June 14, 2005
Last night when I got home from work, it was again annoyingly hot. Clone and Boopie where both asking to go out and play. They wanted me to set up the inflatable pool we bought last year. When I checked it out, I discovered it had ripped along the bottom. Well, that wasnÂ’t going to work. I then decided to get out this sprinkler made for kids that we have. It is designed to get people wet, not water the lawn.
While digging out the sprinkler I found my squirt guns. Yes, they are mine. I bought them for me! After I set up the sprinkler, I pulled out a tin tub to set with it so that the water would collect in it to fill the squirt guns. I turned on the sprinkler and the boys started having fun. Clone would run up to it and get a little wet and go running away. Boopie would try to run between the drops as to not get wet. He said the water was too cold. Me, I stood in the bucket. When the tub filled enough, I pulled out one of the squirt guns. It is nothing more then a tube with a handle on it. You stick the tip in the water and pull back the handle to load it. When you push the handle forward, it squirts the water. Depending how hard you push on the handle depends on how far it shoots. We have three like this, one for each of us. Boopie picked up another one and started loading his. Clone picked up a third and kept trying to figure out how to use it.
Boopie and I started out with target practice because we were rusty. We aimed for the wind catcher on one of my wife’s wind chimes. If we hit it, it would make noise. It was a good target. Clone started getting upset because he wanted to load and shoot his gun. However, he could not figure it out. Every time I tried to show him, he would get mad and start yelling, “I DO IT! I DO IT!” After a while, he wanted my squirt gun, because his was obviously broken. He’d yell, “MY TURN! MY TURN!” while reaching for it. We traded squirt guns, he had my fully loaded tube o’ water and I had his empty one. As I filled my new gun up, I watched as Clone struggled to pick up the toy. With all the water in it, not only was it longer then him, but it was too heavy for him to hold the muzzle up. He’d get mad because I was shooting the squirt gun, drop the fully loaded one again as it was obviously broken and want the one I had so he could squirt water. We traded guns probably 30 times, each time I tried to explain the mechanics behind it. He, however, did not want anything to do with my silly logic and explanations. He wanted to squirt water!
Boopie gave Clone a water grenade to play with to see if that would appease him. A water grenade is nothing more then a sponge with a fabric coating. Clone would dip it in the water and throw it. When it landed, it made a big splash much to his amusement. He would laugh in that deep belly laugh only that little kids can do.
Boopie pulled out a super soaker he has. Because he was pulling out the big guns, I had to get my super soaker. My super soaker is over 6 years old. It has three settings for the thickness of the streams. 2X, 10X and 20X the normal stream. It has a decent sized tank and is the Continual Pressure System. That means that it will always shoot the same distance as long as there is pressure in the tank. It does not slowly fade away. The only problem with this is that when I set it to 20X the normal stream, I empty the water reservoir with one shot that lasts about .5 seconds. That stream of water has a lot of force behind it. Boopie and my wife refer to that squirt gun as “The Fire Hose”. When I first bought it, Boopie was 6 years old. The entire family bought squirt guns. We went out in the back yard to have a squirt gun fight. I set it to 20X, pumped it up and waited. Boopie came running around the corner of the house shooting at me. My shot was beautiful; I hit him with that .5 second burst right in the middle of his chest. Boopie was knocked over from the hit. With my first shot, I drenched him from head to toe in water. There was not a dry spot on him. To this day, he does not like playing squirt gun wars when I use the “Fire Hose”.
Boopie and I started our fight; I would shoot at him with the stream on its low 2X. He however would not shoot back. I am hot, sweaty, and wanting to be hit with that ice-cold hose water, but neither boy will shoot at me. Clone canÂ’t figure out how to pick up, let alone make the gun squirt, with out hitting himself. I would shoot Boopie and he would drop his squirt gun. The rules in the house say you cannot squirt someone that doesnÂ’t have a squirt gun or while they are filling it with water. However, I did try to squirt my wife while she was gardeningÂ… I like it when my wife is wet. 
Boopie's whole strategy was to lure me in close, drop his gun and wait for me to go away. *I* was not being hit with water! It sucked!
Finally, Clone picked up his squirt gun, and came up to shoot me. I helped him by holding onto the nozzle and let him push the handle. He had great fun squirting daddy with his gun. He would be mad when it was empty. He didn’t understand the whole, “You need to reload” concept. He also didn’t like when I would squirt him back. He’d get mad and cry, but laugh while he squirted me. I explained to him that if he is going to squirt other people, then he would be squirted as well. He decided it was worth the trade of to soak daddy with cold water. This whole ordeal went on for about an hour and a half.
I was able to spend some fun time with my boys playing and laughing. We all had fun. ItÂ’s times like this that IÂ’m grateful for my boys. They make life so much better. I will always cherish playing with them.
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June 13, 2005
This guy has a flair for making the art of ingesting some of the nastiest stuff on the face of the earth hilarious. If you haven't seen these before, go back through the archives. Just don't be drinking anything.
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First, as spawn of the GrauHarveBou I am the unwanted stump in the blogenetics that makes up the Bad Example Family. Which, in all honesty, the genetics there where kind of suspect to begin with before I ever came along. IÂ’ve come to take my blogenetics as a point of pride, just for the fact that the mental image it gives people usually makes them shudder in horror. You will see the Bad Example family logo and blogroll in my sidebar. Miasmatic Review is included in the blogroll. I am proud. I also have the Frizzen Family on the sidebar; Grau does not have a blogroll for his blogspawn. Therefore, I manually entered that code and I did not link to myself, that was my choice.
Second is the Gathering of the Blogs. I stumbled across Absinthe and Cookies. While there, I saw, she had a post regarding “Gathering of the Blogs”. As I am of Scottish decent and portray a Scot as a re-enactor, I felt the desire to heed her call and participate in the festivities. You will see in my sidebar the logo and blogroll for Gathering of the Blogs. Miasmatic Review is listed on the blogroll.
Third is the Alliance. I joined the Alliance for many different reasons. IÂ’m still trying to figure out how I fit into it as IÂ’m having a hard time getting into the filthy lies that go along with membership. Yet I want to support my fellow bloggers that were members before me and ones that join after me. I proudly display the logo in my sidebar and the extremely long blogroll down at the bottom. If you look, you will see Miasmatic Review listed on that blogroll.
Finally is being part of the Munuvian Empire. As being part of the Bad Example Family, I was nominated to get a site on .mu.nu. I was happy. No, ecstatic. Nay! I was exalted at the prospect of getting away from blogger and into something that is a lot more flexible and reliable. I have yet to find a logo for the Munuvian Empire so I donÂ’t have one, however I have their blogroll in the drop down menu in my sidebar. If you look, you will see that Miasmatic Review is excluded from that list. I have been accepted, yet rejected. Is it because I am a blogentic-unwanted stump? Is it because my writing is often scattered with grammatical and spelling errors and itÂ’s an embarrassment to the powers that be? Maybe itÂ’s due to an oversight and the fact that the powers that be are really busy. Any way, it has excluded me from the blogroll. If I had any feelings, I think I might be hurt. However, since I donÂ’t IÂ’m just going to make fun of the situation.
Am I mad about this? No. Am I using this as an excuse to rant? Sorta. Am I having a problem with creativity and using this as something to post... YES I AM!
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June 11, 2005
This morning while I was making the below Karnival o’ da Kidz post I had my first non-routine contact with the monitoring company. I had just kicked Clone out of Boopie’s room for the third time this morning and sat back down to finish uploading the picture when all of a sudden I hear the alarm going off. (SCREEEEEEEEEEE…) “Panic button pushed, main turrets operated. STAND STILL AND IDENTIFY YOURSELF OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE!” (SCREEEEEEEEEEE…)
I go running through the house trying to get to clone before the turrets pop out of the ceiling and start spraying down the house with 50 .cal rounds. I leap over the port-a-prison gate we have set up to keep him out of the dining room. With a move that would make Barry Sanders proud, I plant my left leg and do a reverse spin to my right in order to turn left. I grab clone and run for the main security panel. I try to turn off the alarm, but it was too late. I hear this voice echo through the house say, “WE HAVE A PANIC ALERT ACTIVATED! POLICE, SWAT, FBI, NATIONAL GUARD, RED CROSS AND THE BOYSCOUTS ARE IN ROUTE. DO NOT MOVE, IF YOU DO OUR SECURITY SYSTEM WILL TURN YOU INTO A FINE PASTE BEFORE YOU GET TO AN EXIT”
I reply with, “I’m sorry, my two year old got a hold of my wife’s keys and hit the panic button on the remote. There is no emergency…. How do I disarm the turrets? We really are fine.”
Security system, “WHAT IS YOUR NAME AND PASSWORD?”
I give them my name and password.
Security system (sounding disappointed), “YOUR INFORMATION IS CONFIRMED. SYSTEM DEACTIVATING. WE WILL STAND DOWN THE RESPONSE TEAM. WE ARE GLAD WE COULD BE OF ASSISTANCE.”
I tell the guy thank you and watch and the turrets retract back into the ceiling. I take Clone upstairs to his now wide-awake mother and explain what happened. Outside there are neighbors looking intently at my house until they see me come out on the front porch. At which point they are turn and flee back to the safety of their homes.
What a way to start out your day.
Some of the details about the security system abilities and the conversation may have been slightly exaggerated.
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A couple of weeks back we did a re-enactment in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. This event led to a lot of turmoil in my life since then. However we did get one really great picture of Clone in his costuming. IÂ’ve been kind of bragging this picture up so I thought I should share it with all of you.
Click to enlarge
Please ignore the bright orange fencing in the background, itÂ’s not period, however the event used it for crowd control to keep people off of the football fields.
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June 10, 2005
Okay, I admit I have certain Princess Leia fetishes, including dressing my wife up in a human version of this costume for my own nefarious sexual reasons. Based on that, I'm just wondering what kind of sick puppy (pun not intended) not only thought this was a good idea, but would actually buy one to put their dog into.
I know many a Star Wars geek out there is probably thinking, "Wait, that isn't so bad." All I have to say to that is, "DUDE! You dressed your dog up in the sexy Princess Leia outfit. What in the hell where you planning on doing with it while it was dressed like that? It's damn near time for you to turn off the computer, crawl out of your parents basement, perform some personal hygene, see the sun for the first time in 15 years and deal with people face to face. Finding a girl and getting laid(By a human other then yourself) wouldn't hurt either!"
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There is also talk of possibly having people directly report to me. This is not definite; it is only in discussion. They do not know if they want to go that route at this time. There is only two other persons in the entire company that shares the same level and position I do. This would be the first time they had anyone in our positions actually having direct reports and they are not sure if they want to do that yet. They feel that having to deal with the administrative parts of employees may interfere with our job performance. Personally, I think I can do it and wouldnÂ’t have a problem.
I know we all had a laugh at my expense months ago when I first talked about this. I am also now worried exactly how I am going to do. Obviously, my people skills are not the greatest. However, thatÂ’s not the point. The point is that IÂ’ve busted my ass in this position for almost three years and they recognize all the hard work IÂ’ve put into it. Moreover, it is a step in the direction I do want to go!
In celebration of my promotionÂ… IÂ’m doing nothing because I really cannot buy you all a drink or I would. I cannot hand out cigars, because I donÂ’t think my DSL would transfer them undamaged. I donÂ’t have any idea what else I could do that isnÂ’t going to cost me an arm and a leg.
However, I am going to buy myself a nice bottle of Scotch to celebrate.
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04:34 PM
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First thing I noticed is that the rules are vague; it appears it is just a link fest. According to what Grau has listed I just link to people and then pass this on to four other people. Okay I could do that, but it seems awfully simple for a meme. These things are terribly annoying. Therefore, I tracked back through the links he had and discovered I am supposed to write five things that I miss from my youth.
Because this is a meme, and boring I put the rest in the extended entry. more...
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June 09, 2005
If you are caught in one of them, you will be soaked. Trust me, I know. It happened to me yesterday. A local fast food restaurant, ArbyÂ’s, was having a sale. If you buy one sandwich, you get the second one of equal or lesser value free. My wife, T the Minion and I decided to go there on lunch. When we arrived, it was sunny and warm out. I parked Janine, my truck, in the only available spot I could fit her into which was on the far side of the parking lot. We went in ordered our food, which they screwed my order up, as they always do. ItÂ’s okay; they gave me a free summer-sized glow in the dark cup and drink to compensate for it. Hey, you can buy me off with $1.89 worth of pop in a $.60 collectorÂ’s cup!
We sat down and where half done eating when it happened. The skies opened up as Mother Nature squatted over the earth and took a long drunken piss on us mere mortals. The rain was hitting the plate glass windows so hard you could see them vibrate. I was waiting for the Skylight to shatter under the force of the driving droplets of destruction. The parking lot filled to a depth of a kiddy pool. The wind was blowing leaves and branches off trees. My wife and T decided we should wait for the rain to end. I played along, until the point where they would be late for work if we didnÂ’t leave. Being the bad guy, I had to advise them if we did not leave soon, they would be late back from lunch. We had to head out.
We go out the front door. We are under an overhang at the entrance with another patron and his two kids. I tell T and my wife I will unlock the truck and they need to run and get in. My truck has four doors, but the two rear doors are the reverse doors that only open if the front door is open. T was sitting in the back seat so I told him to go first, once he gets in, IÂ’ll go. My wife takes her shoes off because she canÂ’t run in heals and takes off after T.
As they are running toward the truck, I look down to my hand, there is my remote lock and my thumb starts to slide toward the lock button. That is when my fellow Arby’s patron say’s pointedly, “You’re going to lock them out, aren’t you?” My thumb slides away from the lock button, I point to my wife and respond, “Nah, I’m married to that one, She’d kill me.” The patron just gave me this look and said, “Yea, I wouldn’t do that to my wife either.” I had never seen this guy before, but it was as if he knew me. He knew I was thinking of locking the doors and having a laugh at their expense. It was like he could sense some kind of aura or presence about me that screamed out to the universe, “BEWARE! This man is an asshole! Watch yourself and others around him. You have been warned! This message will repeat in 10 seconds” I’m not denying the thought crossed my mind, but I had already decided not to do it when he asked.
After Ktreva and T were in the truck, I took off across the lot. At one point, I took a step and water came flooding over the top of my shoe, soaking my foot. When I finally got into the truck, I looked at Ktreva and T. We were all soaked, water dripping down our faces. I start the truck and head back to work. We were not more then two minutes out of the lot when the rain just stopped. It didnÂ’t slow down, it just went away.
We arrived at work with 3 minutes to spare. Ktreva and T where irritated because if we had waited and extra couple of minutes, we would have arrived to work dry and on time. I told them that no matter how much I would like to, I am prohibited in using my omnipotence in order to help them avoid the weather. Plus I did turn the air conditioner on to help them dry off! Did I mention the air conditioner in my truck could double as an industrial freezers cooling unit?
I didnÂ’t really mind getting soaked I felt the wet clothes where a good trade for the benefits. I think my wife looks sexy when sheÂ’s all wet. She hates it, but itÂ’s not about her! ItÂ’s all about her being wet in an air conditioned truck!
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June 08, 2005
My main goal was to make this site look as close as possible to my blogger site. Why you ask? Familiarity. All of you are already familiar with the lay out, as well as am I, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find your way around. I could lie and say I did it all for you, but reallistically I'm resistant to change. 
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June 01, 2005
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