Pro life, baby...

This ad ws denied by NBC. Pause the music to hear the commrcial.

I will be home tomorrow...

and I get to work from home next week.

WOO freakin HOO!

This is definitely a Mutley-and-his-treat-dance kind of moment.

Being on the road is hard. The money is good and all but that only goes so far. As does a video camera on the computer. I'm ready to be home for a while. Take Madison to school. Play duck-duck-goose with Ian. Have Reagan play with my hat. Have them play hop-on-pop. Watch The Incredibles. Talk to them about their day. Hold Kelly's hand. I have come to the realization that I don't do that nearly enough.

It is true you never know what you've got til it's gone. I miss them like crazy and tomorrow I will be with them for a whole week.

The car I'm driving has Sirius radio. They have an 80's station. I have heard Taco's "Puttin' on the Ritz" twice so far. I don't think satelite radio is all it's cracked up to be.

Ottawa is starting to grow on me. I still don't want to move here but if it came down to it it wouldn't be a death sentence. I saw a house for sale that was perfect. 3 stories. Older home. Right down the street from a park. Very Christmas Story and Charlie Brownish. I could see the kids playing in the park. One thing I noticed is a disturbing absence of fences. There are no fences. Open yards everywhere.

I am on a crusade against fast food. I have been eating more of it in my travels and I actually was constipated. I know TMI but it's relevant. For those of you who know any male Pfaffenberger you know constipation is an ailment with which we are normally not encumbered. I blame the fast food. It's the Subway diet for me.

Tell the one you're with you love them.

Now don't get me wrong...

the last thing this country needs in the world is for Obama to fail. The economy can't afford it. The security of this nation can't afford it.

I hope he doesn't fail.

But I'm sure you're familiar with the saying those that don't remmeber the past are doomed to repeat it. Well not once in American history, not once, has taxing the electorate been a stimulus for the economy. Did I mention not once? As a matter of fact just the opposite is true. When taxes have been lowered the governement generated more revenue.

The problem with Bush's economy was he spent like a democrat. If he had shown some fiscal restraint, we would have no economic crisis. We came out of the great depression not because of FDR's New Deal but despite it.

I've seen th media compare Obama to FDR. I don't think they know how right they are.

Did you ever notice...

at night, all cities look the same from the sky? A vast expanse of bright orange lights.

For those of you that don't know, I have been traveling a lot. To Chicago. Well, an hour west of Chicago.

It's not too bad. Except for the car rental people. Not the brightest bulbs on he tree. It always seems to take an hour to get out of there. Plane lands early and you're expecting to make a quick getaway to be at the hotel at a decent hour when your plans are thwarted by Boo Radley behind the counter. Frustrating.

In comments to my last post, I was asked if I was proud to be an American. I am so proud that I will actually wear a lapel flag pin and put my hand over my heart during the pledge of allegiance. I am so proud that I actually joined a pray for Obama group on Facebook.

What I am not proud of is a president who makes closing a facility that holds terrorists and allowing federal funds to be used to kill babies again two of his first acts as president.

Nope. If this is hopeanchange, count me out.

Don't you hate days when nothing happens?...

What a boring day. Nothing going on anywhere. What this country needs is some big event to rally around. Something on a grand scale where all caution is thrown to the wind.

I don't know what it would be though.

Some event where everyone is included. Where everyone despite his or her beliefs would feel that their concerns are paramount to those in power. Some event where the outgoing are thanked by the masses rather than booed. Some event where color is not an issue. Where phrases like "white sees right" are not heard.

Where the words "hope" and "change" actually mean hope and change to all.

Man, that would be great.

Back in Big D...

Only a couple more weeks of this then I hope to be going week there week home. I think that will be feasible.

Some people have no freakin clue. Guy in the hotel room next door to me did his laundry both nights. He left his door ajar by swinging that little latch thing that keeps your door from being open all the way when it is closed and used it to keep the door ajar. Seems he would check his laundry every 15 minutes or so and when he did so he would open his door and let it slam against the little latch thing causing a sound that can only be compared to a sonic boom. Shook the mirror on the wall. He did this until about 11:30 both nights. No consideration whatsoever.

So on my last morning there, I bumped into the door joining our two rooms on more than one occasion. I also banged on the wall periodically for 20 minutes. It was 6:00 am. I hope I woke his white trash behind up. I didn't really do that but I sure wanted to.

I spent one evening of my life watching a movie called Valley of Elah. I know it was one of the bevy of negative movies about the US but I wanted to see who killed his son. Don't see this freaking movie. I only watched it because I was stuck in Ottawa Illinois on a Thursday night. At the end, Tommy Lee Jones who is ex-military, flies a flag given to him by his son who subsequently has been murdered. As he drives away we see that the is flying the flag upside down.

Serves me right for watching a movie with Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon in it. All of the soldiers are borderline psychotic meth using yahoos. I think my policy of not watching movies of America hating leftists is in tact. I just need to test the waters every once in a while just to make sure.

Actual conversation of my Dollar rent a car bus driver and his trainer:

"OK. What do you say?"
"About what?"
"When you leave the base?...Leaving..."
"Leaving..."
"We talked about this...Leaving base, 10-20, Terminal 3. Go ahead you do it"
"Terminal 3..."
"No...Leaving base, 10-20, Terminal 3. Try again"
"Leaving Base, Terminal 3"
"No...Leaving base, 10-20, Terminal 3. Just. Like. That."
"10-20, Leaving base"
"Son!?!"
"Leaving base, 10-20, terminal 3."
"Good now make sure you watch out your mirroros when you are making turns. Watch those mirrors"

About 25 feet after he said that the guy started to run over a concrete pylon because he didn't turn out wide enough. The trainer took over and got me to the airport. I finally realized later the trainee was sitting in the passenger seat being trained on Tuesday when Dollar picked me up from the airpirt. That guy had been training for 3 days...and he couldn't say "Leaving base, 10-20, Terminal 3." and he scratched up one bus after being told specifically to watch for just that.

Oriental men travelers are the worst. I am in row 22 and this guy is in row 23. Seat belt sign goes off and he jumps ahead of me in the aisle. When I pulled my bag out I nailed him in the head with it.

Any body seen "Falling Down"?

The Thermometer Works...

when I got in the car and turned it over, to which it responded like a fraternity guy at 8:00 on Sunday morning, the thermometer read -20. Yes. A minus 20.

Brrrr! It's sure cold here!

I just hopped in again to keep the battery charged and it has warmed up to -17. It's the kind of cold that...well...the kind of cold that...puts you at a loss for words. When I walked out there just a second ago, I did not know my nose had been running. I have Kleenex with me and I blow regularly and keep the stache clean of runnage. But on stepping one foot outside, the cold goes straight for any liquid it can find. Ian would be frozen in place. His diaper would freeze up so fast he would look like a Vesuvius victim covered in place. Literally within 5 seconds of walking outside and realizing I had liquid on my stache I went to rub it off but broke off a piece of stache instead. It froze that fast. It is kind of scary. If you are outside in this for any length of time, watch out.

Ottawa continues to bore the crap out of me. I seem to be bordering on cussing but haven't quite made the leap. At least this time I have a hotel directly across the street from the office. Next week, there is not a single non-smoking room in Ottawa to be found. I have to go to Oglesby which is abouy 15 minutes away. Saved me $200 though. I'll make it work.

Stay warm.

Back in Chicago...

where it is butt cold. There is no other way to say it. It is cold. I don't think the car temperature gauge goes below 0 degrees. It is -2 right now and the car still says 0. I'll know tomorrow. It is supposed to be -3 for a high and -14 for a low.

Used the camera for the first time tonight. It was great. It is going to make the time here go by much faster. I love technology. Ian asked if we could play Duck Duck Goose as if I was sitting right there in the room with him. Then he said "You're in Daddy's office!" Well worth the $40 bucks.

The work is going well. I still seem to have them snowed in that they still like me. They keep asking me if I am going to be there next week. I think when the month is up I will be able to go a week here and a week at home.

Not much of an update and rather tame I know but I will get back in the swing of things soon.

Home again, Home again...

The work/interview week in Chicago was a success. They liked me and I probably won;t have to move. I can just contract for a while.

Works for me.

It was great to see the the family. They had actually grown since I saw them last. The first thing I did Saturday was buy a camera for the computer. I have one on my laptop and they have one on their computer. We can see each other now instead of just the phone. It's going to be great. I hope it will take some of the sting out of not being here too.

I think it will.

Friday when I got home Ian said he wanted to go to the airport with me. I told him in a few days we would be going back to the airport so they could take me. He looked at me and said, "No daddy! No airport! You stay home!"

I almost picked up the phone and told them I would not be coming back. It was very sweet and heart warming and tugging at the same time.

This will be a hard time being away with Kelly having to do it all. Them growing up. But that will all be tempered by the fact that I will be making some serious jack.

There's a silver lining in every cloud.

Chicago Day 3...

Another day another dollar.

Still cold still snowing. It was bitter cold today though. Yesterday was about 27 and today was about 24 but the difference...the wind.

Holy crap it blows cold here. The wind chill was about -20. Brrrrr!

The initial reservations I had about this area are fading. I still would not want to live here but I don't think that will be necessary. They know I am busting my bottom and doing some good work and that will pay off. Probably with a week here and a week home. They said I could work 4 10 hour days so that makes the week home even longer.

I could make enough in 8 months to take off from October-December. That would be nice.

I miss everyone. Hope all is well.

I'm going to bed. Good night!

Chicago day 2...

I can see from all the comments on my last post that everyone was waiting with bated breath for my next blog entry.

As if I wasn't depressed enough.

I am here in Ottawa, Illinois working my keester off. And missing my family like crazy. The only saving grace is that it snowed 4 inches last night. Very pretty.

My first impression of Ottawa was not a great one. It's about an hour southwest of Chicago. Flat. Today however we drove to an area I had never seen. The downtown area. It was very cute. Big old churches on every corner. And I mean big and old and every corner. It was very Charlie Brown-esque.

Made me feel better about living here if need be.

In the meantime, I am making some good money which is extra right now so that is nice.

I'll keep you posted on life in the frozen north. That part I like.

Something's not right here...

Mike and Kim have more blogs than I do in the past two weeks.

Time to remedy that.

I don't know why I haven't been motivated to blog lately. A combination of a few things I'm sure. Christmas is over and a semi-depression always hits me. If you were not aware, I really like Christmas. I mean really really really like Christmas. I anticipate it so much and it always meets those expectations but after it's over it's only inevitable to feel some sort of blase' feeling.

On top of all that I got laid off in early December. My last day wasn't until December 31 but that kind of put a damper on things. Needless to say the pool industry has been hit pretty hard by this economy. It ain't pretty there right now. I think I'd rather be looking for new things.

I found a few too. I am going to Chicago tomorrow to work for a week. It's a 3 month contract-to-hire deal. I'm not sure if moving to Chicago will be necessary but it is a possibility. We are praying it is not but we'll go if we have to.

I also have a good opportunity in Miami. Although, living in Miami holds no appeal for either Kelly or me whatsoever. But we'll see.

So, things could be worse. I'm coming out of my funk and you will soon see the insightful wisdom, political savvy and hilarious commentary you have come to expect from this blog on a daily basis.

For instance...

I'm thinking of buying an electric shaver, and I don’t want to hear any arguments. There will be rueful nods and sighs – we thought better of you; we thought you appreciated the old ways. I don’t want to hear how it’s a link to bygone standards of manliness, what with the razor slapping the strop and the soft cluck of the lather machine and the clink of the combs dropped into blue bottles of Barbicide, the Esquire mags on the table, the smell of cigars, the hearty bonhomie of the tonsorial parlor. Fine. I know. And I know there is something comforting about the ritual of shaving in private, the way you face the fellow in the mirror and stare into his eyes at least once a day. I know there’s a virtue in good lather, but even when I used a quality cream I felt as if I should be grinding up lather-rock and adding witch hazel and applying it with bristles taken the belly-scalp of English hedgehogs. All of this I know. Lost art. Convenience over substance. Haste over meaning. FINE. I’m just tired of making the sink look like a scene from Hellraiser.

I know it’s my fault; I should prep the beard, swaddle my puss with scalding towels, use better cream, better razors. I was perfectly happy with the multi-blade razor that vibrated like it was full of bees; either on or off it did the trick, more or less, but I balk at laying out a double sawbuck for four refills. Disposables? Don’t get the store brands, because those things are like shaving with a garden rake. I wasn’t going to go for the two-blades; no man likes to think his beard can be tamed with a mere two blades, not when science is working as we speak on a razor with more blades than a Chinese acrobat pyramid has levels. Three blades seemed right, with a “lubricating strip” that deposited a stratum of imaginary soothing-agents on your face. The first shave was always good, unless you cut yourself making a turn on the jaw, in which case you had to have the razor put down immediately. Once they go rogue, taste blood, they’re useless. I usually managed to cut myself once a week, though – the side of the lip, or one of those absolutely unstanchable disasters on the top of the philtrum. Once you’ve opened a new account, so to speak, you’ve no choice but to scrape it open the next day, unless you shave around it and cultivate a small plot of beard to go with the conspicuous blot of clotted blood. If you have two going at once, well, you look like you shaved by dragging an angry parakeet over your face.

A Norelco, because it’s as traditional as you get. Right? Santa drove one in the commercials on the Rudolph special. There are several models, of one which actually dispenses Nivea cream as it passes; while that seems like a jolly treat for the mug, the cartridges are $20, which defeats one of the objectives. I’d have to put it on by hand. But that would be traditional, wouldn’t it?

I used to shave with an electric. Things I liked about shaving with an electric: you do other things. You can shave at your desk, if you really want that Jack-Lemmon “Days of Wine and Roses” vibe. When you’re done your face feels mostly shaven – not blade-slick, but you’re not blood-slick, either. Downside: you lose your place if you’re not paying attention. Shaving cream, like the rear view mirror, tells you where you’ve been. You end up grinding the razor into your face over and over just to be sure, and this leads to the dreaded Chin-Burger Syndrome. Previous experience taught me that the chin hates electric razors, and responds with all manner of dermatological protests. We’ll see.

At least the first shave will be the same as the shave I’ll get tomorrow. Someone once planted a horrible seed of doubt in my mind: he said the blades in the introductory packs of a new razor were better than anything else on the market, and once you’d tried them you’d switch. Even if the real blades weren’t as good, you remembered that first perfect shave. At the time this struck me as the sort of paranoia you find in the people who thought they airbrushed SEX into ice cubes (or, my favorite subliminal example, airbrushing SEX into the photos in Playboy, because otherwise you’d be completely at sea as to the point of the pictures) but as the years go on, I wonder. That first shave with a new brand is better than any other shave you ever get. It makes you wonder if there’s a whole different level of razor technology reserved for the uppermost elites, the Presidents and Premiers and 33rd degree Masons and Popes and Politburo poohbahs and everyone else who lives in the rarified air above. The job has to have some compensations. Obama’s first day in office will begin with the best shave he’s ever had.