we leave it open, and him alone all bets are off.

My train of thought derailed, so hen pecking. If a hen sees a spot on another chicken, it strikes it trying to kill/eat it. Great, except if the hen draws blood, there's more spots, more things to strike... A hen pecking party will end up resulting in several dead hens, and even more exhausted ones...aren't you glad u are not a chicken?

Holy crap this is a long post

Most sane people avoid discussions around religion, race and politics, no one said I was sane, though I will avoid politics while wearing blue as often as I can.

I remember a debate in college, (excuse me for this digression everyone in quebec, but explaining cegep to people just isn't worth the effort) in my moral religious education class where we debated the various rules in christianity. When we got around to pre marital sex, and birth out of wedlock my engine really started. You see we had a religious nut in our class. If you are born out of wedlock, you and your parents are going to hell, no chance for redemption, do not pass go, do not collect communion, heck why bother being nice at all? If you are going to hell anyways, why not rape and pilliage your way through life?

What kind of benevolent all loving omnipresent being, makes that kind of call? What kind of stupid rule is that? Back to fear, keep the population under control by limiting when you can get married. And when you can have kids through fear. But wouldn't that rule backfire for those who are born out of wedlock? They now have nothing to fear! They can't get anyu better, or any worse from the day they are born. Stupid rule.

Alright enoughs enough for today, doubt anyone will read this far but if you do... Spare some change to a homeless person, they might use it for booze or drugs, but if anyone needs a drink its them. If you can't do that, next time you buy yourself a fast food meal, buy an extra one and give it to your local homeless guy, if you are honest with yourself you know where they are.

Miss you babe, thanksgiving can't come soon enough. We should give thanks again, we really do have a lot to be thankful for, especially me.

Truly random

Otw home, standing room only on the lovely nj transit bus. At least this driver maintains a reasonably smooth speed, some of these guys are nuts...

Anyways promised some random thoughts so here u go.

If you are proud of being chinese, black, jamaican, british its fine. But if you are proud of being white you are racist.

If a black guy calls another black guy the n-word, its a rap song or they are friends. If anyone else does it, it ends badly.

So son num 2 is grounded again. He is our prolific liar. When given the choice between telling the truth and fabricating, he will fib. Yesterday he was grounded for sitting in the tv room for an hour while mom was out walking one of the dogs. Seems innocent enough except the other two were standing at the patio door barking their brains out for that hour.

For that num 1 and num 2 get grounded. Now my boys want for nothing, I spoil the to ease my guilt at never being home, because I can, and because I enjoy making them happy. They each have a gamrboy so SOP for being grounded is to present the GB. Num 2 is yellintg from his rookm "I can't find it!". Finally my wife gets irritated and comes to help, low and behold he is in his room, sitting on the stairs looking around furiously for a place to hide the game boy he is holding in his hand.

I keep telling my boys, whatever you do wrong, lying makes it worse. Oldest gets it and doesn't lie, middle totally lost the concept, so my folllow up is: if you are going to lie, at least make it remotely possible that I will believe you...

I started talking about my oldest this morning and never finished, even though this blog is only 4 posts old, by now you are probably used to incomplete thoughts but this warrants completion.

My oldest has suffered through a lot of my growing pains. As I said earlier he was more like a little brother than my son. While it may be true that parenthood doesn't come with a manual, despite dr. Phils attempts, one pre-req should definately be that you be a mature adult. Note I said mature...just being a certain age isn't good enough. My older brother, by two years, has often been confused for the younger of the two of us for that same reason.

Anyways, I made most, if not all of my mistakes with num 1. Thank god for genetics because I still maintain that he is the most mature, smartest 13 year old I have ever met. I get frustrated with him, and all my boys when they give up on something. Just because its hard doesn't mean you can't do it, in fact once you have done it you feel that much better about having done it.

I try not to force my opinions, which being the analytical (funny how anal is part of that word) person that I am I can admit that most of my opinions are my fathers, onto my kids. I really want them to generate their own opinions about life. Some of them I quell as unhealthy (americans are stupid, can thank grandpa for that particular nugget) but I try and support their opinions and help them in defending those opinions by talking through them. Wow am I ever drifting...

I find most people are highly opinionated, but few people are educated in those opinions. Those are often the people who guard their opinions zealously, because they arte afraid to admit that they don't know why they think that way.

Back to num 1, before my bus ride is over, one critical mistake we made was putting him in french school when we moved back to quebec. He lost a year and developed a hatred for the language that took 6 years to recover from, if only partially. Since he is the senior child, all hus siblings hate french too, little do they know how good it is for them. I pity unilinguals, of any language. Knowing more languages opens up other possibilities and options that would be otherwise closed to you.

I tell them its important, and can hear my dad talking, so I add something he never did. "I know you don't believe me, I know you think I am old and clueless, but its my job to tell you this. And when you have your own kids, and are saying the same thing to them, you will be thinking what I am thinking, man I wish I had listened to dad. I'm also the only one here who has already been (age + 1), so MAYBE just MAYBE I know what I am talking about"

Hug someone close to you for no reason. Hold the door open for a stranger, help a lady with a stroller up the escalator, and seek balance by kicking a cat.

Miss you bunches babe, go easy on the boys, its almost as hard for them to not have me around as it is for you.

No traffic is a wonderful thing...

10 am day two, slept later than I wanted to and was more than a little worried about the traffic situation heading into NY at this time of the day. I've been commuting for 8 weeks now and have been pretty lucky on that score, only about 4 times has the commute been horrible...

Spoke to my wife this morning, her staying up late to keep me company meant she was almost late getting the boys out the door. I don't know how she does it... I can barely get my unorganized self out the door in 45 minutes, nevermind finishing off homework, feeding 3 hungry kids, preparing lunch for 2 of them, gathering all their relevant belonging, remembering if it is a gym day or not, and bundling them all off to the bus without one of the dogs escaping... Truly amazing.

So we're selling our house, but there is 0 interest in the market right now. Its a small bungalo on a double sized lot, across the street from a river (no flood insurance required) and backs onto a provincial park so we have basically only one neighbor for the kids/dogs to annoy. My american friends can't understand why it won't sell... I just wish it would so I can get my life back.

Have I mentioned that what I consider me life is my wife and kids, the dogs play a big roll too, I can certainly do without the cats... I miss them all, my 13 year ols is responsible for the random piles of leaves down the street on the way to the bus, wife and I were wondering who was dumping leaves in the park, turns out someone was just organizing them.

My oldest is by far the worst off of my boys. He was born wheb I was 18, and I have treated him, and still do though I am working on it, more as a little brother than a son. Sure I teach him manners etc, they were pounded into me and my brother drill seargent style by our dad so much do that I correct other peoples children, much to my wifes annoyance....

Bus trip over, more ramblings tonight

Homeward bound

The love of my life, sleep deprived angel has been peppering me with solace while I work through this upgrade at work. I've done worse upgrades, this is our second of three practice runs but its still not a science yet... Still a couple of aha moments, usually late at night when the wits are dullest... I was joking that my IQ drops 20 points for every hour after 18 hours of up time... So I'm well into the negatives now...

Welcome to my Blog

Blogging, weird. I don't have time to talk to my wife, don't have time to check facebook, but here I am blogging... sure why not. It's 10:30pm, I'm still at work... I've been up since yesterday at 6am (ok, I'll admit it, I had a 3 hour nap from 3am to 6am) but anyone who knows me knows that less than 7 hours of sleep does not a happy community make..

So why blog, jeez I don't know. I don't capture any of my thoughts or emotions anywhere, in fact I rarely acknowledge my emotions, and avoid thinking where possible... so why start capturing them now? My wife sent me a very inspirational blog link to a families blog where for years everything was great, they were the picture perfect family, until one day disaster struck and the parents were seriously hurt in a plane crash...

I drive 6 hours to and from Montreal to NJ every other weekend. How many miles does the average person travel between minor and major accidents... How many miles can you travel at 75 miles an hour in the dark/snow without meeting a deer/tree/semi/moron... all happy thoughts...

What are your alternatives, fly? Can't afford it. So take the bus, it leaves at 8am and arrives the next morning at 2am... for some reason they think going through buffalo is a good plan.. Fine, wiseass, take the train. One train per day, leaves at 10am and arrives at 9pm (if memory serves). So I'd get 12 hours with the family before having to get back on the train to come back...

Anyways enough whining, we've embarked on an adventure, an adventure that started 14 years ago with the words "Hi Honey, I'm pregnant" and went from there. I've battled my self, my wife, my family, more of myself, but there is nothing I would change from everthing that has happened.

I lied, in writting that I remember something I said to my wife, we should have had dogs first. Yes, the post is called ramblings for a reason, please follow the mexican jumping bean that is my train of thought....

Sawyer, our first dog (we have 3) changed me fundamentally. I now get dog people. I have spent easily 3000$ on that dog, and he was free to start with.. But his unconditional love, and adoration changed me, he mellowed me. I love sitting on the kitchen floor and burrying my head in his fur, smelling the fall leaves on him and the freedom (and wtf, the dude smells like bacon half the time...) and having him simply lie there and soak in my presence.

Some people can't stand having dogs around them, I was one of those people. I was a "cat" person until our first two litters of cats, then I was done... Now I am a dog person, with three dogs that love me, to match the three kids that love me.

So I started with whining about work, moved on to whining about driving, reminised about my dogs and kids where can I go next...

If you stumble on this blog, have patience, I'm sure it won't develop into anything interesting any time soon.. but maybe, just maybe, one day I'll say something quoteable, you never can tell.

I am probably the luckiest person I know. My wife is the most beautiful, patient, reliable, loving, supportive, insane, caring person I have ever known. These times away from her and the kids suck, if I weren't emotionally retarded I wouldn't be able to do it. as it is I don't know how she does it, she's far more sensitive and human than I am. She cries at comercials, press stories about people halfway across the world, and the thought that our kids are having trouble with school or life. How she copes with the 3 boys alone, unable to drive, in the middle of no where is beyond me. My only hope is that she doesn't realize she doesn't need me until i can get them all moved down here. My entire reason for being, my reason for working so hard for the last 10 years to get to where I am, is my wife.

I enjoy spoiling her, even though she hates it. I love buying her expensive things, I am jealous of people who's houses she compliments because I can't afford to set her up as my princess in her castle... I'm envious of her ebay girls and their bond, and jealous of her computer that gets to feel her touch 24/7... so yeah, I'm seriously messed up...:)