uhhh... can I fill out some more paperwork please?

God I love paperwork. Its just so fun to write the same stuff over and over and over and over again.

But honestly, with this much practice you think I would be a pro by now. I still make rookie mistakes though! The biggest one would have to be putting my own name where either Jadon or Tristan's names are supposed to go. And the 2nd biggest would be putting my birthdate where their birthdate's go or where todays date is supposed to go.

I rarely ever put the previous year, generally Ill put todays date and then 1980 (yes, Im getting old, but I am aging quite nicely if I do say so myself!).

Currently I am doing laundry (well, Im blogging, but laundry isn't as much work as it was a hundred years ago either), working out some stain issues on some of our shirts. I am also getting Jadon's backpack ready for his first day of school TOMMARROW!!! Which means I am working on.... dun dun dun.... more paperwork!

I signed up to help with the Science Fair this year and also to help do some things when the Pacific Science Center comes.

I got the keys to my new apartment today! I immediatly made an extra copy of each and bought a new padlock for my storage area. Moving is going to be nice, but I am really looking foreward to that day 2 weeks from now when the boys and I all wake up in our new apartment for the first time. With everything in the house being ours, with me providing everything we need. I hope that I've finally found a place to call home again, I haven't had that feeling since I lived in Everett.

We met with Jadon and Tristan's teachers today, saw some friends from Daycare and Sports. I signed Jadon up for Cub Scouts (WOO HOO) and its looking to be a busy year.

Considering since last monday I have pretty much been moving at a constant pace. Doing something after work everyday, filling out paperwork, turning paperwork in during my lunches, meeting up with people, signing things.

I am really excited for some cougar football this weekend, and a bunch of other things I've got planned with my friend Sarah. We don't get to see each other very often so we've planned an awesome Weekend! Its going to be a blast!!

Well, Ive got work to do and things to write and re-write (plus some actual fiction writing) to do, so I best get off the internet.

Excitement!

If I haven't said it before (and I know I have) IM MOVING! YaY!

I get the keys this wednesday, Ill hopfully move a few things in Wed and Thur night, then the following tuesday-friday I will move more stuff in. Anything I've got stored in someone's basement or garage or shack or whatever is going to be moved into my new townhouse by the night of September 5th. Then on September 6th and 7th I will proceed to move everything we are currently using, including ourselves!

Its been 2 1/2 years since I've seen 90% of this stuff. I hope all of my appliances still work! I hope there was no Mold or Rats or anything else! Should be ok.

It will be so great to finally get all of my momentos and pictures and stuff back. To live in my own Space again.

So yes, that is exciting. But what is also exciting is next weekend! I'll be spending the whole weekend in the Seattle Metro area doing all kinds of fun stuff! Its going to be a blast!

Speaking of which, one of the things I am doing is going to the Cougar Football Game! I've been keeping tabs on 4 cougars in the NFL so far this year and I am liking what I am seeing.

We'll start with Alex Brink, our Quarterback from last year. He is a rookie quarterback in the NFL this year, he was drafted to the Houston Texans. He played in the pre-season game against New Orleans. I don't expect him to play much, in fact I hope he doesn't! I think he might just have what it takes to be a really good QB in the NFL in a couple of years, but he needs to put in his time first.

Next I'll move over to Jason Hill, an awesome Reciever that moved onto the NFL. This will be his 2nd year with the San Francisco 49ers and his Pre-Season numbers are looking really good so far. In his last game he put up a touchdown and almost got to 100 recieving yards!

Now on to the Seattle Seahawks Cougars. Marcus Trufant, a favorite as always, doing good. Just watched a one on one interview with him on Seahawks.com. We all had his number painted on our faces when we went to a Seahawks game last year. But the Seahawks have a walk on Rookie Reciever named Michael Bumpus that has done some awesome things for the cougars! He has also been doing really well so far this pre-season, and with all the injuries and other issues the seahawks are having with their starting recievers I am hoping they definitly won't cut him, and he may even see some regular season play time as a rookie.

Also in Cougar news, while the boys and I were getting our Hairs cut at SuperCuts today the boys asked me about a cougar poster. Its the new poster with thier new coach Paul Wulff. I explained to the boys that they have a new coach and I told them his name. Suddenly to my right 2 heads swiveled in my direction, so I looked over and Awkward! Paul Wulff and his wife were sitting in the seats next to us!!!

Winds of Change

Its been a very good day, I wouldn't go so far as to say that yesterday ended a chapter in my life, but it does very much feel as though today has opened up a whole new chapter.

First off, the boys are back!! I was just about in tears at the airport. I got there a bit early and their flight was delayed about 40 minutes. I bought a book of Sudoku to work on while I waited and that was fun.

They were very happy to see me, I kept eyeing Tristan though because for like the first 10 minutes he looked really happy but really emotional. He never cried but his eyes were welled up a bit the whole time. I missed them so much!

They proceeded to talk non-stop literally from the moment I picked them up until they went to bed at 7:30 lol. It was awesome!

I got to tell them some really good news when I picked them up, and its news that is from today and I am about to share with all of you as well. Momentarily.

In March/April of 2006 My wife flew down to Phoenix and I came home to Pullman. The plan for me was to work a couple of months, save and then move down to phoenix. That plan soon changed. Then things were kind of up in the air and then things turned towards divorce. Once that happened I made a conscious decision that it would be in the boys best interests if I lived at home during the duration of my divorce so I could better provide stability during such a trying time.

That is exactly what I did, although there were several times I questioned it and several times I couldn't wait anymore, I pressed on. Trials Set and then cancelled at the last minute were the real killers, I even had started making plans at times related to these. 3 Trials later...

Suffice to say, I've been living at home for 2 1/2 years. My divorce finalized only 3 months ago and as of this day I officially have an apartment of my own! YaY!

Ive always lived with a parent, a roommate or a wife. I've been raising the boys by myself for a long time now, but I've never been 100% responsible for EVERYTHING in their life until now. I am cutting things so close that my rent plus all of my bills combined is equal to the amount of pay I get from SEL in a month, the only money I will have for fun, clothes, extras, sports, birthdays, christmas, activities, and so on, is Child Support.

I can do this, and I will do this. But so far I am scared to death at the thought of it.

Yesterday wasn't the end of a chapter, it was a happy end to the book of my life so far. Now its time for the sequel. Not just a new chapter, a whole new plot with new characters and settings.

Peace Out All, I love all my friends and family for all the support I've ever recieved, emotional or otherwise.

Looooong Week of Work and a Late Night

Hey all, just wanted to talk about my week a little bit.

As you know I started a new position in Shipping 4 weeks ago. Normally the department has 5 people in it and it feels a little like they have spoiled themselves the last couple of years because they haven't had any turn over for awhile. Well about 2 months go one of their guys quit and another one gave notice (moving on to bigger and better things). I came in a month ago to replace the first guy and then the 2nd guy left. My friend russ came in a week later as a possible replacement but so far he is just in the dept. temporarily. They found this one completely useless girl to come in and take over for the 2nd guy that quit.

So as of 2 weeks ago we had 3 people with tons of experience in the department and 3 new people. Things were working out well, but then this last week happened. I don't know if I have ever witnessed so any things go wrong at one time before. The department lead goes on a vacation for the whole week, we come in on monday and the guy he left in charge has a serious family emergency and will also be gone all week!

Now we are down to ONE guy with 5 years experience, one guy who has been there for 4 weeks (me), one for 3 weeks and one for 2 weeks... Well the guy with all the experience is a good guy, but he isn't a leader, or a problem solver. It was working pretty well, but we were hitting 11 to 11 1/2 hour days every day.

We were expecting Friday to be the toughest day, it had the most units to ship out and such so I volunteered to come in 2 hours early (fully expecting a 12+ hours day) and Russ followed suit and came in about the same time.

Well, things were going pretty decently, we finally got the girl that had been there 2 weeks to stop doing stuff she wasnt trained for yet so we didnt have to babysit her so much. Then we go to an early lunch at 11:15. We come back and the guy in charge looks the worse for wear, he looks pretty shaken up. He tells us his wife has been pretty sick for awhile now with Lymphnoma (I think that was it) and she has having a really rough day and may need to go to the hospital and he has to leave, now.

He felt really bad, but family comes first so Russ and I let him knew we understood and that we would get by without him. I had him spend a couple minutes training me on a couple of things as he was on his way out the door.

Ok, so 12 o'clock Friday, we have a total of 3 shippers with a combined total of 9 weeks in the department (plus some help with No exprience). We managed to pull out a really really good day out of it despite the circumstances, I learned a lot about troubleshooting and all sorts of stuff.

This whole week, friday in particular, left us all pretty drained. So Russ and I met up with a friend of ours down at My Office and we all got hammered. It was a ton of fun. Then we got a ride home.

Anyway, that is good for now. I hope everybodies weekend is going well. 2 more days until i get my kids back! WOO HOO

Its Good to be King

Ok, so "Jump" by Kris Kross was a little much to have on there for too long! This is more my style :).

Just a brief update, things Im really looking forward to:

6 more days and the boys will be back in town!

Going to be moving finally, very soon. The plan is December, but that's my conservative plan, I should have the target achieved by around October.

I get the boys for Christmas this year!

Labor Day Weekend is going to be a blast! Lots of stuff planned, the boys will be camping all weekend with their grandparents and great grandparents and I will be hitting the west side! Look Out Seattle, Here I come! :-P

and I just wanted to share something that Tristan said to me on the phone tonight, it hit me like a ton of bricks!

We were chatting and talking about him coming home and he said, "I'm Happy...but it feels like Im crying... but Im not" my eyes are welling up just typing it, like they did when he said it. I don't think he has ever said something so real, and he has been having such a hard time emotionally the last 6 months.

I know I say it all the time, but I cant really tell you all how much I love my boys, and how much I've missed them, I'm starting to think that the next few days are going to be the hardest!

daddy mac'll make ya JUMP JUMP

wikiti wikiti wikiti wak

2 weeks from today I'll have my two little mischief makers back! I'm super excited, I thought I would pick a new profile song with a little energy. Strangely, house of pain came out with "Jump Around" the same year Kris Kross did "Jump". Looking over the top 100 songs of 1992 makes me quite suprised I survived the early 90s at all. I guess I still listen to some of that stuff...

I am really liking my new position at SEL, I can work at my own pace which means I don't have to get bored waiting for all the slow pokes that worked in my last department. A slight raise, plus regular overtime, helps as well. Not a ton of overtime which is good, just enough to keep me happy :-D.

I AM SUPER EXCITED to get my kids back. Being a single parent raising two boys can be down right difficult at times. Hair Pulling, Pumpkin Kicking, Red in the Face, Road Raging, Scream at the Top of your Lungs D-I-F-F-I-C-U-L-T. But its also the most fun, amazing, rewarding experience of my life. As hard as it can be, it doesn't compare to my summer times without them, sure raising kids is a challenge, but letting someone else raise your kids for 2 months out of the year and having very little contact with the two most important people in your life is just plain obnoxious.

That someone else I mentioned is their mother, we'll see if they come back to me in one piece! lol! Im just joking, Nicole is a great mom and at some point during our horrid divorce/custody battle we both agreed that there would be no fight for custody if we didnt live so far away from each other (she likes living in 120 degree heat, and probably still wear sweaters).

It sounds to me like the boys have been having a whole TON of fun down in Phoenix, so I hope they aren't too disappointed when their boring ol' dad gets them back! They go down there rocking out to Queen, Muse, MC Hammer, Pearl Jam and many others, and they come back listening to Air Supply, Gwen Stefani, Jo Jo and the list goes on and on... lol. Nicole and I did have some overlapping music interests, but for the most part it was stuff the kids shouldn't be listening too (like Nirvana, System of a Down and so on).

My grandparents came up to visit over the weekend, we ate dinner and played 3 or 4 games, it was a lot of fun. I forgot my birthday present down at their house and I need to go get it. I've decided collecting maps is a hobby of mine, interesting ones, old ones, or just ones that have no meaning and look cool. Well, they gave me this Atlas that came out in the 1920s. It was a HUGE book and its an Atlas that completely focuses on a single County in Kansas. The county my Grandpa was born in.

Something far better than the gift itself is when I got to sit down with my Grandpa and go over it and he would look through it and tell me stories and point out places he had been, the farm he had been born on and lived on. Whenever I look at that atlas I will always think of that day, its more than just an awesome old book, its a piece of my Grandpa's life, a life with hopefully many more years to come.

Ummm, what else do I want to talk about? hmm, well, oh right!

Well I have lots of plans lined up for when the boys get back, one of which is the Cougar Football game in Seattle on August 30th! The boys got me 2 tickets for Fathers Day and they look like Great Seats! I am hoping to stay the whole weekend, if things go according to plan I am bringing the boys over and their Auntie Jen is going to pick them up and take them up to Bellingham to spend some time with my nephews while I take a friend to the cougar game. Not sure yet what I am going to be doing the rest of the weekend or where I am going to be staying, but it is going to be a TON of fun!

Alright, thats probably good for now,
This is the Daddy Mac, signing out! (no I don't normally go by that, just tying it in with the title people!)