What a BuzzKill

This weekend was Rece’s 12th birthday. We ended up going to Wild Rivers with some friends and had a blast! After the wet and wild fun, we came back home to shower – then went right back out to have more fun at Boomers in Fountain Valley. Afterwards we went to Marie Callender’s for some pie (in lieu of birthday cake). Rece seemed to really be enjoying himself and it was nice to see him so happy on his special day.

With the start of school, I’m beginning to also see the start of some challenges for Rece. With ADD, he’s already got a lot to work around in respect to maintaining focus and on-task with school. While I’m not too worried about him in the classroom, my biggest concern is his homework. He’s already starting some bad habits that I’m hoping to help him unravel and get on track. Now that he’s with me full-time, he’ll have more stability and the ability to form some consistency in his work habits.

This week is already starting to look very busy for the both of us. Monday he’s starting his second round of karate lessons and that’s going to be something he needs to manage into his system without it getting in the way of school. For his birthday I got him guitar lessons, which I won’t allow him to start until he’s done with karate and doing well with school. I admit that I feel a little bit of guilt for hinging a gift on his performance, but at this point I need every tool that I have at my disposal to get him to do what he needs to do.

Wish me luck!

So after my earlier boring post, my friend Christine reminded me of one of the funnier things that happened during the drive yesterday.

We ate lunch at Pea Soup Andersons and as usual I ordered the Travelers Special. This is a meal of unlimited beverage, bread, and their signature split pea soup. I wasn’t especially hungry, so I only ate 3 bowls of soup on this visit. After the meal we got the bill and I was quite surprised by what the waiter had written on it…

(click image for larger view)

Call me crazy, but that looks an awful lot like “If u die.” It seemed a bit disturbing at first, but quickly became rather funny after Christine guessed that the last word was probably “diet” which made sense because I was drinking iced tea (“It” not “If”), Rece had a vanilla shake (“V” not “U”), and Christine ordered a Diet Coke (“diet” not “die.”). We were quite relieved, as you could probably imagine.

On Saturday (yesterday) I drove 4 hours to pick up some things from my dad’s place, one of the items being a 2-3 year old mattress. Christine was nice enough to volunteer to ride shotgun and help keep me entertained along the 4-hour (each way) journey. It was a nice day trip, really.

We stopped by Pea Soup Anderson’s as we passed through Buelton on highway 101. Christine hadn’t been this way before so I decided to also give her a motor tour of Solvang (AKA “Soul Fang”), which she seemed to find very cute.

We arrived at my dad’s place around 1:00 pm and hung out awhile resting from the drive and talking. Then we loaded up the car and took off. One of the things I can’t seem to get comfortable about is when I have things strapped down to the roof of a car I’m driving. So for quite some time I was rather nervous that our job securing the mattress wasn’t enough. This resulting in 2-3 stops in the first 1.5 hours of the trip back… not to mention my driving like an old man. Once we reached Santa Barabara, I had had enough and decided to find a Target or some other place where I could purchase more sturdy rope. I ended up purchasing 50 feet of 1/2 braided nylon rope – the kind folks use to climb up mountains – and lashing the mattress down to the roof rack in a very secure manner. It was just enough to relieve my apprehension and no longer worry.

Yep, another post that isn’t all too interesting. Where did my funny go? Hmm? I think my brain is still waiting for me to pick it up at Pea Soup Andersons…

Just a quick note to add that my good friend Christine also tried to find an incense boat for me during her trip to Oregon over the long weekend. She found (and bought) me incense, but was unable to find a simple boat to hold the sticks.

She eventually came through and found not one, but TWO of them (at a college campus store of all places – duh) and gave them to me a couple of nights ago. Yay!

And so it came to pass that Gabe didn’t blog for 2 weeks…

What did you do during Labor Day weekend, you ask? If you can believe it, I did very little. In fact, I did my very best to do as little as possible! Improper grammar aside, and to re-quote one of my favorite movies, “I did absolutely nothing, and it was all I thought it could be.” In order to confuse the point of me doing nothing, I’m going to tell you what I did end up doing.

Friday I was at the end of my rope, as far as social interaction goes. I was earnestly craving some alone time. Of course, being the male that I am, I was more than happy to offer assistance to one of my friends (who just happens to be an extremely HOT brunette) with her laptop. I took the laptop home with me so I could work on it in comfortable solitude. The problems were minimal, mostly fixed by the basic ad/spyware scan and removal and basic updates and defragging – plus un-tweaking her manually configured wireless configuration (the problem she needed to have fixed the most).

HOT brunette friend had to postpone picking up her laptop until Monday, so most of my Saturday was spent doing some necessary errands and the rest of the time relaxing at home. One of the tasks I held myself to was picking up some incense. The incense sticks were easy enough to locate, but it was the incense holders (or “incense boats” as everybody seemed to call them) that proved to be difficult to find. Not to be deterred from the pleasure of burnt fragrance, I made due with a candle and a plate.

My dad had driven down for the weekend with his little family to enjoy some time off. He loves Orange County (the sick bastard) and comes here as often as he can. He dropped by and I helped him with a new website he’s been trying to put together. After this I announced that I was officially burnt out on helping with any computer problems and I was done for the duration of the weekend. I hadn’t eaten much, and my dad was wanting to take a walk, which lead us to drive out to Newport Pier for donuts and coffee. Along the way we stopped at Pier Records (where they sell bongs) in an attempt to locate an incense boat. They had the incense sticks, but not the boats for some reason. The guy working there suggested the Jamaican store (go figure) down the block, but they turned out to be closed. So we spent the remainder of the evening talking and dad eventually called it a night, because it was night I suppose, and took off. I forced myself to stay awake until around 3:00 am playing Civilization 4 and reading.

Sunday was spent doing even less than Saturday. The trick of forcing myself to stay awake until the early morning worked – resulting in my sleeping in until after noon. The afternoon/evening was passed by watching a couple of movies:

Lucky Number SLEVIN – a decent and entertaining movie, despite my having already figured out some of the big twists within the first 30 minutes. What I liked best was that it was a good attempt at something different.

Capote – Great acting and a good story, but honestly it was like watching a Kubrick film on Valium. It was all I could do to stay awake through the whole thing.

My dad called and convinced me to join them for dinner in Seal Beach. Dinner was very good and rather expensive, so I was glad that he paid – which was only fair considering that I would expect him to have warned me of the prices if he had expected me to pay, right? That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Oh, so backtracking a bit… my dad’s little girl had left her sippy cup at my place the night before. I wanted to return it to her so I brought it along to dinner. Well, I drove to Seal Beach and found myself walking down Main Street with a pink sippy cup with “Princess” in big letters on it trying to locate them. Either I was rather conspicuous or it was just my paranoia, but I swear people were staring at me funny.

For some reason I felt this post would be a lot shorter and much more entertaining… but, well, it’s 4 days late and I can’t seem to find the funny button anywhere. Aw, hell…

This entry was brought to you by the elusive incense boats!

I’ve found some wacky subject titles and sender names while dealing with our spam mailbox at my office. Some are downright crude, while others make no sense at all… some just seem to have something magical about them. Today I’ve decided to start saving some of these or using them in odd places (like this blog title).

This brings up an interesting topic that sometimes comes up with friends after I make a post: What the hell did that blog title mean?

Sometimes it’s from a conversation with a friend, turning into an inside joke. If the topic I’m writing about relates to that person (or persons) I might use that as a little something to make them smile. Other times it’s just random stuff that relates to absolutely nothing… and now, some of them will be spam titles and the likes. So there ya go!

“Hi!” I said as I leaned over the seats to give my friend a hug.
“Hey!” she said as she responded to the hug.
“Who’s this?” her sister inquired, with a slight air of suspicion.
“This is my friend Gabe, I work with him” was the reply.

Ouch. That’s not how I’d introduce someone that I considered a friend and confidant.

The concert we went to early tonight was a lot of fun. We got the tickets for free through work. Because we got a bunch of tickets all over the place in the arena, a few of my friends resorted to mobile phones and text messages to communicate. I ended up bouncing between a couple clusters of them between bands to say hello.

This was Rece’s first concert and he really seemed to enjoy himself. He handled the noise level well and got into the music and feel of the concert crowd. Christine would perk up during some songs, but I could tell that most of it just wasn’t her cup of tea – I’m guessing a bit too heavy for her liking. She did seem to enjoy herself, which I’m glad for. For me the music was good – a bit heavier than what I’d typically like to listen to, but they sounded great and they really put on a good show. Quinn was the Nickleback fan of our group. He knew the words to every song and knew some of the older stuff I hadn’t ever heard before. Watching his enjoyment helped me enjoy the show even more. Very cool.

Heart pounding in my chest.
Dorky grin on my face.
Having difficulty concentrating.
Blurting words I can’t contain.
Captivated.
Wishing I had a jackhammer.
Sigh.

The job that I interviewed for (twice) 2 weeks ago washed out. The guy from the second interview called me yesterday and told me flat-out that since I’d be working for him and we’re pretty much at the same level of experience and knowledge, they didn’t think it such a good idea to hire me. It makes sense, and I told him that I was afraid this would be the case seeing what he needed.

I’m not really disappointed, since this was a worry of mine as well. I sent my resume in after a friend tipped me off about an opening they had, with no idea for what job I was applying. This was some good practice and a healthy boost to my confidence in the job market. The notion that I could make at least what I’m making now for a lower position helps me put things into perspective.