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. :)

Vacationing in 140 characters or less

So the family and I went to Wisconsin Dells for the kids birthday's. The bulk of the money was given to us by Pam's mom and let me say, just finding something to eat is pretty expensive. We went through almost $200 on food alone for 2 days. It was some good stuff but day-um it's expensive. We did find that by going with just water to drink and only one meal split between the kids we were able to stretch the money a bit. Still there were a few meals where we were eating cold cut sammiches.

Needless to say we didn't really partake in any attractions (most weren't even open, and while the hotel waterpark was nice for the price, the slides freaked out the kids and we spent most of the days at the pool. I'm not complaining though as the pool was within Wi-Fi range and I found that if you direct the PSP to the mobile versions of sites, it works much better. So I was able to check mail, be on the web, check my eBay auctions and yes, even twitter. So I made a bunch of tweets and found that you can get a pretty good record of what I thought and what caught my eye.

cycoivan Posted at 10:42am, Apr 05, 2009 from TweetDeck

Why is getting ready for a vacation so much work? If we weren't going I could relax today :) What the fuck? #irony

cycoivan Posted at 11:28am, Apr 05, 2009 from TweetDeck

Just about ready to go for 2 days away from everything. I'll be able to tweet from my cell but not receive, so don't expect a reply unti l8r

cycoivan Posted at 2:13pm, Apr 05, 2009 from txt

Made it to the Dells. Watching Monsters vs. Aliens with the kids to kill time before checkin.

cycoivan Posted at 2:55pm, Apr 05, 2009 from txt

Loving Monsters vs. Aliens so far. Wish I had the money for 3D though

cycoivan Posted at 3:47pm, Apr 05, 2009 from txt

Monsters vs Aliens was fucking awesome! You should go see it if you get the chance.

cycoivan Posted at 4:40pm, Apr 05, 2009 from TwitPic

http://twitpic.com/2vxvc - Happy girls ready to swim at the Polyneasian!

cycoivan Posted at 4:45pm, Apr 05, 2009 from TwitPic

http://twitpic.com/2vy2n - This is pretty fucking sweet for 80 bucks a night!

cycoivan Posted at 7:32pm, Apr 05, 2009 from TwitPic

http://twitpic.com/2w89w - Time for some eats with Jake and Elwood at a classic Dennys

cycoivan Posted at 9:42pm, Apr 05, 2009 from mobile web

hey forgot about m.twitter.com now i can get my fix :)

cycoivan Posted at 9:50pm, Apr 05, 2009 from TwitPic

http://twitpic.com/2wfdq - Why do fucking Hummers have to be so big? Whats the point? I think someones got penis issues

cycoivan Posted at 10:42pm, Apr 05, 2009 from mobile web

heh i finally get to do what i want and thats tweeting on the interwebs from the sauna :)

cycoivan Posted at 10:44pm, Apr 05, 2009 from mobile web

then if its not too late im going to hit the gym and get my workout on. i gotta impress the laideez :)

cycoivan Posted at 10:57pm, Apr 05, 2009 from mobile web

woo its fucking hot in here (whoda thunk it?)

cycoivan Posted at 11:28pm, Apr 05, 2009 from mobile web

its been a good day heres hoping that tomorrows even better. good night y'all.

cycoivan Posted at 8:45am, Apr 06, 2009 from TwitPic

http://twitpic.com/2ww29 - Paul Bunyan is friggin huge! I bet I could outeat him :)

cycoivan Posted at 9:02am, Apr 06, 2009 from TwitPic

http://twitpic.com/2wwpe - Mmm...my breakfast. Still waiting on the rest of the family's :)

cycoivan Posted at 11:18am, Apr 06, 2009 from mobile web

@mainemonty oh yeah the sausages were damn tasty. i love me pork ;]

At this point my Twitter client is missing a whole day's worth of tweet's so I'm going to try and pull them from my memory :)

-Oh my God. I am so fucking full. Paul Bunyan wins again
-Getting my tweet on by the pool on a Monday. So glad I'm not working today
-Just checked my auctions on m.ebay.com. C'mon people! Bid, bid, bid! I needs mah money.
-Going to hop in the kiddy pool with the kids. I'm taller than the pool even lying down :)
-I tell you what. AYCE at Paul Bunyan's is good for two meals. It's a good deal for $30
-Tired, tired, tired. Lying down for a nap. Hopefully the kids will follow suit
-Where should we go eat now. I'd love to go to a fancy place, but the kids aren't fancy peeps :)
-Stopped at Marley's, a Jamaican restaurant. I love this place, especially the gator bites.
-Yeah, so they're probably chicken but they're so good that it's fun to pretend you're eating gator
-Having a Cuban sammich, Pam's having the Coconut chicken. It is so freakin good
-Back at the hotel. Laney's getting sick. Marvelous.
-Of course, when I say she can't go in the pool, she got well quick
-Texting from the hot tub on my PSP. What could go wrong :)
-Hot chick sat down in the sauna near me. Boooing :)
-Kids are an excellent conversation starter. They got me talking with the hot chick
-Now her and my wife are talking each other's ears off, leaving me in the hot tub. alone. :(
-In the sauna, there's a big fat sweaty guy in here (other than me) awk-ward.
-I don't know why I like these things. I'm not one for sweating and being hot
-On the elliptical. I wish to hell I had one of these at home. You get a workout but your joints don't hurt
-Exhausted. I don't want to go home tomorrow :( G'night.
-Chilling out in the morning, getting everything packed to go home.
-Laney really is getting sick, that sucks. Wish we could do something for her.
-Took the kids to the pool, but no one really feels like swimming.
-Eating at Pizza Pub. They got Wi-Fi here too. The buffet is a good deal, about $30 for family of 4
-Forgot it was opening day today. The Giants are going down! Well probably not. Suppan's pitching today. :(
-Stopped for some fudge on the way home. They let me pack it myself :)
-Finally home. It's good to be here, but sucks that I have to go back to reality.

So that's my twittercation. I had a lot of fun, but I wish the kids were feeling better and wanted to be more adventureous but oh well. One thing's for sure, next time we are bringing more money.

Speaking of the Brewers, they aren't doing too well so far. They lost 2 of the 1st 3 games through shitty pitching. That's not shocking. Our "ace" is Jeff Suppan, not a guy who batters are afraid of. I will say this, if Yovani Gallardo stays healthy, he's got a good chance to win the Cy Young. He looked really good on Wednesday, holding them to 1 run and cranking a 3 run homer off of Randy Johnson. So that's good. They play the Cubs today, so I'm hoping everything comes together for them.

You might notice a new thing on my posts. It's a Trophy card from PS3 Trophy card They link your Playstation account to the widget that shows what you're playing and where you're at for trophies. I'm still working on Resistance 2 and I swear I'm going to get Rock Band 2 one of these days too. I've got to buy the Resident Evil 5 multiplayer to finish those out too. I also read that Singstar is going to have trophies, but they look damn hard and many require that you shoot a video. I'll have to see if a cheap web cam works or if you need the PS3 one. Either way, I will be busy :)

Some people are just dicks

So to set the stage, our 9 year old pug Wilma is officially blind. She despises going potty on a leash or stake out and cannot be trusted to roam around outside. We can't afford to fence in the yard and don't want to banish her outside. Plus with all of the other animals and stuff roaming around and knocking her head on everything, you can tell she's genuinely miserable and we just don't have the time to devote to her care. So instead of being bastards and putting her to sleep or dumping her in a field somewhere, we tried to find a new home for her on Craigslist.

Let me tell you, don't ever post anything semi-controversial in the Madison group because you have a bunch of hating motherfuckers in there. Almost immediately our post got flamed because we're heartless bastards for getting rid of our dog now that she's "inconvinient" and "would you want your kids to do that to you?" First of all, no we're doing the compassionate thing by finding our dog another good home to go to. Secondly, yes if I'm pissing and shitting everywhere, can't see and am a general hazard to myself and others then YES put me in a home where I can get the care I need. My only hope is that the kids screen the home and don't cheap out on it. Thirdly, if you're going to flame someone, do it face-to-face (or as face-to-face as the Internet will allow) and not through some cowardly post with no contact infomation. There's a lot more to this story but suffice to say an all out flame war popped up in the postings section (many of whom were partially or completely on our side) but still it was a nightmare.

The point is, I don't recall asking anyone on Craigslist for their opinion, so if you're not inquiring about meeting us and our dog then SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP! Apparently it's quite a problem in Madison (IRL and Craigslist both). Everybody is so militant about their opinions here WHERE THEY WILL SHOUT THEM LOUDLY IN THE STREETS AND FUCK EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T AGREE. Being a college town, all these groups are gaining influence by the ranks of confused teens/twentysomethings joining. PETA, ALF, Political Parties, religions, etc. If you can't respect the other side's opinion then go fuck yourself. I wish to fuck these people would get hit by a bus. In Madison the only way to express your view is to shout down the opposition.

On top of that there's extended family drama going on that I really can't comment on here yet, but suffice it to say I have a bunch of dicks in my extended family too.

Anyways, on a happier note, the kids had a nice birthday party but it was just a nasty day for weather. I think everyone at the party was ready for a nap by 2pm and most people were gone by then, it was just one of those days. The kids got (and have already broken) some nice stuff.

Also, I found that despite my bitching about it, the Platinum trophy in RE5 is unlocked after getting all original 50 trophies, which I got last night so that's cool. I made it through the 1st chapter on Resistance 2 and it's shaping up really nicely. Hopefully, I'll be able to score all the trophies on that too before I have to give it back :) I also will have FEAR 2 in the pipe soon as my co-worker is done with it. The Platinum on Rock Band 2 is looking pretty distant as I suck complete ass on guitar and I'm supposed to get a 100% on Expert on a song and a 100% guitar solo on expert. I guess I'm just going to have to practice my ass off. I might take a crack at the endless setlist this weekend but I still have to practice singing a few songs yet before I can do it without failing.

So to sum it up, I have a lot of games to play and don't be a dick :)