Monday Morning Quarterback 1.15

Happy New Year! What is today-- the 5th already? It is real easy to lose track of time on these four-day-weekends. I never feel that I get enough done or have enough fun during that time, either. We were awfully busy, though, so here are the notes from the week:

• Working in a city like St. Louis, with a large percentage of African-Americans, Catholics and Americans, you would think that we would be off for Dr. Martin Luther King Day, Good Friday or President's Day but we don't have another holiday until Memorial Day. 

• I would be interested to know if the rate of heart attack is higher in the first week of the New Year because out-of-shape individuals try to fulfill their year-long resolutions to get fit in four-days. There must have been three times the regular number of people at the gym this morning and, from the looks of things, a few of them were not going to make it through to Wednesday. I didn't have to perform mouth-to-mouth on anyone but it may have been a different story if one guy didn't pull a hammy or that lady didn't blow out her knee.

• You can partially blame seasonal depression on lack of sunlight but, I believe, more of it has to do with transitioning from the joyous, active, event-filled, holiday season to January and February, when the best thing you have to hope for is... March.

• We have not had that bad of a Winter, yet, here in the Mid-West. If you are looking for snow you will have to wait until four-six-hours before MLW goes into labor for the really deep stuff-- with a 46-mile trip to the hospital... you can count on it.

• The one good thing about this time of year is that it is Trivia Night Season. If you are as excited as I am visit How to Win a Trivia Night and give add your input.

• Wii is just what it Nintendo markets it as-- a really good way for families to play games together... even for the kids and Mom. The motion sensing remotes are pretty cool, but for serious gamers I still recommend Xbox360.

• The cymbals for the RockBand drum kit are pretty much just for show as they just replace the corresponding drum pad, but they are fun to crash. What I really want to try is the mufflers that reduce the amount of sound produced when you hit the pads with the stick. If they work, why don't they just modify the drum set that comes with the game to include them as standard? It would inexpensively improve the quality of the game greatly.

• The over/under of when I will last write 2008 when I mean to write 2009 is May 11.

• The first time that I will have to choose between MLW and M3S is coming up this Summer. My Son asked, yesterday, if he could have his next Birthday Party at the place that his cousin had his and my Wife has his and his unborn brother's parties planned until they are 14. There is nothing in those plans about going to the "jumpy place".

• I have been trying to prepare M3S's room for when the new baby will take over the nursery and had the bright idea on Saturday to build him a new bed. It told me right on the Website that I could do it, and I believed it. My Dad built my brother and I a circus cage bunk bed when we were little with bars and everything so I have asked for his help. I will give updates on how the project is going and post pictures when/if it is complete.

• I have realized that I miss a whole lot more than just the company gossip by not smoking anymore. This time of year you come in before dawn and leave after dusk. In a building with no windows, if you don't leave for lunch, it can be days before you see the sun.

• A nice December shopping season has definitely made SkeetzTeez a success! Now that the holidays are over, however, sales have been less than impressive. Except for the occasional interest in my adult designs, almost all of my sales have been the Big Brother or Big Sister shirts. Because, it seems, that there are so many pregnant women that like my designs, I am working on an expanded maternity section with the intent on opening a shop for new baby families only!

• I have gotten a lot of great comments on my blog in recent weeks that I would like to thank my readers for the kind words. I have gone back and re-read some of my older entries and will publish The Best of 2008 later in the week with my favorites. I hope you will enjoy them!

• I love to hear your feed back! (Even if it isn't always, totally, positive.) Please respond to the articles and tell me what you think!

Read This. Buy T-Shirts. Peace.

What A Long, Strange Trip: 2008

I suppose, now that I have a blog, I am not going to be able to get through 2008 without doing some kind of Year In Review type of article. I thought I would be excited to put this one together but, for some reason, I can't seem to get in the right mood. I have started writing several times only to abandon the story partially done or scrapping the whole thing and starting over.

Most of the reason that I don't want to write a 2008 Review is that everybody does one-- not only bloggers but all kinds of Internet, print and broadcast sources will produce their lists of the most, least, best, worst and biggest person, places and things of the year. In addition, I want my articles to be real... but not too real. Not that I am lying to anyone out there but I don't feel the need to tell complete strangers (and some other acquaintances) my most intimate thoughts and every personal feeling. I am, however, enjoying that I get to write about interesting topics, funny stories and a important cause or two and get a kick out of the fact that, at least some, other people are reading the stuff.

Therefore, I am going to try, again, to do my 2008 Year In Review and, maybe, by Wednesday, I will have something ready that I am comfortable enough sharing with the rest of the world... or the very small number of individuals that find it.

2008 started out at home for us. We are not really a big party-type of family anyway and, with a two-year old running the house, we like to be as close to home as possible most of the time, but especially on amateur night. It was fun! We invited some friends (and their kids) over, played video games, ate munchies and enjoyed each others' company.

Having had a stroke just five-weeks earlier and, basically, being paralyzed on the right half of my body, it was amazing that I was able to do that much. I was in therapy every day I could get it from November 28 through the end of the year. We had to get as many visits in 2007 as possible to submit to the insurance companies and they couldn't work me hard enough as I figured that was the only way I was going to improve. We did see some improvement almost every day! It wasn't always dramatic progress, but it was almost every day.

By Christmas I could walk well enough to get around without the cane or any other aides. I could hold a drumstick with a modified grip on New Years but it was very difficult to keep up with my friends on Rock Band. MLW talked all of our guests into writing down their resolutions so she could mail them as a reminder in six-months but I was just starting to be able to write and it wasn't very legible so I just kept mine to myself.

I had already made a remarkable recovery and wanted my resolution to be a tribute to that. Without going into too much detail, then, I can tell you that I promised myself to do everything I could to be a better man than I was before the stroke. I wanted to work hard to be stronger physically, but it meant much more to me than that. I can get a little more into this later but, for now, let's leave it with... I wanted to be sure that what should be important was more important than what wasn't and I didn't want to waste my time with things that were unimportant.

There was a tremendous amount of progress made in the month of February. My therapists started dropping me, starting with my PT and then, although I was still having a difficult time speaking, my speech therapist. Most of my large motor skills had returned and, while I worked by myself to build strength in them, I still visited my OT for couple of hours a day, several days a week to work on my small motor skills. I was extremely anxious to be released to drive again because, although I was not looking forward to getting back to the daily grind, I had to get out of the house.

The first week in March I finally passed my drivers' test and was able to do exactly that, followed by going back to work at the beginning of the third week. Looking back, this was probably two-to-four weeks early as I was having a very hard time getting back into the swing of things. I did, however, begin to rid myself of some of the worthlessness that I had been feeling in the previous 13-weeks as I was a little less of a burden on my family and friends-- especially my wife, who was incredibly gracious, helpful, merciful, kind and understanding through the whole ordeal.

I made such a remarkable recovery that the doctors said I could only use the stroke as an excuse for a year. I used every last minute of that time but, for the sake of this blog post, we will leave off of it here in April. I think I am still recovering a little bit every day. I notice it most in my speech and endurance-- the two things that are effected most by the severe fatigue I was feeling as my brain shut down all other bodily functions in order to save energy so that it could heal faster. 

I had said from the beginning, part in jest-- part for real, that I only wanted to recover 99% so that I would always have a reminder of the event and the important lessons that I learned from it. I don't really find it odd, therefore, that the only real pain that I ever had was in my pinkie finger, of all things, and if you didn't know that I had a stroke, I'm sure that you couldn't tell, but that finger still hurts like it did the first day. Be careful what you wish for.

In May things started heating up... and I am not talking about the weather. MLW and I celebrated our our forth Anniversary with a date night. I really can't say enough good things about my wife. Before we met, I couldn't imagine me being married and having a family-- now, I can't even start to imagine what my life would be like if I wasn't lucky enough to have her-- but trust me... it would not be pretty. I am saying all of these things right now because she is so kind that she is one of the few people that regularly read my blog even though she doesn't always like it and I don't tell her (or show her) how much she means to me often enough.

This was also the month that I made some decisions about my life, the direction that it was going, and the goals that we wanted to achieve. Here, again, without getting into a lot of detail this is not going to make a lot of sense and I am not going to get into a lot of detail but let me say this... for now-- you have to have goals.

Some of my goals had to do with getting back to my roots-- doing art for arts' sake and because it was fun like I did when I was young. So in June I set out on a quest to find a more creative outlet than the corporate (par-done mi French) crap that I had to knock out at the office every day. I found this outlet in SkeetzTeez-- a cafepress shop featuring T-shirts and other gift items with unique, custom designs imprinted on them. Although this was filling that creative void that I was feeling, at least to some point, there was still something missing but all that would have to wait because...

I don't know if it was the date night or not but on the Forth of July, M2S got to tell all of our family his secret, "Mamma's got a baby in her tummy"! The rest of the world found out shortly after that because I was just so excited that I couldn't keep it a secret. In fact, this was the subject of my second blog post on the 17th of the month. I started the blog to help promote the SkeetzTeez shop and also created several lenses on Squidoo for the same purpose. If you have followed the blog, you already know more detail than I am going to be able to give you in this review but, please, feel free to continue through the rest of the year.

In August, our two-year-old Son became M3S. That kid means so much to me! He really is my best friend, my inspiration for doing everything that I have to do and my joy just to carry on. I don't know if it is just his age, that I got to spend a lot more quality time with him since I was not working, or that I usually have to sleep with him in his bed because Mamma's pregnant, but we have become so much closer this year. Not to get into the stroke thing again but, just to let you know how the recovery was going, at his birthday party, I climbed up on the roof and held up a 35-pound pinata in a pirate costume (me not the pinata) so a bunch of delinquents could beat on it with a Wiffleball bat.

I also wrote about auditioning for the church worship group in this month. Update: I made it! I have been singing at least once a month since then. I really, really like this church because I feel like we are all contributing to the community and we have been accepted into it. There are several changes that are upcoming that, I hope, will make the group stronger rather than weaker in the next year.

Most of September was spent on the Internet trying to learn all of the tricks of the trade to promote T-shirt sales. Overall, I think I did pretty good. In addition to the blog and Squidoo, I got involved with other social networking applications like Twitter and, eventually, Facebook. Besides getting somewhat proficient at most of the programs, I also got involved with and even lead a few groups to cross-promote members' cafepress shops. The way I look at it: if someone is going to buy someone else's stuff over mine, they would have probably done it any way. We might as well team up so every potential customer sees as many different designs as possible. Some shopkeepers agree with that philosophy-- others think I'm nuts.

October was a big month as I celebrated my 43rd Birthday, that I honestly thought that I would never see by learning that our second-(and probably last)born was going to be a son (Gabriel, I think). This brought about mixed feelings, as I wrote about at the time, but in the long run, I am so happy that I could just (par-done mi French, again) dance! This is also about the time that I started my crusade to inform everyone I could about the dangers of chiropractic stroke. I know... your tired of hearing about it, so I won't get into it... just remember... read this!

The presidential election took place in November-- finally! After three-and-a-half years of campaigning with such a disappointing outcome, I'm sick and tired about talking politics. I had more important things to address! With the Anniversary of my brain attack looming, I was reminded by my pinkie, of my resolution. Although, my attention had shifted to the probability of it being caused by chiropractic manipulation, I was still letting myself down by not fulfilling the promises that I made myself. Time to, among other things, get back to the gym and get a better overall attitude.

I have been doing better in December, but there is still much room for improvement and I am looking forward to 2009. I intentionally left my resolution a little vague last year and that is against all of the rules for goal making. I need to be more specific next year. Overall, though, I think this year has been a great one and, more importantly, I have made it through the 2008 Year In Review. Reading back through it, I don't like it but... I'm still going to publish because I took all of this time to write it.

I'm about halfway through with another one from a different angle, however. Maybe tomorrow I will try to finish that one up and post it: Things I Learned in 2008? If not... write to you next year! In the mean time... Happy New Year. Read this. Buy T-shirts. Peace.

Monday Morning Quarterback 1.12

Cyber-Monday Morning Quarterback this week. I really don't know what all of the big hub-bub was about though. I haven't seen any increase in sales at SkeetzTeez at all! I'm still hoping that we will see some kind of sales increase before the holidays. If you think  about it, the designs in my shop are going to appeal, mostly, to people that fall into a demographic as mine... impulse buyers that often wait until the last minute. So there is nothing to worry about yet.

I've been off for the last four-days in observance of Thanksgiving and I haven't posted anything in five- or six-days so I have a lot to get caught up on and only a half-hour left on my lunch so let's get to my notes from the weekend:

• Ever notice that the Jewish community usually observes holidays while most others celebrate holidays? It's like one big party when you're thirteen and then no more fun until you get married or die.

• Did you hear of the tragic story of the Wal-Mart employee that was trampled to death by 2,000 Black Friday shoppers? I don't blame the store because they did not do anything different than thousands of other retail outlets across the nation but what does that have to say about our society?

• I went shopping for a short time on Friday and it was enough to turn me off for the entire holiday season. Besides being, literally, run into by a rude, fat man in one of those electric carts and having some DVDs taken out of my cart, I don't think I saw even one act of Christmas spirit in the three stores I was at. I'm doing the rest of my shopping online.

• We've had our first snowfall of the year. It was just a dusting but I'm surprised we've made it through alive. I left 30-minutes early for work this morning and still arrived 30-minutes late. This is surprising as I thought everyone would be at the grocery stores stocking up on milk and bread like they were going to be trapped at home for a week, instead of on the highways freaking out on black ice in the middle of my path downtown.

• More than several years ago a roommate of mine took a loaf of bread from a woman's cart that was stocking up for a big storm. She had a cartload and we just wanted to make a sandwich.

• We may have a new family tradition for Thanksgiving. We avoided the stress of visiting both sides of the family and went to the Holiday Parade and followed it with a family movie matinee (we were the only three in the theater) and an afternoon nap. May be the best Thanksgiving we had since being married because there were no fights!

• We have another tradition on my side of the family that we have been doing for several years now. I don't know who's idea it was but I think it is brilliant. My dad, brother, brother-in-law and I meet in the morning the day or two after Thanksgiving and help each other string up our Christmas lights followed by a leftover feast at Mimi's.

• Although I like white lights on the house, this year we are going green. The new LED lights cost three-times as much but they supposedly use much less electricity. In addition, they are more durable, so we may be able to use them more than one year and they are about 10x as bright. The traditional white lights look like yellow next to them.

• Watch later this week for my Top Ten List of Holiday Movies. I don't know what makes me an authority of the subject but, honestly, what makes anyone else an expert either?

• I noticed on Yahoo that today is World AIDS Day. Remember when we new very little about AIDS and it was all over the news? Now that we have been convinced that it is not a real threat to the average American we rarely think about it but it is still killing millions of people in the third-world.

• Those of you that follow my blog know that I was planning on sharing my post, From the Bottom of My Heart, at a special Thanksgiving service at church. I wasn't sure how I felt about opening up in front of all of those people but I am glad I did and I hope others got as much out of hearing my story as I got out of sharing it.

• Our pastor printed and handed out copies of my blog post on Sunday so my secret may be out and members of NC3 may be regular readers now. If you are... Welcome. I will have to be sure to keep it clean.

• Weighed in today at 186!

• Happy Birthday Asher! Just in case she ever checks in on the blog. I doubt it though since she is a big-shot college student.

• The one year mark of my stroke came and went without much fanfare. I have tried to write about it several times but just can't find the time to gather all of my thoughts into something worthwhile. I will try to get something done on it this week but here is the story summed up in a quick note. Good news: Remarkable recovery of close to 100% and I am probably in the best shape in the last 20-years. Bad news: No one cares to hear that I had a major brain injury except insurance companies and since it has been a year, I promised MLW that I would stop using it as an excuse for my incompetence. I guess I will have to go back to blaming my incompetence on being a male.

• Although many are tired about hearing my story, I am still on a mission to tell everyone I can reach about the risks involved in chiropractic treatment. If you or a loved one put your well-being in the hands of a chiropractor, you must check out my Squidoo lens Sroke-Chiropractor.

Buy T-shirts. Peace.

 

Monday Morning Quarterback 1.08

No, you don't have your days mixed up. I'm running the MonAMQB log on Tuesday again because I was off yesterday. We get a floating holiday at work this year that I really don't understand how it is different from any other Personal Time Off which we switched to from Vacation and Sick Days several years ago. There is not a list of days that you must choose from to take your floating holiday on like Columbus Day or your Birthday. I just happened to take those days (a coincidence that they were on the same day this year) because MLW was off and we had a doctor appointment scheduled.

I don't have many notes from the three-day weekend because my mind was trying to get wrapped around the ultrasound on Monday and I wrote about that yesterday. I did have a few things jotted down, though, and I will try to expound on them a little bit as I have the space and time:

• Thanks for all of the birthday greetings. It was nice the way that the baby stuff, sort of, overshadowed the annual reminder of my imminent demise, but also nice for the special wishes.

• Facebook is really slick. It's a nice way to keep up with people of different degrees of interest in a mutually acceptable way. Don't understand what I mean? Let me put it more bluntly: You can be friendly with people that you want to and people that you don't care to with a, seemingly, similar amount of effort. Now you get it? How 'bout this: You don't have to contact all of your friends individually-- you can just post a greeting and everyone is responsible to read it at their leisure.

• SkeetzTeez has had a terrible dry spell until this weekend, when things picked up a bunch. I did, however, make enough over the last month to order MLW some cool maternity shirts and had some money left in the account to get myself my favorite new, Man on First: Wiffleball t-shirt!

• My shirts are getting more attention when we wear them out in public so I made up cards with the websites listed to hand out when people ask about the designs. M3S is a great model and I even had several people comment on the See Spot Run design on Saturday.

• Thinking of a way I can get talent shots on the cafepress Site. Want to be on the Web? Send me a picture of yourself in something you bought on SkeetzTeez and I will give you something in return. What? I don't know what! But something... good.

• If the Rams can win a couple more, it may be hard for our fantasy team to have a better record at the end of the season. Right now, we're tied.

• It's chili season again! I am signed-up for a couple of cook-offs but I am torn between sticking with my award winning Screaming Mimi recipe which, technically, I should not be able to eat on my new diet or go the more healthy route, modify the good-but-not-good-for-you ingredients, risk that it sucks and be the laughing stock of the competition?

• Do bees die in the winter? M3S loves to go to the farm and watch the beehive that they have in a two-sided glass display case. We go maybe once a month or so but more often this time of year because they have the harvest festival with corn mazes, a petting zoo, pony rides, a pumpkin patch and other fun stuff for the kids but his favorite part is still watching the bees. He is such a smart boy and I just want to find out the answer so I can come up with an explanation before he asks.

• I have started a list of things that M3S says and asks that I will write on in the near future.

• In the simplest terms, I am thankful that I made it to my 43rd Birthday because there was a period of time in the last year when I wasn't sure if I was going to make it and, if I did what kind of shape I would be in.

• Iron Man: 3.75/5 stars. Don't Mess with the Zohan: less than 3.0 and it is not a family film.

• Visit my Squidoo Lenses if you have any interest in any of the subject matter and make your own if you don't. Each lens is updated at least weekly with fun new stuff. I currently have all of these available for your viewing pleasure:

• SkeetzTeez: Pop Culture T-shirts and Gifts

• Urban Cougar

• Urban Prankster Network

• Shermer High School

• Mix Tapes

• How to Make a Suck for a Buck T-shirt

• Jort Fashion

• Mullet Fashion

• That's What She Said

• Immaturity

• Giving it 110%

In closing, I have had a few people say to me recently (most of which I have known for 20 or more years), "I didn't know you could write!" My immediate reaction is to reply, "Well yes, they taught me that in Grade School and I have been doing it ever since," but I don't want to be rude.

Most people can tell a story or joke or about their summer vacation without much of a problem but have a brain freeze when it comes to putting it down on paper. I have found that it is so much easier to write then speak. Part of this may be because of the trouble I was having with my speech but, when you think about it, what is really the difference between speaking and writing? In my opinion it is much easier to write because you have time to think about what you are going to say and you can always erase and redo it you get in trouble.

Fact is, I am having a ball doing this. I sometimes get bored with new projects quickly but I still look forward to taking the 45-minutes to an hour to have my say. I hope anybody reading is enjoying it as half as much as I am. If you know anybody that may be interested in it too, please forward the link on to them and...

Buy T-shirts. Peace.

The Big Question

Today was the big 20-week ultrasound. Any parent knows that this is the test that they are usually able to tell the gender (we say gender instead of sex) of the baby in Mama's tummy. I am writing like I am talking to a three-year-old because, since MLW and I found out that we were expecting our second child, I have been spending most of my time explaining, as best as I could, the whole pregnancy thing to our first-born.

From the moment he could understand that he was going to have a new sibling, he was sure that he wanted to have a little brother. His mother and I were torn between a boy and a girl for several different reasons. When we had this test with the first child, we were both hoping for a daughter. There was a little bit of disappointment even when we heard, "It's a Boy!" I know it sounds weird because expecting parents are always saying, "We don't care as long as the baby is healthy," but I think it's alright to want a healthy baby boy or girl. 

Now that we have had three wonderful years with our Son, we both would want nothing more than to have another boy but it's not that simple. There are so many things to consider when you are talking about raising a boy or a girl and when you add up all of the points for each gender, it makes it hard to have a preference.

MLW wants a daughter because we have a girl's name picked out and, although she won't say so herself, I think she would like to be able to dress up a little girl and do her hair all cute and stuff. On the other hand, she would like another son because she is convinced that all girls grow up to hate their mothers at some time in their life and we don't have to deal with wedding planning.

My opinions are similar in that I think it would be fun to have the All-American family with a boy and a girl. I think it would be great to have a little Daddy's girl and I want to experience as many different things in my life and we are planning on this being our last child so a daughter would be good.

I can't help thinking, though, of how much fun we can have wrestling around with two little boys. We already have all the stuff we need to raise a boy and I would not have to paint any rooms or anything if we have another son. Most importantly, though, is the fact that I don't really think I could handle the tween and teen years with a young lady. I, truly, think that I would lose my mind when she starts dating and stuff.

My wife's OB is a wise lady and has some good stories about her own kids. Her husband was happy when they found out that they were going to have a son because they would save money on toilet paper. I don't really agree with him on that statement but he also said, "With a boy, we only have to worry about one penis..."-- good point.

At this point you are probably thinking, "What is it going to be?" especially if you are one of the individuals that I made read the blog to find out. Well, without coming right out and saying, let me tell you... we did have the ultrasound today and we are all soooooooo happy.

Mama will just have to convince one of her future daughter-in-laws to name her baby girl Anna Bella Sophia because Paulie is going to have his baby brother. Now if I can only explain to him how the doctor's going to get him out of Mama's tummy. While I try to come up with something... buy T-shirts. Peace.

Monday Morning Quarterback 1.07

I was just too darn busy last week to get to the Let's Roll article where I usually post the numbers from the previous week. Sales at SkeetzTeez have been sluggish, to say the least, but from what I gather, with the economy the way it has been, I should be lucky to see any kind of traffic.

Top five keywords that resulted in visits to SkeetzTeez or SkeetzTeez Blog:

5. favre

4. jorts

3. urban cougars

2. cubs

1. suck for a buck

Top five designs sold at SkeetzTeez

5. Suck It Trebeck

4. Sweet Sixteen

3. McCain/Palin (McMaverick/Sarahcuda)

2. Slapshot- Charlestown Chiefs

1. Big Brother (Sister)

Here's my notes for the week:

• Too bad the Cubs Fans Wear Jorts T-shirts didn't catch on any quicker. They were bounced so quickly from the payoffs that no one had time to hate them. Oh well-- there's always next year.

• The Urban Cougar lens is getting so much traffic that it past my foundational lens SkeetzTeez in the Squidoo rankings. It is mostly perverts looking for porn but the site is rated G (but may lean towards PG).

• Hey-- the Rams didn't lose this week! I wish our fantasy league would have buys so we could say the same.

• October 2- First sighting of this year's Christmas stuff at the stores (Walgreen's).

• I actually cleared $1.35 from my Squidoo lenses in August-- after contributing to my charity, StrokeNet! I didn't realize I was doing anything to make a dime!

• Now that the economic bailout package has been passed, let's get things fixed with the market and such. It's hard to get anything done with the whole nation in a panic.

• Isn't it bazaar how all QTs are almost exactly alike? From the pattern of taquitos on the little rolly things to the general appearance of the uptight clerks trying not to look uptight is all spookily the same. I sometimes forget which location we are at when I come out from one of the 8-10 weekly trips and have to check the GPS before we get on our way.

• QT does have the best beverages available and the bathrooms are fairly, acceptably clean and easy to find (very important when M3S decides that he does have to go potty even though he was sure that he didn't have to the 17 times I asked him in the half-hour prior to leaving his Mimi's house.)

• Along with thinking about names, I never thought I would be so concerned about poop in my adult life either-- and nobody wants to hear about it so I will stop there. Except...

• Funny: Schwa said he had a poop like sand. (I don't know how that can be so hilarious to me and, at the same time, scar MLW for life.)

• I'm a little worried about my brother. He's turning 40 this week and I'm not sure, but it seems like it is affecting him more than it did the other guys. I sent him a Dr. Porkenheimer's Bonerjuice T-shirt from the shop. I hope it cheers him up! Happy Birthday C-Bear!

Hope everyone has a good week. I am still real busy but plan on having several blog entries after my weekend with my best buddy, including a story on Why I like Mondays, my thoughts on another birthday coming up and the ultrasound where we find out the gender of the baby next week. Buy T-shirts. Peace.