Checking out what is new on this blogger thingie

So I have been actively and aggressively making sure my personal blog has not gone unattended. But in that time I have completely neglected this blog. It seems almost unfair, until you look at what is involved in keeping a blog up to speed. But that is for a later gripe session.

For this one, it shall be short, sweet, simple and a plethora of other words starting with the letter 'S'. Very soon I hope to turn my wife into a blog'o'matic blogamuffin. We'll see how that goes.

In any event, I truly hope to get this blog back in action. Soon.

New Ads in the Sidebar

I am going to go back and update our blog with some family excitement and the what not. But, thanks to Google, I have to actually recode our adSense messages first. So I just did that.

Hopefully it will render now. We'' just have to wait and see.

PS If you get a chance, hop on over to my personal blog and check out the latest in what my kids can learn. It is pretty interesting. Never knew they could pick up on PHP development so fast...

Whew, I'm tired (but in a good way)

So the Disneyland trip is over. In case you don't know what I am talking about, be patient, I will be going back and writing all the juicy tidbits leading up to our trip. But we are home now (actually, we were home as of Thursday evening, but I am just getting to write now). What an insane (in a good way) trip it was!

We left on Monday, September 25 for Southern California. You know, that state just below Northern California where everyone drives a Mercedes Benz, all the women are Blonde and the sun always seems to be setting over the perfect landscape of the beaches at all times of the day? Yeah, there. We got there at about 4:00 in the afternoon, but found out when we got there that check-in was not until 5:30 so we needed to find something to do until we could check in. So we hit up McDonalds (this would not be the first trip to McD's we'd make, I assure you). After we finally got checked in and settled in, we began our plot to take over the southland's amusement parks and tourist attractions. Here is how it went:

Day 1 (Mon): Get there, plot southland take over
Day 2 (Tue): Disneyland
Day 3 (Wed): Sea World, San Diego
Day 4 (Thu): Disneyland
Day 5 (Fri): California Adventure/Disneyland
Day 6 (Sat): Laundry/Rest
Day 7 (Sun): American Girl Place(LA)/Downtown Disney (Shopping)
Day 8 (Mon): San Diego Zoo/Dinner with Friends
Day 9 (Tue): Universal Studios
Day 10 (Wed): Hollywood/Beverly Hills/Pack
Day 11 (Thu): Come home

Man, was that a busy vacation (in a good way) or what? We never stopped moving. Ever. We crammed as much as we possibly could into each day we were there (in a good way). There were a couple of rough days (but even those were good days), a few hot days, a rainy day, and a lot of tired days, but every day was a good day. Afterall, we were on vacation, which is always a good thing, huh?

Anyway, I think I may write about each day. Not sure how I will do that yet, but I will. I may make a backdated entry for each day we were there. Or I may make an entry for each day moving forward. Or I may go eat my Ben and Jerry's ice cream and not worry about it (in a good way). Who knows. I know I am not grumpy, and I know it was a fun trip altogether (in a good way).

Its been a while

So the last time I wrote I was talking about how rough our afternoon was trying to get to the movies on a Thursday afternoon. What I didn't mention in that post was that just before the movie started I got a phone call from a headhunter in San Francisco. You see, I had turned my resume to 'Public' on Monster.com a few days before that (I think it was on Tuesday evening of that week) and it just so happened that a few companies has found me. And they kept finding me.

This headhunter in particular was very aggressive in their pursuit of me. They had a client that needed a PHP developer job filled. I am a very able PHP developer with a large family to feed. Needless to say, I went on an interview with the headhunter the following Thursday. I was called almost immediately with a request to meet the client on Friday. After the client meeting Friday morning I was called in the early afternoon and told that the client wanted to do a behavioral analysis study on me. So I attended that on the following Monday. The next day, Tuesday August 22 I was made a very lucrative job offer by the client. An offer that I could not pass up.

So on Wednesday, August 23 I submitted my resignation to my former company, with whom I had spent nine years of my life, and prepared to take on a new role. I began that role last week. As of September 5, 2006, you are reading from the new Web Developer for Bay Alarm Company.

I am absolutely thrilled. I love my new job. It is an enormous amount of money more than my previous position and has one responsibility... take the company's flagship web initiative live by the end of the year. WOW! That is awesome.

I am telling you I think I might just stick around this place for a while. Anyhow, I am busier than heck at the moment so I will post again when I get the chance. Until then, keep in mind that I am now developing full time so the amount of time I spend here may go down. But what's really different about that, right?

Trying to go see a movie

Has anyone ever had an experience like this...

I had Thursday off. Most of it anyway. My wife and I decided early that day that we would go to lunch, and as a surprise to the kids, we would take them to go the movie Cars. So I went to work for a few hours, came home, packed up and off we went to Fuddruckers, home of the largest slabs of beef patties this side of the Milky Way Galaxy.

After ordering $40 worth of massive meatwiches, we set off toward the movie theater. It was about 2:00 PM and the movie didn't start until 2:55 PM. I thought for a second "Maybe we should go get our tickets now so we don't have to worry about it later'. But that idea passed as we walked toward Borders books and a Seattle's Best coffee shop. After spending more money on books and coffee, we made the journey from Borders to the theater. It was about 2:50 (the line at Borders was a nightmare -- it took three forevers and an eternity).

We got to the box office at about 2:55 and I asked for four kid tickets and two adult tickets to Cars. When presented with the cost (a staggering $42) and after catching my breath, I handed the ticket guy my credit card, to which he replied 'We only take cash'. I asked him if there was any place I could use my card, perhaps to buy gift certificates or something. Again, he replied Cash only.

Knowing I had no cash and that the ATM machine in the theater was broken, I asked a manager if there was an alternative to getting some movie tickets since my kids were doing cheerleader dances in the lobby, excited out of their pants that they get to see Cars. The alternative I got was 'Call Fandango'. So I went to a payphone (seeing as I had turned my phone off and left it in the car because it was a family time). The payphone lady on the other end of the line told me that I could not call that number from a payphone. What the &%^?

So I asked my wife if I could user her phone. When I called 1-800-FANDANGOTHISBABY, I got a little reminder from Sprint that we had exceeded our allowable credit limit and that using my cell phone to take my kids to the movies was going to be a bigger catastrophe than I expected. So I walked to my car, got my phone, called Fandango and discovered that the 2:55 showing of Cars was the only showing of Cars in that theater. Since it was past 2:55, Fandango reported that the movie was no longer playing and that I could not get tickets. At this point I am ready to break every cell phone and ATM from here to Egypt.

So I opened my web browser on my phone and searched for theaters showing Cars. You know how many there are? None. Yup, that's right. None. Unless I wanted to go to a different county. N-O-N-E.

Now, the good part. We live in the southernmost part of our county, so going to another county to see a movie is not as crazy as it sounds. In fact, it was about 15 minutes away. So I stopped off at home, bought my tickets on the internet and took my kids to see Cars. It was great... for the older kids. The baby and my youngest daughter were totally not into it and fussed so bad that Mom ended up outside most the time. But the older kids liked it, and so did I.

And now I keep going saying 'Can you hear the thunder? Kuh chigga, Kuh chigga'. You know it baby, Kuh chigga.

Crazy

The second of my two weeks is starting to wind down. Thank God....

Right about now I could use a quiet, four day long nap. Alas, I will be back at work for a few hours tomorrow, then I get some time off. I am so happy!

For now though I am thinking of things to put in this here space. I seem to be drawing a blank. Oh well, maybe I'll go back to yesterday and post about the massive underwear my daughters got. Buhoohaahhaa, that sounds nice.

Chones Grandotes

Man dats sum kayn kyna biug.

My wife went shopping the other day. No condolensces please, she has gotten a lot better. But she came home with some things for our trip to Disneyland we are taking in September. One of those things she got was new underwear for the kids.

NOTE: Before you think weird of me, please understand that this is about the chones, not the kids.

Anyway, my nine year old pulled up her pack, opened them up and shrieked in disbelief 'These things are huge!'. And they were. My wife's response was 'They'll shrink when we wash them.' which they didn't. Nosiree, they are still as large as an English muffin to an ant.

These things remind me of a fumigation tent for a doll house. They are large, full bodied unerbreeches that could potentially double as a hammock for the small size person. Or as a back up canopy top for our gazebo in the back yard. Yes ladies and gentlemen, they are some big chones.

And I wish you could have seen my daughters reaction when she opened them...