MLK Day 'The Dream'

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. day. A day to remember a great man that stood for peace and unity. I like what the man had to say. I believe in his message.

A problem I'm having with this day is even though the black community loves the man they seemed to have lost the message. Character doesn't seem to count for anything. Life doesn't seem to have much value. A sports star or a gangster rapper seem to be the role models of the black youth of today. Apparently being a dad and taking care of personal responsibilities are not important.

Am I stereo typing? Yes, but there is truth in what I'm saying. Of course there are plenty of black people that are good parents, hold down good jobs and contribute a tremendous amount to society but not as many that could and should.

I hope one day that we all realize Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'Dream' to live together in a truly color blind society but that dream seems to be fading away. That's sad because right now the black community needs a dream to believe in. We all do.

Happy Birthday Abby!!!

Today is my Daughters second birthday so in her honor I thought I would treat the world to an Abby dance. What is an Abby dance. It's what happens every time my daughter hears music.

The video was taken with my digital camera so the quality could be better.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIRL

Strip And Rip

I didn't have time to do much this weekend. Apparently "it's time to get our two year old a bed" is some kind of girl code for we are going to remodel her room. So all weekend was spent tearing wallpaper down and getting the room ready for pink paint. No fun at all.







As always, "it's for the children" works well on my conscience.

Words To Remember Before I Forget

My oldest child is always saying something that cracks me up but after a few days I can never remember so I thought I'd put them in my blog so I could have them forever. If you're not the type that thinks kids are cute now would be the time to Click.

A few weeks ago my brother promised me he would lend my six year old a computer video game my son wanted to play. Everyday when I got home he would ask me if his uncle had sent the game? I would tell him no but I would remind his uncle tomorrow. Well this went on for about two weeks. One night I was tucking the boys into bed my son asked if we could say the prayer? You know, now I lay me down to sleep ... well we get the end and before I could say God bless so and so, my son says "and God bless help uncle M to remember that game."

Another

Last night I was sitting on the couch and both my sons were sitting with me. My wife and daughter were on the other couch. My son says with a smile "Daddy there are three boys in this family and two girls, there are more of us." Trying to teach my son that gender doesn't matter I said "son if there were four girls and you nothing would be any different." Without missing a beat he said "where would you be then daddy?" My wife looked at me and laughed. Yeah, he got me.

Matt who?

I'm having this minor irritation at the gym that is causing me a little bit of embarrassment. How many times can you say a joke before it ceases to be funny? Apparently some people think there is no number.

There is a guy at my gym, I barely know him but he seems like a nice guy. Well apparently he thinks I look like this famous fighter in the UFC. Every time I come in the gym and he's there he screams Matt Hughes and sticks his arm in the air. At first it was funny and I asked him who Matt Hughes was but after 6 months of this at least twice a week I struggle for a reaction.

The setting is always the same I walk in, he's on the other side of the gym and does his scream and arm thing then everyone in the gym turns to see what he's talking about. I kind of give a stupid wave then a stupid grin then look for the nearest corner to hide in until people go back to their workouts. God help me if Matt has had a recent fight then he screams every detail of the fight like I was the one fighting. "You really got the hit hard in the face" he screams across a crowded gym.

I really hate being the center of attention and I'm starting not to like this guy either. I think it's time for the joke to end. Please.

The Price of Happiness, a pain in my ass

As some of you may know from my 'The Price Of Happiness' post, my sister is getting a divorce. I think I've made it clear that I didn't think she did enough but I learning to accept it. Now a new problem comes as a result of my sisters divorce.

My sister lives about four hours away from my family and my parents live about a mile from us. My sister has two girls age six and four. They are wonderful children but as you can imagine the divorce is starting to affect them. My mother has always treated my sisters kids a little better than mine. She tries to hide it by waiting until mine aren't around to give them extra gifts and stuff but we see it. She treats my kids good so I can live with it, besides my sister is the only girl and the baby of the family so she has always been favored, I'm use to it.

Well my wife isn't use to this obvious favoritism. Its always been a struggle to keep peace between my wife and my mother concerning this favoritism. The problem is now that my sister is turning her attention towards her work and away from her family my mother has taken upon herself to "be there for the children". She has had them down for a week, drove up there to visit, sends them gifts every week with I love you notes and we just found out they are going on a Disney cruise in February.

I happen to agree with my mom's approach to this situation. The girls are going through a tough time and they need all the support they can get. Well this extra, extra attention is driving my wife crazy which means she is driving me crazy to do something about it. Every action my mother takes gets me hours worth of ear chewing. My wife is not heartless in fact she's a good aunt to the girls but it's the previous treatment that has caused this reaction. I can't say she's wrong I just think you have to pick your battles wisely.

Now she doesn't want to bring our kids around my parents until they treat them equally. This will never happen. This reaction will punishes my dad, who has done nothing wrong. My wife keeps pushing for a confrontation but not between my parents and her but between my parents and me. The more I resist this confrontation the angrier my wife gets. Tension is high to say the least but at least my sisters happy, right?

The weekly visit to Walmart yields another thought. I don't know if this is going on in the rest of the country but down in the south you can't go to a Walmart without seeing at least five or six RVs parked in the parking lot. I'm not talking about some clunkers I'm Talking about those high dollar 200,000.00 to 500,000.00 RVs. They park around the edges of the parking lot and stay at least for the night.



Why would people who could afford these kind of RVs be in them anyway? If they like camping then Walmart isn't exactly the great outdoors. For what they spend on the RV, gas, Maintenance and supplies they could travel anywhere in the world first class. Most Camp grounds have cabins you can rent.

Them being at Walmart doesn't bother me at all I just don't understand why people would spend that kind of money to sit at Walmart, hell I can do that in my car. Its true that they have their supplies with them but if I need something, well hell, Walmart's right there.

Fashion and a Friend

I never thought I would be doing fashion on my little blog but never say never, right?

My, (pause to think what to call her) secretary, friend, older sister I never had, wore what I think is a neat shirt to work today. She dresses to the nines everyday of the week except on Fridays when she wears jeans and whatever. Well today she wore this shirt that I haven't seen anywhere. I don't keep up with fashion so this may be old news. The shirt makes it look like she has tattoo's down both her arms. A good way to try out a design before you have it done permanently if you ask me.


I'm lucky to work with someone who just let me take these pictures with no questions asked. While I'm thinking about it, I'm lucky to work with her for a lot of reasons. Although most people that meet her find her to be a bit rude, shes from New York living in the deep south, I find her to be a warm and caring person. As I might have said in past post I am way to nice and she is just the type person I need to balance out this flaw at work. She's certainly not a 'yes' man if you know what I mean. We couldn't be more opposite. Despite this she constantly tells me there's a spot in heaven waiting for me when I die. I doubt its true but its nice that someone thinks so.

We have worked together for eleven years and I know that no matter what she is looking out for me, even if its from myself. I guess what I'm saying is the shirt looks cool but the person wearing it is cool. In my book anyway.

Divine Intersection

I was listening to NPR on the way home tonight which I really shouldn't do because their bias reporting makes me angry. Counting to ten... Ok, I was listening to NPR tonight and a story came on about signs from above that suggest divine interventionIt made me think of a story that had happened to me.

One Saturday morning I was on the way to work, my wife and infant son were going along to keep me company. It was kind of a lazy drive because the usual rush hour traffic of the week was non existent. I pulled up to a red stop light and waited. All of a sudden a shadow passed over my car. It had a triangle shape but not to defined. It was just big enough to cover my car.

The light turned green in front of me but nobody was behind so I leaned forward to see what had made the shadow, nothing. Then I looked up from the side window, nothing again. I could see my wife doing the same. This all took about three seconds. I started to press the gas to go through the light when a Astro mini van flew through the intersection from the cross street. He totally blew his red light and had to be traveling about 60 mph.

If I had taken off when the light turned green the car would have slammed into us in the side of the car my son was sitting on. That shadow may have saved our lives. It was a clear bright morning and we never did see anything in the sky. I have to believe that something stepped in to save us. Could this have happened to me before and I didn't notice? I have my proof.

Happy New Year, January 01, 2007

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2007