We'll see

Today I may have convinced one of the managers at my location to start coming to Judo with me.  Don't know if he'll actually show up though. We'll see.
On Thursday, Minion was still awful in his afternoon karate class.  The new girl is setting him off. There's a boy there about his age who is acting dead-on perfect though... I asked Minion to emulate him instead of her.  We'll see.
The camera and lens I loaned to another photographer 3 weeks back came back today. The one I loaned out 8 months back came back last week. Still out on loan is a tripod to one photog and a camping tent to another... don't know if I'll ever see either of those again.  Guess we'll see.
So far I have gotten perfect scores on both of my Econ quizes, and on the one assignment that's been graded.  Will my second assignment, and the work that I have yet to turn in all come back with all the available points scored? We'll see.
Potty training with Minion is progressing slowly.  I had hoped he'd be out of his diapers by now. How much longer will this phase of his life take? We'll see.  But no matter how frustrated I become at this, I cannot understand this "father" beating his 3 year old son son so hard it killed him, over potty training. That's something I could have gone without seeing.
My cousin's daughter ran away yesterday.  I learned about it this morning on Facebook. The police found her this afternoon. I neither know what prompted that decision, nor what will happen next. We'll see.
I'm re-working a poster of the managers and administrative staff at work to reflect recent promotions and transfers. Some people had expressed a level of distaste for the image currently being used for them, so I made a sign to post offering re-shoots since I am re-working the poster now anyway. Wonder if anyone will take me up on that. We'll see.

Toddlers are still Assholes

So Tuesday afternoon's karate class was a complete disaster. Mr Kinser, my Jujitsu instructor, was subbing in for Mr. Stillwell, while he and his wife went to a baseball game for her birthday. There was a new student in Minion's class. She is quite a bit older than him... maybe 7 or 8, and has a teenage sister who had been a student of Mr Stillwell's in the past. She wasn't just happy or excited to be there... she was giddy.  She bounced in place clapping and giggling with the energy of a dozen Jack Russle Terrier Puppies radiating off of her.

It was contagious. Minion was hopelessly unfocused before class ever started. 2 other little boys showed up and they were relatively clam and focused. The girl kept getting out of line, but a word or two from Mr. Kinser and she'd snap back into proper behavior. Not my boy, however. As soon as she acted goofy, he had to one up her, and no words were going to pull him back in line that day. While concepts were being explained, he'd wonder off to play with the punching bag.  While students were practicing kicks, he was rolling around on the floor.  This was the least cooperative I had ever seen him in class.  He was being a little asshole to MY instructor. It was mortifying.

Well see how this afternoon goes.

Today he told me, "When you fall down you do it on the mat so you don't break your head." Wise words, little man, wise words.  I did explain to him that practicing on the mat, to keep your head safe when you fall, is so that when you DO fall when there isn't a mat, you do it right so that you won't break your head.

I let him use gardening shears to prune our fence line today, until it started raining on us.

Do larks really look happier than other birds?

Nugget is still less interesting to talk about.  He ate strawberry puree. He pooped. He played with a big plastic ring. His ear infection doesn't seem to concern him one little bit. Happy as a lark.

So far, the first week of Economics class seems to be off to a good enough start. No news there, really.  I aught to be working on my first paper for that class, or prepping for my quiz instead of blogging, but... screw that. I wanna get a blog post up, so here I am.

You don't here me talk politics very much...  and you probably won't going forward. It's not my thing. I am generally in agreement with the late great Douglas Adams; anyone capable of being elected into office should never be entrusted with the job.  I have lost all respect for politicians and the politcal process. I consider myself a fiscal conservative and a social liberal; like the Koch brothers.  Unlike them, I am unwilling to support bat-shit crazy candidates who oppose my social views in order to elect the people who support my fiscal views.

So far in this election the only candidate I have any actual respect for is Bernie Sanders, because he has zero interest in talking about other candidates, and wants to focus on policies and issues.  He's not out fundraising, he's out campaigning on his policies.  I don't agree with all of them. But it has been refreshing to see someone who has dropped the rhetoric and mudslinging down to normal human levels and talks about issues when running for office.

I have some other things to discuss, like my weight, gut issues, pooping... Potty training toddlers...  "What to do around Kansas City" ... Ya know, stuff.

But it sounds from here like nap time is over for both of the little ones... so that will all have to be in another post or two.

Some Hard Lessons

Two lessons I learned in Judo last night: When your back is finally feeling good, don't try to struggle your way out of kesa gatame, and it is distinctly unpleasent to have your right (migi) gonad trod upon. Neither lesson will have resulted in permanent damage.

On a less unpleasant note, Nugget doesn't have Chicken Pox, his rash is some other unidentified but non-contagious virus according to his pediatrician.  And looks like the antibiotics didn't clear up his ear infection... or he has a new one. Either way - new meds for the tiny guy.

Enrolled Minion in swim lessons that start at the beginning of July. I feel guilty he hasn't been around water more.  At his age he aught to be comfortable swimming.  His Karate classes are going great, he pays decent attention when there are no other students there!  He's been getting private lessons pretty often right now because Blue Valley Rec is in-between sessions, and a lot of Mr. Stillwell's students come in through them.  All the better for Minion.

The A from my Comp II class is on my transcript now.  Brings me up over a 3.0
GPA again.  I have Economics over the summer semester, and I think I may re-take Algebra in the fall to mend my grade in it.  I was a smart-ass when I originally took it and tried to game the system. It sort of worked.  I showed up twice and got a high enough grade to count towards my degrees... but it won't transfer, and disallows me to take further mathematics courses if I wanted to. Getting a D is just not good enough.  There are a few other courses that I had failed in my youth that re-taking would improve my GPA even more, but they are less important for further schooling, if I choose to go that route.

I did apply to graduate following the summer semester.  Once Economics is complete, I will have met the requirements for an A.A. in Liberal Arts, and A.G.S. in General Studies, and an A.S. in General Sciences.

A pox on my family

Day care told us that our 7 month old had regrettably been exposed to chicken pox at their facility last week.  begining today we've noticed a fever and the first signs of a rash, to go along with our unusually cranky baby. This could be a long week. My wife can not miss work Wednesday.  If I have to call in to stay home with the boy, I'll miss out on my holiday pay for Memorial Day. Uhg.

What goes up...

So, yesterday was my first time on a ladder where I did not technically exceed the manufacturers safety weight limit... it was a combination of an industrial ladder with a 350lb limit and my weight loss which has me down to 277 this morning...  Oh but don't worry... I couldn't JUST go up a ladder that was finally theoretically safe... I chose a well broken one to use. Then today at home, I abused my 200lb weight limit step stool to work on the ceiling in the 3 year old's room, just to make up for NEARLY being safe the day before.

Time Machine

I found out today that my company is replacing the 10 year old print-making equipment we use in our photolab with a refurbished machine from another manufacturer that runs 6% faster, and easier to fill with chemicals when it runs out, but is harder to do maintenance on, runs with only 2 paper rolls loaded at a time instead of 4, and cannot print the 12x24 and 12x36 print sizes we offer now.  We have some people who make a lot of those, who will be disappointed.  I uses those sizes for some of my shots too...  I print my lightning shot as a 12x36 most of the time.

When we upgraded to our current equipment in 2005, the lab was supposed to experience just 2 days of downtime, but it took the techs 5 to get us up and running. This will be a downgrade (in my opinion) and I am not excited about this change.  The vague e-mail said only that this would be happening before the Christmas season.  I was originally trained on the same brand (older models) of equipment that we will be getting...  Time to knock a decade of dust and rust off that old skillset and get mentally flexible enough re-learn. *Groan*

Well, didn't see THAT coming.

Something unexpected happened yesterday at work; they named me the Employee of the Month for April.  My department saw it's busiest month ever outside of a Christmas season, and we did it understaffed due to an employee quitting without notice, but still, I wasn't expecting that. As a matter of fact, my supervisor and I had been conspiring to recognize the employee who did the most to bail us out of out bind, and who we consequently hired out of his current department and into ours.  When I asked her if he had gotten it, she was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "Congratulations," she said, "I nominated YOU instead, and you were voted in!" Apparently I beat out 5 other nominees, and 4 managers had planned to nominate me.

So a selfie for the EoM board it is.

Today had some moments in it. The little karateka did alright in class today, but was still distracted like a 3 year old. Afterwards I took a detour on the way home and checked out 2 options for tots swim lessons, because he aught to know the basic water safety stuff, and have a calm happy relationship with water... right now I'm pretty sure if he fell in, he would panic.  Not good, and it's something that as a former WSI I feel pretty guilty about. Still shopping after looking at those.

We stopped at BK for lunch.  I got a Jr. Whopper for me and an order of chicken fries for the boy. I stole one of his fries, ate most of my sandwich... for the last 2 bites worth, I ditched the rest of the bun and just ate the innards.  I should have done that from the get-go... I over ate. Oui! So Full!  No good.  Can't keep it all in...  That happens sometimes now when I eat too quickly, or just plain don't stop when I really should (but there's only one bite left!)  So I pull over in a parking lot, near a dumpster...  I position myself between some landscaping and the wall of the dumpster enclosure, so no passerbys are likely to witness the disgustingness, and everything will land on grass where Mother Nature will take care of it over time, and with it being right next to the dumpster, it's unlikely the smell will be the strongest odor in the area... I figured it was as fortunate a spot for an unfortunate occurrence as I was likely to get.  Of course all of this parking and noticing and thinking happened in the span of a few brief seconds before lunch, which was my first meal today, came back up.  Just after it did I see a sudden movement from a space about a foot to the left of where it had landed. A previously unnoticed Blue Jay cocked his head at me and gave me an angry glare.

I apologized to him for puking in his home and possibly hitting him with some splatter... He squawked angerily and hopped deeper into the brush.

Once I finally got home, we reviewed some of the karate stuff with the boy, fed the baby, let the kids watch some TV and Play with some toys for a bit before nap time.  Then I worked on wrapping up the last of my papers for my Comp II course.  I have an unfortunate history of signing up for Comp II and then not going to many of the classes, not doing the papers and the like...  I have 4 Fs on my college transcript with Comp II next to them...  Not this time though.  I attended ever single session - including the one the day after I was stabbed 5 times and had an internal organ carved out of me.  Every paper has been written, revised, revised and revised and it is likely the two I turned in tonight are DONE.  If so I have an A in the class and it's over.  I'll find out when I show up Thursday.  If they need further revision, I have 3 hours Thursday to accomplish that. Regardless, I have defeated the dreaded COMP II beast, and can move on.

After I trekked up to the college to turn in the papers, I went off to Judo, where Mr Kinser finally remembered to bring in the list of belt requirements for me to take home and study. Class went well, we covered most of the techniques for the 2nd (of 5) test for the 2nd belt.  While we were in class Mr. Paul Hearter, one of Mr. Kinser's black belts, showed up to chat with Mr. Stilwell, so I hung out after class to listen in to their chatter.  I love hearing the Bushidokan old guard talk.