Wow

It’s been 10 days since I last posted.  I blame it on a few different things. 

1. My new iPhone.  I will confess my love in the second half of this post.

2. Twitter.  I am in the early phases of testing this technology as something that I want to utilize in marketing my balloon art business (www.iloveballoonanimals.com if you have no idea what I am talking about)

3. Church overcommitment. 

But first, a quick tale about my brother.  He turned 37 on Saturday.  I called to wish him a happy birthday.  He was at the bar playing darts and drinking at 8:30pm when I called to wish him a happy b’day.  I spoke with him again around 10:00pm and he seemed fine.  I received a call from my mother at 10:00am Sunday morning informing me that my brother was in jail.  He apparently went to his wife’s apartment (they are currently seperated) and in a drunken stupor essentially knocked on the wrong apartment door and proceeded to barge into the wrong apartment.  Then when police arrived he decided that his 3rd degree blackbelt status would come in handy.  When all of that was done he thought it would be fun to break out of the cop car.  All of this netted him a two day trip to county jail where today he will stand before a judge to hear how much money he has to come up with to post bail.  They have no money.  He was arrested for breaking and entering, assaulting a police officer, and resisting arrest.  In addition to this incident my money is on the fact that he loses his job when they find out.  My sister in law spoke with him the morning after the incident and he basically told her that he didn’t remember anything really about the night up until the moment he was tasered. 

I have been praying for my brother since this incident.  I bet he never forgets this birthday.  Since he is only 4 years older than me, I have partied hard with him many a nights in college and I can’t say I ever saw him this out of control.   This incident has kind of put my own alcohol consumption and decision making into perspective. 

Twitter:  If you are on twitter and want to join me, I can be found here

Church overcommitment:  Someone came up to me two years ago and thought that a fall fest or Oktoberfest would be a great idea.  So the ball got rolling and we finally are having our first church Oktoberfest.  The only problem is that I think I and a very small group of people are the only ones on board.  The event is this upcoming Sunday and while I have lined up an awesome band, ridiculously awesome beer that will be served in 32oz mugs, great german food, and things for the kids to do, I don’t see a good turnout coming.  With less than a combination of 200 adults/children we will lose a good chunk of change.  For the record, this will be the last new event I run at church for a very long time. 

iPhone:   My love for this device can be summed up by a story from yesterday.  I was booked to entertain during a birthday party in a forrest preserve near the Wisconsin border. (literally in the middle of no where) The Chicago Bears game started at 3:00pm and I arrived at 4:45 and entertained until around 5:45pm.  While I was putting my equipment away, I pulled out my iPhone and fired up the Directv Superfan App that allows me to watch live football on my phone.  I clicked “Watch Live” on the bears game and sat my phone down waiting for the game to begin running.  Moments later, it was time to sing Happy birthday and I walked away from the phone to join in on the celebration.  I was talking with a few of the parents for a few moments and then noticed that a large group of guys were hovering around my stuff on the other side of the picnic shelter.  I walked over and realized that all of the men had found my phone lying on the picnic table and were watching the end of the bears game.  I laughed as soon as I saw what they were watching and was bombarded with 20 questions as to how on earth I could watch a Bears game live on my cellphone.  If I had a box of iphones and directv contracts I could have sold them together for 1000.00 a piece to each of the fathers that were miffed about missing the bears game for a childrens birthday party.   After nearly cancelling my Sunday ticket package from Directv, I have been sold 10 times over with the new addition of my iphone.  Since I entertain on almost every Sunday, this is now my only way to catch the NFL while entertaining.  It’s an expensive set up with 430.00 for the new 32GB 3GS  with accessories and 400 for the sunday ticket w/Superfan (which I negotiated down to 250 for everything).  But at that moment when all the dads stood in awe of technology, every penny was worth it. 

Sorry for the long post.  It’s 12:3o right now and I have to believe that my brother could be finding out any time now how much money he needs to pay to get out of the clink.  I think i’ll call his cellphone and tell him that I love him since he could probably use some love right about now.

Filed under: Birthday, Brother, Church, Overcommitment, balloon, drunk, iPhone, peer pressure

Playing ketchup

After living out of a suitcase for virtually 3 weeks, my bags are unpacked and things are beginning to calm down. 

Since July 2nd, I watched as my little brother left for Iraq, Flew too and from Georgia, attended a family reunion, visited with my father for the first time in two years, drove more than 3000 miles, spent a week in the mountains, found myself, lost myself, found myself amongst one of the largest gatherings of Amish people in the United States, celebrated my 6th anniversary, and learned a bit about what I want out of vacation when I go next time.  Whew, that was a mouthfull. 

The family reunion was great.  I realized I have a lot of cousins that I didn’t even know existed.  My father was in attendance which was nice since I get to visit with him once every few years as he lives down in Georgia. 

We left directly from the family reunion on an 800 mile road trip to the mountains of West Virginia for what was supposed to be a relaxing trip.  It didn’t turn out as relaxing as I like my vacations but there were some good moments.  I learned a little bit about myself on this trip.  I learned that if I am taking vacation time away from work, I want to be able to do whatever it is that I want to do.  That sounds like a very immature thing to say, but as I get older, I am becoming more and more possessive about my time. I was guilty of throwing a temper tantrum at one point which definitely put my maturity level into perspective.   I guess I am spending too much of my spare time with children while twisting balloons. 

I did manage to get out and play a round of golf.  I don’t know why I play golf any more.  Honestly I suck so bad.  I know everyone says that, but seriously, I am bad.  Having not played more than a handful of times over the past 4 years, my game has declined miserably to the point that I get too embarrassed to enjoy myself.  And who has time to practice?  Not this guy.   

Coming back to Chicago we decided to drive through Central Ohio on a recommendation from one of my customers.  Apparently if you drive through North Central Ohio on a Saturday in the right parts you can hit very active Amish Country.  Having been fascinated with the Amish Lifestyle since watching the movie Kingpin, I was up for expanding my perspective on life.  In regards to the Kingpin reference, I would assume that the Amish Community would have been upset with their depiction in that movie, but then again they don’t have electricity or televisions, so I doubt they ever found out anyway. 

As we continued on our trek through scenic Ohio along the path we were told would lead us to Amish Country, we began seeing Amish shops.  So we stopped at a few and did some shopping.  We bought our 6th Anniversary gift for each other in one of the shops as we were both agreed not to do the gift thing for each other this year due to all of the travels.  As I exited the shop, there was a stand with pamphlets that offered up touristy things to do in Amish Country.  To my surprise, about 3 miles down the road in Berlin, Ohio there was a fireman festival going on (the only festival in Berlin for the year actually).  So, we made one more stop on our way to the festival at Heini’s Cheese Chalet.  No knowing what we were walking into, we were quite surprised at the line at least a good 200 deep just to walk through to buy something.  I took many pictures because I was still excited to see the Amish folk working in this shop.  No wanting to spend two hours looking at cheese, we decided to move on with our journey to the festival. 

We pulled into Berlin and found a parking spot.  We couldn’t see anything going on, but could tell by the mass number of amish horse drawn buggies coming from everywhere that something was going on.  We hit a few shops on our way while we followed the crowd and I have to admit that Berlin is a cute little town.  Our only regret was not getting there earlier because most of the shops had closed by 4pm on a Saturday evening.  As we neared the direction of the crowds we realized that we were walking amongst thousands of Amish folk.  We begun to hear music and continued on our path until large tents appared and throngs of Amish sat in tents and waited in lines to enjoy the fun things that go along with a festival. 

The highlight for me was watching them churn real home made ice cream.  I don’t know why that was such a big deal for me, but it was.  I guess having never seen home made churned ice cream I always assume that ice cream is magically made and shows up in the grocers freezer.  The firemen churning the ice cream had no issues with me stepping behind the lines to get a front row view of how it’s made.  For 2.00 I had the freshest home made ice cream in my entire life. 

There was a yodeling banjo playing band which was pretty cool as well.  My wife doesn’t think I am mature enough to be around the Amish because I kept taking their pictures saying how cool it was to see Amish people.  I hit the Amish Jackpot when I saw a midget Amish family and was shot down by my wife trying to get a picture of them.  That was one of those moments where it would have have been great to have been with my guy friends and not so much with my wife.  She is too kind hearted and quickly put me in my place. 

After the ice cream, we headed back to the car and called it a fun trip. It was 6pm and we found ourself still in central Ohio and we had all intentions of pushing through to Chicago without stopping.  7 hours later we made it home pretty darn exhausted. 

Exhausted is a good word.  This post is way too long.  I’ll end it here. Other fun things are going on in my life but i’ll touch on those later along with some fun photos from our trip.

Filed under: Amish; road trip, Brother, Iraq, Vacation, balloon

Summer Travels

Just got back yesterday from my first of two week long trips this July.  From the 2nd thru the 7th we were down in Georgia spending time with my little brother before he was deployed to Iraq for a year. 

Before I go into that while flying for the past week, I had a moment where a light bulb appeared above my head and proceeded to flicker for a few moments before popping. 

Airplanes come with oxygen masks.  They also are equipped with flotation devices.  Even seat belts to make sure you don’t fly out of your seat in the event of turbulence. 

Where the F are the parachutes?  How have we flown this long without parachutes on commercial airlines?  If it were up to me, I would rather give up the flotation devices for parachutes.  Considering that 95% of the continential flying is not over water, what on earth will a flotation device do for me?  Nothing.  But a parachute, that could save lives.  How many times has an airplane identified an issue or had some sort of failure where an emergency landing would be required?  In those situations how difficult would it have to to have made an announcement for everyone to lift up your seat, strap it on y our back and make your way to the door to jump?  If I knew that the plane was possibly going to crash you wouldn’t get any argument out of me when it came time to jump.  I am sure you would have those that would refuse to go and I say that’s their choice to stay on the plane and see if they can right the ship without crashing, but for me I don’t think so. 

Take the guess work out of it.  Include one of those slider things that were on planes during WWII.  Put the ring on the slider, jump out and the chute automatically deploys.  Piece of cake right?  I would imagine at 40,000 feet you probably couldn’t breath well so maybe a small oxygen mask with tank that could prevent passing out for 10 minutes could be included as well.  I don’t know.  This was purely an observation as I was flying and my wife didn’t buy my idea but then again she rarely does.

My trip to visit with my little brother was very nice. Short but nice.  I can’t really understand what could have been going through his mind the week before leaving his wife for a year but I don’t believe it was good.  The one thing that my wife and I did agree on is that we sure as hell wouldn’t want  3 other adults and 5 children living in our house during that final week.  They housed my mother, her dog, my older brother and his wife, along with their five children.  My wife and I didn’t want to get involved with that circus so we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Northlake in Columbus Georgia.  I hesitate to include the Express in the description since this was one of the nicest Holiday Inn hotels I have ever stayed in.  The bottom line in my thought is that I would want some alone time with the wife if I knew we would be apart for so long.  Granted they probably got that alone time with everyone in the house sleeping but who wants to muffle anything when it’s going to be a year apart?  Not this guy. 

My little brother departed Tuesday evening on his journey to Baghdad, and the last anyone heard from him yesterday morning (Thursday) he called from Kuwait where he will be for two weeks before he moves into Baghdad.  There will be lots of prayers said over the next 12 months for his safe return. 

I have so much more to say, but no more time, so i’ll put something up again soon.  Have a great weekend!

Filed under: Brother, Iraq, Vacation

Rollercoaster of a holiday weekend

I love three day weekends.  Usually.  This past three day weekend turned into a four day weekend as my little brother was married last Friday morning.  I have been dreading his wedding for many months as it was an extreme inconvenience to me, and now that the weekend is over, I have nothing but remorse as I feel regret in my feelings for the past few months. 

My issue was a Friday morning wedding.  Who gets married on Friday morning?  A soldier preparing to go off to war, that’s who.  My little brother has been given orders for 12 months in Iraq and this wedding was rushed to allow him and his wife to be to fly in last Thursday and get married on Friday.  It is my understanding that the Army pays more if you are deployed in the war and are married.  I don’t think I agree with this policy, but I assume the Army has their reasons.  If married soldiers get paid more to get married, aren’t they rewarding something that shouldn’t be done purely for financial benefit?  Going out on a limb here, but if you were to create a pie chart of marriage that end in a divorce, miliatary personnel might make up a good percentage.  Also, I was blown away at the fact that many women in the military rush to get pregnant so that they don’t get deployed to war.  I never thought about that before this weekend. 

The wedding was nice.  The reception was fun.  I had a 15 minute warning that I would be delivering essentially a best man speech and I think I pulled it off.  I considered it a practice run for the best man speech I will be delivering in a few weeks for my best friends wedding. 

The reception was a bit of a tattoo convention though which added to the fun.  My new sister in law has a pretty interesting family history that was on display and if you weren’t in Peoria Illinois, you might think that the family in attendance was a bit on the red neck side.  Any family that makes my family look normal has to be a bit unusual.  The last thing I will say is that it took me and my older brother several guesses to figure out who the brides actual dad was vs. the three x-step fathers in attendance.  The best was the maid of honor had a tattoo that spelled out cowgirl from shoulder blade to shoulder blade in what I could only describe as prison style tattoo work out in the open for everyone to enjoy.  It kind of completed the bridesmaid asian themed dress if you ask me.  That’s it…I’m done.  I had to get it out. 

In the end, I had a great time.  There was a keg of beer and and DJ.  It was at Wildlife Prairie Park in a room that opened up to  a huge deck overlooking a huge family of Bison.  Deer were walking literally 15 feet below us as they walked up to the balcony.  It was beautiful out as well, leading me to have an amazing time at my little brothers wedding regardless of the circumstances. 

The rest of the weekend was a blur. We did spend Sunday morning walking around at Wildlife Prairie Park trying to enjoy the wonderful weather we were having.  I saw my first live amazing wildlife confrontation ever.  There was a huge part of the park that had Wolves.  Apparently a snake wandered into the wrong pen, and we noticed all of the wolves acting strange.  They all began running to one of them that was barking at something on the ground.  Before you know it there were 5 wolves surrounding something and growling.  In an instance you saw one of the wolves jump back as the snake struck at it.  The snake moved onto a dirt path in the pen allowing every observer a perfect view at the confrontation.  It appeared to be a 7-8 foot black snake maybe a bull snake?  It positioned itself to look like a cobra where half of it was in an “S” position to allow it to hiss and strike each time a wolf tried to bite it.  It swiveled around as it was completely surrounded by the wolves striking as each neared.  I watched for more than 20 minutes as the snake fought off each wolf.  My jaw dropped in amazement since I would have bet my life savings that a non poisonous snake would be no match for a pack of wolves.  Maybe it wouldn’t be for non contained wolves.  I have to believe that maybe they have adjusted to not having to kill for food so this was more of a play session than a hunt.  It was cool to see none the less. 

Another wonderful weekend ahead.  I have several difficult decisions to be made regarding this upcoming summer.  I have a feeling it’s going to be ridiculously busy and I am doing everything I can to prevent from over committing.  I was contacted yesterday twist balloons for 8 hours a day on July 3rd, 4th, and 5th.  The money would be great, but do I really want to give up my July 4th weekend to work?  I don’t know.  Decisions, decisions.

Filed under: Brother, weekend, work

gettin hitched

My little brother is getting married.  I found this out this past January when he decided to pop the question on New Years eve.  I am happy for him, but lately it’s been a huge weight that has fallen on my shoulders and I am ready to explode. 

Let me give you the background on my little brother (quickly)

He is 10 years younger than me.  From the age of 13-17 I might as well have been his father since our single mother worked 2 or 3 jobs at any given time.  He and I have different fathers, but by no means will I ever call him my “half brother”.  I didn’t even know the term existed until a few years ago someone said “so he’s your half brother?” and I almost punched that person in the mouth.

After I went off to college he fell into a bad crowd and begun using drugs in junior high and high school.  He was arrested no less then 6 or 7 times even spending 2 weeks in county jail during Christmas four or five years ago.  He went to rehab, made some life changes and finally graduated from High School.  He is now in the ARMY.  He has chosen to make the ARMY his lifelong career, which makes me happy since it offers the discipline and structure that he never found at home with a mother that was never around to punish him. 

I adore my little brother.  I love spending time with him. 

So, back to the engagement.  He is marrying a girl that he has been dating now for less than a year.  No biggie since she is hands down the sweetest, cutest girl he has ever brought home.  I met her last year during Thanksgiving. 

These are my issues.

On that Thanksgiving trip (he is 22yrs old and his fiancee is 20) he left his girlfriend at the time home and supposedly cheated on her, although he won’t admit it to the family.  His girlfriend caught him based on the text messages he exchanged with his ex girlfriend.  They pretty much broke up for a while from what I understand and got back together again.  I failed to mention that she is in the ARMY as well and they live together in Georgia. 

They are both scheduled to be deployed to Iraq together in July.  So, as I understand it, in my eyes this appears to be a  ”just in case anything happens in Iraq” marriage. 

Well, two days ago I called my mother to find out if she had any dates as to when they would be getting married.  She told me Saturday the 22nd of May while I was on the phone.  When I arrived home and told my wife, she quickly pointed out to me that the 22nd is a Friday.  I assumed that my mother was wrong about the date and assumed it would be a Saturday wedding.  Yesterday my mother called me back to tell me that it indeed is on the 22nd, and they are getting married in Peoria on a Friday morning at a Botanical garden.  That also happens to be the Friday before Memorial Day weekend,  so we are already off on Monday.  I am hoping for some feedback on this and hopefully someone can hopefully set me straight as I argue with myself in my own mind. 

I am ready to tell him I am not going to be at his wedding Friday morning.  These are my reasons why:

1. Being a balloon entertainer, I already have two contracted events signed for that Friday.  If I go to his wedding, it will cost me a very large chunk of change (approx four hundred dollars) that is highly needed to pay bills.   

2. In addition to that money lost, I will have to take a vacation day from my regular job which at this point I will not likely have any available due to my travels in March and July that are already scheduled, so it will count as an excused unpaid day according to my corporate policies, which is another chunk of change. 

3. My wife is a teacher.  Her school district has a policy that states if they take a vacation day or call in sick on a Friday before a holiday (Monday’s Memorial day) not only do they not get their salary for Friday, but they forfeit their holiday salary as well.  So, now we are looking at financial losses well above the thousand dollar threshold. 

So, in a nutshell, I have to wonder if I would be opening the door to a lifetime of anger between us if I decided not to attend his wedding.  I have begun to think of ways that I can drop this little bomb on my family, but as sad as this sounds I want to wait because a small part of me still believes that something changes between now and then and the date gets changed or cancelled since it already has been pushed back a couple of times. 

Hopefully that’s exactly what will happen and none of this will matter anyway.  Time will tell.

Filed under: Brother, train wreck, wife, work

My little bro

I was looking forward to beginning my wrap up about Vegas today and tomorrow, but I was blindsided today by a call from my mother. 

To know my mom is to know that she doesn’t just call me in the middle of the day if something isn’t horrifically wrong.  If my cellphone rings in the middle of the day, either someone is incredibly sick, dying, or already dead.  Especially if the call comes not on a day when I have plans to travle down and see her. 

Luckily no one is sick, dying, or dead, but my little brother is being deployed to Iraq.  My mother was in tears trying to get the information to me.  I have mixed feelings still about the whole thing because he isn’t being deployed until December.  What seems unusual to me is that I am shocked that they would give them this much notice.  Granted he now has to undergo airborne training and other types of schooling to prepare for Iraq, but usually I hear that they get 2-3 weeks notice before being sent over.  He was told that he would be working in a Prison in Baghdad.  His schooling in Psychology will likely be used here.  I haven’t spoken to him yet, but I would imagine that he will be a mental profiler of sorts.  Or he could just hold a gun and man the prison.  Regardless, my little bro will be sent overseas for the war and for the first time, I am very closely impacted by this war.  I felt for some time that this war is pointless, but don’t agree that the lives lost were lost for no reason.  I do pray that the Iraq government can get on the ball and become more independent in a very fast manner so that our soldiers can all come home safely. 

Between now and December is a good 8 months, which will give me time to mentally prepare for my brother going to Iraq.  It will also give me much time to pray for him as well.  Him and every other person that risk or loses their life for my freedom. 

Filed under: Brother, Iraq, scared

Blindsided

I pulled up this site a bit ago, and kind of sat back and reflected upon some of the craziness that is my life.  I don’t like to bore people to death on here, even though I am very guilty of doing so on a frequent basis. 

I wrote earlier this week about this past weekend when my brother and his wife and their 5 children (my nieces and nephews)  came up and stayed.  My younger brother as well as my mother came up, too.  It was a very interesting visit since this would have to be the first time that our whole family had been together for no reason other than to visit.  Typically it takes a holiday to rope me into hanging with the crazies, but for once we all just came together to enjoy a weekend.  Rare, but it was nice in a screwed up way. 

I just got news from my wife that my brother is leaving my sister in law.  My sister in law emailed my wife to give her the news.  They are calling it a seperation, but child support and visitation has already been settled, so I would call it more than a seperation. 

So, right now I sit here….shocked and feeling really sick to my stomach.  My older brother seemed at peace this weekend.  I thought it was because he had finally found happiness with his wife and family, but now it would appear that the happiness was because he had already made a mental decision to cut ties and move on.  Wow.  I didn’t see this coming. 

Pretty ridiculous weekend ahead for me.  Four different balloon events (www.misterd.balloonhq.com) combined with loads of church activities and amongst all of this punishment I am doing to my body, I fear I have been neglecting time with my wife, so I will try to make up for that all the while still getting to the gym on Saturday and Sunday.  What ever happened to a relaxing weekend? 

61 days until my goal expires.  I am 15 days into my new lifestyle and as of last night I have dropped 15 pounds already.  15lbs down, 25 still to go.  I think I should be able to hit the remainder 25 within the next 61 days.  Hopefully they will come off as quickly as the first 15 did.  My wife is in no way excited for me since she is concerned that it’s happening too fast.  This leaves me with no one to celebrate a milestone with except me and this forum.  I am very proud of myself.  Not just for the lifestyle change but also because yesterday was the one month anniversary of my last cigarette.  I haven’t gone this long without a smoke since I picked up the nasty habit during college over ten years ago.  Hooray for me.  Once again, something that I can’t celebrate with my wife because for over 7 years I hid the fact that I smoked on a regular basis from her. 

Hooray for me and the therapy this forum brings with it.  Have a wonderful weekend. 

Filed under: Brother, Church, Exercise, In laws, Resolutions, balloon, body, ride the snake, weekend, wife, work

Cough, Cough

It feels like Monday morning, when in fact it is actually Tuesday.  I called in sick yesterday.  I almost called in sick from work today as well, but decided I might want to give work a go since at some point I am going to have to return to reality. 

As my last post mentioned, my family came up this weekend which is always an interesting tale to tell after they leave.  I think I left off with the issue that my 21 year old little brother had dropped a bomb on me about him dating a 35 year old woman who has a new baby from some random man.  Well, just to finish that story, more came out after that post and I learned from my mother that she actually has 3 children ages 15, 4, and 8 months.  She also lives in Texas with her Ex husband, is bi-sexual, and cares more about having sex with my 21 year old brother than her older children to leave them for three weeks to stay in my Mom’s house with my little brother.  There is so much more that I learned not only about the whorish girlfriend but also my little brother that has led me to lose all trust I had slowly developed for him.  It’s quite a sad tale really and I think it is my best interest to stay away from him mentally for a while until he is able to straighten out his life.  I was more than happy to offer help but he consistently pounded me with lie after lie cutting off all motivation on my part to assist in what I have finally determined is a complete waste of my time.  Sorry Shawn, but you are on your own. 

My older brother and family came up this weekend for Chris’s Tae Kwon Doe tourney.  I took him to my gym at 4:00am Saturday morning and we worked out together which was fun since it was the first time we were able to hit the gym together as adults.  We both appear to be on the same mission to lose weight, although he has already lost around 30lbs in the last few months.  I then drove him to Kenosha and hung out with him as he registered for the Tae Kwo Doe tourney.  I’m not gonna lie, I have a whole new view of martial arts in general.  I guess I envisioned a tournament like The Karate Kid and a big board on the wall where you move on to face the evil Cobra Cai and “sweep the leg” would be barely heard if you listened close enough to the muttering coach.  It was not so.  Honeslty, if you were to put everyone in attendance in regular street clothing you might confuse them for attendees of a star trek convention. 

I should have taken pictures.  I still can’t believe that I didn’t take pictures.  I had my camera.  But as I circled around this gathering of jedi knight wannabe’s, I started feeling bad at myself for judging.  I should be happy for the man in the wheel chair who only has use of his upper body that has obtained the status of black belt.  As so with the woman who looked to have been born without the lower half  of her body.  I guess I watch too many movies.  I had a hard time not snickering about it when asking my brother how on earth someone without use of their lower body could obtain the status of black belt.  He had a serious answer about the beauty of the sport being adaptable to each and every person’s physical ability.  I can respect that.  But I think I said it best when I told my wife and sister in law that  there were possibly 4 or 5 people among the 500 or so that I would think twice about entering into fisticuffs with.  (I didn’t use the word fisticuffs when making my comment, but thinking back wish I had.)

There was one little dude that frightened me though.  He couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 but obviously the child of one of those fathers that lives through the son.  The dad was very large and very out of shape sharing the same flat top hair cut that the son had.  As I watched the son warm up, I cringed every time he would do that splits.  Someone needs to tell that little dude to lay off the banging of the twig and giggle berries before he grows up not being able to have children.  As he continued to practice my older brother explained that I might not want to laugh at him because he is a “world champion” as it says on the back of his karate jacket.  I took offense to that statment and asked what he was trying to say.  Sure enough my brother said that this kid could probably kick my ass.  Cool. 

The rest of the weekend went by quickly.  My wife managed to get me to go to the doctor since I had developed a pretty bad cough and felt like garbage.  It was determined Sunday Morning by a doctor that I had Bronchitis.  He put me on the strongest stuff and it is doing quite a number on my stomach.  I had to abondon my workout and supplement routine all together until I can get this illness cared for. 

We also went to the Jelly Belly Factory as well.  More to follow on that as well as the craziness that ensued with the family. 

Filed under: Brother, confused, grouchy, mean, stupid, train wreck, weekend, weird, whore

Hiroshima, Singing Guy, and one last drilling

So much to say, with so little time.  Last night my little brother dropped the biggest bombs on me.  I have not always been proud of his decisions in life since he got mixed up with the wrong crowd growing up.  He has a history of being weak in regards to choosing who should or should not be his friends.  These decisions in life led him to a life of drugs, crime, and even jail time.  So, when I heard that he finally decided to straighten out his life and join the military after graduating high school, I thought that it would be the perfect way for him to grow into a strong disciplined young man.  I have watched him mature over the last year and a half in the military, but there is still a long way to go. 

Anyway, now that you have some sort of back story, here is the news.  This weekend my brother, sister in law, and their five children are coming to stay with us.  My older brother is a 3rd degree nationally ranked black belt and has a tournament up in Kenosha Wisconsin this weekend.  Kenosha is only 45 minutes from my house so they are staying with us for the weekend.  Well, since they are coming up, I thought it would be a good idea if my little brother would come up as well since the three of us hardly get to hang out together.  As I was talking with my little brother he eased on in a story about how when he was in Texas a month ago he met a girl.  This girl aparently dropped everything a week and a half ago and drove from Texas to Illinois to stay with my brother.  He is in love with her.  Cool.  I was excited for him.  Then he goes on further to explain that she has a child.  O.k.  No biggie.  I have dated women with children.  At this point I am starting to get that he wants to come up, but in order for him to come up, he wants to drag his girlfriend and child up with him for the weekend.  “The more the merrier!” I said to him.  He said that if I wanted to talk to Jeanne and get back to him he was fine, but I said that she would agree with my decision.  He became so excited and went on to further expalin how much he cares about her, how they met and so on.  My wife asks me how old she is, and I follow suit.  My little brother says that she is 35.  “THIRTY FIVE????” I said. …”And she is from Thailand…”  o.k.  At this point I only care about seeing my little brother and am willing to deal with this.  I explain to him that if they stay with us there will be rules about what goes on in our house.  I don’t have to go over these rules with my older brother because he and his wife hate each other.  My brother has been guilty of banging an ex girlfriend in my old apartment and then lying about it after I found a condom in the trash. He doesn’t have a good track record of honesty.  So, he told me to go and check out his myspace page and see photos of how beautiful his girlfriend is and I will understand when he says that she only looks like she is 24 years old.  O.k.  I tell him that I am looking forward to seeing him this weekend and hang up. 

I go onto his myspace page and am suddenly horrified by this girlfriend.  I start going through his pictures and he was wrong.  She doesn’t look like a 24 year old, but she looks like a 35 year old woman that wishes she was still 24 years old.  Partying like crazy and obviously enjoying the company of 21 year old men who love to bang a pretty Thai lady.  I also find pictures of my brother and his friend with what looks like a joint in his friend’s hand in my mother’s living room.  His girlfriend posted a comment from her Myspace page asking “without me?  Hehe..”  I also find pictures of her on my brothers page of him making out with her in her bra and her thong hanging out of her pants.  

I immediately became furiuos and called him back saying that she is not welcome in my home for many reasons.  I also confronted him on the photos of his buddy smoking week in our mothers house and why the fuck he as a soldier of the united states army would be caught dead in the company of somone who appears to be smoking pot knowing that it could lead to his being dishonorably discharged from the military.  He was upset and an hour long argument ensued.  I hurt my little brother pretty bad, but the bottom line is that as much as he thinks he has a woman that is falling for him, what he has is a Foreigner in this country that has a 6 month old baby, no ex hubby, no job, no insurance for her or her child, and a naive 21 year old stud who likes sex and can not see the big picture. 

As a comprimise I have bought a hotel room for my brother and his girlfriend and they are welcome to stay there.  I know that they do not have money so that is the least I can do after hurting my little bro so bad.  Honest love.  That’s what I call it.  I will never lie to my little brother and I will always give it to him straight.  A shit load of other stuff came out as well, but too much and too personal to cover in this forum.  

He also told me that he has gone from Reserves to Active Duty and ships out on Monday.  Talk about another bomb.  So after all of that, I will not likely get to see my little brother for another year and a half.  Great. 

Today I have hopefully my last dentist trip for another six months.  Today I get a filling for the first time.  It can’t be as bad as the root canal. 

This morning at the gym there was this bald chubby guy wearing tight everyghing that would dance while he walked.  I got caught walking behind him on my trip to get a towel and it had to have been the most uncomfortable thing I have experienced in quite some time.  As I did cardio I continued to watch him walk around and dance at one point literally acknowledging one of the gym staff who gave him a weird look.  As I was walking out of the shower this morning and getting dressed, he walked in to the locker room and kept singing loudly to the song playing over the speakers in the locker room.  Never in my life have I contemplated punching someone in the back of the neck and dumping on his ears to make him stop singing.  I think my blood level is still sky high from my talk with my brother last night.  Are all of the chemicals I have consumed in my quest starting to give me roid rage?

Have a wonderful Thursday and sorry for such a long post. 

Filed under: Brother, In laws, Punch, Roid Rage juice, dumping, fight, grouchy, mean, pain, poop, scared, shower, stripper, stupid, train wreck, weekend, weird, wife