Entry 419: Hurt Legs and Acromegaly

Lil' S1 has complained a couple times in the past few weeks that his leg hurts.  It's tough to tell if it's real or not, because he only does it in the morning when he doesn't want to go to school.  He collapses in a comically overly dramatic fashion, and then crawls around, insisting he can't so much as stand up.  But then once he gets bored or something comes up that he wants to do, for which he needs use of his leg, it's magically better.  So, obviously it's not hurt that badly.  But what I can't quite tell is if he's basically making it up whole cloth, or if it really is bothering him, and he's willing to ignore it when he gets to do something fun, and then overselling it when it's time to go to school.  Anyway, something to keep an eye on.  And maybe we need to sign him back up for soccer.  He might be a natural.





Speaking of injuries.  I watched HBO's Andre the Giant documentary last night.  I thought it was excellent.  Andre was a big deal (get it? big?) when I was a kid, because I was a huge wrestling fan right at the time of his infamous heel turn.  We bought the WrestleMania III pay-per-view and had a little party at our house, so I watched Hulk slam Andre in real-time.  In fact, I think I can still name every match from the event, like, literally every match.*  It's tough to overstate what a big deal this seemed to be at the time.  It helped that I was 10 years old -- the perfect age for wrestling -- but even the adults watching were getting kinda sucked in.  (I remember my dad being like, "I'll say this, about it:  It might be phony, but it is entertaining.")  That was just the allure of Andre the Giant.  What was amazing to me watching the documentary was how bad of shape Andre was in physically during the match.  He could barely walk, which is why they used these little mini-ring shuttles to get wrestlers to and from the locker room (seen in the video below).  The match itself was a technical dud because Andre was so limited, but it still totally worked as a spectacle.  Another interesting thing is that Andre kept everybody in the dark about how it was going to end until it actually happened.  It was some sort of power trip or joke or something on his part, but he just refused to commit to anything -- he refused to even really talk about it -- and Hogan didn't even know for sure that he was going to win until the final bell rang.  Crazy.

Something else just popped into my head about Andre.  I have a friend whose older brother worked in the Tacoma Dome as a teenager, so he would be backstage with the wrestlers sometimes when wrestling events came to town.  And he said that before a match Andre would polish off several boxes of wine by himself, and that he was so big and immobile, he couldn't clean himself properly, so he had drabs of crusted shit stuck to the back of his legs and his wrestling shorts.  I was always dubious of this story, but after seeing the doc, I think it's properly true.  The wine part totally checks out, and seeing footage of him and hearing about him at the end of his life (which is when my friend's brother would have seen him), seeing what bad shape he was in, it seems very likely he would not have been able to wipe his ass properly.  It's sad.  But then again, he had an amazing prime.  He got be somebody special, and do amazing things nobody else got to do.  He knew he was going to die young, and in a way, he chose to do so, as he opted not to receive treatment for his acromegaly when he had a chance.  Given the hand he was dealt, having a flash-bang of a life, seemed the best option.  I would have done the same thing.  (But he was only six years older than I am now when he died, so I reserve the right to change my mind about this in six years.)



Anyway...

Concerning other things I've consumed recently that I recommend, this article about our lovely president is really good.  It's not anything we didn't know, but it's fascinating to read in such explicit detail nonetheless.  We actually get to hear audio of the president of our country, as a younger man, pretending to be somebody else so that he can con a reporter into putting him on a list of super-rich people, on which he doesn't actually belong.  Think about that.  And as somebody on Twitter mentioned, it does make you wonder if the main reason he opposes Mueller getting close to his finances is simply because he doesn't have the amount of money he says he does, and he doesn't want it exposed.  It makes sense.  His supporters wouldn't care -- they will immediately forgive/deny anything negative about him -- but he would care.  I suspect he cares more about being perceived as super-rich than he does about not being perceived as a criminal.  Like, if you gave him the option to either go to prison and have everybody think he's the richest man in the world, or stay out of prison and have everybody think he's a pauper, I suspect he would pick the former.  Now, if only we can find a way to make his hypothetical wish a reality...

That's all I have time for today.  Until next time...

*Here are my guesses at all the matches, roughly in order: 
1.  Can-Am Connection vs. Bob Orton and Don Muraco
2.  Hillbilly Jim and two little people vs. King Kong Bundy and two little people
3.  Fabulous Rougeaus vs. Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake
4.  Junkyard Dog vs. King Harley Race
5.  Roddy Piper vs. Adrian Adonis (loser gets their head shaved)
6.  Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage (for the Intercontinental Belt)
7.  Heart Foundation and Danny Davis vs. British Bulldogs and Tito Santana (for the Tag Team Belts)
8.  Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik vs. the Killer Bees
9. Butch Reed vs. Koko B. Ware
10. Jake the Snake vs. the Honky Tonk Man
11. Hulk vs. Andre (for the Championship Belt)

Let's see how I did... Damn!  I missed one -- Hercules vs. Billy Jack Haynes.  Still, 11-for-12 ain't bad, considering the event happened 31 years ago.

Entry 418: Diaper and Crocs Weather

We are getting some yo-yo weather here in DC.  We went from chilly and blustery on Thursday to warm and delightful Friday and Saturday, back to chilly and blustery today.  I made the most of the nice weather, though.  Friday evening I went to the Nats game (that's baseball for you non-sportsball fans) with some friends.  It was an incredibly dull game from a watching-baseball perspective, but it was a good time when considered strictly as a social event, which is how all live baseball should consumed.  The game is just an excuse to sit outside and drink overpriced beer with chums.

Then, Saturday our neighbors came over for a little cookout.  They literally live a block and a half away, and we see them maybe three times a year.  They're really cool and they have three kids ranging in age from seven to one, so they're good people to hang out with.  I did up my cookout special -- sausages with grilled peppers and onions and grilled asparagus.  I realized I'm a halfway decent griller -- I mean it's not hard -- don't overcook the meat and time it so that everything is done at about the same time -- but I've definitely gone over to people's houses who've messed it up.  My one critique I have of myself this time is that I used a bit too much olive oil in preparing the veggies.  Their natural juices really get going in the hot foil, so you can get by with less oil than you might initial think.

Last year we totally re-landscaped our backyard, and it was glorious to finally sit outside and use it.  We did it toward the end of summer, and we laid down new sod, so we had to wait for a few weeks before it was ready, and then we went on vacation, and by the time we returned the weather had mostly turned cold.  Plus, in DC the mosquitoes can get out of control late in the summer and sometimes it's too hot to be outside for long periods of time.  There is a narrow range of good outside days, and you have to use 'em or lose 'em -- 80-degree April days are perfect.  Unfortunately, our nice dinner was somewhat abruptly ended because our friends' four-year-old son bit his tongue and opened it up pretty wide.  It was one of those things where our friends went from "maybe we should leave now" to "maybe we should call the doctor" to "maybe we should take him to urgent care" to "we spent 12 hours in the E.R., and he had to get eight stitches on his tongue."  Just about every parent with young kids has been there at some point.  It's awful.

In other news, lots of political stuff going on these days.  I'll touch on a few subjects briefly.

• Our egomaniac-in-chief remains as egotistical and maniacal as ever.  The office of his lawyer, Michael Cohen, was raided by the FBI, and it's apparently made him madder than usual.  I have no idea how this all ends.  I think Trump eventually forces Mueller out somehow, and then... who knows?  Republicans have been saying firing Mueller would cross some sort of line, but they've caved on just about everything else with Trump -- why would this be any different?
  
• Perhaps related to the point above Paul Ryan announced he won't be seeking reelection this fall.  This is a good thing for two big reasons: a) It makes his House seat more likely to be flipped by the Democratic candidate Randy Bryce (aka "Iron Stache"); b) Paul Ryan sucks, and I'm glad he won't be in Congress anymore.  Paul Krugman had Ryan figured out nearly a decade ago, and his analysis has proved truer and truer as the years went on.  The snarky thing liberals always say about libertarians is that they got into Ayn Rand as a freshman in high school and never grew out of it.  But this seems to really be what happened to Ryan.  Literally, the only thing he seems to care about as a public servant is depriving the poor of public goods and services in order to fund tax cuts for the super-rich.  (And when it was too politically difficult to limit goods and services to the poor, he cut taxes anyway and put it on the country's credit card.)  I dabbled briefly in the "makers and takers" ideology on my own when I was, like, 14 (I never read Rand) and thought it was something something new and profound, and then I got older and realized it was incredible trite and shallow.
  
• Apparently we are bombing Syria again.  That we will we bomb a country in the name of protecting their children, but will not take in these children as refugees is among the more hypocritical and morally reprehensible things we've done as a country in a long time -- and that's saying something.
  
• Speaking of reprehensible, read this story.  It's absolutely awful.  It encapsulates so much of what's wrong with our society -- racism, irrational fear toward "others," immediate escalation of a nothing situation, and of course guns.  As it turns out, a good guy with a gun who tries to kill a black teenager for knocking on his door is not a good guy at all.  The only heartening things about this story are a) the guy missed, b) the sheriff recommends throwing the book at this trigger-happy paranoiac.
  
• In terms, of racially motivated overreactions, this Starbucks one seems to be grabbing more headlines.  It's quite ridiculous.  I will say, however, that many a Starbucks located in the heart of big city will deny you bathroom use and ask you to leave if you don't buy anything, even if you're white.  I know from experience.  (In the suburbs, where space isn't at such a premium, they're much laid back about it.)  I seriously doubt that they would call the cops however.  Again this is somebody turning a nothing situation into a major incident for no reason.  And I don't totally let the cops off the hook either, under the "they were just doing their jobs" excuse.  From everything I've read, they absolutely could've resolved things without any arrests.  I bet what happened is the responding officers got chippy because the guys wouldn't leave immediate when asked (because they didn't really do anything wrong), and so they felt disrespected and weren't going to let the guys off scott free because of it.  In my experience, offers hate it when you don't jump when they tell you to, even if you're in the right.  They know that they can't do anything to serious to you, but they feel the need to do something, so they ruin your day and waste your time.  I've had it happen to me, and I'm white.  I cannot even imagine how much worse it would be if I was black. 

And on that note, it's now 9:30 pm Sunday evening, and I have a mountain of dishes in the sink to attend to.  Until next time...

Entry 417: A Week in Columbia and a Night Charlotte

Lil' S1 goes to a year-round school, so he has breaks at weird times.  For example, for spring break he get two weeks off instead of one.  It's slightly annoying for us, but not too bad, because there is an entire cottage industry in the DC area of day camps and such for kids to attend when their schools are on break.  The first week we sent him to Alliance Française, a French school, near S's office.  It was S's idea.  I was fine with it because she said that she would take him to school in the morning.  (It would add about an hour to my commute.)  But, of course, whenever your spouse says to you, "Don't worry, it won't affect you," you should be worried because everything affects you somehow -- that's what being in a family means.  In this case, S double-booked a meeting at the same time as Lil' S1's drop-off, and it was an important one with her boss and her boss's boss and her boss's boss's boss, etc.  It was one of those things where, she would only be five minutes late to the meeting, but the thought of being late at all was stressing her out.  So, I hesitantly chimed in, "I could take him, I guess, if I really need to," hoping she would respond, "No, it's right next to my office.  It would double your commute.  That doesn't make any sense.  I'll figure something out."  Instead she said, "Yeah, that's probably best.  Thanks."  *Sigh*...

The school is only about three miles from our house, but it's three miles through thick DC rush-hour traffic the exact opposite way as my office.  Then I had to park, and everything in that area is zoned for embassies, so I had to find a side-street and walk, which added another tens minutes to the trip.  I didn't have anything pressing at work, so it wasn't that big a deal, though.  Plus, I got to tell everybody at work that I was late because I couldn't find parking at my son's French school because there was only embassy parking on the street.  I felt like a real member of the DC Elite.

I don't think anybody cares when I arrive at (or leave) work anyway.  I never put in eight hours at the office anymore.  I arrive between 9:30 am and 10:00 am every morning (because I have to drop both kids off in the morning), and I leave at 4:45 pm, so that I can make my Krav Maga class at 5:00 pm.  If you do the math, that's only seven hours, and that's including my lunch break.  I also work from home two days a week, and I work longer hours from home (no commute), but I doubt I work enough to offset my short days in the office to achieve the traditional 40 hour work week.  But I don't care (I'm about that ROWE, boss), and my company apparently doesn't care, as they just gave me a big raise, so... I'll just consider myself fortunate that I have job like this.  Of course, I had a big hand in it -- I went to school for many years to learn valuable skills that relatively few people have -- but a lot of it is just luck too.

Working remotely is a huge plus about my job.  For the second week of Lil' S1's spring break, we went to their grandparents' house in Columbia, SC, and I worked from there.  It's nice, actually.  They have a little office I can use.  I can take a break and jog around the little man-made lakes by their house, and the kids are occupied by the in-laws and their friends.  (They're close with a younger couple who have an 11-year-old and a five-year-old.  So, the older kid can basically be the babysitter of the other three, and then you just need one adult on the premise in case of an emergency.)

Also, I can do things like, what we did on Thursday, and drive up to Charlotte at lunchtime, and then work a few more hours in a hotel, and then enjoy a nice kid-free evening with my wife.  It was great, actually.  We get to do this only once or twice a year.  This time we had a bunch of credit card points, so we did it up and got a chichi hotel in downtown Charlotte, and it was excellent.  I realized I'm a huge sucker for decor.  I'm willing to pay a lot more to be in a place that feels cool (for one night, anyway, without kids).  We went to dinner at a nearby tapas restaurant, which was delicious.  Then we went back to the hotel (if you're gonna pay for it, you might as well use it), and watched Get Out on demand.  It's a fantastic movie -- the perfect horror film, in that it creeps you out from the get-go, but you don't really know what's going on for most the film, and then everything ties together beautifully at the end.  I was thinking about it half the night, partly because it gave me the willies, partly because I was remembering early scenes with knowledge I didn't have at the time, going, "Oh... now I get what was going on there!"  Even without falling asleep right away, it was still an early night for me.  I think I was asleep by 11:30 pm, which is before I usually fall asleep.

We had to get up early the next day to get back to Columbia.  We both had work to do.  I had to call into a meeting that lasted so long, my phone battery died while I was on it.  (We were already done with "my part" of it, so it wasn't a big deal.)  For long stretches of it, I put the phone on mute and did calisthenics during it, and then I ate lunch -- another advantage of working remotely.

The next morning we woke up super early -- before 6:00 am -- to hit the road back to DC.  S is very anal about driving as much as we can while the kids sleep.  It makes sense Lil' S2 gets carsick easily, so we don't like him to watch iPad in the car much, so there is nothing for him to do but sleep or annoy us.  Still, getting up so early and driving is a recipe for fights, as everybody is extra irritable and we are already doing something that can be highly irritating (driving with kids) and Lil' S2 is at an age where he can be nearly unbearable.  He just spins off the rails from the slightest things and then it's almost impossible to calm him down.  It's really awful, actually.  Then to make matters worse, it poured rain the entire drive back. 

But we made it, with only a few meltdowns, and I'm back in DC enjoying my buffer day.  The kids are at a friend's house, but they will be back soon, so I should wrap this up.

Until next time...

Entry 416: American Crossword Puzzle Tournament

I didn't put up an entry last weekend because I was at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT).  And there will be no entries other than this one for at least another week because we are going to visit S's parents in South Carloina.  (It's the kids' spring break and we gotta do something with them.)  Don't worry, however, if you are jonesing for your DG fix, you can read my lengthy post about ACPT.  It should hold you over.

Until next time...

Entry 415: More Stitches

Following in his brother's footsteps, Lil' S2 fell at daycare and busted his head open, requiring stitches.  I had to pick him up and take him to urgent care.  It actually went very smoothly -- a pleasant surprise -- all things considered.  Unlike big brother, who injured himself late on a Friday night, little brother had the courtesy to do so in the middle of the workday, so we could take him to urgent care instead of the ER -- so much easier.  The waiting room was literally empty when we arrived, and we were seen by the physician within twenty minutes, and that includes the time it took to fill out the paperwork, take his vitals, sit in that little room, etc.

The wound wasn't long but it was deep.  It took two sutures to seal it.  The physician gave me the option of numbing it with anesthetic or just doing a quick hit-it-and-quit-it.  I went with the latter.  As she (the doctor) explained to me, sometimes numbing makes things worse because it still requires a needle poke, and it burns a little at first, and it prolongs things, and that area feels weird for a while after the procedure is over, which some patients, especially kids, don't like.  For two stitches, it seemed to me no anesthetic would be the least discomforting option.

And I must say, he took it amazingly well.  He was stoic throughout almost the entire process, only shedding a few tears when the little hook they use actually pierced the skin.  "It hurts!  It hurts!"  Then when it was over -- and it only took two or three minutes -- it was like nothing had happened at all.  It's incredible how resilient kids are.

S and I were both working from home when daycare called, but S had an important meeting coming up, so I had to go.  I was annoyed at first, but it's a very good thing I went instead of her.  She can't handle seeing the kids in any sort of pain, to the point that she has to leave the room when they get a vaccine shot.  For this, I had to be there front-and-center, holding his heading still and comforting him.  I don't think S would have handled such a duty very well.  I didn't like seeing my son in pain, of course, but it was pretty interesting to see the doctor at work up close.  She did a real good job... or so it seemed to me anyway -- it's not like I'm an expert on suturing wounds.

In other news, March Madness is upon us, which means I'm fanatically keeping tabs on all the games.  Last night I was up until 1 am watching the end of a borderline blowout because I knew I wouldn't be able to fall asleep without knowing the result for certain.  The thing is, as I've mentioned before, my company does an office tournament competition -- it's a little different then the standard one -- and I've won it three of the past five years (I've only played six total).  There is only one person in the office who has ever won four times, and he did it over like 25 years, so I would basically be the all-time champ if I win this year.  And I'm currently in the lead!  The thing is, it's just for fun, but it also makes me look smart, and looking smart in front of your coworkers and bosses is never a bad thing.

There was a giant upset in the tournament.  The little-known (outside of the greater Baltimore area) school University of Maryland Baltimore County became the first 16-seed to beat a 1-seed (University of Virginia) in the history of the tournament.  Two coworkers of mine and my boss' son attended UMBC, and I've never once heard a single mention of the basketball team before this -- I didn't even know they had one.  The upset did not help or hurt me in my picks, but it could hurt me this round.  I need them to win again tomorrow against Kansas St. (a low pick for me), but that's highly unlikely -- I suspect it was fluke win over Virginia and flukes don't generally happen again, which is why they're flukes.  But, you never know -- we shall see.

That's all I got for today.  Until next time...

Entry 414: Naps and Whales and Such

We will see how far I get in this post without interruption.  S is supposedly putting Lil' S2 down for his nap (Lil' S1 is occupied with the iPad, as per usual), but I can hear those little legs running around upstairs.

And no sooner did I finish that sentence then he came bounding down the stairs and wanted me to take him on a walk, which I did, so I now have little time to finish this post, but I will do my best.

Walking is one of the few ways we can get him to go down these days.  He's at that unfortunate age where he doesn't absolutely need nap and he certainly doesn't want to nap, but if he doesn't take one the chances of a six pm meltdown go up drastically.  S and I have different mindsets on this.  I take a more laissez-faire approach -- I'll try to get him down, but if he's not into it, then I'm not pushing it too far.  And then after that initial window has closed, I actually prefer if he doesn't nap because if he sleeps too late in the afternoon it's a nightmare to put him to bed at night.  I'd rather deal with an early evening meltdown than have it be 10:30 pm and he's still running around.

The other thing I will do is the walk, like today.  S also opposes this because she says she doesn't want us to "rely" on this method, lest nothing else work.  My feeling is: There's not much left for us to "nap train" him for.  He's basically done with them.  We should be squeezing out as many as we can while we can -- if the only way to do that is with a walk, so be it.  It's actually a good thing for me because I enjoy walking and I get some exercise.  Today it all worked out because S was very tired, and she wanted to nap, and he was annoying her, so she was in whatever works mode.

Sleeping schedules is one of those things where S and I have learned to compromise -- the compromise being, you do it your way when it's your turn; I do it my way when it's my turn.  And we keep our mouths closed when the other one is doing it their way.  (Although that latter part is not as stringently adhered to, by either side, as it should be.)

In other news, I started reading Moby-Dick on a whim, a while ago, and I'm almost done with it.  It's really quite good (which is probably why it's, you know, a classic and whatnot), but it's pretty long, and there is a lot of whale talk into it -- like a lot a lot -- like multiple chapters that are just about describing the anatomy of a whale in textbook-like detail.  I wonder how accurate most of it is now, being that it was written over 150 years ago, and our knowledge of whales has surely increased dramatically.  Actually, I wonder how much of it was accurate even by the standards of the day.  But it doesn't really matter.  The beauty of the book isn't in it's description of whales; it's in its little observations of life that still remain true today.  It's amazing how much I can relate to a Nantucket whaler from pre-Civil War America.

It's also got a bunch of terrific arcane words in it I only know from Scrabble and crossword puzzles.  Here is an incomplete list:

• Fain: Happily willing
• Tierce: Third
• Poser: Baffling question or puzzle
• Stove: Smashed (past tense of stave)
• Wight: Human being

Another thing about Moby-Dick is that I have yet to read what I think of as the iconic phrase from the book: "Thar she blows!"  Everything I've read so far is "There she blows!"  (Emphasis mine.)  I wonder if somebody says this later (I still have a bit left) or if this is just one of those misnomer lines like "Play it again, Sam."

Anyway, everybody is up now, and we are off to the park.  Until next time...

Entry 413: Life Update

Life is pretty good at the moment -- or at least it's as good as it can be with our current toddler-president and his cast of fuckups and cronies and fucked-up cronies running the country.  Trump is always in the back of my mind, stabbing my brain with a rusty ice pick every time I get too happy.  But the resistance seems to be holding up, strengthening even -- I'm cautiously optimistic about the future.  And it can't get here quickly enough.

On the positive personal front, I got a pretty substantial raise at work, around 10%.   My company used to be part of a parent company that owned two other businesses.  They were struggling and were cannibalizing the profits of my company.  I was told by my boss that, once upon a time, the situation was reversed, so we couldn't really complain too much.  But it really started to drag us down.  Finally, the owner of the parent company (my boss's boss's boss) sold the other two businesses and kept ours.  It was the best case scenario for people like me because I didn't have to deal with the disruption of being sold to a new owner, and with the dead weight jettisoned, there is more money available for salaries.  Win and win.

We will likely need the money, too, because we are thinking of buying a new more expensive house.  S has been agitating for a bigger kitchen for years, and we thought about renovations, but we don't really have the layout for it.  It'd be a lot of money just to get something we kinda like; I'd rather hold out for something we really like.  The market is insane right now (it's always insane in DC), but it would be somewhat mitigated by the fact we already own property, which is appreciating too.  (The smart financial move would be to sell in DC and move to a cheaper area, but there is not a cheaper area in which we both would like to live.)  I think we will look into moving in earnest next summer, or, if I have it my way, 2020.  I'd like to move into a neighborhood zoned for decent schools, and Lil' S2 will be in kindergarten then.  If we move before then, we run the risk of being denied a spot in the neighborhood pre-K progame because kids are not legally required to attend pre-K in DC and the city is not legally required to admit them (no matter where they live).  If we stay where we are, it will be easier to get him into pre-K (less competitive), and thus we will not have to pay for daycare anymore, which is good.  Now, even if we move, Lil' S2 could probably attend the same charter school as his brother (sibling preference), but we are looking for places mostly on the other side of the city.  If I have to drive across DC every morning, and add 45 minutes to my daily commute, I will not be happy -- and that's a huge understatement.

Anyway, I hate dealing with school stuff.  It's simultaneously boring and stressful.  That's part of the problem with "choice."  Proponents of choice -- in school, in healthcare, in consumerism, etc. -- always frame it as facilitating freedom but I often find it does the opposite because I have to spend so much time and energy sorting through the various options.  I'd feel much more free if there was only one school, and I could sign my kids up for it and be done with it.

In other news, Krav Maga is going pretty well.  I'm getting to be among the best in the entry level class, so I need to test up pretty soon.  It's just a matter of finding the time to train for it.  I'm confident I could meet all the requirements with a little practice, but I actually have to do the practice, not just talk about it, and therein lies the rub.  I've had little motivation to move up thus far, but I'm starting to feel overqualified in my current class.  Plus, I'm not getting any younger.  It's not going to get any easier.  I haven't really done anything like this since high school wrestling, and the biggest difference is recovery and bending over.  I feel just as strong as I did back then; I have just as much endurance, just as much power; the balance and footwork and coordination are still strong.  But I'm so sore after every workout, and it takes me days to recover (just in time for next class to repeat the process).  Also, I struggle with anything that requires me to get down on my knees or otherwise bend over.  Sometimes we do bear crawl in class, and it's aptly named for me because it is a fucking bear.  If you give me the option of thirty push-ups or bear crawling the length of a wrestling mat and back, I'm taking the former.

Lastly, the wife and kids are doing fine.  Well, the wife is actually pretty sick at the moment, but she'll get over it.  Lil' S2 is also a little thorn in our side right now -- he never wants to go to sleep or otherwise to anything we ask him to do -- but that too shall pass.

That's all I got today.  Until next time...