That isn't nice, John.

A fellow University of North Texas alumni telling everyone I am going to hell? That just isn't very nice.

I saw this first over on the athomedad.org forums. John Hagee has decided Stay at Home Dads are hell bound. Of course he also blamed Hurricane Katrina on gays. Since he was wrong back then, surely he is bound to be right eventually, right?



Worse than an infidel? Mr. Mom? Ouch.

For the record, I really don't want to go to hell and have to pull up to the dinner table with pious idiots like Hagee and Robert Tilton (even though I don't know that Tilton ever railed against SAHDs specifically). But I don't want a job, either.

So I am torn. (Or should I say, ripped?)

You'll never guess

OK, so we were driving about three blocks from the State Mental Health Hospital. So I am not quiet as surprised if I had see him at the state capitol. Or just about anywhere else.

It was about 95 degrees out there today. Dude, wearing pair of blue jeans, motorcycle boots, a multi-colored pancho for a shirt and a...

Are you ready for this?

Might want to swallow your Dr Pepper, now.

OK, ready?



Dude might have weighted a hundred and five pounds and he was at least 6 feet tall.

Ready for it?



He had on mirrored sunglasses, too.




And I was already noticing the fabulousness of the outfit when I noticed the CODPIECE!

A black leather codpiece strapped right over his...





blue jeans.









Yep, I loves this city!

Still alive and bitching

Just haven't been around here much lately.

Didn't want you to think that things were rolling along TOO smoothly for me, just nothing blog-worthy lately.

Somebody is gonna be sore tomorrow!

We ran to Costco for ice cream after we ate dinner out tonight. When The Talker and I were approaching the cash register with our extremely important gallon of frozen vanilla, an old woman just about elbowed me outta the way to get to the register first.

Her hurry? Getting checked out with her dozen or more bottles of wine and two boxes of rubber gloves. All I really want to know is, what the heck kind of kink is that old woman into?

On second thought, I don't really care to know. I'll just eat my ice cream and forget the whole ordeal.

If you can't laugh at yourself, laugh at the homeless guy

I usually reserve this site for stuff that just bugs the heck out of me. Yesterday I saw something that did not bother me, it entertained me for the time I was waiting at a red light. But the story just doesn't fit over on AtHomeDaddy.

The Princess and I were sitting at a red light. And a panhandler/homeless guy was standing on the corner. At first he had a stack of old real estate signs and the business logos were showing. Then he started flipping them over, one at a time.

Lear Jet needs new upholstery. Social standing in jeopardy!

Why live in a $200,000 house when you can live under a $20,000,000 bridge?

Let's be honest. I like beer. '62 Dom is nice, too. But I am not picky.

Road Rage? Yell at a homeless guy for $.50 OBO.

I have never rolled down the window for these guys. But I gotta tell you, if The Princess had not been in the car, I would have slipped this guy a buck or two. No chance though, with the girl in the car.

NOW maybe the parents will learn to say...

"Pick a different shirt today. OK, dude?"

Boy, 11, Takes Off Brett Favre Jersey After Wearing It Every Day Since 2003

Man, I wish I had a camera...

I saw something today that makes me KNOW who I won't be using the next time we need a roof on our house. Of course, I doubt if any of these guys will live long enough to actually make it across town, so it is pretty much a no-brainer.

I was dropping the cousin off at her house. Her neighbors are getting a new roof. The house is one of those big ol' 2 story boxes. So the edge of the roof is what, 25 or 30 feet in the air or so?

These knuckleheads were using two extension ladders to get to the roof. So how do you use two extension ladders at the same time? Duct tape of course.

Yep, they were climbing up to the roof on two ladders DUCT TAPED together. Nice!

I hope the company has a good worker's comp program.

Edit: 4/8/08

OK, the crew was gone of course, but I drove past the house again today. AND I had a camera with me. So there you go...

A little redemption?

I took my car into the dealership for an oil change this morning. At 7:45, 15 minutes after they unlocked the doors. I was pretty sure that we would be in an out in a half hour or less, since there were no other cars in line, and it looked like only one service agent was on duty.

When the service dude told me that it would be a 2 hour wait, since there were so many cars ahead of me and I did not have an appointment, I thought he was just joking around. Heck, they had not even turned on the lights in the service offices yet.

Once I realized he was not joking around, we hightailed it. As soon as I got home I called for the first available appointment. 10:30 would be fine, but the wait WITH an appointment? 2 hours. No joke.

WTFitty F? I thought the appointments would make things quicker.

We pulled back into the dealership a few minutes before our appointment time. The girl and I were loaded up with snacks and toys. We looked like we were moving in for the winter.

25 minutes later, Service Guy came to get me. the work was finished and we were out of there.

I did not bother to ask why the told me it would be a 2 hour wait. We just grabbed the keys and hit the road. In the end, I think I'll try to deal exclusively with Service Guy. Everyone else up there seems to be getting paid by the hour.

The hour they make people wait.

Let's hope he/she isn't a mommy/daddy

I think I have a new nemesis. The slightly androgynous, but mostly female, bagger at the new grocery store. Two days in a row she has asked about The Princess.

Yesterday went something like this:
"How old is he? 10?"
"Who? HER? She is 3!"
"Wow, she is big. What grade is he in?"
"That is OK. I'll carry the groceries out myself."


Today's trip did not start off any closer to reality, even though The Princess was wearing enough pink to camouflage herself at a Victoria's Secret. You just can't see the pink pants, pink socks or pink and white shoes in this pic...

The carryout person started off strong, but wrong. "So he is 3, huh?"
"Yep. SHE is 3."
"Oh he is a girl?"
"No, it is fine. I can carry out my own groceries."


After this exchange, I am assuming this person at the store is an expert in confusing gender roles. Thus the dangling earrings and hiking boots he/she wears.

Strike two - Yer OUT!

So the dealership should have delivered my car this morning. But I was still waiting on a call from them at 9:15. So we took the loaner car back to the dealership.

I did tell the service manager that they could help make things right by hooking me up with a free oil change or a detail job. He offered up two oil changes.

See what happens...

I was all ready to abandon this blog. Then I took my car to the shop. No I will have fodder for this site for years.

The back story:

Wife comes in Wednesday and lets me know that the low coolant light is on in my new car. My Saturn Vue is 7 or 8 months old, but it only has 7300 miles on it. It has also had a problem with the ignition key and a couple of other minor things, so we ran up to the dealership, less than 2 miles away.

No problem there.

But all hell sorta broke loose when I went to pick the car up yesterday afternoon. The service writer called at 3 to say it was ready. The wife got in about 5 and we went straight to the dealership.

I wasn't very happy when I saw that some of the work the writer said had been done, was not noted on the service receipt. So I assume that work wasn't done. It wasn't a major deal, but don't lie about it.

Then it took them almost 30 minutes to deliver the car from the back lot. GRRRRRR.

When I hopped in to drive home, I made it less than halfway off of the dealership lot when the coolant light came on. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

The service manager dicked around with it in the driveway for a few minutes before he finally sent it back to a mechanic. 30 minutes later and they came to show me that they had accidentally sliced the wiring on the coolant sensor when they had installed a new coolant reservoir. So they were splicing the wires back together. And I would be out of there "in 10 minutes".

I told the service manager that I understood about the repair, but I wasn't happy. The car has 7300 miles on it. And now it has a patched wiring system. GRRRRR.

30 minutes later GRRRRRRRRRRRR! they offer me a loaner car. When I go to pick up the kid's car seats out of my car, they guy is rushing to finish the repair. I grab the car seats and pull up front again.

The service manager tells me he wants to test my car out in the morning and they will bring it to me to swap out cars. So I took the loaner car home. GRRRR.

ADHDaddy - nothing new to say

But I am not going to retire this blog just yet. Mainly because I don't want you to have it.

I knew a SAHD who deleted his blog and blogger account. Within a day or two someone had taken his blog site name and URL listing. So those of us who did not know he had canned his blog thought he was suddenly linking to a little too much p()rn to be doing anyone much good.

So I won't delete this drivel, mainly because it gets a few hits once on a while. And I don't want someone else thinking that I have gone into the p()rn link referral bidness.

Anyways, I might need to come back to bitch later. That is the great thing about New Years. So many possibilities before us...

By the way, if you care to know, the new grocery store rules. The old ones can all suck it.

Grocery woes

I am officially ready for our newest neighborhood grocery store to open. The girl and I needed to make a quick run this morning to our usual store. We hit the doors at the crack of 10:15 am. Yeah, early risers, we are.

Anyways, the store looked like a WalMart at 3 am. You know, pallets and carts of groceries blocking every aisle. It did not take me long to decide that this store isn't really needing my business today.

Still, I was not wanting to make another grocery run later today. So we compromised. I put back everything that was not essential. Milk, nanners, Dr Pepper. The rest of the stuff in my cart went into a pile in the middle of the cereal aisle. We did not really need the beer, chips, salsa or other goodies.

Cashier saw me and asked why I pulled everything out of the cart. Honesty is the best policy, right? So I told him "There is so much junk piled up back there that I don't really think it could make the store look any worse. Do you?" He wanted to get a manager for me to complain. I just wanted to get out of there before some of the crap they had piled up fell over on us and we were crushed under a mountain of Pringles.

First you get the money...

So back in April, the third child was born. Err, bought. And since then I have been stocking up on a few games.

All but one or two have come from the used game store, including all of the favorites, Madden 07 football, Simpson's Road Rage and as of last night, Grand Theft Auto - Vice City.

I spent the entire night whooping up on street thugs, cops and hookers and stealing their cars and money. Good Times! And then I realized that this is a lot like an over the top and overly dramatic view of life on the preschool playground.

So the next kid that makes The Princess cry out there better watch himself.

Annoying Callers Redux

More than a year ago we were getting calls from an unidentified 800 number. So I handled it like an adult. I just ignored the problem and eventually it went away.

This summer I have found a new phone nemesis. Identified on Caller ID as 18006787720W&A. The big problem? Besides the three or four calls a day, every @#$) day? They claim to be from a law firm but they are using one of those computerized phone dialing and answering services. So I hung up on them.

And now these jokers have ruined it for everyone. So pass the word. AtHomeDaddy will no longer accept computer generated phone calls. I won't talk to the computer or listen to the computer. I WILL hang up on the computer-caller, though.

And NEVER again will I answer an unidentified call. THAT'S why we HAVE caller ID in the first place, right.

I'm one step closer to the Father of the Year

And this is the guy who put LOSER in closer...

Check this great dad out...

I wonder if they will let him eat his sack lunch outside.

A side note, is it always nice to see someone from my home county making something of himself. First Jessica Simpson, then Kelly Clarkson. Now Paul Scott Schmidtke. Keep reppin' for the home town, guys!

It may have been a rough start to the fall,

but at least I am doing better than THIS GUY!

I wouldn't wear it, but I'll laugh for days if you do...

Thanks Terry, for the great laughs today. Drive yourself over to Texas and get a sack lunch any time you want.


I wasted enough time laughing about this t-shirt that I just had to know where I could buy one if I were so inclined.

But just for the record, I don't laugh when I see those things hanging underneath a truck's rear bumper.

Dr. Not So Smart, I presume.

This morning I got an message in my personal mail that I just really did not need to see before... well, ever.

For some reason I ended up on a group email that a Dr was sending out to some of his cohorts. He was discussing a recent surgery he had done and graciously provided some really disgusting pictures of the inside of some college student's ankle.

I wondered what the hell was going on, but I pretty quickly deleted the email and figured that was the end of my involvement in ankle reconstructions. As we were leaving for a play date, more than 20 email responses came from the others who were evidently supposed to get this email. So I fired off a quick email and I used the reply all function, just like these REAL Doctors had done.

Hi. i am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. Please remove my email address from further discussions on broken ankles, knees, or anything else that might give me the heebie jeebies.

And Dr Joe, Those pictures were a little too graphic for me before I have had a couple of cups of coffee, but thanks for sharing.

Thanks

If nothing else, maybe this guys buddies can razz him a little bit about the creepy guy who chimed in during the middle of their busted ankle email chat. And now, after we got home, I found that one of the Docs on the list responded directly to me, asking if I was the Mike that he knew.

So I replied to him.

I am a pretty popular guy. SO you may know me. But I don't think I know you. Still, will you give me a discount on surgery if I blow out my knee while playing backyard soccer with the kids?

Hopefully this guy will get a chuckle out of my response. But if he ever cuts into my knee, I don't want to see the pictures.

I caused it myself but that does not mean I won't whine about it...

The downside to letting the kids listen to Radio Disney in the new car has become perfectly apparent today. The boy has been hearing promos for High School Musical 2 for months. And I decided that he could stay up late last night and watch the premier showing. Now I have had all those damn songs stuck in my head ALL DAY LONG.

The next person who asks "What Time Is It?" might get stabbed in the freaking head with a screwdriver. Got it?



That's right, Disney bitches, it's time to do some bodily harm for getting your catchy pop tunes all jammed up in my brain.

But the upside is Zac and his pals have given me a new reason to whine about life. So this blog must live on a while longer.