Dog days of summer

It's been a while since I've blogged about my personal life. I guess it's probably because it's a bunch of the same old shit happening and when something different does happen, I'm to indifferent to blogging about it. A few things that have happened are that I've got a netbook now. All that plasma donation has finally paid off. It's nice having a (almost) full sized computer to play with. Also....uh....ah...I can't really think of anything major that's happened since my last post :(

We're getting into the busy part of summer now, so that every other weekend when Pam's not working we've got some big event going on. Last weekend was our first week camping. It went pretty well, considering I'm not an outdoorsy person. We're still streamlining our camping approach, however we still managed to forget a few things (more firewood, seasonings for chicken, etc) but I was able to McGyver a few things together. It also reminded us that it would be nice to have a list in order make sure we have what we need.

The place we were at was Kilby Lake campground, just outside of Montello. This one became our favorite right from the start because all they did was carve out each campsite from the forest, leaving natural barriers between you and your neighbors so that it feels a little more private. However, the first thing Genna did was investigate the site next door and found another 5 year old girl to play with. That normally would have been OK, except that if Genna wasn't over at the neighbor's campsite, their kid was over by us. It got to the point where we literally had to tell Genna that she needs some family time without her friend hanging out.

My favorite part about camping is just sitting by the fire drinking beer and talking about nothing. I didn't get to do too much of that because we didn't take enough wood for the first night, and the second we were too exhausted. It didn't help that the kids just cannot seem to settle down at night, in fact the later it gets the wilder they semm. I don't know how to fix that at all.

Anyways, there was a lot of fun had by all with the berry picking and hayrides and what not. They had a pig roast on the day we were there and that was some good stuff too. The campground has decent wifi up by the office, and I was able to get a better EDGE signal on my cell phone than when I'm at home (that's funny). The game room was mostly filled with broke ass games, but Genna and I managed to get the high score on 1942 (her shooting and me steering).

I don't know why I like camping so much but I'm glad I do and I'm glad we're taking the kids. I didn't get much of that experience when I was a kid so it's new to me too :) It's also nice to like camping because we're doing it 2-3 more times this year.

Getting back on the diet that threw ya

One of my resolutions for this year was to lose some weight and get down to 275 pounds. Being me, unfortunately, I had been slacking off hardcore and have actually started gaining weight again. So, I have started working on the weightloss again. Let me tell ya, it sucks ass trying to get back into a workout routine. I had been comfortable with it until I broke my leg last year and now just walking a few miles kills my legs and feet. Also there is no bike seat in the world that can really support 340 lbs. so my ass is killing me too. I'm just trying to lose enough weight so I can get on the Wii Fit so I can see if it's worth the money :)

In other news my daughter Genna is 'graduating' from Pre-Kindergarten this month. I think it's pretty cool, especially because I think she's really looking forward to both the graduation and to going to the "big school". On the other hand, I kind of freak out about it because I don't know where all the fucking time is going. Seems like yesterday that I myself was graduating from high school. Now, there's a wife, a house, 1 kid going to kindergarten, 1 going to pre-k, and another on the way. It's like Ferris Bueller says, "Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. " Truer words were never spoken.

I've been getting busy in Singstar. It is fucking hard trying to get all the trophies. First of all, it's impossible to get 9000 points on hard on 95% of the songs, which require you to buy more to get the right ones. Also if you don't have a camera, it's impossible to get people to view your stuff unless you beg them or do something really stupid, like dance around in a dress. I don't know if I'm really going to be able to get them all. I'll probably give it a few more weeks and then give up if it doesn't happen and move to some other games.

I've also been playing around with the iPhone more and venturing into the paid Apps section. I've found several to be useful in my Fitness work. The Daily Plate is a website where you can get healthy advice through Livestrong (Lance Armstrong's foundation) and also track stuff like what are you eating, how much you can eat in a day calorie-wise, how many calories you are burning by exercising, etc. The website itself is free, but the iPhone app is $2.99. I really don't know why they just didn't make a free ad-supported one. It seems to be the case for a lot of apps (I suppose because selling ads doesn't really pay for shit.) The other app is Trails. Trails is kind of sweet because you can take GPS readings of your runs, cycling, hiking, etc. then you can upload it to a website or e-mail it to someone else where they can download it and follow your trail. It's mostly for hiking and geocaching, but I'm using it to get accurate times and distances for my walking and cycling runs.

One last thing. How bout dem Brewers, eh? I thought it was going to be a shitty year after losing Sabathia and Sheets, but they've won 8 of their last 10 games and sit in a 3 way tie atop the NL Central. As I write this they are up 3-1 over the Marlins which, if it holds, will put them in 1st....at least until the Reds and Cardinals play their games. I know we're barely through a fifth of the season, but there is cause for some hope that not all is lost. I'd like to see another big aquisition by the trading deadline to help put us over the hump and back into the playoffs again. If the cards fall right maybe I'll find a way to see them play in the postseason. If not, I'm sure I'll make it to a game this year. Nothing beats the experience of actually being at the ballpark.

*ring* *ring* Hello, Josh...this is reality calling. You need to go to a meeting now so stop blogging *click*

Well, I can't deny reality, so I will take my leave now. :)

I love it when a plan comes together

(StreamOfConsciousness == True) So a funny thing happened during my struggles with Sprint. I got sick of waiting on my number port without any calls or status updates about what was going on. For shits and giggles I went to the AT&T website and what's this? A refurbished 16GB iPhone is $150? (Insert high squeaky voice) Really? That is the phone I wanted all along! But wait a second, I can't go with AT&T because there's no coverage where Pam works...well let's look at the map. O.O They have coverage!!!! (StreamOfConsciousness == False)

I was going to do that last bit with HTML tags, but I'm too lazy to put the & codes in so that the browser doesn't ignore the < & > signs....of course I just did it to show the signs I was talking about and then typing to explain it. #irony :)

I was able to get a refurbed iPhone and a refurbed Samsung Propel for 100 dollars less upfront than the amount I paid for the Blackberry Pearl and Samsung Rant, so that's cool. I got it with the same plan amount as Sprint, so that's double cool. The only hitch was once again they had issues with number porting, so I had to call several times to straighten things out and they actually sent us the phones with free overnight shipping (they are arriving today).

What's funny is that I called Sprint to tell them to shove it up their ass and 10 minutes after that call, my number port magically went through and I was able to use the phone for calling. How's that for service? :) I still couldn't use it for data because I had to request the data plan that should have been offered in the first place on the website. So that sucks. I will say I do like a lot of features about the Pearl and if Sprint hadn't sucked so hard, I would have stuck with it.

The whole thing is laughable because I'm now with the phone and the plan I wanted 6 months ago. It wasn't laughable as I struggled with getting the money, ultimately giving up and going with another provider. It's just another case where everything in life just works out. The downside is that I can never believe that it's going to turn out OK or it never does. It really does make a person into a pessimist.

On a side note, I also took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese's this weekend. We had a pretty good time, but I get so exhausted with all of the naughty freaking kids around. Why doesn't anyone teach kids manners or even the simple rule that you shouldn't steal from people or sit there begging. I literally had kids coming up to me trying to tear off my tickets or beg for tokens from me. What the fuck? Of course there are misbehaved adults too. I was trying to play a game with my daughter and she wandered off back toward her mom. I continued to play the game (which I had to get on my knees for) and some cuntrag comes up and says "You know, when you have to get on your knees for a game that's usually an indicator that you shouldn't be playing it." I asked her if she could see the sign on my back. What sign? The one that says 'Please feel free to intrude in my business'. She took off in a huff probably thinking that I'M the asshole. I'm sorry but if you are going to be an asshole to me, I will return the favor.

By her account then ALL the games, save for basketball shooting, are kids only. The funny thing is that in the one game in particular, it was too tall for my kids. :) Also if it were up to them to spend all the 200 tokens we had it would take forever (as it was we were there for 4 hours). So once again to all nosy Madisonians, please go fuck yourselves if you want to get in my business.

A few more things of note:
-I'm pretty excited about the Packer's draft. The addressed every need they had (Defense and Offensive lines). I hope that the new rookies work out for them. It could be an interesting season.

-The Brewers seem to have righted the ship with the starters putting together quality outings all week and the bats getting hot at the right time. They've won 5 of 6 (The only loss was by 1 run) and are playing an injury depleted Pirates again tonight at home.

-Singstar for PS3 has gone live with trophy support now. Some of them are really hard though. You have to have an upload viewed 200 times in one week, have 8000 total views of all media, and get over 9000 on Hard on 5 different songs. That's going to take a while, especially because I've got to see if I can find a cheap webcam to work for the PS3 ( I don't really want to drop $40 on the PS3 one)

-Still got trophies to get for Rock Band, Resistance 2, and multiplayer Resident Evil 5. I'm going to have to recruit Pam to play for me when I'm at work :)

Anyways, time to get back to work and daydream about my new iPhone. It's out for delivery right now. I wish I were home right now, it's like Christmas in April :)

One sick little monkey

So my youngest daughter has had quite a week. She had gotten a bladder infection and so was already feeling crappy and then we she had to get a tonsilectomy, an adenoidectomy and tubes put in her ears. I stayed home from work for a few days to help her and my wife out, but she's still pretty cranky. We also found out yesterday that the infection she had is penicillin resistant. So they prescribed the only resistant antibiotic that comes in a liquid form, Cipro. Soooo, being that it comes in 100 mL bottle and they have to make the whole bottle and my daughter only need 6mL of that the insurance had to fight us on that, so it took a whole day of the the doctors and pharmacists wrangling with the insurance company to justify that she needed it. Good thing too, because a full 100 mL bottle of Cipro is $121.

1st of all that's just crazy expensive. I get that the resistant ones aren't prescribed a lot, but still over $1 per mL for an antibiotic? What the fuck? 2nd the insurance has NEVER fought with us on anything in 5 years. Through 2 pregnacies and deliveries, 1 extended hospital stay for an infant, multiple doctor and ER visits, Badgercare has paid it all and now they want to be dicks about it. Maybe it's just the economy problem, but still it's not like we were getting her Viagra or something :)

Another odd thing is that my daughter wanted me to comfort her most of the day. Usually the kids don't really seem to care about me that much (maybe because I'm gone 10.5 hours a day), but that was really weird. I suppose that's a good thing because I generally can have more patience when I need to, whereas my wife lately (since becoming pregnant for the 3rd time) does not now. Of course I don't blame her for that, your emotions get all flaky when you're pregnant. Nonetheless, it's pretty cool for me that she wanted to be with me and I was able to provide for her without blowing up.

The nice thing about being at home for that long is that I did manage to get some stuff done. I've been on an organizing and cleaning frenzy lately. I don't know why, I'm not a neat freak but the basement has been pissing me off for a while. Also just the fact that we have so much shit in the house that we don't use/need that I just want to get rid of it. I've done a lot with the stuff that I have getting rid of old tech books and cables and toys and junk and stuff. Now I'm trying to convince Pam to go through the basement and get rid of what we don't need. She's waiting until we know the sex of the baby but even if it's a girl we have 2 girls worth of clothing stored and surely we can get rid of some now and the rest later if it's a boy. Oh well, as long as it gets done or until my clutterbug crawls out of my ass.

Another thing is that I got to play games for a while. As you can see below I got a few more trophies from Resistance 2. I'm finally starting a game on superhuman and I'm doing alright (probably not much worse than on Veteran). I'm also playing with my clan on co-op although I wish they'd stop trying co-op on superhuman. I also tried ranked competitive multiplayer and I hate fucking playing with other people. Even in team games, no one plays as a team and I always seem to be on the team with retards. Either way, I'll have to do a lot of grinding for those trophies. I'm also going to try the Endless Setlist on Expert this weekend, but I'm going to split it in 2 parts so I'm not up until 4am again. After all that, I'll have to either find a new game to play or hope that the Singstar trophies are available. Woot! :)

Holy crap, it's almost noon. Time flies when you miss 2 days of "work". Work in this case meaning catching up on e-mails, blogs, Twitter, etc. :)

It's gonna be a nail biter all season

Caught almost all of the Brewers game yesterday over the computer, radio, and TV. They won a squeaker against the Cubs 4-3 by scoring 2 runs in the bottom of the ninth. It was close too, with Rickie Weeks scoring on a close play at the plate. If anyone actually watched the game, most people should know that Ryan Theriot fucked up. If you have a shot at a DP to end the inning you go for the DP, especially if you throw home on the wrong side of the plate. I'm glad to see we didn't waste a start by our new guy Braden Looper. He pitched pretty well despite throwing a lot of balls. He would have picked up the win if not for Seth McClung, who got McClunged for another homer (by a backup catcher no less) putting the Cubs ahead by 1.

Last night I also went through and did the Endless Setlist and Bladder of Steel challenges on Rock Band 2. The final stats:
Difficulty: Medium
6 hours spent singing
5 Diet Mt. Dews drunk
4 Rushed pee breaks (during Round and Round, Battery, Deluxe, and The Trees)
3 Songs not 5 starred
2 Trophies earned
1 Tired Josh (I didn't get to bed until 4am)
0 times having to pee in a bucket (I've heard of people having to do this)

So now I have do it again on Expert but this time I don't have to worry about failing or hitting Pause....which is good because there's like 5 songs that I'm not too good at. Then I have to finish the Drum Trainer, 100% guitar, and 4 player Band challenges and then I'm done. Easy right?

Anyways, break's over. Time to get the kids ready for pictures today and then clean the basement and house, etc. Got freakin Easter tomorrow and then I have to get up early Monday for Laney's surgery. She's getting her tonsils out. I'm hoping this makes her more understandable. It's so frustrating because she can't hear us and we can't understand her. Maybe she'll be better behaved when she can hear right.