How Do You Spell That?

First, attend this class.

In order to keep our Foster License up to date, we are required to attend "X" number of classes every two years. Unfortunately, this is the latest one we have to attend.

Normally I don't rail on these classes. While they are a bit off-base, they can work. That is, if you have a child who listens 100% of the time and doesn't suffer from any disorders (like ADHD). But tonight was the end, tonight was the night where I finally said in class "Excuse me, but that makes absolutely no sense."

These classes have a large number of group exercises where you are to imagine certain phrases and what they mean to children. They broke it up into columns, one for "Statements" and one for "Discouraging Message".

Let's start of with an easy one. Did you know the phrase "Be Careful" is a dangerous phrase? According to the "Discouraging Message" column, it means "The World is a Scary Place". Hey, Dr. Alpo, is this news to you? Guess what, the world is a dangerous place, or haven't you pulled your head out of the academia ass it's been shoved up in for the past ten years. 100% of the human population has a good chance of dying, some more sooner than others. But according to these nutjobs, I should say "Make Good Choices". Now what the #@$# is that. "Make Good Choices". Oh wait, maybe I'm implying to my child that his "Choice/Decision Making" policy could be screwed up because he might think that I'm worried he will make "Wrong" choices. Thanks Dad, now I'll try to avoid robbing the liquor store.

BTW, it gets better. Watch out for this zinger:

"Not So High, Not So Fast" : "Live Life at 60%"

So instead of telling my son, who just got his first snowboard this weekend, to go down the smaller slope first as opposed to the "Wile E. Coyote Memorial Hill" when he got out of the car, I was holding back his "youthful zeal". Give me a frigging break. I was trying to save the damn kid from winning a Darwin Award.

BTW, there are fourteen of them, but this will be my last comment on it...

"Be Nice or Good" : "You are usually not a nice or good person"

"Oh, sorry Grandma that the kids kicked you out from your cane and flushed your cat down the toilet. Now kids...you should make better choices."

When the hell did good parenting get replaced with negotiatiing with your kids for everything. And what are the effects of raising a kid in a "Confrontation Free" environment? Does the kid have better "Coping" skills or does he get his ass reamed the first week of college?

Frankly, I'll stick with the "Beneficial Dictatorship" method that works quite well in our house.

Posted by Brian at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yes, my daughter's orthodontist probably ordered the leather package for his new boat today.

Posted by Brian at 3:12 PM | Permalink

The wife is on the loose.

Posted by Brian at 1:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Krystal out with her friend Meghan (who took the picture). Just thought it was a good pic. :-)

Posted by Brian at 1:14 AM | Permalink

Saturday night dates are a rarity in the Wohlgemuth home. While our kids do frequent the skating rink almost every weekend, it rarely gives us enough time to do dinner and maybe a stop at Wal-Mart. But tonight, the date Gods smiled and gave us "Extended Skating Hours" thanks to some party scheduling and large amounts of cash bribes.

So tonight after a totally regretful dinner at Ponder-grossa, Mrs. W and I decided to catch the latest Brit-Chick-Flick, Calendar Girls. If you have seen the previews, you know the storyline. However, at one point in the movie the girls are sitting on a deck somewhere and one of the girls is talking to a guy with a shaved head and a red/black goatee. At this point, my brain shifts out of "chick-flick" slumber and says "wait, wasn't that.....". Before I get to the rest of the sentence, the lady blurts out "Chris, I want you to meet John, Frank, and Scott. They're in some heavy metal group called 'Anthrax'." Now just WTF. Here I am in full "Chick-Flick" catatonia and now I'm trying to imagine these fifty something girls at a concret screaming the lyrics to "Only". I think Scott said just enough to have to have SAG membership, but I really have no clue what their lines were.

But alas, the guys were on stage about as long as Scott had hair on the top of his head. At least is was long enough to wake me up out of the death sprial....

Posted by Brian at 11:27 PM | Permalink

In this house, motivation is defined by how fast you can clean up a half gallon of latex paint off the kitchen floor. And no, it didn't match.

Posted by Brian at 8:59 PM | Permalink

I remember a day where I was really proud of my movie collection. It was mostly sci-fi crap, but it really said a whole bunch about me.

Today, it's just taking up space in my kitchen.

During the repaint of the playroom (pictures will be posted after it's done), it was decided that the entertainment center in the room needed to be replaced. The only word I could use to describe it is "Oak Monolith". Unfortunately by moving down to the smaller size unit, it mean we also lost tons of storage for videos, etc.

So now I'm left with the enviable task of sorting out what I'm going to keep and what is getting tossed. Mostly everything that isn't available on DVD will be donated to Badwill, the rest will end up in a landfill. Which is sad, seeing as how I paid top dollar (at the time) for most of these movies. So far, the only things I'm keeping are the Cliff 'Em All tape, a King's X tape, and a couple of videos from the trips DeAnn and I won with GTE.

But now I look at my DVD collection (which is quite paltry to some) and I think "When the hell am I going to watch these?". Seriously, I got my Sports Night fix by Dec 26th, there are three seasons of Stargate SG-1 which I haven't even bought yet, and I haven't even started to think about buying any of the Clancy movies.

Maybe it's the realization that over $500 of disposable income has been sitting in an entertainment center for five years. Or maybe it's just that I'm getting older.

Posted by Brian at 4:26 PM | Permalink

If Howard Dean loses the election, at least he could get a job doing voice-over ads for Monster Truck Rallies.

Posted by Brian at 5:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Placing electrical cords near a paper shredder's slot may get your name placed on a nifty website.

Posted by Brian at 2:02 PM | Permalink

Last week it was .45 in 22 minutes at 2.0. Last night it was 1.03 in 25 minutes at 2.8.

Now I'm really starting to like this whole working out thing...

Posted by Brian at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This one keeps falling asleep on the job.

Salary is three treats a day. Benefits include one walk, plus the ability to be lazy anywhere you want.

Update: Must not start barking at the beginning of Wish You Were Here.

Posted by Brian at 12:53 PM | Permalink

Last night we got an interesting e-mail from Tyler's teacher detailing an incident at school where Tyler punched a first grader in the mouth (FYI, Tyler is in second grade). The teacher didn't actually see the incident and the stories being told by the witnesses were not even close to each other. Since the kid was punched by my son, Tyler is going to miss recess today.

Anyhow, we talked to Tyler about the incident to find out his side of the story. It turns out that while in the bathroom, this first grader (who is apparently taller than Tyler) came in and started picking on Tyler's friend Eli. The kid started to punch Eli in the arm, of which Tyler took significant offense to and promptly popped the kid in the jaw.

This isn't the first time that I've seen Tyler rush to the aid of a schoolmate. He won an award two months ago for performing a similar (but less violent) action for another classmate who was being picked on by a much older kid.

While I don't like the idea of my son punching anyone, you have to admit for defending a friend from a bully is usually a good motive.

Posted by Brian at 12:45 PM | Permalink

Four classes. That's all it's going to take for yours truly to finish his Associates Degree. Four frigging classes. And it's only going to take 6 more after that (plus some CLEP tests) to finish my bachelors.

And yes, I'm being required to wear the whole cap/gown garb by my family. At least they will get a good laugh out of it. :-)

Posted by Brian at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A benefit of the whole "working out" thing is that I've been forced to purchase a MP3 player. That was more than clearly evident today as I was walking on the treadmill around the 10:00 mark. So tonight I went out and bought a cheapo 64MB flash player with no bells and whistles (except for the FM radio) and went on my way.

First thing uploaded (besides the six Beatles songs that I've been on a kick for the past week) was a King's X single "Black Like Sunday". Doug, the bass player in KX uses a number of different instruments on their CDs. One of them is a 12-String monster which now is clearly audible on the cheapo MP3 player with even cheaper ear buds.

Makes me wonder what this would sound like through my Sony's.

Posted by Brian at 10:38 PM | Permalink

Today is the day that I cracked over 100 songs purchased through iTunes. This adds up to close to $85 that I have spent buying mostly older, released years ago albums. In other words, this is music that has already been recorded, promoted, and discarded into oblivion only to wait for a "Greatest Hits" re-release. This is what we call "low margin, high profit" music.

You are welcome. And you still are a bunch of twits.

Posted by Brian at 5:00 PM | Permalink

#1. Price Point. The new iPod mini is only $50 less than a basic 20GB iPod. If I'm going to spend $250 for an MP3 player, you can bet your ass that I'm going to dish out the extra $50 to get five times the storage.

#2. Not Solid State. With today's flash memory getting really damn cheap, there is no way that any small MP3 player should have a HD. Less moving parts means less stuff breaking. It's that simple.

Waiting for a Solid State MP3 player with a AM/FM radio built in.

Posted by Brian at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sometime between yesterday afternoon and late last night, I pulled a ligament or muscle in my left foot. Can't frigging walk on it, hurts like hell if I put any pressure on it. Since I did my strength training yesterday (and oh boy, I can feel that too); no working out today or probably tomorrow.

Hate to say this, but everytime I start actually moving this body; this crap always happens.

Posted by Brian at 7:56 AM | Permalink

One sentence. What a piece of crap.

Actually, I think one word describes it best. Campy. I was waiting for the evil music to pipe in when the suspected murderer (of which they had gone through four by 10:30) walked in the door. This whole show was just one frigging joke.

If it's anything like the show it was spun off from, then I'm glad I've missed every single episode.

Posted by Brian at 10:35 PM | Permalink

Of exercise hell....

Most people that see me think I bear a strong resemblence to Buddah or the Michelin Man. Supposedly that will change starting today. Because of the problems I've been having lately, I signed up to start working out at the hospital's rehab center. Today, my trainer/interrogator Steve put me through the paces through the variety of machines.

The biggest problem I have with exercise is that its completely boring to me. The repetitive motion, the lack of conversation or the abilty to do anything except stare off into space is the biggest turnoff for me. The nice thing about this place is they not only have TVs in the room, but put in FM transmitters to broadcast the sound to a small radio. So at least I can watch the news while I'm putting two miles on the treadmill.

We will see what happens over the next few months. Thankfully Mr. Steve decided to end the orientation on a high note and decided to skip the who weigh-in thing. :-)

Posted by Brian at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Or that I'm getting way to predictable.

Last night while assembling my daughter's brand new closet organizer, the subject changed to movie quotes. Now the only ones interested in watching dad remove several digits from his hands put together this thing were Emily and Tyler. While talking to them about various movies I blurt out the quote:

She turned me into a Newt!

Followed up by yours truly making the comment "Gee if either of you can name that one I'll give you $20".

Now I'm out $20. Because my daughter Emily blurts out "Duh dad, Monty Python and the Holy Grail".

I am so proud, yet so pissed. :-)

Posted by Brian at 12:07 AM | Permalink

I'm a pretty boring guy, and for fun what do I find myself doing? Looking up old classmate names in Google.

No I'm not looking to rekindle an old flame from almost twenty years ago. Jees, I probably couldn't even remember too much about these people in general (and I'm quite happy with Mrs. W). But for the last graduating class from Kolmar Ave. School; I felt it was my duty to see what the hell they were up to...

The whole reason I started doing this was because of my 8th grade graduation picture. The frame it was in got smashed, so it's been sitting on my desk awaitng its owner to put it into a tube where it will sit for eternity (or until my kids clean out the attic 60 years from now and toss it). But before I did that, I figured what the hell and decided to look up my class. There were only 39 of us in the graduating class back in 1985; so googling 39 names isn't a tough process. Especially with the ethnic blend of names in my class (Arab, Yugoslavian, Lithuanian, German, Serbian, Irish, Polish, Greek, etc), finding some of these people would be easy.

But it wasn't. I only got hits on about 1/2 the names. But it was interesting to see where people went.

The two science geeks of the time (me and another guy) work in IT and telecom.
One of the girls is a high-priced lawyer in downtown Chicago.
The guy who used my head as a punching bag in 8th grade is a lead singer for a band in LA.
One seems to have gone off the deep end and is a "Herbal chiropractor" in Canada.

The rest are essentially non-existant. No really huge hits in google, no blogs or even a NG post under their name (for the more common names I used a highly un-scientific and totally untried processes of validation using factors like where they live, their age, etc...).

So, several years from now, when someone along those lines decides to google "Kolmar Avenue School 1985", maybe I'll make their search a little more strange...

Posted by Brian at 2:48 AM | Permalink