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• 7Sep 08

  Only in the country

  For any of you wondering exactly how much of a country bumkin I actually am, my son won a pig at the county fair on the weekend. Not a stuffed pig. My son won a real live bacon on the hoof pig. It was one of those greased pig contests. The one that catches the pig wins a prize. The prize was $50........and the pig. This brings me to the title of todays blog. You see, after being chased by a small herd of screaming flailing children, Albert(Christopher named him Albert) decided somewhere in his tiny little porcine brain that all children are Satan. So, when I opened the crate to let Albert into the barn and he saw Christopher, Albert decided that immediately vacating was probably the best course of action. An 80lb pig loose on 6 acres is not going to get caught any time soon, so I decided that tackling him was my best course of action. Albert surprisingly was not really down with that and completely lost his mind. In the process he managed to get my left hand mashed up against the barn and kicked it with much gusto.

  I have a radiating fracture of the second finger and a greenstick fracture at the base of my thumb plus a hyper extention of the third and fourth finger. I have a lunch for 250 tomorrow that I have to cook with 1 hand.

  About this time next year, I think I will be serving pork with all the trimmings. I can hold a grudge for a long time.

  • Posted Sep 7, 2008 7:13 pm PT
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• 3Sep 08

  Sorry for my absence

  Hi everybody.

  Sorry I haven't been around for the last couple of days. With Christopher starting back to school, the drilling business, going back to my chef position and another project I have on the go I have just been hella busy.

  My former employer called me in a panic last week and begged, like literally begged me to come back to work until they could find another chef for the second kitchen. Myself and the Chef that runs the upstairs kitchen are the only redseals anywhere in the area at the moment apparently. This is not something I had planned on doing, but because it is fine dining they can't just hire joe blow off the street. The chef they had just bailed I guess and the upstairs chef has been doing double duty. I said I would do it until they could find someone, which of course means that I am going to be cooking for a while. It's cool to be back, and I would have never left had it not been for this damnable disease. I am totally messed by the time I get home and even doubling up on my pain medication I haven't felt much like doing anything.

  Christopher is happy to be back at school. Man they don't waste any time now though. He has a project already that is due next week. Crazy.

  The drilling business is also still crazy busy. At least my end of that is mostly paperwork. Chris is working like a madman however and is starting to get a little burnt out. He went fishing this weekend just to try and wind down a bit.

  I am going to go and try and read some of your blogs now. I am really sorry guys. My presence is going to be sporadic at best for the next little while.

  • Posted Sep 3, 2008 4:47 pm PT
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• 31Aug 08

  Pawnshop crawl

  Christopher has a friend named Jeffrey. Nice little boy, just turned 9, lives in a blended family. Jeffrey belongs to the man in the relationship and she comes in with 5 kids of her own. Jeffrey's dad is a friend of Chris', and he is an actual friend not just one of the hangers on looking for a free beer. He is also a good dad and he loves his son. Unfortunately the nature of his business means he is away a lot of the time. She is one of those that unfortunately always puts her biological kids wants and needs ahead of the one that isn't hers. What that means is they are first to get what they want and need and Jeffrey gets whatever crumbs fall off the plate.

  I hate that. I understand that it is probably a perfectly natural thought process to put your own kids first, but you have to fight against that and treat everyone equally when you have a blended family. Not doing that is going to leave little tiny hearts broken and eventually they are going to become exceedingly resentful.

  She has a boy who is 2 years older than Jeffrey. We will call him Brian. Brian is the king of the castle when Jeffrey's dad isn't home. He treats Jeffrey absolutely horribly, he blames everything he does wrong on Jeffrey (and yes I have seen it and corrected it when I was there) and he gets whatever his little heart desires. One day, about 5 months ago Brian said that he wanted a PS2. His mom couldn't afford one, but she rushed out that day and got him a gamecube. He pranced it in front of Jeffrey and informed him that it was HIS and Jeffrey was NOT to touch it. I was there at the time, and I watched this little episode silently for a bit. Jeffrey wants so bad for Brian to like him. You could see the hurt in his eyes and his voice quivered when he asked if maybe Brian would let him play doubles sometime. That ignorant little ******* said "what part of you are not allowed to play it did you not understand". I was thoroughly disgusted and turned to the boys mom and asked her if she was going to let that stand. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "It's Brians, it's up to him who plays it" I was appalled, but it was not really my place to say anything.

  Jeffrey called yesterday to see if he could stay over. Christopher was home from his other friends house and he wanted him to come over so I said sure. Christoher and I were planning on a pawn shop crawl this morning and Jeffrey had never been to a pawnshop so I figured we would have fun.

  I gave the boys each 10 dollars for the yard work they did on Saturday after Jeffrey got to the house, and off we went. My favorite Pawn was closed. Next stop was a buy and sell that I go to with some frequency. They had some stuff that had been sitting for a while on clearance so we poked around for a bit. Once the boys were fully engrossed in the games I got one of the counter staff to grab the item I had been hoping to find. I passed her some cash and told her to ring it up and bag it.

  Last stop was Cash Converters. I have a pretty good business relationship with the owner of this place. I was in luck, she was there. Christopher found a pair of walkie talkies that he really wanted. They were marked at $15 but I was pretty confindent that they would come in close to $10 so I said he could get them. I grabbed several DVD's that were marked down to $3 each. Most of them were collectors editions so I was fairly pleased. I hadn't seen a single game that I wanted. I wandered back to take another look and found Jeffrey standing there entranced. S'up buddy I asked. "I wish Brian would let me use his gamecube" he said as he pointed at a copy of resident evil 4 for GC. It was $20. I shifted over to the PS2 games. Here's a copy of RE4 for the PS2 I said.It's only $13. If you want the game, you can keep it at my house and play it when you come over. He smiled big and said thanks. Then he said, but I only have $10 dollars. I asked the onwer if we could took a look at the game and she got it out. I proceeded to show Jeffrey how the whole pawnshop game works. Opening the case the first thing I noticed was no book. I checked the game, which was fine, but I found a crack in the case. I pointed all this out to the owner and asked if $10 cash would be acceptable. She smiled and said sure. Jeffrey happily parted with his $10 and took his game. I figured we were done so I was heading up to the front and happened to look up. Sitting on the top shelf was a brand new shiny copy of Taiko Drum Master. I almost dropped my DVD's. I asked her if I could take a look at it, and sure enough it was the original packaging. I happy danced to the counter. I ended up getting a fantastic deal for the stuff I got and we all came home happy.

  Jeffrey bounded into the house to play his new game. I came in behind him and told him to come into the kitchen for a minute. He did and I handed him a gift bag. Happy birthday buddy I said. He smiled a shocked little smile and opened the bag. Inside the bag was a PS2 slim with 2 controllers. The little guy screamed, gave me a ferocious bear hug and screamed again. Turns out he wanted a PS2 pretty bad. He told me it was the best birthday present he had ever recieved. I was glad. Then he said he would have to hide it because Brian was going to want to use it. I told him Oh no he wasn't.

  Tomorrow when I take him home, I am going to talk to his dad. He is aware that Brian only lets Jeffrey use his stuff when the dad is home. I am going to tell the dad and mother of the year that the PS2 belongs to Jeffrey and since it is his, IT IS UP TO HIM WHO PLAYS IT. I am very much looking forward to saying that. You have no idea how much.

  • Posted Aug 31, 2008 5:59 pm PT
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