Ch-ch-ch-changes!!!

Lots a changes happening 'round here. To begin with, Friday was my last day at my old job - which still feels kind of odd to say. I spent three years there, the longest I've been at any job I've ever had. After that amount of time, the people you're around and work with day in and day out become like family - dysfunction and all. I'll miss them. As one job passes...

Next Monday, Feb. 4th, in sort of an early birthday present to me, I take my shiny new Electrical Engineering degree and start my new job. If I can put in to words the way God has (seemingly) set forth and lit the path for me to this job, I would. But I can't. Let's just say that it's in a field I reeeaaalllyyy wanted to get in to but is difficult to get a foot in even with a BSEE. The perks - much better pay, better benefits, and only 2 miles from my house. That means, even during rush hour traffic, it'll take me 10 minutes to get to the office. And yes, I have timed it. Twice.

Probably the biggest change of all is still baking in the oven (if you follow me). Our due date was originally set for April 30, but apparently this will be a leavened child, for it's now sounding like we're gonna shorten the cooking time by a couple of weeks. Might be the dutch oven. Anyway, there's still a nursery to finish, showers to be had, and pitchers and catchers to report.

Oh, and for those astute enough to notice, my last day on the job was this past Friday; the new job starts next Monday. Yes - I'm taking a week off. I figure it's the last one I have where the only to-do list is handed down by my wife and not my son and wife.

Inner Workings

While I'm on my gun binge, if you want to see something cool, check this out. Genitron has a handgun page with three interactive models showing the whole nuts-n-bolts of a revolver and two types of semi-autos, including the Glock. No, I don't care for the Glock all that much, but a lot of the internal makeup of this firearm has revolutionized the way modern firearms are designed. Even if you're not a gun-nut, the modeling is really cool.

Public Service Announcement: Guns

Top 10 Manliest Firearms

Michael Williamson wrote about the top "manliest" firearms (in his not-so-humble opinion) a few months ago. I won't cut-n-paste the whole article, but there are some real gems in here.

#9. Mosin-Nagant M44 - This Russian beast is notorious in the gun community for being one of the cheapest military grade rifles around - one can be had for as low as $60. Myself not being a fan of manual safeties, I found this to be rather funny: "Speaking of guns without safeties, here's the Mosin-Nagant M44 Carbine from Russia. The Mosin was used by the Russians against the Finns, the Finns against the Russians, the Estonians against the Russians, the Russians against the Russians, and the Russians against the Germans. It does, in fact, have a safety, but it's quite hard to engage. But this is not a complaint one would ever voice in the Red Army. Your officer would reply, "Safety? Safety? Is gun! Meant to kill! No warrior should know he has safety on gun, because he should be killing enemies of homeland! Safety make loud click to aid enemy in locating warriors! No safety!" while pounding his fist on the table." Gotta agree with Vladimir on this one.

#8. Glock - Ugh! I don't care for Glocks. Just not for me. That said, I'm aware of and do respect their reputation for being darned reliable and quite possibly the ugliest thing since Hillary George Clinton.

#7 Swiss K31 - I know nothing of this gun, but I love this story Williamson relates: There is a story, possibly apocryphal but awesome nonetheless, that a ranking German (possibly the Kaiser) was visiting and watching the Swiss military on their summer maneuvers. He asked the Swiss commander, "How big a force do you command?"

The Swiss general confidently replied, "I can mobilize one million men in twenty-four hours."

The German asked, "What would happen if I marched five million men in here tomorrow?"

The Swiss replied, "Each of my men will fire five shots and go home."

#5 Smith & Wesson Model 29 - Also known as the gun Dirty Harry carried, I and my wife can personally attest to how manly this weapon is - I cap off as many rounds of .44 Magnum ammo as I can whenever I get around this gun; she shot it once and handed it back to me. Guaranteed to give you a buzz in your hand. Or your fillings. Or your neighbor's fillings.


#2 Colt 1911A1 - You'd be hard pressed to find another handgun anywhere that has it's reputation. Owners of Tupperware guns (self included) can argue all they want, but it says something about a firearm when it's almost 100 years old and the military is trying to go back to it.

Let it Snow

Wanna see it bigger? Click here.

300 seconds

From the Brady Campaign:

Simply put: guns kept in the home for self-protection are more often used to kill somebody you know than to kill in self-defense; 22 times more likely...

I wonder if this was included in the Brady's statistics:

A northwest Indiana woman shot her alleged stalker to death. Police say 41-year-old Ryan Lee Bergner broke into the woman's home in Hammond Monday night. The 51-year-old woman called 9-1-1 and hid in a closet with a gun she had been given for protection. She says she shot him when he opened the closet door and started choking her.

His family says Bergner was a good man. Neighbors say the woman's action is understandable.

"There is no way there should be any charges on her. It is justifiable homicide. She was on the phone with police. They told her exactly what to do. What more are you asking for when some guy's coming at you? I mean, that's defense," said Alison Joseph, woman's neighbor.

From the youtube page, "The woman briefly dated Ryan Bergner. She declined further dates, but the man refused to leave her alone, stalking and harassing her. The woman filed six complaints against him. Then he made the last wrong decision of his life - he broke into her house."

A warning: this is not for the feint of heart. While there is no language in it, it's tough. You hear everything. Every agonizing detail up to this creep's final moment.


"Simply put: guns kept in the home for self-protection are more often used to kill somebody you know than to kill in self-defense; 22 times more likely..."

Apparently so.

Blogroll Additions and 9-pack

I have been remiss in adding a few blogs to ye ol' blogroll. Blame it on school, graduation, work, laziness, or whatever floats your boat.

• Jeremy from Benton - Jeremy is a frequenter over at Tim's blog and has had me listed for quite some time (sorry to take so long to return the favor). He's also one of the only other people who knows what this means: 4 8 15 16 23 42
• Xavier's Thoughts - Xavier is a fellow gun-nut who is a nurse. He writes several dead-on posts about firearms, proper ownership, and usually posts an Ugly gun pic of the week on Sundays.
• Glenna - this is one of three blogs for Glenna, and is in my opinion the best. Her and her husband's ongoing battle with infertility is equally heartbreaking and uplifting. Another of her blogs that isn't quite as heavy is her advice blog. Make that, her non-advice blog. ;)

Now for the 9 pack (drank one):

• Mark is talking about true love. No, not that true love.
• Tim is on his way to transcending print media for the airwaves. Insert your own joke about "face made for radio" here.
• Joel is hating on TVs - though not as far as a Wii is concerned.
• Moshe's quit the blogging world. (Drank another)
• Jeff is going through some crappy times. Literally.
• It's still Christmas down in Gordon's neck of the woods.
• Tony is holding an NFL pick'em contest.

And I'm spent...

Friday Funny: Bad Moon Rising Picture

My brother-in-law decided that the words just didn't do a previous blog post justice, therefore in all his abundance of time that he has, he manufactured this picture. Apparently, Glenna, I didn't paint the picture well enough.

"Meanest Mom on Planet"

From Fox News:

Jane Hambleton has dubbed herself the "meanest mom on the planet."

After finding alcohol in her son's car, she decided to sell the car and share her 19-year-old's misdeed with everyone — by placing an ad in the local newspaper.

The ad reads: "OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet."

Hambleton has heard from people besides interested buyers since recently placing the ad in The Des Moines Register.

The 48-year-old from Fort Dodge says she has fielded more than 70 telephone calls from emergency room technicians, nurses, school counselors and even a Georgia man who wanted to congratulate her.

I'm just glad to see a parent actually take their job seriously.

Baby Registering Don'ts

Surely as night follows day, here is the post for things not to register for. What didn't work for you? What collected dust? What did you re-gift because it sounded like a really good idea at the time?

If something worked for you, this isn't your post - click here for the Do's.

Baby Registering Do's

The baby shower's are a'coming - our bouncing baby boy will be arriving in about 4 months from now. Currently, we have a baby bed and blanket or two, some bibs, and not a whole lot else.

As such, this is the place for you, reader of the blog, to sound off on what you got at showers that worked for you - or what you had to go buy for yourself because what you got didn't work for you. From books to bibs to beds, what would be your best tips for things to put on our registry, and if you feel so inclined (or if it's needed), why?

Note: there will be a separate post up for the don'ts. Let this post just concentrate on the do's.

A Polak joke

Except, it's real:

WARSAW — A Polish man visiting a brothel was surprised to find his wife working there, Reuters reported.

The woman, who had told her husband she had been working at a store in town to make extra money, Reuters reported.

"I was dumfounded. I thought I was dreaming," the husband told the Polish tabloid Super Express on Wednesday.

The couple reportedly are getting a divorce.

Bad moon rising

For me, there is just about no more depressing time of the year than right now. Did you notice that pretty much everything Christmas related is gone on December 26th? Maybe it's because retail America starts ramming Christmas down our throats before Halloween decorations are even put out (get out of the way, Thanksgiving!) that causes people to just be "so over" the season by the end of the actual day. I myself, could use a little phasing out of the music and lights. Which might be why I get a little down...

I am Clark Griswold. I welcome the day I get a thank-you letter from the power company. I start putting lights on the house, bushes, trees, and anything else that is fastened to the ground (watch out kitty). And when it's all done, usually in the same week that I give Thanks for turkey, dressing, and peanut-butter pie, I don't just sit back and marvel at the lustrous luminous instensity my house emits in the cul-de-sac - I think of what more I want to do next year.

Sadly, what goes up must come down, and the post-Christmas post-haste cleansing must begin. As when I put the lights out, I take them back down nearly in the same order - the hardest ones to reach on the most dangerous part of my roof are the first to go up and down. Donning my trusty work jeans suitable for roof-sitting and straddling, I grumble my way up to the first roof, set the second ladder, and traverse to the upper roof.

This is the sharpest angle my roof sits at and is completely impossible for me to stand or sit easily on, so I have devised a technique of sitting with my knees tucked nearly under my chin and my feet together. Provided I do my kegel exercises with my rear, I can generally hold myself in one position and turn my upper body to work just over the edge of the roof. Yes, I'm an idiot; but let the record show that I have never fallen off the roof. When my wife's home.

There is, however, a drawback to doing such a thing. Apparently, blue jean material can only withstand so much, and roof shingles tend to be quite coarse. And I have a strong butt. With the title of the post, you can probably see where this is going, can't you?

So there I was, the king of my castle, master of my domain, perched atop the highest vista of my house cautiously going about my business of not falling of the roof taking down the lights when the neighbor's kids came out to play or so I thought. They seemed very interested in watching me; I could only assume that they were awaiting my expected fall or for a gas pocket to dislodge and launch me to their roof. And no, I've never actually done that. When my wife's home.

I finally reach the apex of the house, a place where I can straddle the roof and, using my caboose for balance (told you it was strong) walk on my hands back to the middle of the house where I can stand. And that's when it hit me - the kids were suddenly laughing. Not light giggling or semi-obnoxious squealing, but laughing. I see something you don't see type of funny. I get to where I can stand and that's when it literally hit me - the breeze I'm talking about.

You see, as a man (or even an erstwhile Godly woman with a dose of common sense), you realize that their are places brisk breezes shouldn't touch. Ever. We sometimes call that the nether-region. I call it "anything on the underside of my drawers." That's where the winds were a blowin'.

I reached back, expecting to find the seat of my britches riddled with holes as if Al Capone had just literally ordered a hit on my butt. Only I didn't find it. Not them, it. I didn't find my seat. The laughter was starting to make sense, now. They weren't waiting for me to make a fool of myself; I, myself, was the fool. They had just been witness to a (nearly) middle-aged man's pasty white backside clothed in what remained of my Haynes-his-way with what most likely looked like a thong belonging to Sasquatch peaking out from underneath. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I remembered something...

These are the same pants I wore when putting allll the lights out - all 3450 of them!

SWAT needs a swat

This angers me on so many levels:

Nearly a dozen members of a police SWAT team in western Colorado punched a hole in the front door and invaded a family's home with guns drawn, demanding that an 11-year-old boy who had had an accidental fall accompany them to the hospital, on the order of Garfield County Magistrate Lain Leoniak.

The boy's parents and siblings were thrown to the floor at gunpoint and the parents were handcuffed in the weekend assault, and the boy's father told WND it was all because a paramedic was upset the family preferred to care for their son themselves.

Someone, apparently the unidentified paramedic, called police, the sheriff's office and social services, eventually providing Leoniak with a report that generated the magistrate's court order to the sheriff's office for the SWAT team assault on the family's home in a mobile home development outside of Glenwood Springs, the father, Tom Shiflett, told [WorldNetDaily].
.............
According to friends of the family, Tom Shiflett, who has 10 children including six still at home, and served with paramedics in Vietnam, was monitoring his son's condition himself.

The paramedic and magistrate, however, ruled that that wasn't adequate, and dispatched the officers to take the boy, John, to a hospital, where a doctor evaluated him and released him immediately.

The accident happened during horseplay, Tom Shiflett told WND. John was grabbing the door handle of a car as his sister was starting to drive away slowly. He slipped, fell to the ground and hit his head, Shiflett said.

He immediately carried his son into their home several doors away, and John was able to recite Bible verses and correctly spell words as his father and mother, Tina, requested. There were no broken bones, no dilated eyes, or any other noticeable problems.

You get the basic gist of the story. The father decided not to go to the emergency room at that time for fear of the bills, something he absolutely has the right to refuse. One of the paramedics gets his boxers in a bunch and calls the police; then social services get brought in; then the SWAT team barges breaks* in. The boy is taken to the hospital where they "didn't find anything wrong with him."

First of all, this absolutely reeks of nanny-statism (Knock-knock: "Hi, we're the government, we're here to help, and can do a better job of it than you can!"). How this snowballed in to a SWAT confrontation with an unarmed (!) man and his family is something I hope the local residents don't let any of the officials involved forget for a long time. And just what did the nice sheriff have to say was his reasoning for sending in the para-military unit?

The sheriff said the decision to use SWAT team force was justified because the father was a "self-proclaimed constitutionalist" and had made threats and "comments" over the years.

However, the sheriff declined to provide a single instance of the father's illegal behavior. "I can't tell you specifically," he said.

"He was refusing to provide medical care," the sheriff said.

However, the sheriff said if his own children were involved in an at-home accident, he would want to be the one to make decisions on their healthcare, as did Shiflett.

"I guess if that was one of my children, I would make that decision," the sheriff said.

But he said Shiflett was "rude and confrontational" when the paramedics arrived and entered his home without his permission.

Not because of stockpiles of weapons and explosives; not because of a history of violence; not because of threats; but because of his political views and he was rude to the men who were not invited in to his house and who kept insisting on taking his son to the hospital even after they examined him and found nothing wrong!!!

*That's right, breaks in, as in the charge breaking and entering. You do know that even the Supreme Court found it illegal for these no-knock breaches to occur? Yet he we are. Just imagine: you're sitting at home on a weeknight, drifting off watching some TV. And then - BLAM! - your door gets kicked/punched in. There was no call-out, no knock at the door. And for those that think it can't happen to them because they don't break the law, think again.

Diary of a Pregnant Woman III: What Not to Say

"Bend over and hand me that quarter I dropped."

"Would you like another carton of ice cream?"

"It's adorable how you waddle... everywhere."



"Could you massage my lower back? It's killing me."

"Sure you can squeeze through there - just suck in."

"Your shoe needs to be tied."



"Let me see if I can bounce up off of the sofa like you..."

"Did you break wind?"

"How much more do you plan on eating?"

"Are you sure he's mine?"

I am your daddy!

This nearly brought a tear to my eye:

An 11-year-old boy demonstrated The Force when he defended his mom by hitting an attacker with a toy lightsaber.

The man, in his 30s, fled after being confronted by the youngster outside a bakery in Swardeston, near Norwich, England.

Police said the boy hit the man with his toy after the man had punched and verbally abused his mother as she approached her car.

Officers are appealing for witnesses to the Dec. 22 attack.

Allan Jennings of the Norfolk Police said: "The incident caused quite a commotion and it is unlikely it would have gone unnoticed."

Who knew the Force was strong with a Brit?

Diary of a Pregnant Woman II: Baby-brain

6:30 - Wakes up singing Happy Working Song
6:40 - Fixes lunch and puts in lunchbag
6:50 - Starts shower to get hot water going; puts in contact
7:00 - During shower, realizes she forgot to put in both contacts
7:10 - While drying hair, realizes that she used to much mousse
7:15 - Not mousse; forgot to wash conditioner out
7:20 - Fixes lunch and puts in other lunchbag when other one can't be found
7:45 - Finds first lunch, eats as second breakfast
8:30 - By miracle of God alone makes it to work; puts second lunch in refrigerator
11:30 - Hungry, need to find lunch
11:45 - Still trying to find someplace to eat
12:00 - gets back to work with a salad; realizes lunch was in the refriegerator
12:15 - eats lunch from yesterday that she forgot
6:00 - arrives home, sorts mail, greets GREATEST HUSBAND IN THE WHOLE WORLD
6:10 - thaws out chicken for dinner
6:15 - checks home email
6:20 - thaws out salmon for dinner
6:30 - sorts mail again, gets deja vu feeling
7:00 - pours glass of water for herself
7:05 - pours glass of water for herself
7:10 - pours glass of water for herself
7:15 - tries to pour a glass of water, but no more glasses
7:30 - alarm on oven sounds
7:35 - husband asks, "what's that beeping?"; pushes timer button on oven
7:36 - husband asks, "was that timing something in the oven"; retrieves pork from oven
8:00 - drinks root beer from bottle with dinner, apparently all glasses are dirty
8:30 - goes to clean kitchen
8:31 - realizes kitchen was being cleaned as she talked to GREATEST HUSBAND IN THE WHOLE WORLD
8:45 - falls asleep in the middle of conversation with GHITWW