This last week and a half has been horrendous. I finally got moms house that she had rented painted. It took A LOT of paint! I had one room that was dark red with black trim and a midnight blue cieling, one room that was pea green with brown trim and a dark purple (eggplant) wall, a bathroom that was midnight blue with black trim, and a living room that was brown with pea green trim and a burnt orange wall. WOW! It took took two coats of Kills2 Primer paint and two coats of regular latex (dove white) to cover all of that garbage. I also had to fix electrical outlets and a few light fixtures.

Jeremy was so funny. He loves to paint! He was one happy camper when I set him up with a roller and a paint brush and let him loose on the closets. I’m not sure whether he got more paint on the walls or on him.

After spending last Monday through Thursday painting and getting the house ready we started the move from San Andreas, CA. to her new home here in Reno. This was a calamity of failures. While I was driving over the pass between here and there towing an empty trailer my radiator on my truck sprung a leak! I had to turn around and baby it back here. So Saturday was a wash. Sunday we borrowed another truck and went after Church. We met a panel truck at her place in San Andreas to load. The Driver of the moving truck was no help as he has bad emphysema, so it was just me and Jeremy. My nine year old son is one heck of a mover. He jumped right in and moved boxes and packed them away with me. If he came to one that was too big he just told me so I could get it. He also learned how to pack a truck using every available inch. I got him to point out where he thought a box should go and we used that spot. If I saw a better one we would put it in his spot and then I would just ask if he thought it might work better in the spot I saw. We worked great together and he learned a lot. I am very proud of him.

He is in that in between stage of big boy and Boy. He’s going through a little clumsy stage and I think it’s funny. Seeing him grow and learn is the best experience in the world.

We got home at 2:30AM Monday morning and I barely was able to get up for work at 5:30AM. After the twelve hour work day I got to go unload the truck! Again Jeremy was there to help. I have tomorrow off and will be leaving EARLY in the morning to get the rest of her stuff, but I won’t have my moving partner with me and I will miss him.

Wish me luck with the rest of this move. My butt is seriously dragging.

To say I am tired is an understatement. Tonight is night eight of nine nights of twelve hour shifts for me. Normally the max I am on shift is five days, or in this case nights, but I took a couple of shifts overtime so that one of my fellow shift supervisors could go to Hawaii. Lucky guy!

The hardest time is 5:00AM-6:00AM. That is the slowest hour of the night, or the hour that lasts decades. I am sure you all are familiar with this shift in the space-time continuum. Nodding off is hard to fight off and I do a lot of pacing. After 6:00AM all is cool turnover to the next shift is near and I can get busy getting turnover stuff done. Last minute reports and paperwork that could not be done earlier.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with my shifts (I know you’re on the edge of your seat in anticipation of learning this factoid), I work a 5/5/2/2 shift. Five nights on, five off, two days on, two off, five days on, five off, two nights on, two off, repeat forever begin. Is this confusing you may ask? Heck yeah it is. If it were not for my pocket brain (smart phone / PDA) I would be lost. I reference it to see if I have to work and whether it is nights or days.

Back on subject. It is night eight of nine. Every twelve hour shift is energy draining, and I passed empty three nights ago. My reserve is sputtering and I have one more night after tonight. Pray that I make it through the rest of shift.

My job is such that it is like a baby sitters job. Nights are boring as heck. If the kid gets sick or has nightmares you get busy, Otherwise it is SLOW. I get a lot of my supervisory paperwork done at night that I can’t get done on day shift because, well its night shift. During day shift the kid is up and running around, making messes,tripping and falling, and generally driving the sitter ragged. Add to all that the plumber and electrician showing up to fix the house and requiring the sitter to show them what is wrong.

Eight nights on shift the paperwork for the most part is done, so here I am blogging my miseries away.

Boy was I tired this morning. I stayed up for church, which was a bit rough since I was up early yesterday to go mini golfing. I planned on this because we had a visiting candidate for our open rector (head priest) position visiting. I am on the search committee and this is one of the three we narrowed it down to. We have one more visit and then we have to make a decision. Pray for us that we have the ability to discern the right rector for our church. It has been a long process and it has been way to long since we have had a rector.

Anyway, back on the topic I originally wanted to write about. I was tired, but oh was it so good to be there with God. I find it very uplifting. I know that there are those that when they walk into a church it’s more of a feeling of geese this building is stuffy. Not me. I FEEL. I mean I truly feel the spirit. It is difficult to put into words and impossible to convince those that do not believe. I hold no animosity toward those that do not, or more to point, have not felt the spirit. It is a fresh breeze; a relief of stress; a feeling of love. All of these things and more. All I can do is invite and welcome those that come and let those that do not see the joy of what they are missing, praying that they too will one day experience what it is like to truly be with Christ.

Needless to say I felt recharged. Still physically tired, but recharged. I miss that when I am required to work on Sundays. I do my best to keep in touch through prayer and sharing with Christ daily. We have interesting conversations, but that is for another topic. There is just something about going to church, I think it is the communion that does it, or the music, or the focused spirit, or all of the above that recharges me.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. For those of you who are not Christian, or are not sure, or have never experienced what I describe, I hope you get the chance to. It is truly special. Feel welcome because you are. If you choose not to come in, that is fine too. You are still loved, even if you do not feel that way, or are turned off by my words.

God bless you all.

I got up early, 1:00PM, to take the family for a fun time miniature golfing with one of my fellow Daddyplace members. Early? You might ask. Well, yes, early because I am on my night rotation of shift work, so I am working from 6:30PM till 6:30AM.

We all had fun especially paying by Mackenzie (4yo) rules. She showed us all how to play and have fun. Theres the herding method, that’s when you take your putter and kind of push/herd the ball to the hole; the snatch and drop method, done when the ball just won’t cooperate snatch it up and drop it nest to the hole; last there is the toe tap, for when the first put doesn’t quite make it to the green.

The age difference between Jeremy and Mackenzie didn’t phase either one of the kids. They were there to have fun and that is what they did. It was kinda cute how Mackenzie thought Jeremy was the greatest thing since the invention of the all day sucker. They met for the first time today and she ran right up to him and hugged him. He was doomed from that moment on.

I like to write. The problem is I have not been and am out of practice. As you can tell if you look at the rest of this blog, it has been far too long sinxe I have posted. Will I do better? I sure hope so. I find this an outlet that is needed and lord knows there are not enough blogs out there for people to peruse and I would hate to deprive any from reading my fine words of wisdom and whit.

Most of my posts will be fairly boring tidbits from my life. Woohoo! I can feel your excitement bleeding through the ether. I tend to be a tad sarcastic so hold on to your socks.I have no special cause or odd happenings in my life to write, other than being a dad. If you do not consider that odd enough then you need to reassess what a dad is. A dad is someone to lean, climb, hang from, and climb on. He is a hero, a confidant, and best sidekick in the world. He sees things that no other can see and does things no other can. You can laugh at him and he laughs right back. This all can be interesting if it can be written about in a way that makes sense or at the very least is fun or funny to read. Wish me luck.

Looking back at this post I see one thing wrong with it. It is a tad bit self centered. News flash here. Blogs are the epitome of self contentedness. They cam also be fun for those that read them and for those that write them.

I hope I can keep this up and would be thrilled if anyone read it and commented on it.

Children are different in many ways. This is true in all aspects. Physical, mental, emotional, and developmental are but a few. All have different hopes and fears that can guide or confuse what they want.

We as parents have a duty to help them figure out what path through life is best for them. I don’t believe we should dictate the path. I see it more as advising and guiding them toward the best path for the individual child, letting them make their mistakes so that they can learn from them.
For some children heights are not an issue. For others it is a really big deal. I was able to be there when my son made a huge accomplishment this summer. He, like his grandfather, and yes me his dad, is afraid of heights.

While we were at Cub Scout adventure camp this summer the boys were given the opportunity to climb a twenty foot vertical wall. I’ll have you know that twenty feet, especially when it is straight up is a huge distance. Jeremy (seven years old) and I sat in line watching all the boys from his den climb this wall. Each boy, including Jeremy, had a climbing harness and helmet on. One at a time the boys would stand, hook up to the belaying line, and call out, “on belay!” The belayer would answer back, “belay on!” Then the climber would get his first hand hold and call out, “climbing!” “Climb on!” the belayer would answer. Up the boy would go quick as a cat up a tree and honk the horn mounted at the top. During all of this as we kept getting closer I could feel the tension raising in my boy. Just before he got up for his turn I squeezed his shoulder and told him that all I ever want to see is his best, that I didn’t care if he made it up all the way I just wanted him to try and to do his best at it.

I can still see and feel his tension as I write this. I wanted so much for him to succeed and banish that hight demon. He hooked up and called out his commands, got his answers and started to climb. Slowly he climbed five feet and froze he couldn’t go on. Finally he had to call out, “descend!” answered by a, “descending” and down he came. He was devastated. I have to give all the boys credit that were there. They all cheered and told him he did great and that it was cool. He would make it. He came to me and I hugged him telling him how proud I was that he did his best and that it was great he made it as high as he did. He squared his shoulders and got a determined look and asked if he could try again. Sure he could if he wanted to. He got back in line. He tried three more times, each time getting just a bit higher on that wall. Each time getting more support from his friends, every man and boy there willing him to move up to the next foot hold and the next hand hold. All activities would stop and everyone would concentrate, helping him, and cheering him on. The fourth retry he moved ever so slowly up that dang wall till he made it to the top and honked that horn! Everyone went nuts cheering him almost to the point where the belayer couldn’t hear him call out, “descending!”

It was one of the proudest moments of my life standing back watching him do this by himself and seeing him succeed. I never told him he had to make it up. There was never any pressure from me for him to make it all the way. I just made it known that I wanted him to do his best, whatever that may be. I believe that this is what made the accomplishment so great. It was all him doing his best.

We may possibly be getting a new dog. We’ve been talking about this for quite some time since we had to put our last dog down last October. I wanted to get some work done on the yard. You know… puppy proofing and such first. I got a lot done, thank God, because my mom called me last night (Jeremy is with her for this week) and told me that she may be rescuing a dog and Jeremy is in love with it.

It’s a female Jack Russel, Australian Shepherd mix that’s about a year and some months old. My mom says she’s very smart (no kidding with that mix), white with gray/brown splotches, medium length course hair, and bigger than a Jack Russel, but not quite as big as a standard Australian Shepherd.

My DW and I think this will be a good dog. My mom rescued our last dog and gave him to me and he was an excellent fit, so if she thinks this dog is right for us I tend to believe her. Hopefully we can have her. The problem is that my mom doesn’t know if she can get her away from the abusive home. The way she found out about it was that the girlfriend of the owners son took her to my mom because the guy was abusing her. So there may be difficulties getting her. Hopefully everything works out well for all of us. We would give that dog a great home and family, and she would help fill that empty spot left by my last dog.

Sitting here at work during my lunch break I felt this overwhelming desire to write something profound (the bull shit bug bit me). So what profundity do I have to share with any and all? PROFUNDITY.

I pulled the word profundity from the nether regions of my brain. Yes I know I need to clean back there more often. I was pretty sure of the definition, but decided to look it up anyway.

profundity

NOUN:
pl. profundities

Great depth.

Depth of intellect, feeling, or meaning.

Something profound or abstruse.

It’s not used too often, at least not in my circles. Of course in my circles great depth is considered a place to fish; Intellect is one of them computer companies; feeling is what you do in the dark to find your beer; and abstruse is one of them exercise machines used to tighten the belly.

I am now done waisting your time with useless drivel. This has been more of an anti-profundity for three reasons.

It was pretty shallow.

Intellect was lost, feeling was numb, and meaning was absent.

It was something superficial or exoteric.

Or has it really been a profundity? I guess it depends on if you can belch your ABC’s.

We had a lot, and I do mean al lot of fun. Though I am drag assed tired now. On Friday we got to the camp ground late in the afternoon and set up camp and got dinner ready just as it was getting dark. The new tent went up slick as heck. The next morning we went fishing with all the boys from the pack that showed up. It was the first time for Jeremy. We fished till lunch time. After lunch we hiked two miles to a cool water fall and then back. All up hill I swear! Saturday night we had a pot luck dinner that was great. It’s amazing the stuff that people can come up with while camping.

This morning we got up and broke camp, packed up, then went to breakfast at the local diner near the camp. All the boys gave the dads there gifts and we all had a great send off breakfast. We got home earlier this after noon and this is the first chance I have had to get in here and share.

Jeremy Fishing

Me and Jeremy Fishing

Me and Jeremy by the falls we hiked up to

Jeremy on the hike

Jeremy in his section of tent

Today is my birthday, so technichally I'm a year older…. okay, so positiviely I'm a year older. I don't feel older and I know I think younger. I have so many friends pulling this old man bullshit. I'm too old for this, or my aching old bones. Sure my bones ache, but they've aways ached after strenuous activity and I know that they ache, not because I am old, but because I'm fat and out of shape. Sure it's getting harder to lose the weight and I don't heal quite as fast, but to throw in the towl at such a young age is insane. This doesn't mean that I am going to go out and join every adult leauge sports team I can find to prove my manhood or that I am still young. I didn't do that when I was younger, so why the hell should I start now?

My goal in life is to have fun and enjoy my youth till the day I die of old age. I want to run and play with my son and then be around to do stuff with my grand children.

Here's to another year of life's adventure!