Reading Lessons

Tonight after playing catch with the Little Boy (he insisted that we play catch, I didn't fight him on this one, I know when to pick my battles), we did his reading homework. I'm amazed that a kidergartener has reading homework. I don't remember having reading homework when I was in kidergarten, but there we were. It was this little printed book with 21 pages and not more than 10 words on any page, some sentences were as simple as "Mit is mad at Mat" (The names have been changed to protect the innocent). Anyhow the way it works is that I read the word and the Little Boy repeats it and we read the whole book once. Then we read it a second time and I point to the words and he reads them to me. Most of the words in these little books he knows by sight, however was one tonight that he had to sound out. "Mmmmm Aaaaa Tttt, Mat". He turns to me and says "I learned that today". Can I just tell you how my heart swelled with pride over that. We got to a section of the book that called out the two characters names, with an exclaimation point. So I explained to him that an exclaimation point means that you read it louder to show surprise or excitement. To which he replied  "I'll make sure to tell my teacher tomorrow, so she can learn it too." I told him that I was pretty sure that she already knew it, but he was free to tell her if he wanted to. I've really enjoyed reading to him over the past years, but not as much as I think I enjoyed him reading to me.

The Great Wheeze

Well I am just about over the flu, or whatever it was that had me down for the count. I missed a week of work and from near as I can tell they missed me too. I talked with a vendor the other day and apparently it has been discussed that I was out ill, and that they would know where things stood as soon as I got back. That pretty much took care of my dread that there were going to get rid of me for being sick all the time.  Anyhow I am feeling better, but my asthma is still a mess. The strange thing about my asthma being out of control is that my sense of smell is somehow heightened. Now before you get to thinking hey that is cool. Let me tell you it's not, sitting on the train and being about to smell all of the perfume, after shave, shampoo, deordant or lack there of, hand lotion and hair gel that all the people in the car I'm sitting in are wearing is not cool, not in the least. It actually makes me feel bad for our dog, if his nose is 10 times more sensitive than ours, no wonder he sneezes all the time.

Well this week I've been fairly ill with the flu. However that doesn't keep the Little Boy from wanting to go in the backyard and throw the old horsehide around. Okay, horsehide... how about the old baseball sized Super Soft ball around. After all he is is Five and a regular baseball is just a little too hard. We spend about an hour this evening playing catch. Well, I would throw the ball in to his glove, and he would throw the ball in ways in which defys physics and every once in a while I'd actually catch one.

I've been trying to teach the Boy proper techique with his catching and throwing. However a five years old doesn't really care about technique, but what is fun. So twisting around and throwing the ball in a very spastic manner, is the funniest way to do it. However it scare the heck out of me to be ten feet away when he is doing this. He has this wierd Randy Johnson side arm throw that when he can control it, is pretty good, however most the time, even the dog ducks when he throws it. Of all the summers of playing ball with my Brothers and Sister, I never felt the need for a cup, as much as I do when playing catch with the Little Boy.  Next week we will work on batting.

Today Apple Announced the new MacBook. It will replace their iBook line and carries a new intel duo-core processor, just like the MacBook Pro. I personally like the one in Black, I think it would be a nice accessory for my iPod.

I am sick, I mean, ear infection, dizzy, feverish, can't situp and can't swallow my own saliva sick. This morning the little Boy came in to our room, Baseball glove on his left hand, baseball in is right looked me straight in the one eye I had open because I heard him enter the room and He asked me if I wanted to play "Spaceball". My left ear is clogged and I can't even standd up, yet it was really hard to tell him, no I was sick and I couldn't play baseball with him.

I would first like to start out by saying, I am home sick, with an achy, fevery sore throat, tired kind of thing. So this post may or may not be up to par in the writting/wit and general goodness category. However I've wanted to blog for the past two days and this is the first opportunity I've had to do so.

I know what you're thinking, but Russ you always have a laptop with you and can blog at a moments notice. And while that usually is true, this week I am sans laptop. At work we are beefing up security as everyone must do, and when installing some security software on the good ole' D800, the harddrive, said, "Now I'll not have any of this" and promptly turned itself into a non bootable drive. Well after I rebooted and and got a blue screen of death, I tried again, after all it is a Microsoft machines, and a reboot can do miraculous things for them. To quote Roy from the IT Crowd, "Have ya tried turning it off, and turning it back on again?!",  But alas on my 17th reboot and blue screen of dead, I began to get the picture that something wasn't good. Or as elegantly said by one of our Help Desk Techs. "Umm, It's toast". So the good ole' D800 will go through the PC version of Overhaulin. The case will get fixed, we'll add a bigger harddrive, clean up the video card driver and add a DVD player and 8 monitors in the doors, alligator upholstery and 4 12" subwoofers to round it out.

Well tomorrow is Moving Day for Grandma and Grandpa K. Dad and I will leave shortly before sunrise to pickup the "Moving Truck" and start the adventure. I know tomorrow is going to be a lot of work, and being sick isn't going to make the task easy, but my family will be there, so at least I know that we will have some fun. We always do no matter what the task is. The fact is that I am really looking forward to them being closer. 4 miles way, is so much better than 94 miles way.

During this week, we (Dad, Brother K, Brother J, Puddin' and Myself) were over at Grandma and Grandpa K's new house doing some work. You know helping to get it ready to move into. Well Wednesday were were drywalling the garage. Brother K wasn't feeling good that night so it was just Dad, Brother J, Puddin' and myself. It was a lot of hardwork, and a lot of fun at the same time. Brother J, who is technically the youngest, shared the bosshood with Dad. Man you should of seen that guy putting up drywall, Puddin' and I had drywall screw guns and just couldn't keep up. It really made me miss working with them. It's obvious to me that Dad is really proud of how good and fast (and I mean really fast, yet very very good), brother J is at what he does.  Dad leaned over to me and say "He may not be the easiest to work with but man that kid, kicks butt." I looked at Dad and told him "J's very easy to work for, just do what he tells you and do it his way". We both smiled. He's come a long way from that kid we were screaming at during "The worst concrete pour ever" OR TWCPE for short. Dad and I can't mention TWCPE in front of brother J with out him curling up in the fetal position. But the cryings stopped, so I think he is starting to get over it.

So as you may or many not know, I have a mole over my left eyebrow. Sometimes I think about having it removed. In fact in some photos, I've photoshoped it out, but on the other hand it's part of me so it's free to stay as long as it doesn't cause any trouble. So in short, I don't like it but I don't hate it. Until today that is, this morning sitting on the sofa with my Beautiful Wife and the Little Boy, he turns to me and says look I got a spot just like you. Apparently he has a bad pimple and it's in just about the same spot as my mole. I asked him, "how did you get that?" and he replies "From you, Silly" while smiling, Maybe this little mole isn't so bad. It can stay, as long as it doesn't cause any trouble of course.

Okay, so the talk about moles reminded me of some dialog from Austin Powers Goldmember, so I've posted it here for your enjoyment

Austin Powers: Nice to mole you... meet you. Nice to meet you, Mole.
[to Foxxy as Basil & The Mole leave]
Austin Powers: Don't say mole.
Foxxy Cleopatra: Now stop.
Austin Powers: I said mole.
Foxxy Cleopatra: Stop.
[Basil gestures him to hush]
Number Three: Bye.
Austin Powers: Mole.
[Basil & the Mole try again to leave]
Austin Powers: Mole.
[Basil warns him again to hush]
Austin Powers: Mole.
Basil Exposition: Oh, shut up!
Austin Powers: [Basil and The Mole walk out and Austin lets loose] Moley, moley, moley, moley, moley!

At the Little Boy's school, They apparently have a little toy shop that the kids are allow to pick one toy from to have if they've accomplished some goal or task. The Little Boy filled up his star card with gold stars so was allowed to go and pick up his prize. He choice was interesting to say the least. He picked a flying cow. Remember the little battery powered airplanes or birds that hung from a string to the ceiling and would fly in circles till the battery wore out, well he has the cow version of that. When I called home around lunch time to see how things were going he told me all about it, and asked that I help him play with it when I got home. Of course he was so excited he forgot it was a cow and called it a flying pig, which somehow seemed very ironic, but I didn't bother explaining it to him. Irony and five years olds don't go together. It's just one of those things. So what I didn't know was he was laying the ground work to have me install the flying cow accessories when I got home. 

Fast forward to the train station, My Beautiful Wife and the Little Boy pick me up, and as I enter the car, The Little Boy has a list of questions for me, to see how long he would have to wait to see if his flying cow could actually fly.

Little Boy: Are you sick or cranky?

Me: Well I’m not cranky but I am having a some trouble breathing.

Little Boy: Oh, so your not cranky, that’s good

Little Boy: Do you have to go poop or pee?

Me: I don’t believe that is any of your concern young man!

So after this little conversation my Beautiful Wife explains that he has been waiting all day and really would like me to assemble it for him. So with my trusty cordless drill (Thanks Brother K, this things works flawlessly) I had it mounted to the ceiling in no time and the Little Boy got to see a cow fly.