Ramblings of an Englishman (and his American bird)

In Which I'm Doing OK

2008-02-04T20:28:00.000-06:00

Hey people.

Well where do I start? I guess I should start about a month ago....

Ashley died in a car accident on the 8th of Janurary. (I'm sorry if this is the first you've heard of this) She was hit by a ten ton truck on the drivers side and I am told that she broke her neck and died instantly. She was the only person in the car.

My boss called me while I was building a display that I'd just managed to sell into a Walmart in Hammond (about an hour away from Baton Rouge) telling me that Ash had been in an accident and to call a person who works in a store at the intersection. I called him as I was driving back. He passed me over to a police officer who said he hadn't been over to see the paramedics. Neither of them would tell me anything. I half knew that she was dead by then.

So I raced back, as I was coming up to the junction down from the one that the accident was at and Joe (FIL) called me and told me to go home. I told him I was just down the road so I came up.

The car was a wreck. Joe and Dianne (MIL) were already there. I parked by them, the policeman directed me to Dianne and she just said "She's gone."

The pain I felt at that time was physical. I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I can't describe it, and I truely hope none of you feel anything like it.

The policeman drove us back to Joe and Diannes house. Joe and Dianne got out of the car and I just said that I wanted to go home and see my mummy. I am so glad she was here.

The rest of the day is kind of a blur. Lucy had an appointment at the doctors and it was the most important thing in the world that I take her. She didn't have a mummy anymore and I couldn't fail her as a daddy.

There was people who were round at my house, for the rest of the week pretty much. I think that's enough details for right now.

People have been helping me so much. Mother has just helped by being here, Cindy a deacon from my church has helped so much with all the details. Father Vic, the old reverend from St. Margarets changed his plans with great difficulty to fly in to do the service, Murphy Ash's Christian Counciller has given me sessions for free, Tobys sitter has looked after Toby and Lucy for me. My church family and friends have been supporting me so much. I have enough nappies and formula to last a year. I had a fridge and a freezer full of food. People came over and have cleaned my house for me several times.

Ash's online friends have helped me as much as they possibly can from a distance. Dan, one of Ash's Twitter friends set up a fund. He came over last week with a cheque for $7,800. I have got various cheques from all of the mommy boards that Ash was a member of. That is all very much appreciated, but the biggest gift they gave me was their memories, thoughts and prayers. There was an Ashley I never knew. Fortunately their was a lot of people who did. I call them online friends but they were as true friends as anyone she met IRL.

I have so much gratitude for all of the people who have helped me. I wish there was some way to express it. There are so many wonderful people who have helped me. There's nothing I could do to repay it. All I can say is thank you.

The service was beautiful. Ashley would've loved it. It was standing room only at the church. Chelsea, Mindy and Tammy all got up and said beautiful things about Ash, about how she changed their lives. Some of her friends from church sang a song for her. I couldn't move more than a foot without getting a hug from someone.

The Monday following the Saturday servicewas my birthday. I went to church on Sunday to get blessed. That wasn't easy.

A couple of weeks later Lucy got Christened. That was hard too.

The next three big things coming up are Going back to work (on Wednesday), Valentines day, and our anniversary (the 3rd of March).

Now, I know you all want to know how I feel. I'll try and let you know, but I'm not too eloquent so you'll have to forgive me...

Emotions I am feeling:

ANGER: Why did she do something stupid like get herself killed and leave me two little kids to look after? Where's the timing in this God? You had to take her now?

FEAR: How am I going to handle looking after two children and keep a roof over their head? How am I going to tell them that their mother is dead? How messed up will they be? When is my time? I can't die now. I have to look after my children.

LONLINESS: My bed is too big. I miss her. I miss her smile. Heck I even miss her nagging. I miss cudding up the couch with her watching rubbish TV. I miss her laugh.

RESOLVE: I HAVE to stay alive, for my children. I must love them enough for two. I have to be there for them. Everything else comes second, my childrens happiness is first.

BLESSED: To have so much support. That my children and mother weren't in the car with her. That she was the happiest I'd seen her in a while for the last couple of weeks of her life. That she spent the morning before playing with Toby. That the last thing I told her was "I love you". I know Ash isn't just looking down on me. She's carrying me.

Linda, mother, Lucy, Toby and I have just got back from Florida after a long weekend. It was refreshing. It gave me the strength to write this.

We're going to be alright.

God bless all of you. I beg all of you to drive carefully. Saving two minutes on your journey isn't all that important.

In Which It's Been Almost Two Months, So I'd Better Write Something!

2007-10-26T23:47:00.000-05:00

Well I've had a busy time the last couple of months, but not really much to talk about. This is only going to last as long as my drink and then I'm going to bed, so don't expect much now..

I'm still an ASM (Account Sales Manager) but I'm no longer merchendising. I haven't got my own route yet though so I'm just riding round with people. It's not great, I've pretty much learnt all I can. It good to be a partner with whoever I'm riding with rather than a trainee, we work together and help each other out (two heads are better than one) rather than me just standing around watching. I still would like my own route though.

My grass is coming up nicely, I didn't put enough seed down in the back so it's a little patchy. I'm going to have to wait until spring until I can overseed it, but it looks a lot better than it did. I learnt from my mistake and put down plenty of seed in the front so hopefully that will turn out just right. The grass is just popping out of the ground right now, give it another week and it should look nice. I've also cleaned out the garage (we've finally finished upacking) and we can fit two cars in there now, which is nice. It makes me happy anyway...

The Sequel is coming out on the 19th of November. We're about three quaters of the way to being prepared, but the last quarter is making Ash very anxious. It's starting to make me a little anxious now, been as we only have three weeks left. The only thing we really really need are bottles. Now I think about it though the hospital gave us a bunch of bottles after Toby was born. I'm a little less anxious now! The Sequel is looking like it's going to come out at around 7lbs, which is about average. Ash thinks it'll be bigger though. I don't think it'll be as big as Toby (he was over 10lbs)

Ash is not having fun right now. She's uncomfortable all the time. The baby has decided to sit right up under her ribcage and squish her lungs. Well actually the baby is so big now it's squishing all of her insides. Work is becoming very tiring for her and just moving around a little bit is exhasting her. Three weeks seems like an awfully long time (but not long enough) for her.

Toby is still a happy little boy. He gets a little stressed a bit easier when something doesn't work how he wants it to. For example the other day he had two new bath toys, a rubber duckie and a little scoopy thingy and he threw a fit when he couldn't fit the ducke into the scoop. Meltdowns and injuries are getting more common, but he usually only cries for a minute and then he's back to his happy self. His vocabulary is getting bigger, his favorite words are "Mummy" (not mommy - I'm happy about that!) "Daddy", "Truck" and "Doggie". Doggie is his newest one. Oh, and "Bubbles" that's a great one. The other day some friends of ours from Mississippi came down with their son who is the same age as Toby (he calls Toby "tobytobytoby" he can't just say it once. It's very cute!)and they were playing with a bubble machine and they were both flapping their arms everytime bubbles came out and saying "Bubbles!" pretty much in unison. There's avideo of it somewhere, but only Ash knows how to get to it. I'll have to find it so you can all have a look.

Oh, I gave up on the drainage thing for now (if you remember back to my last post) and have been concerntrating on the grass. It's just a bit too much money for right now. I'll get back on it when we've got some money. Ash is going to be off for three months without pay so things are going to be hard for that time, but We'll struggle through somehow...

My cousin Sarah had a little baby girl a week ago. Her name is Annabel, and from the pictures she looks very cute.

The weather here has cooled off a bit. It's only about 23 degrees centigrade here, so It's a bit chilly. Alright, you can say it. After five years of living here I've turned into a wuss! When it gets colder it reminds me of home. Although right now I don't really want to be reminded of home after the result of the England Russia game last week. We were playing so well! How could we loose? At least it the past I could say we weren't playing very well, but team that played the last four games looked like a good team, a team that had a chance in the world cup. But now we probably won't even get there. Bah! Well at least we got to the finals of the rugby world cup. Someone at work ruined it for me though. I had the Quater finals onwards left to watch, and the guy tells me the result! The only person I've ever met in this country to take any interest in a non-American sport and it was then. Talk about bad timing!

Anyhow, my drink is gone, it's 12:30 and Toby is probably going to wake up at 7 tomorrow, so I'm going to bed. Goodnight!

In Which I Do A Day In My Life

2007-09-09T16:30:00.000-05:00

It's right here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=21151&l=c07c9&id=564141083

You can have a look if you want.

As far as news goes there's good news and bad news...

The bad news is that Ash is sick. She has a cold and been as she's preggo as well it means that it feels worse than it would for any normal kind of human being. She also got her face scratched by Max. Here's a picture:

Max was sleeping next to Ash and something started him. He decided to run across Ashley and jump off the bed.

The good news is that I got the promotion, right now however I'm back mechendising again, but it's alright because I'm getting paid an ASMs salary to do it!

The other good news is we got ourselves another cat. Max really need a companion been as Ash and I are away everyday. Her name is Georgie and here's a picture of her.... Alright there's not a picture of her, the computer is rufusing to play nice. Anyway she's a sweetie. She's white with black dots, in fact she looks like a feline version of a cow.

We painted the kitchen, living room and our bedroom. The alllook very nice now, it's made the house a lot more homely. It was all the same colours all the way through, which was very boring. All we've got to do now is finish unpacking and sort out the garden.

Tomorrow I'm going to try and build a stone drainage area round the outside of the house. It's good for two reasons, first the houses here don't have gutters, and second it makes it easier to spot termites, thirdly it just looks nice. Then I'm going to build a little sitting area out the back, some raised flowerbeds and a little area for a shed. We still have to put grass down but it's just a wee bit too hot still for that. Maybe in a couple of weeks we can do that. I want to get the flowerbeds in before that though.

Anyhow, I'm unpacking some stuff right now, so I'd better get back to it.

In Which Charlie Passes On

2007-08-23T20:43:00.000-05:00

Charlie got out a couple of weeks ago and got eaten by a dog. It's very upsetting. He was a great cat, very fond of feet and he was always very silly. I remember when he was a kitten he would crawl up under the bottom of the duvet and sleep on my feet and tickle me, and there was a certain spot on his back where if I scratched him he would rub against my foot so hard he would flip over. He will be missed, especially by his brother, Max. When we took them on a eighteen hour car ride up to virginia they slept on top of one another.

There's lots of other stuff I have to tell you, but I don't feel like doing it right now.

In Which I Get A Promotion!

2007-07-28T20:47:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I'm now a trainee ASM. Or at least I should be sometime next week. It's all very exciting and I'll let you know more about it when I'm actually doing it.

I read Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (I actually finished it a few days after it came out. I enjoyed it, but I wish there was more in the epilogue. What did they end up doing for a living? I'm being vauge just in case y'all haven't finished it yet.

I also read The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Nighttime. That's a very good book. I didn't mean to read it as fast as I did, but I got around the point where Christopher and the rat go into the garden (yet again I'm being vauge - if you've read it you know when I'm talking about, if not I don't think this'll ruin it for you) and my heart started racing and I just had to finish the whole thing last night. I really enjoyed it. Even more than Harry Potter I think... I guess it's kind of hard to compare. But Harry did get rather borning in the middle of the book didn't he?

Now for something completely different.

I realised this morning that I'm living in a foriegn country. Sometime I forget this. Not when I'm watching the news or anything about politics (then I think "These crazy Americans!) but just driving around and doing normal day-to-day stuff. I have been living here for almost 5 years. Or maybe 6. I know that the anniversary is coming up (or maybe it's just gone? I can't remember) that's more than one sixth of my life...

Maybe I just realised this because I have just read two English books. for some reason me reading "20p" (as in twenty pence) seems like something from way back and I felt strange handling English (and Scottish) money when I was over recently. The only thing that really sets me apart is my funny accent, but even that has started to be a routine thing for me.

Well anyhow the point of this rambling is that I'm basically writing to you from a forigen land and you probably don't know about Donk cars.

Apparently, from what little I know of these cars (I'm no expert and I certainly haven't Donked my car!) It's easier to see what I'm writing about than me trying to explain it... So here's a picture:

Not just on huge wheels, but spinners! here's a link to the site (there's a video too, you can watch the spinners in action! Oooh!)http://carblog.99rides.com/2006/11/06/donk-on-30-inch-rims/
This is a very shiney looking one, I've seen five or six of these riding round town (not many on 30s though) and they look ridiculous. In fact that's where the name comes from. ReDONKculous. I just thought I'd share that bit of Southern culture with you. They do always make me smile when I see one.

Anyhow, I've got to go and feed the cats. They're settling in very well in case you were wondering. We haven't let them outside yet, maybe next week.

I also did my day in pictures, but the battery has run out on the camera, so as soon as we find out where we packed away the charger I'll get those up on here.

In Which Our House Becomes Our Home

2007-07-20T22:44:00.000-05:00

Ok, It's late, so this is going to be a quick one. At least as quick as it can be with all the catching up I've got to do!

First off here's a picture of our home:

It's very nice. The house is 4 bedroom 2 bath (I don't know if I told y'all that before, it's been a while...)

We were furnitureless for a couple of weeks. That wasn't fun. I was kind of dreading coming back to the house because we only had patio furniture to sit in and an air bed to sleep on. Not exactly comfortable! After a couple of weeks we had a washer and dryer, and furniture.

This was our living room for the first couple of weeks (give or take a few boxes):

I did get fed up with that after a while though and made us a couch:

And now we have loverly furniture!

Here's our table:

Here's Toby enjoying the table:

That's not his real laugh by the way, that's his sitting at the table telling a joke laugh. He's a very funny guy!

and our sofas in our living room:

We also got a very comfortable king size bed, which is GREAT! there's now space for me, my preggo wife and all her various pillows! I haven't got any photos of that though. We're still waiting on the bedroom set (it'll come in the middle of august) so we've only got the mattress and box spring right now.

The only bit of furniture we're missing is a couple of bookshelves, and a futon (and my big screen TV. That will have to wait a while though.... That's long enough! where is it?!) We're going to get the futon after mother has been here, we're going to borrow a twin bed for the three months she's over, that will give us time to save up for a nice one.

Anyhow, so there's a little tour of the house. there's a lot more pictures at: http://www.dropshots.com/adspencer

Well apart from the unpacking and everything else, I've also been hard at work at work. The thing about hot summers is that everybody wants a cold drink. What with promotions at my Walmarts and merchandisers quitting all over the place, I've been working an awful lot! I just went in for an interview yesterday for a relief ASM position, so who knows? either I'll get it or I won't. Whatever, either would be fine with me.

Toby is doing great, he's handled the move with no problems, he's still got teeth coming in and has crazy rash all over his bum but that doesn't stop him from being the happiest baby in the world.

Ash is doing good, The Sequel likes lying on her nerves though (she should be used to that though, I've been getting on her nerves forever!) so she always has pain going up and down her legs, and we found out today she has gestational diabetes again. She's still finding time to laugh though, and she's the happiest I've seen her since we were living in Virginia. Probably since all the way back when we were living in England...

The Sequel is good and healthy. I'll scan the ultrasound pictures sometime so y'all can have a butchers. Don't hold your breath though!

Ash and I have seen a couple of movies recently, in fact we just got back from seeing Transformers. Man that's an awesome movie! It's what cinemas are made for! I told Ash I refuse to go to the cinema to see a movie without explosions. What's the point in paying the price of renting 5 DVDs to go and see a couple of really big dudes talking? Big explosions now that's what you want to see. Dudes talking can be TV sized, but the bigger the better with explosions!

So the other film we went to see was Spiderman 3. It was alright, nothing beats the first one though.

Now with all the explosion stuff in mind, we will have to go and see the new Harry Potter movie. But that's got it's spectacles in it though right? I told Ash she'll just have to be happy with the new book this weekend (she's going to have to finish it, I've got to read it on Monday and Tuesday when I'm off work!) and maybe we'll go see that next weekend.

We also rented out a few movies. Stranger Than Fiction, which was pretty darn good, Happy Feet, which was pretty much a waste of time, and Fearless, which I'm going to have to watch tomorrow. (See what I mean about talking and explosions? I'm sticking to my guns on that. Oh guns, they're also acceptable in a cinema. Any kind of action really. Nothing beats huge robots fighting though!)

It seems like I've given more space to films than I have to anything else. I feel like I've done an injustice to my new home and my family. Oh well. Films are made to be talked about though aren't they? Well I guess here's another video of Toby enjoying his new kitchen:

In Which We Have A House!

2007-06-29T19:22:00.000-05:00

Yup, we closed today. It was pretty stressful. Our mortgage advisor told us two hours before we closed that we had to come up with $5500! Shocked? Yes we were! Luckily we had that money, but we were expecting the seller to cover that (that was how it was explained to us when we put in the offer) so we're going to have tighten the purse strings quite a bit.

Apart from that (major) hiccup everything is good. We have to wait three weeks for the furniture to be delivered, so we're not really sure when we're actually going to move in. On one side we've got a furnitureless house, and on the other we've got the crowded condidtions in the Brewer house. Still we don't have to make a decision on that right now. I've got most of our stuff over there, I think I may have to make two or three more trips. Anyhow, that's enough of that. Y'all will have to comeover and have a look at our new pad sometime.

I have a very funny story that one of Ash's mummy friends sent to her, I have to share it because it's so funny! I mean it's really funny, even if you don't really care about kids. By theway, Parker is her little boy. He's about Toby's age.

"Tues I was at my parents' house. Parker was extra hyper and really
getting on everyone's nerves. He kept trying to take Teagan's milk
from her so when she dropped her cup under a chair, I grabbed his
hand and held on so that she could get it before he did.
Well, it took forever for her to get it and he was putting all his
body weight into trying to get free from me. Eventually he started
getting angry so just as I let him go I said, "Oh NO!!!!! Parker,
mommy made that arm longer than the other from pulling on it!!! You
better give me the other arm so I can make them even."
So, he gives me the other arm and seems genuinely concerned LOL

I pull the other arm and as he leaves to go torment the cat I
say, "Parker!!!! Now your arms are longer than your legs!!! I better
pull on those!"

Back he comes and lays on the ground while I "even out" his body.

Next thing I know he is standing in front of me with his pants down
and holding his penis as if to give it to me. I guess he wanted that
longer too LMAO"

Isn't that a funny one? Well anyhow, I've been going at a hundred miles an hour all day and I've got to build two big displays at my Walmarts tomorrow, so I'm going to bed.

In Which I try Out Truck Driving and Decide Against It

2007-06-14T14:16:00.001-05:00

Well I was a truck driver for a day. Here's the reason: With two of us working the truck it took us fourteen and a half hours. Apparently that is an easy day. Most days would be between 16 and 18 hours a day. That wouldn't be so bad apart from getting paid by the day, and overtime is $5.15 p/h (which is a joke) so it pretty much works out that if I worked at Walmart and did a doulbe shift I would get paid more than I would being a truck driver. And they wonder why they can't keep any drivers...

The good news on the job front is that I got a raise. $10 a day extra. So the fact that I completely failed (or they completely failed my expectations) as a truck driver is softened a bit by me doing the same easy job and getting an extra $2,500 a year. So there we go. I'm happy still.

Ash is doing well, she was sick last week but she seems to have recovered ok. Toby is still great, I think he's going to take me to the zoo tomorrow for Fathers Day. We're still waiting for an approval on the mortgage, and thats about it.

In Which A Lot Has Happened (And Is Still Happening)

2007-06-04T19:17:00.000-05:00

Wehey! Did you miss me?

Well there's things going on over here... Big and interesting things...

First off, We have put an offer on, and had an offer accepted for a house. Woohoo! It's a loverly little place, just down the road from Joe and Dianne and just down the road from the babysitters. It's 1755 square foot, 4 bedroom, 2 bath. It has a two car garage, a big kitchen with a breakfast area, and its only 8 months old. There's some photos here: http://www.dropshots.com/adspencer . We put in an offer for $189,500 with them paying the $8,500 closing on it and they accepted. We're happy. Now we just have to wait and see if the underwriter will approve us for a mortgage... So keep us in your thoughts/prayers please.

Secondly I'm going to be a truck driver! Wehey! 7up are going to train me up and pay for me to get a class A license. It means more money, which is useful. The downside is that my day will start at 4 in the morning. I'll be finished be 12 though, so that's alright. I've got a 160 page manual I've got to study. I'm going to start riding around in a truck next week (although last week it was this week, so it could be next week next week. It makes sense to me anyhow!)

So there's the good news. The bad news is that Ashley has been sick the last couple of days and I haven't been sleeping too well, but Ash is doing better today and is back to nagging me about stuff, so I think that she's well on the mend... So the good outweighs the bad.

Anyhow, that's about it for right now, sorry it's so short after so much silence. Deal with it!

In Which I Come Over The Pond And My Brother Gets Married

2007-05-07T16:42:00.001-05:00

Well I'm here, typing on my mothers computer. I got here on Sunday, and I would've been more frequent with my posts but I've been very busy! I'm still busy actually... So much to do and so little time to do it! So here's a quick(ish) rundown of my week.

SATURDAY
We got to the airport on time and everything, the biggest hassle on the way over was getting the car seat and stroller and Toby all through the security. Toby was fine on the plane, a little crabby for the first half an hour and then he fell asleep. An hour later someone came over the loudspeaker and shouted "IF you would like to sign up for a United credit card...." and Toby woke up crying. Apart from that he was fine. On the next flight they tried to put us in a normal row (instead of the bulkhead) but Toby was kicking the lady in fronts seat and was far too cramped in there anyway, so they realized the error of their ways and put us in the bulkhead. (The crazy thing about this is that had we not paid for the extra seat for Toby we'd have automatically got the bulkhead!)

SUNDAY
So we landed at about 7:45ish in the morning. Linda and mother were both there to meet us. They had to be so we could get all our stuff back! We got back to the house and had bacon buttys and had a nap. I woke about an hour later and started phoning friends, Shuaib said they were having a kickabout (footie) at the park. That gave me a minor dilemma. Sleep like I should do (I had maybe 5 hours sleep in the last 36) or play footie like I haven't in 4+ years... So obviously I played footie! Then Ash, Toby and I went to the pub to meet my dad, we had a couple of drinks, we went and had fish and chips (battered sausage for me!) and I went back to the pub to meet up with my friends for a few jars. I staggered in at 11:30ish I guess, had a nightcap, and went to bed.

MONDAY
We drove all the way to Scotland (Glasgow to be precise. Blanefield to be even more precise.)We were happily greeted by Aunty Marian and Uncle Bill. That was pretty much most of the day.

TUESDAY
Mother, Toby and I drove over to Edinburgh Toby and I got fitted for our kilts, Toby met Dave and Angie for the first time. They loved him (how could you not?) I met Angie for the first time. She's a very nice lass. We went to their place for a cup of tea and I met Glen, Angie's 5 year old son. He's a cutie. Then we came back to Blanefield.

WEDNESDAY
Mother, Linda, Aunty, Unc, Toby, Dave and I went to Loch Lomand for a barbecue. Much fun was had by all. Toby had fun throwing pebbles into the loch. Mother helped evade an attack by a swan. In the evening Mother, Linda, Dave, and I went to the pub. We came back, Mother went to bed, I bought out a bottle of bourbon I bought over and me and my bro and sis continued drinking until the wee hours. I went up to go to to bed and Ashley was up with a sick Toby. I immediately sobered up and told Ash to sleep on the couch and I would look after Toby. Fell asleep holding Toby in my arms. (The best way to fall asleep by the way!)

THURSDAY
Didn't do much during the day, we went to Milngavie (pronoucned Mill-guy) and did a little shopping, that was about it really. In the evening mother and I drove back over to Edinburgh for a wedding rehearsal. It's a very nice church and the vicar was from Buffalo, NY. Afterwards mother and I drove back to Blanefield again.

FRIDAY
We drove back over to Edinburgh I got dropped off at Dave and Angie's house and Ash, Toby and Mother went to my cousin Catherine's house. She has two children so was well prepared to help out with Toby, who was doing a little better by now by the way. The last couple of days he'd just been sleeping. He's been diagnosed with Teething and too much excitement/not enough sleep.

At Angie and Dave's house I just tried to stay out of the way. People were rushing about everywhere! I got booze for the evening and wrote my best man speech (always leave things up until the last minute!) Mark Venning and Simon Allison (Floyd to his mates) turned up, and we all went round to one of Angie's sisters house for drinkypoos.

SATURDAY
Woke up a little worse for wear, but not that bad. We went to the driving range in the morning and hit a few balls, the we went and had a cooked breakfast. After that we realized we were kind of short on time for getting ready for the wedding. We got back to Danielle's (the sisters) house and had an hour to get ready. There was four of us. So after a lot of rushing around we all jumped in Dave's car and race over to the church.

Angie decided to turn up 45 minutes late. That's alright though, it's pretty much expected. Dave did start getting a bit tetchy after half an hour though... Wedding went well, I didn't drop the rings or anything. Angie looked beautiful and Dave looked happy. (Angie looked happy, and Dave looked very handsome as well, but you could probably figure that out by yourselves..)

The reception, and my speech, fortunately there was a lot of faffing about so everyone was growing impatient and hungry, so I cut my speech short, and took out all the uncertain parts. As it was, it lasted about 30 seconds to a minute. Oh well I covered most of the major points. Everyone had lots of fun, Toby was enjoying himself hiding under tables and the other kids were enjoying themselves telling em where he was. I got to catch up with my cousins and some old friends and everyone enjoyed themselves. A nice guy who I'd basically only said hello to had offered to drive us (Ash, Toby and I) back to Catherine's house which is pretty much on the other side of Edinburgh. I am very grateful to him for that.

SUNDAY
Chilled around Catherine's house for a while, played Guitar Hero with Fraser (Catherine's hubby)went over to Dave and Angie's house, had a cup of tea, and mother drove us back to Blanefield.

MONDAY
Drove back to England (Reading to be precise. Woodley to be even more precise.) and wrote this.

Pictures to follow. I know you want to see Toby in a kilt. They're all the camera right now, I'll see if I have time tomorrow to get them off and I'll post a few.

By the way, if you're near by, come to the Coopers Arms in Reading at anytime after 7ish (I'd imagine) on Friday night for drinks. Shoot me an email with your number if you haven't already and I'll give you a call tomorrow. I just have to go into Reading and sort a few things out so I'll be about the house for most of the day I should think.

In Which I Come Over The Pond And My Brother Gets Married

2007-05-07T16:42:00.000-05:00

In Which I'm Leaving For England!

2007-04-28T09:05:00.000-05:00

I'll be there at about 10ish in the morning local time. Email me you phone number if you want to meet up in Reading. I'll be in Scotland from Monday for a week. I don't mind going to the pub as soon as I get there (whether the wife will let me is a different matter....) my email is peterspencer10@hotmail.com. I intend to check it as soon as I get to Reading. Even if I once had your number you can still email it to me to be sure.

See you tomorrow!

In Which I let You All Know I'm Very Happy

2007-04-17T10:12:00.000-05:00

I went on a retreat this weekend. It gave me a chance to step out of my life and actually look at it. I think I'm the happiest I have ever been! Especially when I look back to where I was last year. Prayers have been answered! I am truely blessed! A quick list:

1. I was working 12 hours a day in New Orleans, and am now working 6 hours a day just down the road!
2. Ashley was in a very very bad place a year ago, and now she is doing much better. Even with all the yuck pregnancy things and hormones and stuff I actually see her smiling!
3. The love that Toby and Ash have for each other is becoming more apparent every day (this helps out number 2 immensely)
4. I am going home in a couple of weeks and am geting a chance to see my family and friends!
5. We are a month (or maybe two) away from being debt free!
6. We're only a few months away from mving into a place of our own (that's a prayer still in progress)
7. I'm happy!

and that's just off the top of my head. God is great!

In Which I Wish You All A Happy Easter!

2007-04-05T22:01:00.000-05:00

Happy Easter Everyone!

I guess you want a bit more than that don't you? *sigh* Alright.

Ash is doing okay, well actually the baby II (The Sequel) is doing okay, because Ash is feeling sick and tired all the time (for those of you that don't know, sickness is a sign that the baby is doing well. At least that's what they say, that might just be to make mummies to be happier about feeling bad...)

I'm tired and stressed right now. I had a meeting at work the other day and my big boss basically said to all us merchendisers "You're all a bunch of scum, and a load of slackers. I can replace you any time I want to." Which wasn't really a very productive way to talk. We're alos looking for a house, which is turning out to be harder than we first anticipated. It seems no-one wants to give us a mortgage, at least not a big enough mortgage for a three bedroom house anywhere where we wouldn't be running the risk of getting shot everyday (weighing that option up against living with the in-laws.... I'll take living with the in-laws!)

Toby is doing great, he has to go and see a speech therapist because he isn't really saying any words yet. He's signing a few words, but I'm not really sure if he knows what they really mean, or if he's just copying us. I'm sure he's fine, he might just be a bit slow like his daddy was (I didn't start walking until I was 18 months) but a bit of speech therapy certainly isn't going to hurt him.

That's all I've got really. Mark you calenders, I'm going to be back in Blighty between April 28th and May 13th!

Also I am now a member of Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/) you can look me up there if you want! Most of my photos are of Toby, but that's a lot better than looking at my ugly mug!

In Which Toby Has A Very Important Announcement

2007-03-19T18:46:00.000-05:00

Just quickly while he's getting prepared I'll tell you some other stuff. Ash and I went away for our wedding anniversary. We spent the weekend to St. Francisville and we stayed in a plantation house, it was very relaxing, we had a couple of fancy schmanzy meals and just relaxed really. It was good to have some adult time for a whole two days, but it's also great to come home and see Toby.

Toby isn't talking or listening as much as he should be so he's going to get speech therapy. He's developing alright in every other way though.

Anyhow, it's time for Toby's Very Big Announcement:

Not yet, but sometime in November if there's no problems. So there you go. Nothing else in my life over here is really important right now is it?

We're both very happy. I'm less worried this time round than I was with Toby and maybe a tad less excited, because it's not so much of an unknown. I know what it's like to be a Daddy so I don't have to worry about me at least, I just have to worry about Ash and the little thing she's transporting about (and of course juggling them with Toby - that's a different challenge!) So I'm actually happier this time round than I was with Toby because I'm not as clouded with uncertainties. I know being a dad is great so being a dad of two is even better right? Hey shh... let me kid myself!

Hopefully Ash's post-partum depression shouldn't be so much of a problem this time around as she has a shrink working with her already so it should be controlled better.

Alright, well that's it. Cheerio!

In Which Toby Walks!

2007-02-20T21:08:00.000-06:00

Yep, our little baby has now turned into a little boy! The dude is walking!

Here's some more videos and stuff:

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Not relly much else going on really.

Oh apart from one bit of exctiting news: I'm going to go and see The Police when the come to New Orleans Arena! If that's not exciting enough, I'll be watching them from a suite! With chicks giving me free drinks and pigs in a blanket (by which I mean kind of sausage rolls not actual pigs in a blanket - that would just be wierd!) Not as exciting as the Tobster walking, but pretty darn exciting!

And one other very exciting thing: I'm coming to blighty! Ash, the sproglet and I are going to be over for Daves wedding (that's exciting too if you didn't know that was happening. I get to be best man, which is also exciting!) and We'll be over on that side of the pond from April the 28th until May 13th! Mark your calenders! I'll be spending some of that time in Scotland (that's were Dave is getting married, and it's also where half my family are. More than half really.)

Okay, well after all that excitement I'm going to bed!

In Which I Get A Year Older (Along With Some Other Things)

2007-02-09T07:46:00.000-06:00

Yep. I'm an old man of 28 years now. I remember the days... When we used to drive on the left side of the road and the only fast food availible was Burger King and McDonalds... Oh I guess it's still like that in England isn't it!

We went to see our friends in Mississippi for my birthday and we all went to the Hattiesburg Zoo which was nice, not a very big place, but more interesting that a walk in the park. We played in the playground afterwards and Toby went on the slide and the swings. He LOVES both of them. He just can't stop laughing when he's on them. So of course now I will go out of my way if it's a nice day to get him to a playground.

Auntie Marian sent me a $50 gift voucher for amazon, and I decided to funkify my life with it. I got eight CD's Archie and The Bells (just as much oldies as it is funk), Jr. Walker and the Allstars (funky soul - kind of like Booker T and the MG's), The Jimmy Castor Bunch (They did Say Leroy, Your Mama's Callin' and Troglodyte), Tower Of Power (good funky funk with lots of horns, I got a live CD with a 23 minute jam in it!), Charles Wright and the 103rd St Rhythm Band (they did Express Yourself, they're also very cool), Graham Central Station (Awesome! First Time I heard it it was so funky it scared me!), Parliament (This one still scares me - but it's full of funk!), and Bootsy Collins (The bassist from Parliament. It's very amusing... And funky!) So now my life is about 60 or 70% funkified. Well, at least funkified to my personal satisfation.

Anyhow, the big thing that happened over here that no-one in any other country in the world either knows or really cares about is the Superbowl. Honestly America, really very few people in the world care about it. It's really not the Greatest Sporting Event In The World. A little thing called the Olympics? possibly the World Cup (you can choose (real) football, rugby, or cricket and you've got pretty much the whole of the world covered except for the US...) what it is however is the greatest advertising event in the world. So everyone watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IevFruVO6bo

That was really the only really funny one this year, but in serching for that one I ran across a couple from last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=232k2QPOJ1U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkeITEOVEf8

I hope they work. my computer won't play any thing involving the new version of Flash fors some reason that's too techincal for me to know anything about.

While I'm giving you entertaining links that won't work on my computer, here's another one:
http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/

This guy has hundreds of concerts on there that you can listen to for free. I think that he may send you the odd email nagging you to buy a t-shirt every now and again (he hasn't bothered me yet), but it's worth it!

Talking about live music a couple of nights ago I went to see The Lemonheads play at the Parish at The House of Blues. It was very good. Junior League and VietNam were supporting (if you haven't heard of VietNam yet you will do soon) and it was in a tiny place. the smallest venue I've been to since the RBH (that's a small hall in Reading where local bands played and the IDing was lax) there was probably only a couple of hundred people there. The Lemonheads were excellent, but Evan Dando was a little on edge. I think he's a little agraphobic, after an hour and a half he said "I can't do it" and just walked off the stage (he didn't say that into the microphone, but I was standing pretty much right next to the guy) I guess that the herion was a good buffer for that in the old days, now he's clean he actually has to deal with these situations. I guess he was still wasted when I saw him in London a couple of years back because he seemed to handle that situation (where there was 2000 people) better. Not that drugs are the answer! Anyhow apart from him walking off it was a great concert, the best one I've been to in New Orleans. I think next month I'm going to see RJD2 and The Good, The Bad, And The Queen (not at the same time).

Toby is so close to walking it's not funny. He's able to hold onto a finger and walk (and play footie - start 'em young!) and he'll take a step to get to the couch from the coffee table and back, but he just seems to lack that extra bit of confidence in his balance to get the whole walking thing going. He's happiest on his feet though, I must be walking an extra mile or two a day just walking him round the living room!

Works good, Ash is good, and Toby's awake, so I've got to go.

Oh, if anyone cares, the Colts won.

In Which I Wish You All Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year And Maybe Actually Tell You Some Other Stuff If I Have Time

2007-01-02T18:04:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Everyone!

Ok, now that's done all the other stuff. I have to be quick, I've only got 20 minutes...

Thank you everyone for the presents, your Christmas cards should be arriving soon (we didn't get them until late) Ash is sending them out so I don't really know who's getting them.

We did until today have enough pianos to have a trio going (father and son thinking very much alike there!) He loves the one he's already got so it really was a very good idea, it's just already been thought of! We took them to babies r us and exchanged them for a lightweight stroller that will fit in an overhead compartment for when we come over to Blighty this summer (also it will give me some of my boot/trunk space back!)

I just got over a cold (given to me by my lovely son) but we're both better now. Ash is feeling bad right now but it's nothing serious.

I've been messed about at work, they keep changing the schedule on me and not bothering to tell me. For example today I went to work like I was scheduled to, and after working four stores I bumped into someone else doing my job! It turned out I had the old new schdule not the new new schedule. It's very frustrating. Then again on the new new schedule I would have been working on new years day which would've ment I couldn't have celebrated on new years eve.

Uh Oh. Out of time. I hope you all had a good one, and that you have a great year.

In Which I Play Catch Up

2006-12-09T14:01:00.000-06:00

Ok, so it's been a while. I've been busy! Quit nagging!

Where to start? Let's start with the bit that was most fun...

Toby made it into single digits last weekend. He had a cool party, lots of cake was eaten by all. He has far too many toys now though (In my opinion he had too many before his birthday!) so we're going to wrap some of them up and give them to him at Christmas. There's some photos on Toby's blog (along with a link to more photos and videos). I highly recommend you read his blog, it's far more entertaining than this one!

Mother and Aunty Marian came over to help Toby celebrate, I think that they took a shine to him. It was good to see the old girls, not that I've missed them much or anything...

It's starting to get a bit chilly here, and that along with the build up to Christmas makes me feel homesick. I know it's not always chilly over there but it's the only kind of weather that is similar, because you don't get the same unreal humidity in the summer over there.

I've got a job. I think I told you that. Oh no I didn't! I haven't written anything since October! That's not very good of me is it? Anyhow, I've got a job. I'm a merchendiser for Caburys/Schweppes. It basically means I drive round town, going into shops and putting Seven Up on the shelf. Everyone who has worked with me says I'm very good at it. My boss thinks I'm great (that may be because we both like good music though) and my boss' boss thinks I'm great - that's just because I am... In fact murmors of promoting me are going around, and I've only had two real days of work! (the rest have been training) so that's all pretty cool.

Gosh lots has happened since the end of October! I went to see The Mountain Goats http://themountaingoats.net/ at The Spanish Moon on Halloween, they were very good. It was kind of disturbing though, The singer was dressed up as Batman, singing songs about being abused as a child and standing on stage smiling away having the time of his life. They didn't start playing until 11 o'clock, which may be alright for students but to us old men who have to work the next morning that's not so great! There was some good local bands supporting them, but I've forgotten their names. It was pretty cool, there was only about 200 people there (150 of whom were talking all the way through. What's the point in paying $15 to go to a bar and talk all night over the top of a band when they can go down the road and do it for free? Tsk!). I'm thinking that living somewhere where most people don't know any music outside country and classic rock may have one advantage, no-one goes to the good concerts here so I can go to some properly intimate shows.

I missed my November gig, that was going to be Ok Go! http://www.okgo.net/ and Death Cab For Cutie http://www.deathcabforcutie.com/ but they sold out (oooh the memory of how annoyed I was that I missed them has just come back!) I'm going to see The Black Keys http://www.theblackkeys.com/ on Tuesday night, and next month I'm going to see Alejandro Escovedo http://www.alejandroescovedo.com/ My boss want's to come with me, in fact he's buying me my ticket for a birthday present. Maria from church is coming too.

Ash is doing good, she tried to do an evening job at Gymboree but that's too much (she doesn't get home until 11 and she's usually in bed by 9 on days when she's not working) so she's quitting. Not before we took advantage of her staff discount though!

Oh yeah, I forgot to say, there's a great thing about my job, we can get better health insurance for half the money we're paying right now wth Ash's job. So when I heard about that it was basically getting a $200 pay rise. A pay rise and an upcoming promotion in the first month of work! That's not bad!

Oh, if y'all want to listen to some music to get you into the Christmas spirit go here: http://www.asthmatickitty.com/suf_xmas/suf_xmas.php and give them a listen.

In Which Everyone is Ill

2006-10-22T18:47:00.000-05:00

Ok, It's been a while, but I have an excuse! Everyone is ill. (That's what the title says by the way, not "Everyone is Three") Toby had a cold, then he had an ear infection, then the antibiotics killed off all the good bacteria in his tummy (like it's supposed to) so he had diarrhea, which dehydrated him, so then he was throwing up. The joys of parenthood!

Meanwhile, Joe had a sinus infection.

Also Ash had a sinus infection/cold, and now has maybe the flu.

Dianne still has a broken foot, and is working 12 hours a day pretty much 6 days a week, and I was working at Ash's work for a couple of weeks.

So, I have been busy trying to keep the house tidy, and look after Ash and Toby (Joe and Dianne can look after themselves - I'm sorry, but I have priorities!) and there's my excuse!

I know what you're thinking "Pete, you said everybody was sick. That would mean you must be sick too!" Well good deduction the Holmes, I thought I was going to get away being well, but that's kind of like dodging a bullet (Toby hasn't learnt how to cover his mouth while sneezing or coughing) so I have a cold right now, and hopefully Ash won't give me the flu.

In other news, I though I had a permanent job for a while, and was getting happy. I don't think I've got it though, it sounded like I had it in the bag pretty much, and I decided to put all my eggs in one basket and not continue looking for another job. So I made a mistake there. No matter how promising it sounds, don't believe it. I'm kind of peed off with this looking for work thing. I mean I'm a hard worker, and once I'm employed people know that, but I have to get that far. Usually I don't get past the application. I guess it's because I've had so many jobs over such a short period of time. There's good reasons for that, but I have to get as far as the interview before I can explain them, and even then they still may sound like excuses.

Anyhow, that's that. You're all caught up now. I'm on the wrong computer again, but I have someone else's song I'll put on here (and hope I don't get sued!) It's Cash Machine by Hard-Fi, acoustically done on The Interface on AOL.

In Which Sufjan Rocks!

2006-09-28T20:44:00.000-05:00

It was great! The House Of Blues is a great venue. 1000 people and four bars! No waiting for a drink! It's kind of small, especially for Sufjan. The stage is just about big enough for a four piece band, he had at least fourteen musicians, as well as a grand piano and a huge drumkit. I think the bassist might have been standing on the steps on the side of the stage. Oh, and they were wearing butterfly and dragonfly wings! It was great, I'm used to seeing music that goes to your heart, or feet. This went to those and to my head, and straight to my soul I swear. No music has made me feel so happy. I think that he's more happy in the studio than on the stage though, not like Ben Harper, he lives for live shows (so it seems to me anyway). Oh and also, this is the first time I've ever heard anyone apart from me say Sufjan's name. It's pronounced Sufjan, not Sufjan. Sorry about that!

I was going to see the Magnolia Electric Co. yesterday as well, but I didn't. Next month I'll either going to be Lost Prophets (Ash wants to see them. Are they any good?) or The Mountain Goats. I will be seening The Mountain Goats, it's the Lost Prophets I'm not sure about. Then I've gotta see Ok Go and Death Cab For Cutie the month after that, and The Black Keys in December. I might go to the Voodoo Festival as well in between, it all depends if I can afford it.

Talking about affording things, I'm no longer going to be a full time daddy, now I'm a job-seeker as well. We're going to put Toby in Daycare for three days a week so I can look for some work, and study and take tests for a state job. I applied for a job earlier this week, it's lousy hours (I'd have to work pretty much every weekend, definately every Sunday) but it's good money, and right now that's what we need. If I do get this job I'll stick it out for long enough to clear up some debt and make enough to pay for a bit of my education. I don't think I'll be able to do evening classes with this job, because I won't have any evenings to do it in. On Monday and Tuesday I'm working at Ash's place again, which will be good for a bit of cash.

Toby is doing well. He's 30 inches long, which is very long. He's in the 95th percentile for that (50th percentile would be an average baby) and in the 75th percentile for his weight. We've been trying to get him to sleep at a more regular time as well, now his bed time is 8 o'clock, it used to be some time between 10 and 12. It's been a hard week. We've been letting him cry it out, which is basically putting him in the crib, and checking on him every ten minutes, but not picking him up. the first few nights he would cry for an hour before sleeping, now it's five minutes. I'm hoping some time soon that he won't cry at all. It is an increadibly difficult thing to do. It's not like he's crying and you don't know why, you know you can stop him crying in a second. It takes a lot of will power. Still now, we're (Toby, Ash and I) getting a full nights sleep, and Ash and I even get a bit of Toby free time in the evening.

I've even managed to find some time to get back on the working my way through the library thing. I'm up to Peter Ackroyd, and I'm only getting out three books a week. I have finished reading The Shaman Tree, which is alright, I'd half figured out the ending halfway through though, and The Salmon Of Doubt by Douglas Adams. It's a post-humous collection of letters and a half finished Dirk Gently (or maybe Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy) novel which was more frustrating than anything. I mean why can't people finish their books before they die? Honestly! Oh, I know that Adams comes after Ackroyd, but I already know I like Douglas Adams, and it was right there on the shelf below. The Peter Ackroyd book is called English Music. I think it might take a bit of effort to get into it. I'm going to give it another fifty or so pages I think.

The other thing I've been reading is the Crutchfield catalog. I have everything picked out that I'm going to get when I win the lottery! There's one thing I might actually have to get, well actually a couple of things. one of them is this: http://www.tvix.co.kr/Eng/Products/M3000U.aspx to put in my car. I think I could almost fit all my music onto one of these. The other one is this: http://www.sonos.com/products/?tref=ghome of course I'll need to have my own place first! Just to clarify there are dream dreams and dreams that some time in the distant future may actually come true. It's not like I'm going to starve my family to get any of these things. If I ever get any expendible income, these are things I would seriously consider buying, because they're cool! The Sonos thing is definatly cool, and I think everyone should have one.... The Tvix is the only one I can find that has that size capacity. If anyone else knows anything else better you could tell me.

You're not getting a new song this time, I'm on the wrong computer. my music is all on the other one. So you'll have to suffer with the song on here for a while longer!

In Which I Ramble

2006-09-16T19:20:00.000-05:00

Not much has happened recently, so I'll just type randomly, and hope it's kind of entertaining. Let's be honest, the main reason I do this is so you can see I'm still alive.

There may be quite a few typos because one of the computers I broke is fixed so theres three computers and only two chairs. I might get one in a secong if I'm lucky though...

I've got one! Yay! now the only excuse for typos is the beer I've drunk. It's not much, but it's enough to make me make mistakes! The reason I'm drinking (and there does pretty much have to be a reason nowadays) Is that LSU played (American football) today. It was a very exciting game, they lost, but they carried on fighting, ending up about 3 yards short of a touchdown that would've won the game. In the end it was 3 - 7 to Auburn.

You might be wondering why I have decided now to write. It's actually the first time I've been near a computer for any length of time for a while. The reason is that there is this program over here called Austin City Limits. It's a music program on PBS which means the public broadcasting station I guess - no ads, the odd fund raiser and the only channel that has decent music on, which is what Austin City Limits is. Austin has this really cool venue which has fake trees in it, and a pretty small stage. They have some great musicians on there like The Flaming Lips, Bright Eyes, Ben Harper, Jamie Cullum, Ben Folds, and some country artists as well like Gretchen Wislon and Rosanne Cash. Anyhow, They have an Austin City Limits Festival every year which is this weekend, featuring lots of these great musicians. I heard about it too late to get a ticket (I'm also not sure if I can trust myself to stay relatively sober at a festival yet) but they are streaming music live here: http://blueroom.att.com/ so I'm sitting here listening to them play. Right now I'm listening to Iron & Wine, they're sounding very good.

Talking about live music I bought a ticket to go and see Sufjan Stevens on Tuesday at the House of Blues on Tuesday (that is he's playing on Tuesday, not I bought the ticket on Tuesday. Although I might have... It's not important) I'm very excited! The man breathes musicality. I'm pretty sure he must snore some beautiful melodies. The album of his I really like sounds like something you can't do live, it's all ochestrated and choral and stuff, so it'll be interesting to see what it's like. It's also at the House of Blues, which is a place with a fair amount of history. It only holds a thousand people, so it should be a kind of intimate affair. You may have hear his name before. That's because I keep begging you guys to listen to it!

I bought a couple of albums recently too, I got Sufjans album Illinois (I downloaded it but it was so good I felt guilty getting it for free) which is so very very good. It's the best album I have ever heard, beating What's Going On off the top. I also got Ray Lamontagnes new album "Til The Sun Turns Black which is very good too. I bought Trouble (his debut) a while back and loved it. Ben Dowsett told me to listen to the title song of that album, I did and thought it was great, but I thought it was a fluke. There's no way that anyone can consistantly make music that good. I was wrong. His songs seem to have always been there, they just needed someone to write them. He is one of my favorite artists (I haven't worked out my ranking for him yet though!)

I also just bought a DVD. It's Gojira, which is the original Japanese version of Godzilla. Some of you may remember I've been working on a musical version of Godzilla, that is the US version with Raymond Burr basically translating the story they decided to put together for the American audience. I haven't watched the original version yet (this is the first time it's been released over here - 52 years after it was originally released), but I'm sure it must be superior to the cut up version the Americans did. So I have I dilemma. Do I scrap the US musical version and start the Japanese version? I think I should. Or do both. I've got nothing but time... I'm thinking about doing the US version really basic, and I'll quadruple the effort I put in to the Jap version. Maybe I'll see if I can find some people to help out with it, after all I'm pretty much musically ignorant. I guess I'll watch it before I decide.

I've been watching a lot of films recently, I spend most of my time watching Turner Classic Movies (a movie channel over here) It's about the only thing I can do while I'm looking after Toby. I've many good films, lets see... There was Cape Fear, the original version which was very good.... and Mr Smith Goes To Washington, also very good, and The Seventh Seal which was a good film, surprisingly entertaining. I thought it was going to be more arty that it was, you know lots of shots of landscape with someone pontificating about something to do with death/morality/etc. there was a fair bit of that, but there was some funny bits as well. I guess in certain lights death could be funny. Obviously there was lots about death been as the plot is someone who plays against death in a game of chess. Still funny though.

Thinking time....... What else to write?

Oh, there's this really cool magazine I've started buying called Paste. It's a music/film/cuture magazine (similar to Uncut) with a CD. I listened to the Cd and I had only heard of one person on it, but I liked all of the songs. That's a winner as far as I'm concerned! It also had an article about a theramin festival, which doesn't sound very good now I type it, but it actually was. Anyhow, I'm going to subscribe to this baby as soon as I can.

I guess I better give you some news... Ash isn't feeling great, but she'll survive. Toby is doing great, he's teething and he has a cold but he's still happy most of the time. He's not sleeping much anymore, so I'm tired. I just got over a cold (given to me by my son. Genarous fellow!) and I'm looking for work, without much luck so far. And so the world keeps turning.

Oh if you're reading this in an email, I've got a song from my musical version of Godzilla on my blog. Also I am now on Myspace. It's here: http://www.myspace.com/peterspencer You should also visit my blog, I have a really cool new skin for it.

Take care dudes!

In Which I Am Doing Much Better

2006-08-27T21:39:00.000-05:00

Thank you all for your emails. I think that I'm over the worst of it. I'm not so upset anymore. I realize that Father Vic and Chandler, although they were trying to help, are just plain wrong. Murphy (my therapist - actually she's a Christian councilor) said that it was the devil trying to use two people I respect against me. There's a bit in the bible where Jesus is talking to his disciples about Him having to be crucified:

"From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. Peter took him aside, and began to rebuke him, saying, 'Far be it from you, Lord! This will never be done to you.' But he turned, and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.'"

Matthew 16:21 - 23

Which helps an awful lot. Peters intentions are good, he doesn't want Jesus to die, but Jesus knows he has to die to save us from our sins, so Peter, speaking without the holy spirit and as a man is tempting Jesus. Basically doing the devils work through Peters good intentions.

She also told me the only persons advice I should be listening to is Gods. I'm still having trouble forgiving Father Vic and Chandler, but I'm praying for help with that.

I also appreciate all your emails, they have been very helpful as well. A little bit more anger towards Dr. Dobson et al than Murphy has, but the points are true. Ashley and I love Toby and that's all we can do right? Maybe Toby will be screwed up in the future. I'm going to try my best to stop that happening, but I have no real power over that. He's his own (eventually) man.

I am getting some space right now as well, and that is also much appreciated. Aunt Fifi and Uncle Gordie are looking after him for a few nights. It's given me the space to breathe and think about things objectively.

So Pete has managed, with the help of his friends and God, to steer himself clear of insanity. Yay!

I have been working this weekend at Ashs place. They're still moving into the new offices so I've been moving printers about, hooking up computers and other things that casual workers do. I spent a bit more time doing the casual part than the work part though. I guess that's what happens when everyone is getting paid hourly...

I'm looking into doing an IT course or something so I can earn me some grip. I'm going to do an evening course. I have to go and find out about financing it, I think I might be able to get a student loan (I think that the course is only a couple of grand and the interest on student loans is very low) We've got to find some child care for Toby though. I didn't really want to put him in daycare until he was a year old, but we need the dough. I might try and get a job at the state so Ash and I can ride together. I'd need another car if I was working somewhere else and we can afford that until l I start working and have saved a bit of money.

Oh, I've put one of my songs on my blog. I'll try and get a new one up every time I post. If you want to listen to it you'll have to actually got to my blog (if you receive this as an email) and right now it's in the top left corner. It might not be in a bit, I think I might change my blog around again. I saw a cooler looking (interactive!) skin than this one, so I'm going to use that one I think.

In Which I Almost (?) Have A Complete Meltdown

2006-08-23T20:20:00.000-05:00

Ok, I guess I'd better explain the title before I get into anything else. Otherwise you'd just skip down to wherever I talked about it.

Alright this is some real personal stuff here, like what's going on in my head so be prepared for some seriousness...

Lets start at the beginning. You have no idea how much I am carrying on my shoulders right now. I have to be careful what I say to Ash right now, for example, on the Friday before last I went to the bank to get some money out to buy lunch for Ash and I and found out that we were $400 overdrawn. I kind of got a bit stressed. Ash said she couldn't deal with the stress right now, because she's not "normal." I told her that she's going to have to learn, because she hasn't been "normal" for close to a year. It's just as well she was at work otherwise she would've cut herself. If you want to know about the cutting you'll have to read Ash's blog at http://prozacbrat.blogspot.com/ I can't really talk about that. She hasn't done it for a while which is a blessing.

I also, of course, have Toby to worry about. Every minute he's awake I worry that I'm doing something to screw him up. I don't mean hurt him I mean sometime in the future something I have done right now, like letting him cry while I'm in the shower, is going to mess his head up in some way. At night I have nightmares about either him or Ash dying. It's not fun.

There's also the fact that we were overdrawn and I didn't get that job, so us moving out of here isn't getting any closer at the moment. But that's just one of those many little problems I have on top of the big ones.

So you can see I have my worries.

I was coping pretty well with all this until I had a big hit on the side of the head from my rector. Not really what I was expecting!

I went to church and we went out to lunch afterwards, as we often do. Somehow James Dobson came up in the conversation. I said that he was an idiot, because I'd read half of one of his books called Bringing Up Boys and he spent most of the first half of the book explaining how kids can grow up screwed up, like gay or suicidal (not that being gay is screwed up) and then he says that the main reason for this is because men are staying at home looking after the kids and women are going out to work. Sound familiar? So I think he's an idiot. I explained this to the shocked faces around the table (I think that people around here think that James Dobson is close to sainthood) the reciprocated by telling me that actually he was right and I was wrong. At least the men without kids thought he was right. Alright. So they're entitled to their opinion. Hard though it is because it was Father Vic and Chandler, two people I really love and respect.

So conversation over. Later on Toby starts laughing. Everyone says that he's such a happy baby. I say, jokingly, "That's because he's been bought up by his daddy!" Father Vic says "Wait two years."

You know that feeling you get just before you do something scary? That hollow feeling in your stomach? Well I got that. I forced my food down and left. It wasn't the straw that broke the camels back, more like an anvil that just plain killed him.

I realized that they're just waiting for me to fail. You remember that I was scared that I was going to screw Toby up? Well I guess I'm no longer scared. I'm going to screw him up. I don't know if you can put yourself in my shoes here, I feel like I'm going to screw the kid up and I have to look after him. I'm with him all the time. I can't be miserable in front of him. If I didn't have to look after Toby I'd still be in bed with the covers over my head, crying. As it is I just cry myself to sleep, and when Toby is napping. The rest of the time I'm happy as Larry.

Here's what I'm thinking. What's the point? If he's going to be screwed up anyhow why bother? End it now while he's still happy. You think that's a happy thought to have going round your head? How could Father Vic be so senseless? How come God called someone who would say something like that into his ministry? The only real friends I've made myself (i.e. not friends of the family) since I got here and neither of them support me. Boy! Can I pick them. How many other people I know feel like they do? That's basically it, just variations on those themes really. It's the first one that really upsets me. How could I think such a thing?

Well I'm going to see my therapist tomorrow, maybe she'll be able to help me out. I seem to be doing a bit better now, I'm not crying all the available time I have anymore, It's just another one of those things to put in the back of my head and hope it stays there.

As far as other things go...

Ash is doing good, she's enjoying her job. They've just made a move into a brand new building. I went to see her today for lunch. It's much nicer than her old building. She's working weekends so she can get some extra time off. She gets 1 1/2 days for every day she works. She's a lot happier now than I've seen her in a while. I think her new meds are working well.

Toby is doing great, I was spending a lot more time playing with him before the incident. I have to get back to doing that. First I've got a lot of housework to do. I kind of stopped doing anything for the last few days, so I have some catching up to do. It's hard to do stuff now, I have to really keep an eye on the little chap, he's crawling really fast, and getting into things he shouldn't!

My mother-in-law broke her foot trying to climb up on the roof. Don't ask. She decided to climb up onto the roof to see if they had fixed it up right after Katrina. Joe and I were both in the house, but she though she'd just have a quick look herself. She's broken four metacarsels (or something like that) and she has to keep off her foot for at least another month, probably two.

That's about it.

By the way, don't worry about me. I'll be alright. I'm just kind of messed up right now. Give me a couple of weeks and I'll be back to normal. I don't know if I'll be able to look Father Vic in the eyes again, so I'm not sure I'll be going back to church. I really just feel like running away. I can't do that though. I guess I just need a break. From everything. Go up in to the mountains and spend some time alone. Well there aren't any mountains around here, but I'm sure I can find something. I just need to breathe.

In Which We Have A Family Outing To Hattiesburg

2006-08-01T08:59:00.000-05:00

It's not like we did much while we were there though, we just went to see one of Ash's online buddies, someone she met on the dec 2005 expecting board who has a baby two weeks older than Toby. His name is Carter (the baby that is) and his momma is Kayla (that's Ash's friend) his daddy is called Todd. They're nice people, we got on alright. I think they're going to come down here sometime in the next month.

Oh, Hattiesburg is in Mississippi by the way. It's here: http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=hattiesburg,+MS&ie=UTF8&t=k&om=1&ll=31.522361,-89.274902&spn=7.170058,21.796875. It seems like a nice place. We just hung about and enjoyed being away from Baton Rouge really.

My interview on Friday went alright, not great, but not bad either. Apparently there was only 80 people wh0 got through to the team assessment, and BASF have a bunch of plants they bought recently. so I'm thinking the chances are pretty good for me. I don't want to get my hopes up though. If I do get it though it'll mean Ash and I can move out, which will mean that I won't have to vacuum as much floor on my days off!

Lets see... That's about it for actual things happening I think. I did listen to Sunset Rubdowns album, which I think is pretty good. I can only find a Myspace site for them. It's here: http://www.myspace.com/sunestrubdown It's kind of Modest Mouseyish, but a bit weirder. I also heard this group called Margot and The Nuclear So and Sos who sound pretty good. I only heard an acoustic set on AOL before now. They don't sound too bad electrified either though. If nothing else they have a very cool name. Their website is here: http://www.margotandthenuclearsoandsos.com/index_news.html.

Oh, there's also this song. I can't remeber the name of the group, but it's mind blowing. http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama.php

In Which I'm Back In The Saddle Again

2006-07-26T10:40:00.000-05:00

It's been a wild ride, but it's time I got back on this old horse right? After all I do spend most of my time sitting round twiddling my thumbs.... (That's sarcasm by the way. It doesn't seem to work so well in writing). The real reason I'm doing this right now is because the web service we use for the paci business isn't working right now. Oh it is now.

Ok, it's stopped working again. It let me get one invoice printed out though. Woohoo! Only another 10(ish) to go!

So since the last time I wrote lots has happened. In no particular order:

Toby is crawling. In fact as I write he is crawling around by my feet; trying to get into everything. It's fun watching him explore but it is pretty much all I do. Apart from the vacuuming. I have to vacuum every day now otherwise he gets his hands all dirty, and his hands go into his mouth. It's a never win battle.

He also kind of says "daddy" now, but it's by accident i think. Still occasional he'll look me straight in my eyes and say it. It's the best thing in the world (so far).

Ash is working. I told you about that though didn't I? Well it's going relatively well.

Craig my brother-in-law came down from Seattle. It was good to see him. We spent a lot of time drinking and playing pool (and I spent a lot of time not getting much sleep) Cresta (sis-in-law) was down here for a while. She's getting a divorce and she came down here to clear her head. She's supposed to be coming back again sometime soon, but her and Dianne (my mother-in-law) don't really get on too well, so it's not really the best place for her to be clearing her head.

I have to great cousins now. That is my cousins had babies. I'm sure they should be referred to as something else, but I think that they're great!

My sister just walked 100km non-stop in 28 hours, and has blisters to prove it. I am very proud to have such an insane relative who would've done something that stupid.

Joe (father-in-law) just bought a car. A brand new Kia. If you know Joe this is a great surprise. The Blazer is still sitting out there. It'll be gone soon though I'm sure.

I have a job interview at BASF to work at one of their chemical plants. I have already done the individual exam and the team assessment. This is the final step. My interview is on Friday. It's not like I am really looking for work anymore, but this was just a go along and see what happens thing. It's a good job though. It has good benefits and pay. It'd be three 12 hour shifts a week (I think) so we'd only have to work out care for Toby for three days. I don't think the job will be starting until the end of the year and we were thinking about putting Toby in daycare when he's a year old anyhow. So that's good news.

Well I think that's about it, you're all up to date now. I'm sorry there's nothing of any real detail or anything, but It's an awful lot to catch up on in such a short amount of time. I'll try and write more regulary in future. Here's a bit of excitement for you:

http://eepybird.com/dcm1.html

In Which I Watch Footie?

2006-06-10T19:06:00.000-05:00

Alright, it's been a while since I've posted, and there are too reasons for that. One is I've been very busy, and the other is that I haven't really done much recently. I know that sounds very contradictory but it's true.

Ash and I got our tax return, which was nice. We're saving most of it, but I did splash out a bit and bought a stereo for the car that plays MP3 CDs. I got this one: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-ALLJNmEmJmy/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=300&I=158GT400 it's very cool, it changes colours and everything. It caused me a bit of stress getting it in, but I dealt with it, after a quick call to the Crutchfield helpline. They're a very good company. I highly recommend them to anyone looking for car stereos. If you do decide to use them then you can use my referral code which is p4q9q9-dyjs7-ay80y and you can save $20. I'd get $20 towards my next order as well, so we'd all be winners!

I cooked some Cornish pasties today. They are the best pasties I've had all year. They're the only pasties I've had all year. They didn't turn out that great. In fact I have the squits now. I'm not going to give up though. I'll get it next time!

Of course I've been watching the footie. England have started off pretty well. I watched all of the games so far apart from Argentina vs. Ivory Coast. I watched that one up until Argentina scored their first two goals and then it got boring. All of the other games have been really good though. I may just be saying that because I'm football starved though... I think I'm going to try and be online after every England match if anyone feels like talking about it. Unless we lose, then we can talk about anything else apart from that! It's lonely watching the footie over here. No one I know really likes it.

I have got into conversations with a couple of blokes about it. One of them really knew a lot about England (the football team - and apparently the country. He must have spent some time over here or something), and the other said "It's got two periods, right?" So he was half way there. I give him points for effort!

Anyhow, I'm now a full time house husband. By the way, that doesn't mean unemployed. I really don't have any time to spare during the day. If I have to go out and run an errand of some sort I have to rush about to catch up. I rarely have much chance to have a shower. It's a really tough job, but the pay is really good. You can't put a price on a smile or laugh from Toby!

Ash is working at the DSS. It's the same company (if you call a state run organization a company) she was working for before we left for Virginia, but it's in a different building. She's temping right now but she has an interview on Tuesday for a job that is two pay levels higher than the last position she had, on the floor below the one she's on right now. The people that she's working for liked her so much that they wanted to get her right into the position. There's two other people going for interviews, but Ash has the advantage of really good references from the people upstairs. So if you could keep Ash in your thoughts/prayers on Tuesday I'd appreciate it.

Toby is doing great, he's 18lb 10oz (or thereabouts), healthy and happy. If you want to read more about how he's doing he has his own blog here: http://www.tobiaspeter.blogspot.com/ he's trying to keep it up to date, and I have to say his computer skills are very good for a six month old!

One final note to you Americans: If you cheer for England, I'll cheer for the US. Actually it would be nice if you would cheer for the US as well, they don't get very much support here. In fact if you go here : http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_colbert_report/index.jhtml and click on the GOOOOAAAL Video Stephen sums it up pretty well....

InWhich I Find Something I Want To Share With You All

2006-05-20T21:26:00.000-05:00

Okay boys and girls, I haven't really been up to much new, so no real news to tell. Joe did cook some excellent steaks tonight, and Toby is still as cute as ever.

So the real reason for this post is that I wanted to share something that is really cool if you like footie (soccer) and are looking forward to the World Cup. It's a spreadsheet made by someone who loves football and has way too much time on their hands. It's probably the most comprehensive wall chart and schedule that you'll be able to find.

http://www.parry.co.nz/wc.zip

You need Exel to run it.

Laters dudes!

In Which Ash And I Do Something That At First Glance Seems A Little Crazy

2006-05-17T22:58:00.000-05:00

We bought a car. This one:

But green instead. It cost about $16,000 and it's brand spanking new, 23 miles on the clock. I know what you're thinking "Pete! You're crazy! You and Ash are both unemployed!" Well maybe, but here's the reasoning: We were driving a big truck with a 4.6L V6 in it, and we're now driving a mid-size car with a 2.0L V4. We were spending $450+ on fuel every month, and now we should be spending closer to $200. The payments on the car are about $250 a month. Have you done the math there? Also, tires are cheaper, oil changes are cheaper, we now have a car under warrenty (100,000 mile, 10 year) rather than a truck which - lets face it - is on it's way to the scrap heap pretty soon. (150,000 miles on an American car means it's definatly on the decline) Also having a boot (trunk) is marvelous! We can put the stroller somewhere apart from in the passenger seat. A pick up is useful for hauling stuff around in, and maybe kind of cool looking, but that's about it really. We can put groceries in the boot! Ohh... That's exciting!

Oh, in case you're wondering what kind of car it is it's a Hyundai Elantra. You can see more pictures and info here if you want: http://www.hyundaiusa.com/vehicle/elantra/elantra.aspx
For sone reasn they only seem to have pictures of the five door (hatchback) and not the four door (saloon) which is what we've got.

Anyhow, I just thought you'd like to know about that.

In Which I Find Some Time To Write A Little

2006-05-15T22:48:00.000-05:00

Hold on... I have to read my last entry to work out what I've already told you about... Alright.

I'm no longer a tile setter. Ash's depression got really bad so I had to quit before I had another job. The bad side of this is that I now have the stress of being broke, but the up side is that Ash is doing better with me being here more. Obviously the pros outweigh the cons. I just had an interview today for a job as a driver delivering truck (18 Wheeler) parts. I don't know if I'll get it, because I asked for more than they were willing to pay (I don't want to be living at the in-laws forever you know!)

Toby is doing great. You can go to this website http://www.dropshots.com/adspencer and look at some videos. I find them very interesting, you might not though... He actually does stuff in the later ones. The ones on Thursday the 11th are probably the most interesting. You'll have to email me so I can give you the password first (those of you that I email this to anyhow will see the password somewhere near the top). He's being very noisy. He likes it when I make faces at him. He'll squeal and laugh. At last someone who appreciates my comic genius!

Ash is doing much better, in fact I think she's going to start looking for a job. I hope she is anyhow, because with a degree she'll be able to make more than I can make doing a blue coller job.

Apartments are no longer cheap here, it's about $600ish for a two bedroom townhouse, about a year ago it was $450. Katrina? Possibly.

I've recorded some more songs, I guess I'll put them on the website sometime. It doesn't really bother me if you listen to them or not, it's just good to know you can listen to them if you want to. It's kind of depressing playing to an audience of one. Makes me wonder what the point is. Oh right, my sanity. And it keeps me busy.

Gosh, not really very much interesting has happened to me. Oh well. I guess that's it. Take care dudes!

In Which Your Hunger For Information Is Satisfied

2006-04-25T19:23:00.000-05:00

I know what you're thinking: "Where's Pete? Is everything alright?"

Well I'm here to answer your questions and stop you from panicking!

I'm doing good, still working as a tile-setter, but that's going to have to change soon. New Orleans is too far to go every day, because of $3.00 a gallon gas and Ash's situation, which I'll tell you about in a bit.

So I'm looking for a new career, or at least I will be soon. I figure I can go to some of the oil refineries around here, there must be some job stability there (because of $3.00 a gallon fuel) and they have good benefits and there are some just down the road from us.

Toby is doing great, he's started eating solid food, it was funny the first couple of times, he would just spit it straight back out, but now he's opening his mouth and grabbing the spoon.

Ash is depressed. It's not post-partum anymore it's clinical, which is a good thing because she knows she loves Toby. She can't handle being with Toby all the time though, and she thinks a job would be too stressful. She's seeing a counselor who is actually going to to take Ash back and try and find the source of her depression, which is good, no-one has tried doing that with her before.

Here's an example of God working: I went on a men's retreat this weekend, and told them about our situation. There was a doctor there, and he said that there was a way to fix the chemical imbalance that causes depression. It's a pretty new thing but basically it uses amino acids to restore the chemicals. He said he would give me a test that we can send off and he'll pay for it. It cost $155. I only me the guy for the first time on Friday evening, by Saturday evening he was helping me out. God made sure that we were together to talk about this. Praise Him!

Also some of my friends from church said they were going to look out for work for me, which is very helpful. These guys gave me what they could. There was on of them who's a massage therapist, and he said that he would give me and/or Ash a massage for free, another guy said that we could go over to his place for dinner, another one said he and his wife would take care of Toby for a night. It's good to see Gods love in action.

Ok, dinners ready. Toodle-oo!

In Which Pictures Speak A Thousand Words

2006-04-16T17:05:00.000-05:00

Sorry it's been so long since I've written. I'm not even going to write anything now, you'll have to make up your own story to these pictures.

In Which I Finally Find Time To Write Something

2006-03-20T18:32:00.000-06:00

Boy! I've been busy!

Not really with much interesting stuff though. I'll try and make it interesting...

Toby is laughing occasionally now, which is great. No sound could be any any sweeter.

Ash is doing much better, she's feeling the same love she had for Toby the first few days after he was born (which is to say overflowing) so that's good.

I'm working now, which is great, it's all good news isn't it?

KERBLAM! (Just trying to make it more interesting)

Well I guess you probably would like details on me working really. Even if you don't you're going to get them. So there. I'm learning to lay tiles, like floor tiles, bathrooms, countertops etc. I laid my fist tiles today (I've been doing grouting before that) and I didn't do a bad job even if I do say so myself! I know that you probably think it's easy (except for Dave who did mums bathroom, something that should never be mentioned in his presence) it's not. There's all this stuff about pitch, although walls in houses look pretty straight they actually not. And the slabs (the concrete that the house is built on) in New Orleans aren't exactly flat. I guess that might come from being built on a swamp. So if you followed the wall it would end up looking really kooky, and laying something flat on something wavy is an artform too. I'm iterested to know how to do walls, I think we might be doing some of that in the next couple of weeks.

ZOOOM!

I'm working for this guy called Chris. He's a nice guy. He used be an engineer for Rolls Royce (he makes more money laying tiles now, so this seems to be a pretty good trade to get into!) He also used to be a Navy Seal, and he's a country singer. So as you can imagine he's got some stories! Here's a couple of them:

He said that nothing can prepare you for looking into a mans eyes as you kill him. The first few times he enjoyed it, because the training that you go through to be a Seal makes you think that way, but after a few times you start to realise that you're taking everything away from him. He says it's easier to go up behind someone and break their neck, because you don't have to look in their eyes. He doesn't really like to talk about it obviously. He said that some of his friends went off to be mercenaries, getting million dollar contracts, but he said there wasn't any amount of money that'll make him do it again.

He also said while he was in the Seals he went to area 51 and saw a large silver ball balanced on a pedastal at one end of a hanger raise up and fly 300 metres in 2 seconds without making a sound. (I'm calling BS on this one) and he adamantly belives that the Earth has been visited by aliens and the US have much of their technology. He even says that his Aunt and Uncle saw a UFO in a Walmart parking lot and got sunburn in the middle of the night because of it.

As far as him being a country singer, I listened to his CD, it's passable I suppose, I'm no country expert, but he says that he had a regular night at the Grand Rivera casino pulling in crowds of up to 5000.

BOOOM!

Interesting guy eh? maybe he should write a blog!

Well there you go. I'm working 12 hour days, and with the 2 - 4 hour commute it means I'm just home to sleep pretty much, but we need the money! Anyhow, my dinner is getting cold.

Later dudes and dudettes.

In Which I've Had It With Sudoko

2006-03-03T19:36:00.000-06:00

That's it. I've had enough of them. They are really peeing me off. I have better things to do with my time than spend half an hour solving one of them and then finding out that one of the numbers that I put in in the first ten minutes is in the wrong place. I'm going to stick with crosswords, at least with them you can work out if you've done something wrong within a couple of minutes of doing it. I am going to destroy the sudoko book I've got, in case it falls into the hands of Ash. I wouldn't want someone I love to go through what I have been through. It might just be that book, I came across a puzzle in it yesterday which was unsolvable. I mean it, no way to solve the thing. I spent almost two hours trying to find a way to do it, tried every different number combination, and it was just impossible to work out. Grrrr....

I watched the England Uruguay match. We did alright in it, the real interesting thing is that nike are showing this advert on the Fox Soccer Channel which I hope they aren't showing over there. It's here http://nikefootball.nike.com/nikefootball/siteshell/index.jsp#,us,0;jogatv,,0 I can paraphrase it quickly for you: Eric Cantona is appealing for players to start playing football. Just in case you don't know who Eric Cantona is here's a picture of him doing a flying kick at a fan http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/27/newsid_2506000/2506237.stm A great spokesman for fair play right? Hah! I mean he wasn't even the fairest player on the pitch either. I thought it was a joke to start with but it turns out it's real!

Here's the other stuff that relatives will need to know or I'll get nagged: Toby is 15lb 3.5oz, 26 inches long, and is turning into a real chatterbox, Ash is getting better, she's started applying for work, I'm doing good. Apart from blooming Sudoko.

Ariverdechi Dudes.

2006-02-16T17:45:00.000-06:00

In Which You Can Stop Worrying, Like I Know You Were

2006-02-16T16:59:00.000-06:00

Alright dudes, sorry about the length of time between posts, but I've been kind of busy recently and to be quite honest if I do have any spare time then there are other more enjoyable things to do than write another darn post. I'm sure you guys can understand that, seems to me you think the same thing about writing emails, so we're on a level playing field here right? Alright that's kind of a cheap shot, sorry. Whatever, I haven't even thought about what I'm about to write, so this is just a ramble I guess.

Okay, so news. Ladies first: Ash is doing better, but still not great. She has days of actually likeing being with Toby, but sometimes she has bad days and they seem much worse in comparison to the good ones, so she feels real bad. Is that confusing? going from bad to worse is better than going from good to bad. It's a bigger drop. Also as I'm working now, and Ash doesn't want to burden Dianne with Toby (as if looking after your grandson for a few hours could be a burden!) she puts it all on herself, and that makes her anxiety rise. So a couple of times I've come home from work to a crying wife holding a baby out for me to take.

The little man is doing fine, he's been having a few indigestion problems, so he's got rice cereal added to his formula now, which means he's also constipated, which is very uncomfortable for him, so he's also taking some kind of syrup, and it seems to be working out a bit better. Babies don't usually have rice cereal until at least four months, but he is a big baby. At the last pediatritions visit he was 13lb 9oz and 24 1/2 inches long. Just in case that doesn't mean anything to you, he's wearing 6 to 9 month old clothes, and he's two months and three weeks old. He's smiling lots, and talking (not words that you or I understand but he's trying) and fidgiting lots, and being very cute. I'll post some pictures up here (on my blog for those of you that get an email) so you can see his big grin!

I have a job. It's not the blockbuster one, there benefits were rubbish, and the pay would have only just covered them. I can get much better benefits straight from the insurance company for an extra $100 a month, so that's what I'll do. I'm working with STOP - Service Team Of Professionals. They're a cleaning and restoration company, they're the ones who are sorting out the kitchen. It's alright, I can work on Dianne's days off so there is always someone here to help Ash with Toby. I've been working in New Orleans this week clearing out an office that got flooded during Katrina.

The best thing about the job is that there are several people there who like football. I mean real football not the rubbish kind, so hopefully I'll get the chance to have a kick around, and have some company for some of the World Cup games. They are playing all the games on ESPN and ABC over here which is great. I can't watch the six nations cup though. I have to rely on the BBC website. The video quality on their replays is rubbish, but at least I can get the scores. I've been watching the winter olympics a bit too. There seems to be ice hockey on all the time, which is fine by me!

So that's that. We're increadibly fiscally challenged at the moment, the needle on the petrol gauge is on empty all the time, and I go at least ten miles under the speed limit to save what little is left. Tomorrow is payday though, I should get about $50 I suppose. There's a court case about Ash's settlement tomorrow, to see how much the people that she claimed bankruptcy against want to take of it. So in a few days time we could be $30,000 richer, or we might get nothing. If we get enough after we've paid off credit cards and hospital bills we'll get a car that can do more than 18 mpg.

Oh yeah, I might quit this job. There's another job that pays twice as much and is much more flexible, removing rubbish from the badly hit areas of New Orleans. The con is that there will be quite a few bad things I could catch (from spores off of themould and stuff from the "Toxic Soup"), and I haven't any health insurance yet. I guess I'll just have to get a mask.

Well there you go. Oh in case any of you don't know my friend David Bennett, he's got a photo blog at http://www.phlog.net/user/omiyajunk he's in Japan and he's got a sense of humour, so it's kind of interesting.

2006-01-21T22:47:00.000-06:00

Okay, it's been a while hasn't it? Well I've been busy. A lot has happened since I last wrote. I'm a year older for starters... Happy Birthday to me! It appears that I've also forgotten how to type as well. I've had about five typos already. Make that seven.

It seems that if Toby does have colic we cured it. I think we just mistaken it and he just felt like crying for a while. After an hour of crying (or trying to stop him from crying) any excuse will do. So that's a relief!

Everything else in the world of Toby is much the same, if I write about him too much I'll start to gush again like always (I know I'm such a girl!) He smiles at me now, which is the most amazing thing ever. As you can imagine. Oh, actually you can't if you haven't had a precious little bundle of joy of your own. I'll stop on that now, we know I'm a proud daddy and elated with the little chappie so I'll leave it at that.

Ahem... Okay composure... Onwards with blog, I can hear Toby snoring through the monitor... No must... Not... Talk... About ... The... Little.. Guy...

Okay, I've got it now.

Mother and Linda had a whole bunch of fun over here, but I guess I can't really talk about that much. Doh! He knew I wasn't talking about him, now he's getting ready to cry!

Okay, so you may have to suffer through reading this epistle, but I'm now typing one handed (other hand full of baby), so it's definatly going to take me longer to write it than it is for you to read it.

Yeah so what did the Spencer do while we were expanded to five instead of three? Obviously a lot of time was spent looking/looking after the littlest one (it really is hard to exclude him. Maybe I'll just try to keep my emotions under control) we went downtown and walked around some nice parks, so I could work out where Toby, Mummy and Daddy (that's me) could go and play, we went shopping, and that really is about it. Oh, Linda. Ash and I played a bit of pool. Toby took up most of the time, but I think that was basically the idea of the trip.

Ashley got a tooth pulled, so she was on drugs some of the time, which was nice, and we went to see her shrink and she said that the post-partum depression was looking pretty bad still, and she's not going to be able to work. Also because of the PPD she can't look after Toby. This made me panic a bit, because we're kind of fiscally challenged right now. So one of us two has to work, and the other one of us has to look after Toby, and neither of them can be Ash. You do the math. It was a little of a conundrum. So I'm basically going to get an evening job which has benefits at Blockbuster. The pay is rubbish but it means we're not going to have to pay $700 a month for health care for Ash and Toby, so I've immediately got $8400 a year, anything else I make is a bonus, right?

Ok, so that isn't really very interesting, but it is pretty important. So to balance things our here's something that is interesting, but not really very important. Well... I say interesting... It warrants a warning...

Don't read this next bit. Especially if you're eating.

Okay, so you know how Ash went to the dentist to get her tooth pulled right? Ash, Toby, and I had to go back to get the stitches taken out. We went to Wendys before hand for some lunch. As we got to the dentist and I was finishing off my meal in the truck something happened to me that hasn't happened in years. In fact I can't even remember the last time it did happen. You'll have to ask my mother when it happened to be honest. It's not really something I'm proud of (who would be?) but it happened. I mean, I'm not one to hide anything from you guys am I? My life is an open book. I did warn you but it's best I do it again. There's your second warning, Okay? Here goes....

I pooed my pants.

Like I said not the greatest achievement of my life. My son can do it, in fact I think he just has done it. Easy! Anyhow, there's me sitting in the truck outside the dentist. It was just a little fart, but there was follow through."Hello," I thought, "that's a bit unusual. I guess I'll have to make an appointment with the doctors and get that checked out. I bet he's going to put his finger up my butt" and then it was just as well I was thinking and not saying, otherwise my sons first word might have been a naughty one.

So I'm there at the dentist, with poo in my pants. I go to the bathroom to clean myself off of course, but that only half solves the problem. Oh well, Ash isn't going to be that long, I mean it's just a couple of stitches right? In any case I think I can redirect the poo smelling thing onto the other member of our party, after all look at me, and look at Toby. Who is more likely to have poo in there pants? Don't get me wrong, I wasn't actively blaming Toby, if anyone came up and asked me which one of us had pooed our pants then I would've said it was me, but that's not very likely, is it?

So it was a quick thing for Ash, only took her half an hour to get the tooth taken out, it's only going to be half an hour, three quarters of an hour tops to get the stitches out.

An hour later, I was still sitting there, getting pretty hot, and my tummy wasn't feeling great. I felt another fart coming on. I would usually let it rip and look accusingly at someone else in the room (as you do) but after the last one I wasn't taking that chance so I went to the toilet. The fart came out, no poo. Great! I thought maybe I won't have to go to the doctors! I pulled up my trousers, stood up started to wash my hands... "Hello," I thought, "that's unusual..."

It was around this time that Toby started crying. So I was sitting in a dentists waiting room, with a screaming baby, a fever, a stomach ache, and smelling of poo. It was turning out to be a pretty bad day for me.

Half an hour later Ash comes out. I think it was half an hour, that's what the clock said, my brain was telling me it was more like ten hours. Time doesn't pass so well when you're smelling of poo in public. I had to drive home. I drove fast, but safe. I definitely didn't want to be in an accident. Remember what you mother always said? "Make sure you've got clean pants on, you could be hit by a bus!" I wasn't taking any chances.

So we got home and I went straight to bed, via the toilet of course. I wasn't feeling too hot. In fact I was feeling very cold. My temperature was minus forty seven thousand... Alright I don't remember what it was but it wasn't very high. So I was in bed shivering and feeling pretty sorry for myself.

Ash came in a while later and said "You'd better drink some Gatorade, and get some electrolytes in you." Whatever, anything that makes me feel better. "We've only got Strawberry flavour though." (Oh been as Ash said it I mean "We've only got Strawberry flavor tho." I keep forgetting the American accent.) I can only just stand Gatorade in one flavour usually, Lemon and Lime, but, whatever, anything that makes me feel better. I take a sip. It tastes Awful. Worse than Awful in fact. "Ash take this!" I mumble as I spring out of bed. Then, halfway to the bathroom....

Kerchunder!

Why is it that whenever I have the need to throw up I always have to head for the bathroom? Is it just me? I mean there could be a bucket right next to me with a neon sign saying "Puke Here" and a bathroom half a mile away, but still I'll run for the bathroom. I mean there was a perfectly good bin right next to me, and I actually thought earlier on, that if I was going to throw up that would be a good place to do it, but no, I'm heading on the impossible journey to the bathroom.

Well I paid for my mistake, and after chundering I felt well enough to help clean it up. Ash asked if I wanted anything for my nausea. I told her that if I was natious then I would be scrubbing a Big Bacon Classic, Biggie Fries and a Large drink with a hint of Strawberry Gatorade minced and pureed out of the carpet right now would I? Fair point I thought.

Anyhow, to cut a long story short (I heard that sigh of relief) I was ill (duh!) The general consensus was that it was food poisoning. I was still lying in bed in pain, all alone, which really is the worse state to be lying in bed in, so I called out to Ash to join me. We sat around, talked for a bit and then we both went to sleep.

I woke up the next morning feeling much better. The bad thing was that I awoke to the sound of Ash talking into the big white telephone, so it turns out it was contagious after all. Doh! There's me to blame for getting my wife sick. Not really what I'd planned. Boy! Did I feel guilty! I've been trying to look after her (from a bit of a distance) and cleaning up the bathroom, changing the sheets on the beds, going out and getting her Jello (jelly) and chicken noodle soup, but still I feel terrible.

Anyhow, that brings you pretty much up to date. By the way, this is the second time I have written this whole post. The computer crashed just as I was writing in the last sentance and I lost it all. The first one was much better, but history can't repeat itself.

The main reason I felt compelled to write tonight is because as I was cleaning the bathroom (see there was a point to the story after all!) I was listening to an album by Sufjan Stevens http://www.sufjan.com/ called Illinois http://www.asthmatickitty.com/music.php?releaseID=16 which is one of the best albums I have ever heard. It's kind of like if Badly Drawn Boy made Pet Sounds. It's so good. I should come with a warning on it "Warning: This Album is highly addictive and will cause excessive grinning" At least it make me grin, not because it's funny, just because it so good. If you're an MP3 person then try and find "Come On Feel The Illinoise!" but really you should just want the whole album. At least that's what I think. Ash just thinks it's alright, but then she likes country.

If you do like country but you want to get out of the country a bit the you should listen to Richmond Fontaine http://www.richmondfontaine.com/ I've only heard Post To Wire, which Linda got me for Christmas, and it's very good. It's got steel guitar, heartbreak and storytelling songs in it. All the good bits of country music without actually being... you know... Country.

In Which Mother and Linda Arrive, And Things Get A Bit More Hairy With Toby (No Connection Between TheTwo In Case You Were Wondering

2006-01-08T01:03:00.001-06:00

Ok, so Mother and Linda are here. I mean Grandma and Aunty Linda, but if Toby can read this then I'm sure he's intelligent enough to work out who I'm talking about! They're doing fine, they had a good flight apart from missing a connecting flight. We haven't really done anything yet, but then they're not here to do anything really. They both seem super-chuffed with little Toby (as well they should, I mean how could you not?) Mother has been spending alot of time talking to the little guy, Linda has spent alot of time looking and smiling. She told me today that I look cute with him. Good Grief! I though I outgrew the cute thing at 12! Well I think I deflect most of that cuteness onto Toby.

The other thing is Toby seems to have developed a bit of Colic. For those of you who don't know what that is here's a definition from http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/Mosby_factsheets/infant_colic.html:

"Colic is uncontrollable, extended crying in a baby who is otherwise healthy and well-fed. Every baby cries, but babies who cry for more than three hours a day, three to four days a week, may have colic."

So basically, baby cries for no apparent reason, and won't stop crying unless asleep or eating. It's not fun. We get half an hour of quiet fidgety baby in the morning, but after that and epsecially after about 9 o'clock in the evening he'll Cry. And Cry. And Cry. until he falls asleep sometime between 12 and 3. It's not fun. It's alright when he cries and there's something wrong, but there's nothing wrong and he still dries and there's not really very much I can do about it. Aw nuts! I thought it would last a month tops, but it apparently it can go on for three months. I'm not really one for emoticons but this calls for one: D-:

Well at least he sleeps through the night, so we're not sleep deprived (much) and he sleeps quite a bit in the day as well so we get some peace, but I think I'm going to start dreading 9 o'clock in the evening.

The other big news is that we've decided that Ash is going to go to work and I'm going to stay at home and look after Toby. It makes sense because Ash has the degree and I and a little more domesticated than her (she still tries to poo on the rug! boom boom!) in that I'll actually make sure there are clean clothes for us to wear before the morning when I actually run out. Also Ash still isn't too happy being around Toby, and I enjoy spending time with the little tyke.

That'll do right? I'd better try and put Toby down to sleep. he's sleeping in a chair right next to me, but babies tend to have this habit of waking up as soon as you put them into their cribs. So wish me luck! (If you actually read this in time to wish me luck, you spend too much time on the internet, but you can wish me luck for tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, etc!)

Take care dudes and dudettes. Remember: If you're not smiling, start smiling. It ain't that bad! Woohoo!

Month old Toby

2006-01-02T23:15:00.000-06:00

First to compare, here he is at 5 days old with Clifford Bear, whom Pete and I made for him at the Adopt a Bear Factory the night before he was born.
Here he is at a month old. He's beginning to focus on objects and look at himself in the mirror, look at us and focus on our faces, and today he was reaching out to touch some of the objects and his reflection in the mirror and squealed a happy squeal.
Tummy time on his Boppy.
"Hey guess what I just did!"
He's wearing a 3-6 month outfit, which seems to fit pretty well except for larger leg openings, but he is tall enough for it. He has outgrown some of the 0-3 month clothes in length, and sadly one of those is "The Boss" one that you saw in an earlier post.

This one is actually at about 3 weeks old.

In which I should Actually write something

2006-01-01T02:36:00.000-06:00

Okay, so this is the beginning of the new year, and I am exactly how you would imagine me (drunk) so this would be a little more inteligble and less typos etc. You should be proud (or embarrased) that I'm even trying.

Anyhow enough with the apoligies (that was an apoligy for what is about to come by the way) and on with the bloggy bit.

Right, well here's the excuse for me not writing in so long: I got too many good pressies, and I have a baby. I've been playing Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time on the PS2 which is jolly good fun. I've managed to limit the amount of tie playing on that, it the other one I bought with a gift voucher for the PC that's killing me. The Sims 2. Terribly addictive. The only reason I'm wiriting this and not playing right now is becaue I've been dealing it onto Ash and now she's addcted too, so she's playing it right now! Not really a good excuse, but at least that way you know it's true!

So, Christmas was fun, andNew yeas was fun, but really the funnest thing and the thing that has really taken everything over in my lif is my baby Toby. That's really what I'm going to talk about, because after all Christmas comes once a year, but Toby Peter Spencers come once in a lifetime! (by the way Toby does fine in later life, I've played the Spencers in The Sims, so I know...)

So there's a couple of things to cover here. First the differences between being a Daddy and not:
1. I used to read Uncut and Mojo, now I read American Baby and Parents magazines
2. I used to check out women in supermarkets, now it's their children (not in the same way, obviously)
3. The colour of poo interests me now.
4. I'm no longer thinking of time seperated into days. Now it's four hour long segments between feedings.
5. I know the love that God has for me, it's the same love that I have for Toby.
6. I have an enormous respect for the female race. The respect I had before was just so I could get laid. This respect is real. How anyone could live through that and want to do it again is beyond me!
7. Resposability man! It's a bummer! I mean real responsablity, like really for another human being who doesn't know anymore than "Sleep, Eat, Poo" I have to be able to protect that little man! More than that, I have to bring him up right. I could't even bring myself up right, how am I going to be able to do it for anyone else? Pray. Amen!
8. The walk on the wild side has now officially ended. I got drunk on Xmas day and New Years Eve. I think that about does it for another year.

The other thing I want to touch on I might have mentioned before, but this is underlining and highlighting it. Toby is great. He does nothing but looks at me and I have no other feelings apart from love. Occasionally there's he feeling of "Aren't you sleepy yet?" but the real feeling is love. Last night, or should I say this morning (it was about four o'clock) I was looking at him looking t me and I saw me. It was like looking into a small, squirmy, Ashy mirror. It made me tear up. No other face has done that to me. It definatly take more than a look. I am more blessed than any of you. Sorry!

Anyhow, belated merry Christmas, and Happy New Year (and many mooore!) Sorry for thet Typos, but it's the best you're gonna get! No complaining!

More pictures

2005-12-14T17:40:00.000-06:00

This is how Toby sleeps, with his hands holding his head. Not that he's in his bed right now, but on the changing table, refusing to wake up for a feeding. The diaper change, changed all that.
Or he sleeps stretching his arms every which way, I think he dreams of kung fu.

Trying not to fall asleep, b/c that would mean letting mummy and daddy sleep.

1 week old today

2005-12-09T21:42:00.000-06:00

Tummy Time for our boy.

I just wanted to share a few photos of our boy today. Can you believe it has been a week already?

And I wanted to share just how much I love these two guys. Pete is such a good Daddy, and husband. I think he has gotten half the sleep that I have, in order to help me recover from the surgery and to help battle off postpartum depression before it begins.

In Which Toby Cries Lots

2005-12-08T00:29:00.000-06:00

Well he was quiet in the hospital....

We brought him home, and his nice little cry turned into a ear piercing scream of a cry, which ain't fun. It's kind of heart breaking having your baby cry without knowing what's wrong. Still there is a pro to this, I can take off my shirt and lay him on my chest and he'll clam down, the cons are he has to be on my chest to remain calm which mean I got three hours of sleep last night, and he'll grab onto my chest hair with his little hands and pull which kind of hurts. It's a small price to pay for a good look at my baby boy though...

He started to calm down a bit this afternoon, I guess it's just that he's in a new place and kind of peturbed by everything. He was however crying and acting hungry a minute ago but he wouldn't nurse. He drank from a bottle alright though. It's kind of frustrating. We're going to the pediatrician tomorrow (so she can look at his jaundice), hopefully she'll be able to help with that.

That's all for today. There may be quite few little short post where I vent a little. I still love him more than anything That's what makes it so frustrating. I just wish he could tell me what's wrong. Poor little guy.

In Which Two Become Three!

2005-12-06T22:31:00.000-06:00

The little man is here!

I say little, he was actually 9lbs 13.4oz, so most of the newborn clothes don't fit him too well!

Anyhow, I'm jumping the gun a bit aren't I? Let's start from the beginning, which, in my opinion is the best place to start.

We got to the hospital bright and early on Firday morning at six, Ash and I went to get prepared. I actually had a lot less preparing than Ash, obviously, she had to get a drip put in and a big needle for the epidural rammed in her back. I wasn't allowed to see the needle part, on account of me probably fainting!

The it was down to buisiness. Ash went into the operating room for the epidural, and I was sitting outside in silly looking clothes with Dianne. At about 8:05 they called us in. I sat by Ash's head and held her hand. There was a little screen made of part of the sheet that Ash was on protecting me from seeing too much at the business end. It was probably worse for me than it was for Ash, she couldn't see anything. I couldn't see much, but I can't watch ER because of such scenes like this one! I saw blood squirting up a couple of feet in the air, and a pool of blood on the floor. All rather upsetting really. Ash could just feel a bit of pressure (oh, just in case you were wondering she was concious) while her OB was putting all his weight on her ribs wrestling with Toby to get him out. They got him out (which made all the bloody bit worthwhile, and the official birth time was 8:18. A pretty quick operation really! It took them longer to stitch her up than to get him out!

It's just as well we had a C-section instead of natural birth. The nuchal cord was wrapped around his neck twice. If he had survived a labored natural birth he would have probably had brain damage of some kind. As it was he was a very healthy baby. His blood sugar was very low, so they had to stick a thing down his nose and feed him (there's no lasting effects), but apart from that he was fine. He didn't cry when he came out. I cried a little when they were sticking the straw down his nose, but you would as well wouldn't you?!

Well they washed Toby up and put him in Ash's arms, and wheeled her out to meet Pepaw. Then they took her away to a recovery room, and me, Nana, Pepaw, and Aunt Fifi went to the nursery to see my son. It was pretty good, because all in all, Ash and Toby were apart for about an hour, mummy,daddy and son shared a room together (I slept on a pull out bed, Toby slept in a plastic cot thingy) I could see him from the second he was born until Ash and I needed a good nights sleep and sent him to the nursery that night.

Anyhow, we basically spent all our time since that living with each other, and looking at and learning about each other. It's been a very interesting time. Priorities, attitudes, responsibilities, and a whole heap of other things change. Time for a mushy bit... Toby Peter Spencer is the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. I realise that every parent says that, but they're all wrong! I will spend the rest of my life worrying (I hope it's mine and not his. There's worry number one...) and I mean really worrying. No offense but if you're not a parent you don't know what real worries are. However, I know that it is and will be worth it, because the love that I have for him is something that I've never felt before. The day he was born was the best day of my life so far, and I expect to have alot of other best days of our lives together.

Anyhow, now I've that bit out of the way.... A word of advice to anyone who wants to be a father. You wife may have been a bit crazy during pregnancy, but right after the hormones go wild and you can scratch the "a bit" out. I think Ash has cried more than Toby has! Another thing, milk doesn't come in straight away, and you do have a role to play in breastfeeding. I'm holding Toby's hand while he's nursing, keeping him awake and stopping his little hands getting in the way. Getting a baby to latch on is no easy feat. He has as much to learn as we do. It is in our case incredibly difficult, and even though he hasn't got teeth he has got hard gums which do just a little less damage than teeth. So Toby is lying there crying in frustration, Ash is sitting there crying in frustration (and a little pain). And I'm trying to calm them both down. It's not an easy job, but I wouldn't swap it for any other. Anyhow, that's enough of scaring you guys!

Oh right one more thing, C-Sections are very painful to recover from. Ash is not having fun right now. You can pray for her if you do. If you don't then "Keep her in your thoughts" (one step away from praying if you ask me.... Okay I'd better not get started on that old chestnut...)

I guess you're woncering where the pictures are. They're right here:
http://www.geocities.com/peterspencer10/tobypics

Not really well organised, but neither am I right now!

Anyhow, I'm pooped and I think Toby has also, so cheerio!

In Which I Say Goodbye (And Sorry I Didn't), Hello, And Share Big Important News!

2005-11-30T23:16:00.000-06:00

Hey! Boy it's been a long time since I've done this! I wonder if I can do it with any kind of regularity (if it's not a word it is now!) now I'm going to be a little more busy than I was before....

Anyhow, I'm sorry everyone in England for just disappearing like that, I had to go for the flight early Monday morning and much to my surprize, I had no problems getting it! Hurrah! That was overall not a fun day really. I was up at 5AM England time, on a flight at 9:30AM and landed in Houston 3ishPM Central time, waited for an hour to get my Green card sorted (and it is sorted. Yay!) then I had to go and rent a car to drive back to Baton Rouge. At that time I was bound to have hit rush hour somewhere along the way, and I did. It took me another six hours to get back. so I think if my math is right that works out as a 23 hour day, ending with six hours of driving. That was the real bad bit as you can imagine! But I did come back with a suitcase full of CD's so I was Bon Joviing (sl. singing very loud in car) it all the way back to keep me awake.

So anyhow, that's my excuse for not saying goodbye. So I'll say it now. Goodbye everyone! Take Care!

Ahem... Hello again....

Anyhow, it was absolutely fantastic to get over and see all you folks again. I wish I could have stayed for longer and seen everyone, but you know, babies due and all that...

Talking about babies due, We're going to the hospital at six in the morning on Friday to get Toby beamed out. I think that's the technical term for a C - Section, at least that's what Ash's OB/GYN calls it. So it's all very exciting!

I kind of wish that we didn't know when he was coming, it's very nerve wracking to be waiting on a specific day, at least we would just be waiting for any day, but now I know I need to get everything ready for Friday! Well I guess it's actually going to be Monday before Ash, Toby and I come back home, but I have to look after Ash while she's in hospital, and both of them when they get back from hospital. Sometime I wish I was three different people you know, one for Ash, one for Toby and one to go and earn some money (actually if there were three of me then I would need to work extra to feed the extra two mouths, so maybe I wish there were three and a half of me. Which half? Good question. I'll have to think about that one, and get back to you later.)

Right, well I'm a little rusty at this blog thing. Let me think for a minute. I haven't got much more to say. I do have a couple of links though. They're really going to be only of intrest to Americans though.

First there's this one:
http://www.paulenglish.com/ivr/
That takes you to a list of numbers that let you bypass all of the automated menus and go straight to a human operater. Kind of useful really!

And then there's this one:
http://www.jcbsong.co.uk/
Which is a really cool song, with a nifty little video to it. I say it's just for Americans because I think everyone in England has probably heard it already! By the way, a JCB is a type of back-hoe (like Kleenex is a type of tissue, hoover is a type of vacuum cleaner, etc...)

Spencer.... Out!

The man speaks out

2005-09-02T19:43:00.000-05:00

Hi, just letting you know over in blighty that Pete and I were interviewed by Chris Vallance of BBC Radio 5 for the podcasters and blogs hour (around 2am y'alls time I think) about the hurricane effects over here. I hate to listen to myself but if any of you family members want to hear shy Peter on the radio, you may listen online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/upallnight.shtml, it will probably air Monday, click on "Listen to the latest blog and podcast hour" and there you go. Not quite like my dream of working for the BBC but hey it's close enough for now. I think I sounded like a pushy wife, though. In other news they are repairing the house damage today, not that it will be finished right now, but they removed the tree and are just trying to reframe the roof and attic so that they can cover it to keep rainwater out while they repair the rest of it and assess the real damage in the walls, etc. The area to the immediate south of us is so devastated that I feel horrible even thinking that we suffered one bit. Our homeless population just multiplied and I think outnumbers our residential population (people with homes) as we have most of the evacuees here. This is a very long shot, but if any of you would like to come over and volunteer, we have beds and floor space, but will be without a kitchen for a while. There may be a hole in our house but we at least have one. And this area desperately needs volunteers to take care of the pets, people, supplies and whatever else you can think of. If you'd like to donate money, I have a paypal account, and I will take whatever is donated to that and write a check to one of the area churches who are immediately taking their donations, buying items and delivering them to the shelters. Red Cross is great, but they're taking too long, and this way you'll be able to see (well, hear from us at least) your good efforts. If you want to read more about what is going on down here, you're welcome to read my blog as well, I've been trying to update daily and will soon put up a hurricane journal that I put together when we were going through the storm as the power went out. I just need to type it up. That is at http://prozacbrat.blogspot.com. Also there are more pictures of what the storm did to our house there. We miss you all, take care and thank you for keeping in touch. Little Toby is doing well, and seems to be especially active (kicking me) when his daddy is nearby playing guitar. Speaking of, Peter will be playing guitar in a benefit concert at our church to raise money Sunday night. I'll try to see if I can maybe record some of it and put it up here. We'll see. Ash

In Which I Get Up Close And Personal With A Big Windy Thing

2005-08-30T16:58:00.000-05:00

Ok, so this is a pretty special post. Most important thing first: Everyone is alive. The only injury got by anyone was a black eye for me which I got today cleaning up the mess!

It all started on Sunday (Joe's birthday - he said he's not going to have any more of those!) Joe and I had to get everything that could possibly turn into a missile in the garage. We also had to go out and get water, batteries, food that wouldn't go bad, etc. Not as easy as it sounds, been as everyone wants all that stuff. In the evening I realised I forgot one major necessity: beer! So just as the first belts of rain came in I dashed out to get some, along with about six other blokes doing exactly the same thing!

Monday morning at about 5:30 there was a very loud bang which woke everyone up, we got dressed and went to see what it was. A tree had hit the house. Fortunately on the side of the house no one was in, and it hit on the corner so it only made a few little holes, and one big one. Had it fallen two metres to the left it would have gone straight through the wall and window and left a huge hole in the side of the house. As it was it's just a new skylight. (pictures are at http://www.geocities.com/peterspencer10/damage ) Joe wanted to get up on the roof and fix it right then. I explained to him the 100mph gusts were enough to blow a tree over, and they would definatly be enough to blow a man on top of a ladder over, even if I was holding it at the bottom. So we just went back to bed. The power cut out at about 7 in the morning. We all slept, but not too great, it was all a little worrying. There's an awful lot of trees around the house...

I got up and walked around the neighbourhood once it had died down. There was about 10 trees down that I could see, only the one at our place hit anything. The garden was more leaves and branches than grass. We were all kind of in shock from the night before, so we didn't do much. There were lots of hummingbirds about, cheeping away, they're very cute.

Last night we tried to sleep, but with no electricity there's no a/c. it was about 80 degrees last night, we got about 5 hours sleep.

It was 99 degrees today, so I got up as soon as the sun was up (I'd been awake since four anyhow) and started cleaning up. Joe got up at around eight, and we went to see if we could get some food from somewhere. McDonalds. Beggers can't be choosers. We had breakfast, went back and worked for a few more hours, the power came on so I watched the news. I was exausted, I hadn't had much sleep and working in 99 degree weather, as well as giving myself a black eye had kind of taken it out of me. Still we realised our situation wasn't that bad compared to what happend an hour down the road in New Orleans, and two hours down the road in Gulfport.

The neighbours came over at around 12 o'clock to help tidy up the yard. That was a godsend. She has like seven sons, we had the garden cleared in half an hour! It would've taken three days to clear that stuff up if it was just me and Joe.

The hurricane is looking like it's one of the worst to hit the states in a long while. New Orleans is still suffering. The levee has been breeched in two places and the pumps aren't working that well (some of them aren't working at all) if you want to check out the latest http://www.cnn.com/ is a good place to go.

Anyhow, that's it. The other news is that we went into have another sonogram a couple of days ago, the picture is on the bottom there. He's looking very cute! We decided on Toby by the way.

No Idea when I'll be back, the airport I would be flying out of would be New Orleans. We can't even get to it, and I think it may be under water anyhow. So things may be delayed a little longer.

In Which I Find Out The Gender Of Our Baby

2005-08-05T22:34:00.000-05:00

It's a boy!!!!

We went to get the sonogram today. I wouldn't have had any idea what I was looking at if it wasn't for the lady pointing things out. I definatly saw a little hand (which seemed to be punching Ash), and his little fella. There's a picture of the sonogram, and the first of an avalanche of baby photos which will no doubt be filling up you inboxes pretty darn soon, here: http://www.geocities.com/peterspencer10/baby.html It's not really that interesting to look at, unless you've never seen one before. Of course it's very interesting and exciting to me! He seems to spend a lot of his time ducking and diving and kicking and punching. Just like.... You guessed it, Jackie Chan! All I have to do is send him to a chinese circus training school and wait twenty years and after his first three movies he'll be minted enough to look after me and Ash! Excellent!

Well that's the exciting news. We've moved back down to Baton Rouge, not much has really changed down here. Dianne and Joe are getting a swimming pool (just like this one http://www.leisurepoolsusa.com/leisure_pools_moroccan_style_%20fiberglass_pool.htm) built, Dave Willa and Norm have moved from next door, the reasons are far too personal for me to go blabbing (blogging?) on about on here. I'm back here shovelling dirt with Joe again. I swear we've put an extra couple of inches on the whole property altogether! It all looks very nice though, all that dirt we shifted before I left has now turned into some lovely flower beds, and all the dirt we're shifting now should make some more lovely flower beds, so it's not like it's a waste of time!

The drive down was alright, I had some trouble at a drive thru (trailers aren't made for dive thrus in case you're wondering...) and going over 80 is a bit wobbly, apart from tha no problem. We left Annandale at about 3:oo in the afternoon on Sunday and arrived here at about 10pm on Monday.

Oh, about the move: If you ever try and get a trailer (or truck) reserved from U-Haul, get it for at least the day before. I it wasn't for our friend Tammie we would've never have got out of Annandale. See, if you reserve a trailer with U-Haul, you don't actually reserve a trailer. You might get a trailer, but it's subject to availibility. So basically if they have one you can get one. What's the point in the reservation part of it? Also even if the do have trailers then you might not be able to get one if you are moving 1200 miles away, but you can get one if you are just moving across town. Who do you think needs it more? Ash and I were trying to figure out how to drive to Baton Rouge and back (and back again) before the 4th of August. It just can't be done.

So that was catastrophe number one. Catastrophe numbers 2 - 1001 are caused by our landlord. We got an email from him saying that the apartment was a complete wreck when he got there and he had to hire a cleaning crew in to clean it. Apparently this cost him $1000. To clean a one bedroom flat, which is about 800 square foot. Dianne gets a cleaning crew into her house every two weeks for $120. it's a four bedroom 3000 square foot house. We got the carpets cleaned and fixed up. He also told me over the phone that if he had the time he would clean the flat up himself.

Thanks to his inactivity as far as the next tenants were concerned (we asked him to call them but he never bothered) they decided they were going to move somewhere else. They were supposed to be moving in on the first, instead we had to find someone on Thursday night to move in as soon as possible. (The only way we could do that is by paying $350 of the rent and offering it for $650) so they were moving in on the fourth. that gave him four days, enough time to clean up an apartment, right? Obviously because he did it. Apparently. The guy is a skinflint. He says he was going to get us a new refridgerator and he never got it because one never came along cheap enough. You expect me to believe that he offered to splash out $1000 bucks (or two an a half brand new refridgerators) on cleaning the apartment bull poopies.

So I guess I have to email him back about this. Stealing from a young couple who are about to have their first child, people who trusted him. Is there anything lower? Well of course there is but it's still pretty low.

All that bad stuff doesn't really matter in the scale of things though, I'm going to have a son! Ash wants to call him Noah, I like Toby or Benjiman. Let me not sway your judgement on this, which name do you like more? (answers on an email please)

In Which I See Ben Harper

2005-07-26T12:17:00.000-05:00

What a great night!

I started with me getting that little book I guess Lindo got you all to write a little note in. Thank you guy so much. It's good to hear from you!

Then I went off to see Ben Harper. First off Tom Freund played suuport. It was just him singing and playing a double bass for a couple of songs, then he picked up a guitar an played a couple of songs with that, and then he got the Innocent Criminals' (Bens band) percussionist to come out and play jemba while he was playing double bass. Guess what they played? Revolution be The Beatles. Probably the coolest Beatles cover I've ever heard!

The it was Bens turn. He came on with the Innocent Criminals and rocked out! He's really really good at playing slide guitar. The sound of a distorted slide guitar at high volume is something to be heard to be believed. He has a Drummer and a Percussionist playing with him and they had a little duel which was kind of cool. The band went off and Ben came back on and played some acuostic stuff. Tom Freund came on and joined Ben for Plesure And Pain (a song they did together on that debut album I was talking about a while back).

You would think that would be the end of the concert, I mean lots of people did, they started to leave... But Ben and The Innocent Criminals came back on and played a couple of numbers. Just as I was about to leave to catch the last train home Ben says "Now I have a crazy crazy, super special guest - Charlie Musslethwaite!" Doh! and Yay! all at once! Trouble getting home, but one of the great blues harp players playing with Ben! I thought "Okay I'll stay 'til 10 to 12 and run for the last train..." That gave them 10 minutes to wrap up. They didn't. "Well let me see if I can get that last train" I ran for the underground, it had already left! The sign said that the last train wasn't supposed to leave until 12:21 but I get there at 11:58 and the staion is closed!

Oh crap.

Well been as I'm going to have to find another way home I might as well go back and see the end of the concert. I caught the last song (In My Own Two Hands/War) which was truely excellent, Ben layed his guitar on his chair and started dancing like a madman, he got carried out into the crowd standing on their shoulders. Excellent!

Ben and his band played from 9:00 'til 12:30. 3 and a half hours of playing! How can he do that every night. I must say despite all the people talking all the time (Blooming Americans - they should try shutting their mouths, they might learn something!) the fact their was no curfew (Like there is in England - live music has to stop at 11:00) more than made up for that!

So, onto the problem that laid ahead - Getting home. I asked a taxi how much it would cost for me to get home. $35. I check my wallet. $10. Doh! Okay, I can get him to stop at a cash machine.... Doh! I forgot to bring my cash card. So I just started walking. After standing up for five and a half hours not really what I wanted to do to be honest. I just looked on Mapquest to how far I would have to walk.... about 15 miles. I'm glad I didn't know that at the time!

The grid system is alot easier to understand when your walking and you have time to see every sign and you can laugh at the one wayed-ness. I just started walking down the letters and up the numbers. I was a bit concerned for a while. I tried to remember which streets there had been shootings on... I'm pretty sure that's mostly North East, I was in North West, so I felt alright. Especially when I got downtown where the only poeple around were drunks and homeless. I got to Georgetown, asked a taxi how far ten dollars would get me he said "Rosslyn metro." OK, thank you, and carried on walking.

I got to Rosslyn metro about ten minutes later! The most expensive taxi ever! Just as I was going through Rosslyn I kind of got a bit lost. I stopped to ask a couple of people if I was going in the right direction for Falls Church also explaining my situation. "Yesh, it's that way. You need a taxi.You won't get there until morning if you walk..." Oh well I think. No time to waste. I got about 200 foot down the road, they called me back and gave me five dollars each. I now had $20. Hurrah! My guardian angels! All I needed now was a taxi. Hundred of taxis in DC, here in Arlington - none.

I was wearing the worst shoes for walking (apart from flip flops and high heels I guess - I've never worn either by the way!) I had blisters on my blisters, it was 2:30 in the morning, I had walked about six miles, been on my feet for seven and a half hours, and all my attempts to wave down the few taxis that had gone past had just got me a wave back from the driver. Why would a taxi driver think I was waving at them for any other reason? I was getting a little frustrated.

I called Ash, my battery was starting to run out on my phone. Had I not have just seen one of the best concerts in my life I would have been on my hands a knees sobbing as hard as could by this point. Ash quickly texted me the number of a taxi firm. Ten minutes later the nightmare was over.

I got home at three. Ash was waiting up for me. She ran me a bath. I went to bed singing Ben Harper songs.

Given the chance I would do it all again. Given the knowledge I would take my cash card with me!

IN Which I Read Harry Potter and Pack

2005-07-23T23:25:00.000-05:00

Yes those are my excuses for not writing. I've been having little sleep recently, even after I finished the book! How long is it until the next one comes out? Honestly! Why do books have to take so long to be written?! I wasn't expecting that to happen in the end! Oh, I suppose I'd better tell you what I'm talking about, well at the end of the book.... Just kidding! How many of you where about to hide behind their hands and curse at me! Hahahaha!

The moving thing is happening very soon, next week. I got a hitch on the truck and all that stuff sorted. We're almost done with the packing, we've just got the kitchen to go really. The kitties are loving it, Max is in a box as we speak, and I fully expect him to jump out of it, jump back into it, and repeat several times before I'm done!

We've already rented the trailer. My main worry about moving is that it's going to be the first time I've driven with a trailer, and it's a twelve foot trailer and we're going 1800 miles with it. I don't like to do things by halves! I don't think the driving will be much of a problem (I won't change lanes quite as regularly as I usually do obviously) it's the parking and pulling up at petrol pumps that really is bothering me. If anyone has any tips I would be most grateful to hear them.

Other news: I will be coming back to England around the 17th of August, because that's when my visa runs out. I have another interview and medical in London. Well when I say another I mean exactly the same as last time. I have to fill out exactly the same form again for it. I wish they could've just recorded the first one and played it back two years later. It would be much easier!

I know, it doesn't sound like I'm that happy to be coming back. To be honest I'm not. It's nothing that you guys have done and I haven't suddenly turned American and all xenophobic and all that, it's just, well, Ash is pregnant. I'm not going to be with her. It would be bad enough if she wasn't pregnant, but at least the pros might outweigh the cons a little. At least I'll be here for the big five month sonogram, so I know what sex our baby will be. The real problem is I have no idea when the interview is, I'm just praying as hard as I can that it's less than four months away. Even if it is I'll still be missing out on feeling my baby grow inside my wife. Right now Ash can feel the baby moving about in her, but I can't feel it outside. That's just the selfish reasons as well, I want to be here to look after Ash. I know her family will try their best to look after her but I don't think they can care for her quite the same way I can.

Still on the flipside it'll be good to see all you guys again, and eat proper bacon and battered sausage and chips, and go to the pub. You know, all the things I miss so much being over here.

Well there you go. I watched a couple of movies, Hitch is rubbish. Network is pretty good, it's kind of an obvious point though, multinationals are evil and only interested in money and TV and celebrity is our new God. I don't know how much that was true in the seventies when it was made, but it's so obvious nowadays.

Oh, I have a joke. It's always good to leave on a joke right?

"Two blondes are in California. One says 'Which is closer, the moon or Florida?' The other replies 'Dur! Can you see Florida from here?'"

Badum!

Thank you and goodnight!

In Which Ham Sandwich

2005-07-12T16:48:00.000-05:00

Boy! That was kind of unexpected wasn't it. I'm just glad that nobody I know was hurt. I know that's kind of selfish but what can you do? Thank you KT and Linda for emailing and letting me know everyone was alright, I was paniking a little in the morning. I was working with I guy from Algeria the other day and he said that they had those kind of attacks pretty much every day for ten years, and every time he left the house he would be wondering if he was going to be coming back in a box or not. So it could be alot worse. Not much of a consolation but there you go. I asked him how they got them to stop and he said "We got a new president and he talked to the terrorists." Hmmm.... Taking, now there's a thing that Mr. Bush hasn't tried... After all he doesn't really know who or where he's going after anyhow. Some guy on the radio said something good "They bomb us to get our troops out of Iraq. Well dur! Try reading the papers. The American and British troops want to be out of Iraq, it's those guys that are keeping us there!" Idiocy on both sides I feel.

Ahem.. So the rest of my week.

I went to see that new Star Wars film. I was pretty good. How come in the first one there was lots of diologue and not much happened and by the third one there was loads happenening and lots of action? I don't mean to dwell on the past but it would've been nice if all of the new Star Wars films were like this one. I guess that's a way to beat the hype though, lower peoples expectations with the first two. I mean even if this one was below average in comparison it would be great!

I also watched Bad Lieutenant on DVD. Boy, if ever there was ever a character who you could have any less sympathy for please tell me. I think that holds the record for the most drug taking by one guy in a film that I've ever seen (Fear and Lothing In Las Vegas comes a close second I guess) It was a very good movie though. Oh sorry "Film" apparently a movie you have to think about a bit is called a film, i.e anything with Jerry Bruckhiemer in the credits is a movie, anything with someone foriegn (I mean not American) in it is a film, especially if it is black and white and/or contains subtitles. I try to explain to these people that Hard Boiled has more shooting and explosions than any film made in America, but no - it's not only subtitled but it's also foriegn! I still think it's one of the best action films ever made, and mock those people for their close-mindedness. Hah! They don't know what they're missing!

Anyhow, apart form that... Not much going on really. We're getting things packed ready for the move back down south, I went all the way to Fredricksburg today, ummm.... I think that's about it really.

In Which I Enjoy DC While I Still Can And Gripe For A Bit

2005-07-04T18:34:00.000-05:00

I guess some of the reason for me not writing is because I never really do anything interesting. I did something interesting this weekend! I went to DC to get a bit of culture before go back to Baton Rouge, where there ain't really much of that kind of thing.

So I went to the Hirshorn Museum which is the modern art gallery and sculpture garden. It was all very interesting, they had a exibition called Visual Music on, so I had a look around that. It was all very abstract stuff so it was all a bit beyond my simple minds understanding but it all sure looked purty! They had some of those oils light films, the stuff they used at all the acid tests and Pink Floyd concerts and stuff. I'm sure it would be a great place to trip away! Anyhow, I went and looked at some other stuff. I liked the sculpture garden.

As it happens there was also a festival on. It was the folklife festival, which highlights a few different cultures. It was right in the mall and pretty cool. I stopped off on my way to the Hirshorn and checked out some Omanian music and dancing which made no sense to me. On the way back it made more sense in comparison to what I'd just seen at the Hirshorn! It was kind of cool they play kind of Indian style drums and bagpipes and they were inviting people up on the stage to dance with them. There was also a mariachi band, they only had one guitarist (out of a 15 peice band) which kind of surprised me, I thought guitarists were mariachis and vice versa. There was also some Native American singing. I'm not going to be buying one of their albums anytime soon! Interesting for a couple of songs but they all sounded the same to me. They were Christian Cherokees and they were singing hymns that they sang in church and they were all kind of like "Huyo haya hu Jesus huh hyo Jesus!" so a bit beyond me there!

So I was eddicated this weekend, which was nice. Onto my gripe:

Here's a quote from Mayo Clinic: Complete Book Of Pregnancy & Baby's First Year:

"You want to be a good father, but unfortunatly, babies don't come with an instruction book.....
..... Fortunatly, babies are forgiving, and moms are almost universally willing, if not eager, to share parenting skills with their partners."

Ahem, excuse me, but from the title of the book what do you think it is? Wouldn't it be classed as an instruction manual? I guess maybe they mean it doesn't come out of the box (as it were) with one. The big misuderstanding from expectant fathers is "The umbilical cord is in fact attached to a concise how to guide on fatherhood."

I let that part go, it's okay they can devalue the huge 700+ page book they waste their time publishing if they want, that's up to them. It's the second part. Mothers don't need an instruction manual, they know how to look after a baby, dads just go ahead and ask them. Okay, mothers reading this put your hands up.... Keep your hand up if for your first child you knew exactly what you were doing.... Let's just do a quick count. Oh, look! No hands! (It's a bit of an assumption but I would put money on it being true) I know that I don't know much about parenting (alright I know nothing. Apart from what swaddling is...) but neither does Ash. We're both going to have to learn together. Unless there's some kind of magical thing that happens sometime during the pregnancy and one day Ash will just suddenly know exactly how to look after our baby. Great though that would be I seriously doubt it.

Anyhow, that's my gripe. Men can't look after babies, something that has been ingrained in our culture. I don't think we'll ever be able to get rid of that. Can you imagine what it would be like if it was the other way round? Women can do anything, apart from kill spiders. I have no problem with that, but the embiggening (it's a word on the Simpsons) of women causes the belittling of men. The balance has been moved against us. Us men accept it. We need to embiggen ourselves in the baby department (at least). No, I don't mean go and buy an enlargement pump! Come on men join me in burning our boxers! Hurrah! Boy Power!

In Which I Hear Two Heartbeats In One Body!

2005-06-27T19:10:00.000-05:00

Well doesn't that sound exciting?! I heard our baby's heart! It really is exciting. One worry that's gone (well kinda, it's really a bit constant) and a million other ones that are going to be about for the rest of my life. Hurrah! Honestly, if you think the worlds a bad place now, wait until you're expecting. Then it's the same but everything is highlighted and underlined already for you!

So that's the big news. Our baby is alive and doing well. Unfortunatly the mother isn't faring so well. She's always in pain, and still feeling nauseous. She tells me that feeling nauseous this late in the pregnancy means it's either twins or a girl (please let it just be a girl! Although twins would be good - a drummer and a bassist! (j/k)) Still the main point is that Ash ain't feeling too hot. Well actually she says she's feeling very hot, but you know what I mean.

The slightly smaller news is that Ash is great! She bought me a ticket to go and see Ben Harper! Woohoo! It's in a pretty small venue (about 2/3rds the size of the Hexagon) so it's just going to be me, Ben, Tom Freund (his support and the guy that he made his debut limited edition vinal only lp with), their crews, the venue staff, and 1199 other fans there. Sould be pretty darn cool! Woohoo! I've always wanted to see Ben live, and now I'm going to! Woohoo!

Other news.... Did I tell you dudes that I've started work on my Godzilla album? I've got five songs, a couple of them are a little sketchy but the rest of them sound alright (for starters anyhow) I play them for Ash, but she never wants to hurt my feelings so I've only got my opinion to go on. I've also written a couple of other songs, but the connection on this computer is really slow so I haven't uploaded them just in case you were wondering where all my creativeness has gone! Of course most of you probably don't know what I'm talking about anyhow. It's alright, it doesn't really bother me much anyhow. If you're curious to what I'm talking about it's here: http://www.geocities.com/affekopf10/

Take care folks!

P.S. I just checked my counter on the affekopf website. Two people have visited it! I'm sure I've given out the address to more people than that! Well, I guess it's better than hearing what I already know - my music sucks!

In Which Umm....

2005-06-15T19:44:00.000-05:00

Alright, not much going on. So I'll just talk about stuff.

Good films I've seen recently:

Stander - The best American movie I've seen since erm.... dunno... some film made by an American. It's based on a true story of a chief of police in South Africa who is peed off with aparthied so he goes against authority by robbing banks during his lunch hour. Couldn't make that up eh? One of the banks he robs has the taskforce that is trying to catch them right next door (not exactly true, actually the taskforce was above the bank) he's got some real balls! Even the commentry was pretty interesting. Rent it today!

The other two are Hero and The House of Daggers. They're both directed by the same bloke. They're both martial arts movies, but don't let that put you off. They actually have like proper plots and acting and dialogue, you know all the things that are usually missing from normal matial arts movies. Hero is one of the most visually stunning movies I've seen, and House of Daggers shows how martial arts can show a completely new look on romance that couldn't be shown in your sappy rom-coms! So chicks: rent out House of Daggers to see proper romance without all that mushy stuff!

Other news: I've actually started working on that musical version of Godzilla as well. I have three songs sketched out so far, it's taking me an awful lot of reserch to get it though, and it may be a little harder to do than I first thought. I think that I've used as many words in those three songs as there are in the whole movie!

Anyhooo bed time. goodnight!

In Which I Get Back In Contact

2005-06-11T22:03:00.000-05:00

Whoops! It's been a while eh?

Well I have excuses, at least an excuse for last weekend anyhow. We went to Ash's college reunion. It was alright, we didn't really do much though. Oh there was one thing that was interesting. On Saturday night I was sitting in the entrance hall reading the paper, suddenly I hear all this giggling and wheels coming down the hall. A bunch of odds (people who graduated in and odd year) had stolen the even horse (even being people who graduated in even years, I have no idea why they have a horse. The odds have a tree) the horse is made out of plaster cast so it's kind of odd looking really. The horse came out and so did the ladies. It was just me sitting there, then the word slowly got around and there was groups of ladies turning up. Soon enough there was hundreds of ladies standing around (Oh Ash went to RMWC which is a womens college, that's why they were all ladies) there was at least three generations there. The oldest graduated in the 40's so it was quite a unique crowd really. The horse was put in the middle of a split staircase. Some of the odds got on one side and some of the evens got on the other side and they had a sing off. They have special odd and even songs, it's all very interesting.

Anyhow, that was the intrest. They had a talk on the Reading program. They've been going there since 74. The BP garage was met with fond memories of it's convienience by the girls who were there when it was. I met up with some people that I used to serve while I was working there. It made me feel homesick. It's alright though I can handle it!

This weekend Father Vic and Chandler from St. Margrets were in town so I spent some tme hanging out with them. We went to the National Cathedral which is kind of interesting because it's all new looking. The stained glass is crazy! We went and ate in Georgetown and drove around the mall at night to see all the monuments lit up. It was good to see them, they made me miss Baton Rouge! Honestly!

I'm now working at Lexus, which is great. I'm away from the awful Frankie. It's much more relaxed at Lexus, and I only work half a day. I have to work for Lasership in the afternoon to make up the rest of my money. I think it's probably a good thing.

We've got to get out of Washington and back to baton rouge as soon as possible for Ash's mental health. I have to find a job with benefits down there first though. I've been looking, but there isn't really very much down there apart from with the state and I have to do an exam before I can get a job there.

I think that's about it really. Sorry it's not that in depth but it's late. Goodnight!

In Which I Straighten Some Things Up

2005-05-16T21:36:00.000-05:00

Good grief!

Didn't I say I was happy? I bookended the complaining with happy things. It's just I don't have explain my happiness because it's obvious why I'm happy! Honestly! Thank you for the emails though.

Not much going on really. I've strated recording music again. I recorded half a song yesterday and half a song today, although not the same song. I need a bass. All it needs is the first five frets and all the strings to work and I'd be happy.

Umm... Oh, I'm applying for a job at Carquest. It's the same thing as I'm doing right now but in someone elses truck.

I bought GTA:Vice City on Sunday, it's fun. Ash doesn't like it though. I don't understand why though. Chopping up innocent people with a samurai sword/chainsaw just doesn't appeal to her I guess!

That's it. Tata!

In Which I Do A Quick Update

2005-05-11T22:14:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I've been rather busy of late. It's late, so I don't know how long this will be because it's already past bedtime, but Ash can't sleep, she say's she'll have nightmares. I guess this is good practice for all the sleepless nights with the little one!

We saw it's heartbeat the other day, and we've got pictures. Everything is going along as it should. the baby is now about 8 1/2 cm long, znd right now it's little fingers and toes are developing.

Ash is doing well, all things considered. She's really not feeling very good though. I'm trying my best to look after her, but she's having trouble waking up in the morning and she's always in pain. And she is always complaining. So considering all those awful things she's doing well. Oh and she is now off her anti-depressants so that just adds to everything.

As for me I feel very guilty. It's because of me that Ash is in all this pain. I wish I could take it away. It's kind of hard to explain, especially to those of you who aren't married. The one person I love so much that I want to spend the rest of my life with is in pain, and she wouldn't be if it wasn't for me. I want to be helping her avoid pain instead I'm giving it right to her. That's not my only problem. I also feel pretty under appreciated (and because I feel like that I feel selfish) I have been cooking, cleaning and comforting Ash all the time (hence why I haven't written in a while) that I'm not working. Ash is complaining, crying, and in pain. She does say thanks lots and stuff but she complains and crys alot more, On the bright side it does make me apprciate her smiles (when she does) alot more. What I need is a friend who I can complain to but you're all thousands of miles away. I'm in this huge city with no one around I can call a friend apart from Ash and that doesn't work does it?

Ahem..... Sorry about that, jsut some things I needed to get off my chest.

Oh and also there's a new dispatcher at work. he's 18 years old and sometimes he acts like a five year old.It would take too much explaining to tell you about that. He's just not making my job bearable. All the other dispatchers I've worked with I feel like I'm working with them, like they're part of the team. This one I'm working for him, like he's my boss, which would be fine but he's really bad at being a boss. Okay, so here's an example: at 4:30 there are four drivers standing around doing nothing because there's nothing to deliver. Any other dispatcher would send all but one of the drivers home. After all what's the chances that four seperate deliveries will come up, all going in different directions, all ten minutes away? (slim to none) The new guy won't send anyone home until the clock strikes five. rshole.

The other big thing that has been decided is that we're going to move back down south where life is cheaper and family is closer. So if you want to come and visit Washington DC cheap come before September. A motel here will cost you at least $80 a night, if you don't mind sleeping with cockroaches, or you can sleep here and all it will cost you is taking us out for a meal one night (and maybe a few groceries would be nice). You'll even get free metro use (Ash has about $200 worth of metro cards she keeps getting from work) and I'll give you a lift to the station in the morning and pick you up in the evening. How much do I have to sell this?

The bad news is that I'm not going to be able to make it over for Rich and Karens wedding. With a baby on the way we really can't afford it. Otherwise I would be over there like a shot. So who knows when I'll be coming home. That's kind of depressing. Oh well!

Although it may sound like life is afwul for me right now, go read the second paragraph again! All this complaining is like complaining about work. even if you were getting paid millions for your job you'd still complain about it until yoou got your paycheck. Ash and I are on our way to the biggest paycheck ever!

Anyhoo, it's definatly well past bedtime now. Goodnight!

In Which Erm... I Write Something

2005-04-07T19:32:00.000-05:00

Everything is going fine with Ash. Well, she's crampy, nauseous, very tired and pretty much hurting all over, but they're all signs of a normal pregnancy (at least for the first three months. I think it's all going to get a little less painful after that)

Some of you seem to be shocked by my lack of worries about bringing up a baby. To make it as short as possible, I have faith that God will provide. Of course I do still have a lot of worries, the book I'm reading is talking about setting up a college fund, we haven't even got our own house yet. Prices around here are close to half a million for a house. A little out of our price range (that's supposed to sound sarcastic BTW) Ashley wants to quit her job so she can look after the baby. I will only just be able to afford to keep us housed and fed with what I'm earning right now. Needless to say I'm looking for another job. One with benefits and a similar salary would be OK. They're all valid things to be worried about right? Still I know the Lord will look after us. He'll help me find the job I need, etc... Oh, and as for Ash and I splitting up from the strain of bringing up a kiddie, that's about as likely as.... umm.... the most unlikely thing you can think of. We love each other, nothing's stronger than love. Not even superglue!

Well that's that news out of the way right? I would tell you what Ash is feeling but I think that you should direct your way to Ash's blog for that. I'm sure she knows that better than I do! Did I say that we're going to go to the doctor on the 25th of April? Well we are. Thank you so much for your emails by the way. I'll try and reply to them all, it may take a while though.

Lindypoo is coming over tomorrow for a couple of weeks to come and see all the cherry blossoms (and us) which is pretty exciting. I bought a guitar (kind of. Someone lent it to me and I'm paying for it later) it's this one: http://www.ibanez.com/guitars/guitar.asp?model=AM73 For the price it's a sweet sweet guitar. All I need now is an amp. Excellent! That's about it really, I've been working as much as possible recently. I made enough in overtime to buy the guitar, hopefully next month I'll make enough to buy the amp. After that I'd better start saving for baby stuff I suppose!

So basically I'm happy. I've got a new baby and another one on the way!

In Which I have VERY IMPORTANT and VERY EXCITING news

2005-04-02T20:37:00.000-06:00

I'm going to be a daddy! Ash had an upset tummy so we went to the doctors, the doctor did some tests and it turns out that Ash is pregnant!

How do I feel? Well the immediate feeling was relief. I was worried that the pain that as was feeling was going to result in us never having kids, so I spent the whole day worrying about that. As far as my feelings right now, very happy and very excited about what our baby is going to be like.

Along with the happiness is a lot of worry. Forget all the stuff about bringing a child into this world full of awful stuff. There's bigger worries before that. It's too scary to think about but so many things could go wrong... I think I'll stop that train of thought right now, but I'm sure you know where I'm going with that.

So now I've got a pregnant wife I have to look after. Apparently the first trimester is when she's going to be all tired and achey. I hope it's not going to be like that for the next two! Let's get the worst bit out of the way first... Please!

Anyhow, that's all I've got to talk about really, I guess I could tell you about a guy actually saying "howdy" to me, like a proper greeting, and me working real hard and a load of other boring stuff, but that's not really important right now is it?

Thank you all for the emails I've got (by the way that doesn't mean I'm not hurt by those of you that haven't sent me any yet) I wish I could reply to you all indvidually, but I've been kind of busy lately, I'm sorry. I'm not really expecting things to get any less busy in the next 20 years to be honest with you! Well maybe I'll be able to get our son/daughter to help with the housework and stuff and that would give me more time to talk to you guys and whatever...

In Which I Do Even More Catching Up, And Nag A Little

2005-03-19T20:14:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I'll get the nagging out of the way first. Apparently only two people actually read this! I have two addresses in my new address book. I know I'm not the best at replying to emails, especially now with work and swimming and whatnot (oh I didn't tell you about me swimming did I? I will once I'm done with my nagging!) but I do let you know I'm still alive, and where I'm living and stuff. I'm not asking for much, just an address. Forget the paragraph. I'll just make up whats going on in your lives in my own head. You lot have been coming into my dreams quite a bit recently, which is just as well because otherwise I'd forget what you're names were or something even more drastic which I can't think of right now! I'm hoping it's because some of you can't be bothered to read the whole email (which doesn't really surpprise me, I'm not the most interesting guy in the world) which is why I put it at the start of this one see? Anyhow, it's not as bad as it once was, there used to be one of these daily, now it appears to only be fortnightly!

Nag over, on with the things that are going on in my life....

I am trying to swim at least twice a week. There's a REC centre down the road from me which is pretty convienient. It's not under used either, most nights there's sycronized swimming in one end of the pool, aquarobics at the other end and swimming lessons in the middle. There's only about five lanes open to public swimmers! I started three weeks ago and I could only swim for about twenty minutes. I've been pushing myself though, now I can happily swim for an hour. It's definately helping me to loose weight. I'm sure that the things I gave up for lent (beer, fast food and fizzy pop) is helping me out too! I'll try to take them back up in moderation after lent. Well, apart from beer! I miss the old amber nectar!

So, the exciting thing that happened this week is I crashed the truck. Alright, don't panic, I dinged a car parking. It's not the easiest thing to park you know, there's alot of guesswork and hoping going on. So I hit this car on the front wheel arch. I did it while I was delivering a part to a body shop, so they gave me a quote. Have a guess how much they quoted me (answer at the bottom) so I phoned up my insurance company and they sorted everything out. I thought I was going to have to pay the deductable, but that's only for damage to the truck, which is kind of cool. Oh, by the way, there wasn't any damage to the truck.

Ashley has gone out of town for the weekend, on of her friends mother died and shes gone to the funeral in Richmond to give her some support. They're going out drinking tonight so I think her friend will have to return the favor tonight. ba-dum! Sorry, was that disrepectful? No disrepect meant, I just thought it was funny!

What else.... Oh, we got rid of half of our free furniture, the only things we've got left are the dining table and chairs and sofas. Slowly but surely we're Ikeaing the place up. Gosh, I can't really think of anything else to write. Sorry. I should eat anyhow, it's 10 o'clock in the evening and I haven't even started cooking!

The answer is $1200. For a ding?! The insurance guy got it down to pretty much half of that. Blooming cowboys.

In Which Some Catching Up is Done

2005-03-03T19:20:00.000-06:00

Okay, it's been a while, so here goes.... You'd better put a good half an hour aside to read this....

Mother has been and gone, as has mother-in-law. We had a splendid time. Mother appreciates the public transport and pavements. It means that she wasn't stuck in the apartment all day while Ash and I were at work. I got a few days off to spend with the old girls though.

Mum and I went into DC for a couple of days, we went to the Museum of American History. It's very big. We did one floor (almost) we did the war bit up until the civil war, but it was a bit too depressing to look at any of the other wars. An awful lot of people died in the Civil War. Then we looked at a few other bits. We went to Union Station to eat, they have a huge food court there, there must've been at least 20 different places to eat. It's a very fancy station. I noticed it had a cinema! I don't think there's one of those at Paddington!

We went back in the next day and looked at all the memorials. The FDR is my favorite, it has lots of water features and is generally a nice place to sit around and relax in. We also saw the Lincoln and Jefferson ones as well, they're kind of fancy really. We went to the Vietnam War and the Second World War Memorials too.

Oh, on Saturday Mother, Ash and I went to the spy museum, that was very interesting too. They actually made cigarette and umbrella guns! It said that the spy agencies actually got some of their ideas off of Bond films. I always thought it was the other way round!

Mother helped us out by buying us all the important things we needed (as well as groceries for the week... Well acutally we're still eating those groceries now, two weeks later!) which was very nice of her, and much appreciated. She also cooked us dinner for when we got home form work, which was very nice of her as well!

Oh yeah, Mother flew into BWI. Can I just give a suggestion if any of you guys decide to come over to help keep my sanity? If you are going to fly into BWI please try and do it in the middle of the day, not at rush hour! It's only an hour away non-rush hour, it's closer to three at rush hour. The airport of choice to fly into is Dulles, then Regan and the BWI. BWI is actually closer to Baltimore than Washington, at least the other two are in DC! It is a lot cheaper to fly into BWI though, so it's not a big problem flying in there, just try and get a flight that arrives before four o'clock please!

Dianne flew into Dulles. It would've been fine, if my wife could tell the difference between a 6 and an 8. we go there on the 16th to pick her up, wait about for a couple of hours. Dianne calls her dad, he says that she's arriving on the 18th! Doh! So we go home and come back on the 18th and there she is.

She bought an air matress with her which we've now aquired, and mother bought a sleeping bag with her that she's left here, and we have some extra blankets and stuff. Also, unlike Louisiana there are actually things to do here which don't involve getting drunk (there are plenty that have that option, but you don't have to do it) There's no barbeques here though, and no Joe to cook steaks unfortunatly, but apart from that everything is fun up here. I only thought about asking Dianne to bring some of Joe's steaks with her after she go here and by then, it was just too late. Anyhow, I got sidetracked. The point of this paragraph is... come and visit! It's fun! Only one flight, so it's cheap and less hassle! Have I sold it enough?

Anyhow, I digress. Dianne got here, that weekend all four of us went to the Air and Space Museum in Dulles (there's two of them - on in DC and one with all the extra big stuff the couldn't fit inside that one in Dulles) There's a Blackbird there, a Concorde, and a space shuttle. It's all very exciting!

We went to the mall, because - well you know chicks.... We went to Sam's to get some stuff and Dianne bought me a PS2 as a belated birthday present! Woohoo! It's one of those new tiny ones, just a smidge bigger than a dvd box. Well you can what I've been doing with my spare time can't you?! I've got five games, Gran Tourismo 3 and Jak 2 came with it, and I've also got Tony Hawks Underground 2 (that's no surprise is it?), The Simpsons Hit and Run, and Jak and Daxter. That one was secondhand and the disc is a bit messed up so it won't let me past a certain bit, and I'm not going to start playing Jak 2 until I've completed the first one.

We went to Ikea with Dianne and she bought us a couple of pieces of furniture and a couple of lights and some other stuff. I went back and spent our $100 per month furniture designation (yes, we've budgeted!) on a TV stand thingy. So all we need for the living room is a coffee table and some end tables. Oh and some new sofas, but that'll wait until my credit get better.

Oh yeah! I should tell you about that too. Just when you thought there was no way our landlord could be any nicer, he's put my name on his credit card and in about three months I should have a good credit rating. He has a credit rating of 800 (I think that's as high as it goes) so that should rub off on me! What a nice guy!

While our Mums were here Ash had a sinus infection and I had a cold. So we had two mothers looking after us! I think secretly they liked looking after us as much as we liked being looked after. After all mothers are very good at mothering, and I'm sure they've been missing that!

I think that's about it really. Oh yeah, it was our wedding anniversary yesterday (the 2nd) I cooked Ash steaks and bought her some flowers, and she bought me a subscription to Uncut! (the English music mag I read when I can get it... Which'll be every month now! Woohoo!) We're going to go out ring shopping this weekend, so we can finally get some wedding bands. Well we'll at least get one for Ash, mine might have to wait for next month, it depends how fiscally challenged we are. One things for sure though, this month we're going to be almost definatly in the black this month, and hopefully every month after that. Ash will have finished paying off for the truck at the end of this month which'll save us $300-odd. So, yay!

Oh, and one more thing, a favor to ask of you guys. The other day I got a new address book, and I gather that I am not the only person to have moved... So (at the risk of being upset by getting no replies to this request) I was wondering if you could send me your addresses to my email address, just in case I decide to get all prehistoric and write with a pen and paper in stead of on the computer. You could also add a little extra paragraph telling me how your doing if you wanted (is that asking too much?) Thank you!

That's about it, I hope to be hearing from y'all soon.

Oh there was one thing that happened to me today which was kind of amusing. I was out in the sticks a bit and I had to stop and get some fuel. It was one of those old full service pumps with the little whirly numbers. So I went in and there was four guys, one big fat man with a truckers cap sitting behind a desk, another guy on the radio to someone, and the other two were leaning up against the counter. The counter was just a shelf on the wall with a till on it. There was a couple of racial slurs while I was in there as well. Proper real life hicks! A little slice of culture there. Oh and also the dispatcher I'm working for is from West Virginia and he has 10 vehicles in his front yard, only one of which is road leagal, and there's one more that actually works, and a bike that works too. He also has a couch on his front porch. I think that that a real country boy there!

That really is it, I'm off to bed.

In Which I Let You Know I'm Still Alive

2005-03-01T20:51:00.000-06:00

In Which I Get A PS2

2005-02-05T20:58:00.000-06:00

Hello!

Well it's been a fairly busy week. I've spent most of it waiting for my PS2 to arrive. I'd better tell you about that before you think "Tsk! He's been busy playing on that. That's why he hasn't written anything in a while." It arrived on Thursday. It was broken. The CD drawer doesn't work. You can imagine the roller coster of emotions. I come home, see the box sitting outside our front door, run up and unpack it all happy ready to play Simpsons: Hit and Run.... And then I try and put the game in. Woe is me! So anyhow, now we've got to send it back to the bloke we bought it from for a refund. Once we can afford it we'll actually go out and buy a new one (Ash paid $120 for this one, and they cost $150 new and it'll have extra gizmos, be cooler and thinner and we'll have a warranty on it, so it's worth the extra 30 bucks) Oh, dinner's ready. I'll be right back.

Ok I'm back. Ash invented some kind of fancy food. It was very tasty! Anyhow, as I was saying erm... New PS2. That was pretty much the end of that wasn't it?

On with a new paragraph then. What else have we been up to? Oh our new bed arrived. It's very comfy, which is a shame because it makes it harder to get up for work in the morning! We bought some fancy sheets as well, they're 400 count, and they were only $50 for a whole set. I know that probably means nothing to most people, but Dianne will be impressed!

We're broke at the moment so we figured it would be the best time to go and look around Ikea (no money means no spending, just like going into a casino without your debit card) so we did some window shopping, made a list and worked out for $1500 we could (and will!) pretty much furnish the whole apartment. Apart from sofas and stuff. They're kind of pricey there and there's many other cheaper places for that kind of stuff round here.

Apart from all that stuff it's just been the ol' rat race for me. I got lost in DC a couple of times... I've decided that the the closer to DC you get the more confusing navigating your way around is. Reston or Chantilly: No problem. Arlington and Alexandria: "What do you mean I can't turn left anywhere along this road?", "Oh so you're a one way street, just like it doesn't say on the map!" etc. Iknow I keep mantioning this whole thing, but it is basically what's going through my mind most of the day. Apart from laughing at coompletely unfunny things (eg."Laurel street. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"). It's amazing what you'll do when you're driving alone isn't it? I hope I'm not going mad. I don't think I am but isn't that the first sign of madness? Then again maybe I do think I am as the last sentance just proved. Oh babbling, I spend a lot of my time babbling to myself too. Just like I am now. I'm kind of stuck here I don't know how to end this paragraph now. Oh hold I can do it how they do it in Law and Order. DUNG DUNG!

Mother's flying in on Wednesday, which quite convieniently turns out to be my payday. I figure I'll take Wednesday afternoon off, work Thursday so mother can get over her Jet-lag a bit and then I'll take Friday. Monday and Tuesday off so we can spend some time together. Maybe I'll be able to take some more time off later, but I'm dealing with things one week at a time. Ash should be able to get some time off, so I guess we can take mummy-sitting in turns. The odd day though I might just have to give her a lift to the metro in the morning and wish her the best of luck. DUNG DUNG!

Well that's about all I've got/all I can be bothered to write right now. Tune in next week for more completely uninteresting things. Don't go away, there will be a preview of next weeks episode after these words from our sponsors.

Drink Beer. Scientists say it's good for you (warning: Scientists don't actually say it's good for you unless they're actually drinking it)

Eat fish. They deserve it. There's too many of the little f**kers anyhow.

Buy something off us. We've got a funny advert. Look at the Funny kids! Seriously though: Buy something you cheapskates!

Don't eat at Mc Donalds. All their burgers taste like butt.

On next weeks episode:
blah blah blah mother's here, blah blah blah traffic is still rubbish, blah blah blah remember what I said about me going mad and babbling too much? blah blah blah blah blah

In Which I Just Write Stuff

2005-01-27T20:58:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been a while, and I think that this may become a little more sporadic now. I have very little time available right now, I work, come home, sleep, get up, work... I mean that literally as well, no exaggeration. It's not really that much of a problem, it just makes me very tired. 12 hour minimum days tend to do that to you after a while. I don't even have time to check my email! Oh well. At least I can still look forward to the weekend!

The good thing about all this work is it means that Ash and I can start buying things we need. We went out last night and bought a bed. Sears were having a sale all their beds were half price. So we bought a $1500 bed for $750 (give or take a little) I'm hoping that I'll be able to get a good nights sleep and it'll stop me from being so tired. It is arriving on Tuesday.

Ash got me a birthday present. Can you guess what it is? That's right! She got me the widowmaker - otherwise known as a PS2! It's not like I'll have a lot of time to play with it anyhow (somehow I think that was part of the reason for her getting it for me... Alright maybe it's just she realizes how hard I'm working and she thinks I deserve it) I guess we'll have to get another TV sometime soon so Ash can watch her rubbish reality shows while I play with some real fake reality! Woohoo!

What else... Oh, I told you all about the chauffeuring job didn't I? If not, I managed to bluff my way through it, although I did make one mistake. I got my cheque the other day (that's what we used to buy the bed) it was less than it should've been, but more than I would've made in a week of my normal job.

Ash came with me yesterday while I was delivering some stuff around DC. She thinks maybe I should get a GPS thing after all! We got lost, well not really lost. See DC works on this strange system, everything is split into four. So, for example, there's 1st street SW, NW, SE, and NE, so basically it makes it four times more confusing than any other city to get around. We went to Somethingorother place SW and we should have gone to Somethingorother place SE, three blocks away. Marked on the map with a simple "Pl". No other clues. Eventually we worked out that as far as the grid system goes, it doesn't matter if the road stops for ten blocks and comes back for just one block, it's called the same road (apart from SW instead SE). Does that all make sense? No? Well that's me trying to explain it, imagine trying to work it out for yourself!

So anyhow, I'm starting to crack the riddle that is DC. Another twenty years and I might actually know where I'm going! Fortunately it's only the DC area that is so confusing, the rest isn't so bad, and been as I'm usually working in the rest it's alright.

Oh, you know what the greatest thing about here? If you go to a restaurant they give you vinegar to put on your chips! I know that may not seem that amazing to all you English bods, but it is to me. No longer do I have to eat my chips at home to have the luxury of vinegar! Also people don't seem to be amazed by my accent up here. In fact the only people that are are other Brits. Which is good to know anyway! After all I get a little excited if I hear a British accent. Another thing is people actually seem to be interested in sports apart from football, in fact quite a lot of people I've talked to actually like football! It should be a lot easier to watch England play in a bar around here than in BR.

Ash is feeling puppysick at the moment, she misses the poodles. She's been trying to convince me that I need a dog to ride with me in the truck while I'm working. I've put my foot down, no doggies! At least not for a while anyhow!

That's all I can type for now, it's already past my bedtime. Only one more day 'til the weekend, and four more days until we get a proper bed! Woohoo!

In Which It's Me Writing!

2005-01-21T20:46:00.000-06:00

Hello! It's me!

How's everyone doing? I'm doing fine! I've had quite an exciting week this week. I've been busy driving VIP's round DC for the inauguration. My first time driving round DC was the night before I started work! Although it's not as confusing as London (which I've never driven round anyway) it's still pretty darn confusing! I learnt today that it was designed by some guy who wanted it to be like Paris, and as far as driving around it goes I think he did a good job!

I managed to bluff my way around though, most of the people I was driving were very nice and uncerstanding. I think the accent helped! The job involved very long hours. Yesterday was my longest day, I started at 8 am and finished at 2 am! It's not as bad as it sounds though. Most of the time is spent waiting around, and I got a $40 tip at the end of the day that day as well. When you're making $20 per hour for taking a nap in your car it's not worth complaining about how long your hours are!

It snowed on Wednesday. There was gridlock. It took me three hours to get out of DC (it usually takes about 15 minutes - unless it's rush hour and then it takes about an hour) It was somewhere between one and three inches depending on where you were/who told you. It's going to snow again this weekend. It should be somewhere between 4 and 8 inches deep. I'm only going to leave the house to build a snowman, I'm not driving anywhere! I don't think I'll be making much money next week, I get paid per delivery and I'm not going to be able to go very fast in all the snow, especially in a two wheel drive pick-up. There's no weight on the back see, so it doesn't get any traction. Ash got stuck on hills three times on Wednesday. I'm not really looking forward to it.

It was my birthday last week. That's it. I've hit the big 2-6. My eyesight is fading now, my back always hurts.... etc. Alright not really. I'm just the same. I can't call Ash old anymore though, at least not until her birthday in September!

That'll do for now won't it? I've missed doing this you know. I hope you've all missed reading it too. I'm baaack!

Tired days but Happy Days

2005-01-10T09:43:00.000-06:00

Greetings!

We still have no internet at home, or phone line for that matter but perhaps we'll be able to afford that next month. So I'm updating y'all from work, hoping not to be too busy in order to finish this post.

Pete has been working hard as a courier, driving around the DC area, Maryland and Virginia delivering packages. His first payday is Wednesday, so we'll find out then if the job will be worth all that driving, miles, and fuel expenses. He leaves around 6am and comes home around 9pm. Next week he'll be chaufeurring for the inauguration, which should be about a 60 hour week. So he's working hard to help pay our rent, which makes me feel much better as my job has yet to issue me my first paycheck due to so many offices taking Christmas and New Year's vacations.

Just a reminder, Pete's birthday is Friday. I put some things on amazon.com under the wish list for my email ashleydspencer@hotmail.com of some things that he would like and things he has asked for. I think most of all though, he would appreciate a card, phone call or email from his family and friends just to tell him what he's missing.

We're still enjoying finally being proper Smug Marrieds in our own place with our two cats, but with both of us working long hours all we do is come home, fire up the George Foreman Grill, eat and sleep. We miss everyone, so take care.

Ash

Quick update from the bird

2005-01-03T16:33:00.000-06:00

Hiya,

We returned from Baton Rouge on Friday, with the rest of our furniture (almost, a few things wouldn't fit in the truck - we'll get them some other time) and our cats, Charlie and Max. They survived the long trip pretty well, with a little meowing during the first few miles, but nothing after that. We had to stop and check on them just to make sure they were still alive, they were so quiet. Max had a little hissy fit in the hotel room on the way up, but Charlie calmed him down and we were on our way again the next day with no Kitty incidents.

The cats seem to be taking in the apartment well and settling in. At the moment they always need to be attached to us, either to our feet, legs, or sleeping on our bed at night (we might need to invest in a bigger bed just to accomodate them!). It's nice to have them there as it makes the apartment really feel like home. Now we're just two smug marrieds with "children" (the kitties of course).

Pete is a super-unpacker, and we unpacked the last box yesterday! Now we are officially moved in. We got some needed kitchen gadgets and beddings for Christmas, so we updated our Bed, Bath and beyond (www.bedbathandbeyond.com) registry gift list, and also put our new address on that. Thanks to everyone for your gifts, letters, cards and emails. We miss everyone, and just want y'all to know that we're extremely happy right now, finally being able to live like a normal married couple.

We still don't have internet access at home, only at my office, and I will be out of town for the next few days for training at our main campus 5 hours away, and Pete starts his new job delivering parcels tomorrow, so don't despair if you don't hear from us. I will try to update on Friday.

love and hugs,
Ash

In Which Lots Happens, Including A Very Long Drive

2004-12-24T10:09:00.000-06:00

Okay, it's been a while. First of all, that job I was talking about didn't happen. Whic is just as well really because I've been spending all my time picking up free furniture! So, I told you I cleaned out that ladies house.... After that I went to some apartments to pick up a bed. The guy told me the street address, but not the house address. There must have been a thousand apartments there. I wasn't going to knock on every door so we just went without a bed that evening.

Then I went to pick up a couch. It's very comfortable, and it ment Ash had somewhere to sleep that night. I phoned up my landlord Kagan (pronounced "karn" I found out after calling him kagan forever!) because he had said the night before when we were moving in that if we needed any furniture he would try and help us. I told him aboutthe dilemma with the bed. He sad he'd see what he could do. He phoned back five minutes later and said one of his friends had a bed and we could pick them up tomorrow! He also gave us his desk because the free one I got had a broken leg. Isn't that nice? Oh, he has also found me a job. I love this guy!

I went and did some shopping in thrift (charity) and dollar stores, got a few essentials that weren't covered, like drying rack, a vacuum cleaner ($20), ironing board ($3), etc. Alright, so the ironing board might have been used to iron a now-dead persons clothes, bt so what? (I draw the line at buying clothes from thrift stores... That really is too creepy!) I think I bought the coffee table ($25) and end tables ($15 ea.) then as well.

I picked up the bed in the evening. It's not the most comfortable bed (it's definatly going to be the first thing replaced) but it's a lot better than the floor!

The next day Ash told me about some lady giving away an entertainment center and some dining chairs. I went to have a look and she also had a reclining chair and sofa, so I picked those up too. I had help on that end, on my end I had to move the sofa by myself. It took me about an hour of really hard work to get it down to our floor. I tried to get it in the flat but there was no way. I was exausted, and about to break down. I gave Ash a call and she said she would come and help, I went to pick her up and before we even had a chance to try and move it one of our neighbours came and gave us a hand. Which is just as well, because Ash and I couldn't have done it by ourselves. Oh, I also got a full dining set and 24 glasses from that lady as well.

I had to go back to pick up the entertainment center. It was very heavy, bt the lady managed to find a dolly to help us out and I had Ash with me to help. At our end, yet again it turned out to be tricky. We got it off the truck, couldn't carry it any further, so I took off all the bits of wood that would come off and we tried to move it again. It was still very heavy. In the end we put it on its roof and slid it. It damaged it a little, but it was free anyhow!

So that's everything moved in. We're going to pick up our bedroom furniture from down here and tak it up with us. We spent $55 (about 30 pounds) on furniture and we've furnished the whole apartment. Not too bad really!

We were going to leave on Wednesday night to come down here but I was exhasted. So we left at 5:30 the next morning. We drove all the way yesterday and got here at about 10ish inthe evening. Here's the route we took, pretty much. I was knackered by the time we got here.

That's it really. Oh, if you get this emailed to you there's a couple of posts you might have missed on the actual blog (Ash wrote them for me at work since we don't have internet yet) so go and check it. I go the address kind of wrong as well. it's apartment 08 not just 8 and the zip code is 22003. If you haven't got the address then email me and I'll send it to you.

Merry Christmas everybody! Sorry I didn't have time to write to y'all this year, it's just I've been a bit busy with the move and all that. You'll just have to accept the reams and reams of stuff I' ve written over the last year instead!

I hope you all have a great one!

Short update

2004-12-21T11:58:00.000-06:00

Hey y'all,

It's Ash. Just letting you know that we're moved into the apartment, no bed though as the person who was going to give us a free one backed out... and also no internet or phone there... no cable or tv either so it's just good ol' conversation at the spencer household!

We're leaving tomorrow evening after Pete's job interview at the bank, to drive back to louisiana for Christmas. We probably won't be able to check back in or check email until Christmas Eve. So take care everybody, and Happy Christmas!

Ash and Pete

In Which We're Blessed Again!

2004-12-19T06:01:00.000-06:00

Well we've been very fortunate this week. I have hopefully got a job starting Tuesday, we sign the contract for our apartment today, and yesterday I picked up a load of free furniture. I'm picking up more on Monday.

Starting from the top, I went to Manpower to fill in all the paper work, I finished that and they said they had a temp-to-perm position availible starting Monday, I said I was moving on Monday so they're going to find out if I can start on Tuesday. It's some kind of job, I'm not really sure what it is to be honest, but it pays $11 p/h and I have to be earning at least $9 p/h for use to get by, and it's in Fairfax which is just down the road.

Signing the contract is the reason that I'm up so early. I'm all excited! I can't sleep! It's going to be tight the first couple of months while we pay off the deposit (it's a month of rent - we managed to convince him to split it in to two seperate payments) but after that, as long as I'm employed we should be fine. Another good thing is that in March the truck is all payed for! This means that we could actually start saving some money *Gasp!*

So yesterday I went to this ladies house. She was moving to Oregen, and she wanted to get rid of all her stuff. So instead of taking it down to the Salvation Army place she invited people over to come and take it away for free! I got us an armchair with ottoman, a desk, a table, a stereo, some pillows and blankets, a phone.... A whole bunch of stuff! I also went round to another guys place and took away some patio chairs he was giving away. On Monday I'm going to pick up a queen size bed and a couch, all free! So we've managed to furnish our apartment with nothing! Eventually of course we'll buy our own furniture and stuff, but it isn't half handy. We were worried we were going to be sleeping on the floor, now we've got more furniture than we need! I've already turned down a couch and a matress!

Ash is enjoying her job. The traffic is a nightmare on Fridays though. We'll have to do something about that! Especially as Ash is working right next to the metro. At the moment she's not feeling too hot though. I think she's got a cold. Poor flower.

Anyhow, there you go! That's you about up to speed. I'll email y'all my address in a seperate thing. I don't want my address all over the internet!

Peace out!

In Which We Moved.... But Not Quite Where We Planned On Moving To

2004-12-13T20:37:00.000-06:00

Well since we last spoke a lot has happened. I am now 1600 miles further north!

We left pretty soon after my last post, after Joe and I packed the truck. So we we're off to the family reunion! We had to stop quite a few times because the tarp was flapping about, so we ended up being about an hour late. Everyone is doing fine. There was a brand new baby (well a year old) there (called Carlyle) who was very sweet. During the dirty santa (White Elephant, Pink Elephant, whatever you want to call it) Ash got Trivial Pursuit 90's edition and I got some cushions with little snowmen on (the thing I bought, they'd go nice in out new place!)

So after our goodbyes we were on our way to Barbs place in DC! Ten miles down the road, after telling everyone that everything was fine and we didn't need anything thanks anyhow, We got a phone call from Barb "So you're on you way down are you?" Sure are lady "Well my old roomate decided that she wanted to move back in so I said yes." Uh-oh. "I guess you need somewhere to stay... I recommend Extended Stay America." Thanks a bunch lady! So there we were. Ash was starting work on Wednesday, the truck was already packed, we had a hotel booked 4 hours further North in Birmingham, AL so our decision to carry on was made really.

So we were on our way up to Washington. Not quite as excited as we were when we first set off, but a load more anxious! We decided that best thing to do was to sleep on it. Next morning, everything was still exactly the same as when we went to sleep. So Ash went and used their free internet service to find the phone numbers of all the people who I went to go and see last week, then as I was driving she was phoning all these people.

Well Our Vicar did say "If you have any problems give me a call." I'm sure he wasn't expecting a call the next day, but he saved us. Remember all that stuff I was telling you about the church being a family? Well here's some proof. He phoned back later and said "I've got you a week at Extended Stay America." Thank you Father Vic! So we stopped being so anxious.

To cut a long story short, after a long drive, we got here. We find out if our second choice is avalible tomorrow. Well it gives us something to pray about! The only real and apparent problem (all things well with the apartment) is that we were planning on moving into a furnished room, so we didn't bring any furniture with us. It's a rare (and more expensive) thing to find a furnished place here, so we're going to be sleeping on the floor for a while. At least until we can afford furniture. The advantage that we have got is thanks to Father Vics kindness I have a week rent-free to find a job (prayers on that too!)

Oh, talking about furniture Ash and I have made a wedding registry up at last (we figured why should we do it before we had anywhere to keep the stuff) it's at Bed Bath and Beyond if anyone wants to get us something. I understand if you don't, after all you didn't come to the wedding and get free booze and grub at the reception.... I promise if you do get us something you'll be invited to our blessing. Heck even if you don't then you'll get invited anyhow! It probably won't be for a few more years though!

Well there you go. It's all very exciting isn't it?!

In Which We Move!

2004-12-11T08:46:00.000-06:00

Today, it will be the last time I type to you from this office. It's very exciting really. We've spent the last few days packing, now we have an empty room and a full truck! Well it will be once I've filled it. Lots of boxes!

We're going to the family do this afternoon, then we're driving to Birmingham, Alabama staying in a hotel and arriving at our new home on Monday! I'm not sure when I'll next be able to do this, I am just about to start packing the computer up, and I don't know about internet connections up there.

It's funny, we've put a big tarp on the truck and the cats are being silly with it!

Anyhow, wish us luck!

I Which I Do Some House Shopping, And We Decide On A Place To Live

2004-12-05T20:51:00.000-06:00

Sorry it's getting kind of random on me writing to all you guys. I thought I would have time while I'm unemployed. How wrong I was! I've been a very busy man this last week. Packing, sorting, packing some more, putting up Christmas lights, etc... The most exciting thing was going to Washington again. It was just me this time, I was looking at places to live. I got there on Friday at about 12:30ish, after a rush to get to the airport on time. Ash hit snooze and we didn't wake up until 6:30. My flight was leaving at 8:00 and the airport is an hour away! I ran to my gate and got there just as they were closing the door! It was a close call. I've had too many of them in the last couple of weeks!

Anyhow, I went and got my rental car (a Pontiac Grand Am - Not a bad car, apart from it's American of course!) Drove to kinkos made a copy of the list of questions I had to ask and went off to look at houses, well, rooms really. We're going to be sharing for right now. We'll see how it goes maybe we'll move into an apartment later. The first house was great, it was very big, we would be sharing with a nice lady, and she has five cats and one dog (it just occoured to me - that's exactly half of the amount of pets in this house... Spooky!) In a nice quiet neighbourhood, but just down the road from five shopping centers and half an hour (at the most) from were Ash is working, there's a wooded park just across the street with trails and stuff, a community swimming pool, lots of storage space in the house, a big bedroom and a guest room. The reason I'm telling you so much about this one is because it's the one that Ash and I have decided on. That's right. The very first place I went to look at! I could've saved myself a lot of time!

Anyhow, I went to look at some other places. Some are better situated but much smaller, some are in dodgy neighbourhoods, some are just far too much money for what they are. I went to stay at Tammie's place, we sat up drinking beer and watching TV... Well I drank beer, Tammie had a cold so she was high on Benedryl and wasn't drinking 'cause of that.

The next day Tammie came out with me to help me look at some places. She was a Godsend I tell ya! Do you know how hard it is reading a map and driving at the same time? Also my phone ran out of batteries so she was on the phone to people sorting out appointments. I bought her lunch (we had chinese), but that's not really enough! I should've been paying her at least $9 an hour for what she was doing! So we went and looked at a few places, had a few possibilities, but none of them matched up to the first place that we went to.

I went to the church I applied for a job at and finally met up with Fr. Richard. He told me the position was filled already, but there were some others opening up. It went to their contemperary service. Their band is really good! It seems like a nice church. A lot bigger than St. Margarets is. They have a lot of outreach stuff going on, and lots of small groups, which is really the most benifical way for me to learn more.

I went straight from there to the airport. I took a wrong turn though and ended up going towards downtown rather than out of town towards the airport! It was already going to be close with me getting there on time anyhow (the service went on longer than I expected). So yet again I found myself driving as fast as possible towards the airport! My flight was leaving at 10:00. i dropped off the rental car at 9:30... Fortunately it was late at night so there wasn't many people at the airport so I didn't have to wait. I had to run all the way through the airport. I got there just as they were closing the door (yet again! I told you I've had a lot of close calls! Actually thinking about it, the only time I've been on time for a flight out of the last six was for a transfer on the way back to New Orleans. One out of six... hmm... I've been very lucky haven't I?!)

I got back to New Orleans at 11:30 very tired. Ash picked me up (we kept missing each other for a while) and drove me home. We talked about where we were going to live and decided, and went to bed.

Ash wanted to go to the 9:30 and 11:00 services today, so that's what we did. I came out of retirement from playing in the church band and played one last time. They managed to find a guitar for me and I tried my best to learn the songs in the short time between services. I kind of failed for most of them, but it was alright. It's the last time we're going to be regulars at St Margarets. It was really sad. I've made a lot of very good friends, well they're more like family really. I mean that, it's not just a friendship based on what the other person is like. We are, after all, brothers and sisters in Christ. That isn't just a superficial saying I promise you. We're going round to Jo and Lloyds on Wednesday to have dinner.

We went along to Alpha in the evening. Ash said that her group talked about how it was me who encouraged Alpha to start in that church. They had been wanting to do it for about five years before I started going as a true Christian there. It's amazing to see God work in my life. Being apart from Ash for two years, realising the distance between us and the chances of us actaully meeting each other is the first blessing I really noticed. So that's how God got me interested in Christianity. Then when I got over here I went to an Alpha course at a church where God's work is very apparent, and everyone there is filled with the Holy Spirit. They nurtured my faith and helped me to realise it. Then I came to a great church family at St. Margarets they blessed me with their love, and when they saw what Alpha had done for me they realised the importance of it in bringing people to faith and renewing peoples faith. I think that the Lord wants me to move to DC, it's all part of his plan.

Anyhow, enough of me preaching at you, I'm just telling you like it is. Lots of you will hand it over to your gods of Coincidence, Delusionality or whatever, but the important thing is that I know it's God working in my life. Amen!

In Which My Wife Whisks Me Away To Washington DC

2004-11-23T20:29:00.000-06:00

Whoah! What happened there? One minute I was sitting contemplating a weekend of packing in Baton Rouge, the next I'm sitting on a plane to Washington DC! I knew I was going at about twelve(ish), and my flight left at three! I got to the gate just as they were calling out my seat number to board. Talk about close!

So there I was in DC. Ash was on a seperate flight, she left two hours after me but landed at the same time (I had a stop-over in Chicago). It was a bit of a first for me, my journey on a plane ending in the same country I took off from (and boarding a plane with just my drivers licence - no passport required). We got a rental car (Chevy Malibu - it's a rubbish car) and drove to Richmond. We got there at Midnight, talked to Heather (one of Ash's college buddies) for a couple of hours and fell asleep on her floor. She had two cats who were very cute, well at least one of them was and the other was very shy so we didn't really see much of her. She seemed cute anyhow though!

In the morning (oh, that was Saturday by the way - this is Sunday) we woke up and I actually saw Richmond in daylight for the first time. It's a very pretty city, lots of nice old houses and the leaves are changing colours. It kind of reminds me of good old Blighty. All the houses were more than one story, there was pavements all over the place, and hills. None of those things really exist in Louisiana.

Then we drove to Washington DC (the star is Falls Church). We had a look at where Ash was going to have her interview on Monday. It's a nice place, it's alot like Glasgow I think, at least the bit we were in (Fairfax) is. Like London, but not as squished together. It's a very busy place though, not really very easy to drive round, and awfully expensive compared to Baton Rouge, but then again pretty cheap compared to London!

We then went to Tammie's, Ash's old roommate at college. She lives with Angela who also went to RMWC. Angela was cooking a Thanksgiving meal for everyone so some friends of theirs turned up, (another couple of RMWCens and a guy called Mark) and we had a delicious meal of Cornish game hens and other stuff. Then we fell asleep on their futon.

Monday we went to Old Town, which is kind of on the outskirts of DC where there is an Episcopal church that I applied for a job as a admin assistant at. It was ALOT bigger that our church. Just one of the office buildings was bigger, and there was lots of other buildings about! Their car park was bigger than all of the ground at St. M's! I tried to catch up with the guy, but he was off being busy somewhere ( it was kind of a small chance of me catching up with him but it was worth a try).

Then it was time for Ash's interview. I dropped her off at the Virgina Tech, and went to look around Falls Church, which is the area around where Ash's interview was. I applied for a few jobs in some shops that had help wanted signs in their windows, Ash gave me a call and I went to pick her up. They offered her the job! Woohoo! So we're moving to Washington DC!

We got home last night very tired, so we went stright to bed. Today has been relitively uneventful really. I've just been looking at apartments, and trying to work out the logics of moving 1600 miles across the country. I've got some cardboard boxes so I'm going to start packing tomorrow. Ash handed in her notice today, so it's really happening! Please pray for us to be able to deal with the stress. Any advice would be gratefully recieved!

So that's it. probably the most exciting bit of news that I've ever written on this blog! Woohoo!

In Which I Do Lots Of Applying For Jobs

2004-11-17T20:20:00.000-06:00

I must've applied for a gazillion jobs by now. Well that's probably a bit of an over-exaggeration but still, I've applied for lots of jobs anyhow.

Ash has a job! She went up to Richmond last weekend, and she got a call today saying that they're going to offer her the job. Woohoo! She's going back up to Virginia this weekend for another interview just outside Washington DC. So It looks like we're going to be moving pretty soon! If not to Richmond then to Washington DC. So I need to find a job up there pretty sharpish so we can afford to get an apartment.

Well that's the exciting news, now as far as the boring stuff that I've been doing apart from applying for jobs, I've been going over to Gordons and playing on his PS2. We've mainly been playing Burnout 3 which is great fun. The object of the game is to crash! Today we rented out Fifa 2005, so I spent some of this afternoon beating the pants off him in that!

I've also watched some films recently. Lost In Translation is the best one, then Die Hard With A vengeance, then Underworld. Oh, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure, and Waynes World 2.

That's about it really.

In Which I write A Long-Overdue Post

2004-11-12T14:34:00.000-06:00

Hey dudes and dudettes!

I know, It's been a while again. Me being unemployed having nothing to do as well. What excuse can I give... Umm... Tony Hawks Underground 2... Church Retreat... Wife... All of which are great fun! I'll tell you all about each of them!

That's right, THUG2. Gordon (my bro-in-law) rented it out, so if I ever get some spare time I go over there and play it. I've only played it for two days and I've got up to the last level. Gordon just watches me play it, he's not had the years of training since the very first one that I have!

The church retreat was mavellous, just what I needed. It's strengthened my faith and my mental outlook on life. I'd like to tell you all about it, but I'm not supposed to. All the things that happen on it are supposed to be surprises. I guess I'll just tell you that it was an answer to my prayers.

My darling wife is the final one. We went to get our eyes tested on Thursday. My eyesite is perfect. Ash, however, can't see more than ten feet in front of her nose. May be I should say couldn't! Now she's got funky new glasses, and she can see everything a normal person (like me) can see! Woohoo! And she looks very cute wearing them as well! Alright!

It was veterans day yesterday, so Ash got a day off. We went to test out he new glasses at the movies. We saw The Incredibles, it's very funny!

Ash has an interview in Richmond, Virginia on Monday. So keep her in your prayers/thoughts.

In Which I Quit

2004-11-01T17:46:00.000-06:00

Yup, that's it. I can't do this damn job anymore. I'm too close to a complete fucking mental breakdown. I tried, it's just not for me. I can't put up with the lies. Lies from the people I work with, lies from the people I see.... When they say they'll call you back they're trying to be nice? How the fuck did they work that one out? It's just a way of kidding me to get out of their house.

So I have a little bit of business to finish up (i.e. call some people up so the can say that they're not interested yet.... Try calling back in a couple of weeks). Mother, before you say "You shouldn't quit this job until you find another one!" I'll just got through the pros and cons of it:
Cons:
1. I'm not making any money with this job, in fact I am loosing money,
2. It is driving me insane. I'm so low that the only way is down.
3. See 2. I think that deserves an extra point as well, because IT'S A SERIOUS PROBLEM.
4. Everyone I work with is very shallow (only care about money), yet better than me.
5. I have actual time to look for another job
6 - 10,000. Lots of other ones I can't think of right now.
Pros:
1. Ummm.....

So as you can see it's definitely in my best interest to stop now. I know I'm a failure, maybe I should stick it out until I actually do kill myself/somebody else, rather than just wanting to.

Apart from that everything is peachy (who am I kidding? Not even myself!) I don't know if I'll be able to come home for Christmas (although I really want to... No make that need to), I have to start a new job, and in this country it's not a good idea to say to a prospective employer (especially if it's in retail, which let's face it I'm probably going to be stuck with for the rest of my life) "Oh, I'm going to need a couple of weeks of in a month and a half."

I'm going to Cursillo (it's a church retreat) on Thursday to Saturday night, which to be honest can't come soon enough. I need some spiritual healing. I'm also going to see the doctor on Wednesday, which is good because I need some mental healing. All I need now is a million dollars to give me some fiscal healing!

Although it may seem that I'm near suicidal, I'm really far too intelligent (and too much of a coward for that matter) for that line of thought (I just wish I was intelligent in a useful way!) so don't worry about it. I'm still going to be alive tomorrow and the day after etc.. Well if I do die it won't be my doing. So don't worry about me. What can I say to stop you from worrying about me? God knows. Ask Him. While you're there you can ask Him to help me out as well.

Take care everyone. I guess as I'm unemployed (pretty much) now I'll probably be doing my posts daily until I get a job, so I'll type to y'all tomorrow.

In Which I Watch 28 Days Later And Get Creeped Out

2004-10-31T21:57:00.000-06:00

It's a very good movie. Well I enjoyed it at any rate. Oh, I suppose I'd better link to the website so you can see what it's about. Here you go... It's just about some virus that turns people into zombies and a couple of people left alive. Not your usual zombies walking round moaning all the time, these guys are quick!

Apart from that, I've had the squits all day (I'm sure you all are glad to hear about that!) and I applied for a job at Home Depot and they're supposed to pay alright (well just having a job that pays something would be good!) Anyhow, it's late and I have to find something non-scary to watch before I go to sleep tonight, so I can forget about all those scary zombies!

In Which I do Some Catching Up

2004-10-30T17:42:00.001-05:00

Hey folks, not much going on over here. I've got kind of addicted to Insaniquairium (you have to register before you can play it). I also really really want a PS2 so I can play Tony Hawks Underground 2 and GTA: San Andreas, but Ash won't let me get one even if we could afford one :-(

I went to look at cars the other day, Ash and I have decided to trade in the Truck and get two second hand cars instead. I test drove a Nissan Altima (2004 model - I guess it's a little different) it's a very nice car, it's just a little out of our price range ( about two times too much!) so we won't be getting it. It was nice to dream for a while though...

I'm going to be looking for another job. Not only am I not making any money, I'm if fact loosing money and almost every day I come home about ready to cry. I can't take it anymore. I need a job with a salary. I'm actually going to get a pay check on monday though (my second one since I've started working there) which will be nice.

I've recorded another song, it's pretty shitty, but what else is new? It's here if anyone can be bothered to listen to it. If you can make out the words, I'm sorry. If not just imagine it's about roses or something. I wrote it while I was waiting for another person to not turn up to an appointment they had set with me, after a whole day of not getting even into someones house, let alone giving a presentation (there has been far too many of those) I might as well be cold-calling, at least I'd actaully be expecting to get turned down.

LSU won last week, it was only just though, when it should have been an easy game. They're plaing tonight, in five minutes in fact, so I'd better be brief with the rest of this.

Ash thinks I have depression. I went to talk to Father Sheldon the other day and he thinks I have dpression too, and being as those are the only two people I've actually talked to about how I feel, I think I should go to a shrink and find out what he says.

Anyhow there's people here, the game is about to start, and other reasons that I can't really think of to be honest. Okay, I just didn't put the and in the right place andI couldn't be bothered to change it. Cheerio!

2004-10-30T17:42:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday Bro!

2004-10-27T08:13:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday Dave!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday Dear Duuuuuuuude (guess who said that?),

Happy Birthday to you!

In Which I Clear Something Up

2004-10-17T15:30:00.000-05:00

Dave hasn't got the job. This going out espscially to James Taylor, who is his would be boss. I've got a paincy brother who thinks I've messed up the chance of him getting this job. He's had three interviews, and he's got two more to go. Also he's not dating Cheryl. That should clear a few things up.

In Which I Break Down And Have A Cigarette

2004-10-17T10:17:00.000-05:00

It was only one though, and it has been pretty much a whole week. I could do with another one right now though... Argh! It's hard work this quitting thing!

Anyhow, that was about it really. I sold a policy yesterday, $816 ALP, which means about $300 for me in my next paycheck. It's about time! I've got a couple more sales on the way as well, I've just got to find the time to get to the people who want to buy!

I think I've got another website for you.... Oh here it is. Linda sent me this one.

The Whitehouse

Oh, if you want you name mentioned on the website, there's at least three ways to do it: First annoy me, second do something worth mentioning and tell me about it, third send me a website that's funny/interesting I can link to here. Just think, tens of people (well maybe just ten people) will see your name! It's like being famous! Apart from a lot less so!

That reminds me, I should mention Daves name, because he falls into category one and two. First he's got a new job! Congratulations Dave! I hear it's going well. Second category is that he didn't tell me. Pretty major change. You'd expect a brother to inform his other brother if he's just taken a majorly drastic career change.... He would've definately told me if I was there. It's just as well he's got a bird on the go (possibly? Who knows what's going on? He doesn't tell me!) that's a friend of Ash's, I get some of the news (albeit third hand) that way. Still it doesn't really matter how I found out, the good thing is that he got it. I wish you all the best Dave, I'm sure it'll be a great job for you.

In Which I Watch Sean Of The Dead

2004-10-15T22:27:00.000-05:00

It's excellent, very funny. Now I just have to wait for Spaced to come out over here and I'll be a happy bloke. I got the address wrong on the last post by the way, it should be http://www.geocities.com/affekopf10

I hope that sorts your confusion out! Boy! Do I feel stupid! Missing out the 10. All of you going "Well no wonder noone has signed his guestbook, there's no website there, let alone guestbook!" There's me, sitting in the corner looking like a dumba**e! Oh, I'd better edit that actually, I don't want any delicate little kiddies to know what I'm saying... There we go, that's better right?

In Which I Tell You There's Some More Songs On My Website

2004-10-15T10:15:00.000-05:00

I've uploaded them, there's another page now. Can some one please sign the guestbook? I realise most people haven't even bothered going there more than once... Not a terribly good sign towards my songwriting skills*Ahem* Anyhow, it's all there, you have to go to page two to get to page three, and the songs are there even if the pictures aren't. That address is:

http://www.geocities.com/affekopf

The same as it is just down there on the left (if you're reading this on my blog)

Oh, and before you tell me, I already know I can't sing...

In Which I Tell You There's Some More ongs

2004-10-15T10:14:00.000-05:00

In Which I Do A Quickie, Been As It's Late 'n' All

2004-10-14T22:12:00.000-05:00

Ash had a phone interview for a job as a registrar (not the same as an English registrar. I'm sure Ash has put some details about it in her blog) at Radford University in Virginia. Yes, it's Bradford without the B, I chuckled about that one as well. As far as the rest of the day goes, I've spent it all doing a bit of work and recording a song. I took Ash out for lunch and we were going to go and see Sean Of The Dead tonight, but Ash wasn't feeling too well so I cooked her dinner instead. It's alright though because I got to finish my song instead. I'll put it on my Affekopf website when I get round to it. Anyhow that's about it really, I'm tired and it's already past my bedtime. Here's some links I found.

Some dude doing some crazy jumps

and the "extreme sport" that he's doing is called Le Parkour those crazy French guys, what'll they think of next?!

In Which Everything Is Really The Same And There's Nothing Much To Write About Really To Be Honest. I'm Going To Write Some Stuff Anyhow Though.

2004-10-12T20:37:00.000-05:00

Well Not much happened today, I slept, sorted out some socks and went to work. That's about it really. Out of six appointments only one of them was actually there. What am I supposed to do? I don't know. Today was my first day without cigarettes since I got here, so I'm a little shakey and a lot crabby, so don't pee me off! Grrr!

Oh, I was listening to The Kinks today. It reminds me of that argument about the song by them called Plastic Man, which really does exist because I was listening to it today. Just in case you don't want to take my word for it, here's the lyrics:

Plastic Man

Written by: R. D. Davies
Published by: Davray Music/Carlin Music Corp.

A man lives at the corner of the street,
And his neighbors think he's helpful and he's sweet,
'Cause he never swears and he always shakes you by the hand,
But no one knows he really is a plastic man.

He's got plastic heart, plastic teeth and toes, (Yeah, he's plastic man)
He's got plastic knees and a perfect plastic nose. (Yeah, he's plastic man)
He's got plastic lips that hide his plastic teeth and gums,
And plastic legs that reach up to his plastic bum. (Plastic bum)

Plastic man got no brain,
Plastic man don't feel no pain,
Plastic people look the same,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kick his shin or tread on his face,
Pull his nose all over the place,
He can't disfigure, or disgrace,
Plastic man (plastic man).

He's got plastic flowers growing up the walls,
He eats plastic food with a plastic knife and fork,
He likes plastic cups and saucers 'cause they never break,
And he likes to lick his gravy off a plastic plate.

Plastic man got no brain,
Plastic man don't feel no pain,
Plastic people look the same,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kick his shin or tread on his face,
Pull his nose all over the place,
He can't disfigure, or disgrace,
Plastic man (plastic man).

He's got a plastic wife who wears a plastic mac, (Yeah, he's plastic man)
And his children wanna be plastic like their dad, (Yeah, he's plastic man)
He's got a phony smile that makes you think he understands,
But no one ever gets the truth from plastic man (plastic man)
Plastic man (plastic man).

Funny song eh? That Ray Davies can write a tune or two! He also wrote Apeman, Artificial Man, Do You Wish To Be A Man, Elevator Man, Mr. Big Man, Session Man, Tin Soldier Man, 20th century Man, and A Well Respected Man. But that's besides the point. The point is that The Kinks did a song called Plastic Man.

Oh, and while I'm proving myself correct about completely irrelevant arguments, Spiderman (Tobey Maguire) was also in The Ice Storm, playing the part of Paul Hood. It wasn't whatshisfacefromLordOfTheRingsyouknowtheonethatLindafancies. So there! Make sure Gordon sees that! Oh, you don't believe me? Well do you believe the Internet Movie Database? Hah! So there!

Well now I've set the record straight on a few things, I'm signing off, because I really can't think of anything else to write about. Oh, I've still got links for ya.... Here's another couple:

Good beer 1 and Good Beer 2

In Which You Can Go and Look at My Photo Album

2004-10-11T22:15:00.000-05:00

Here's what you do: Go to Snapfish and sign in as blog.bods@gmail.com. The password is reading. There's photos of the holiday, some of mardi gras and general other stuff. There's also a picture of our group on tour at the Jack Daniels distillery right here the bloke crouching infront of me and Ash is the tour guide. A real "hayseed" (I'm learning new words everyday! It means inbred country-type)I'm feeling much better now. Ash just told me that possum, raccoon and bobcat season has opened up in Mississippi. I don't know if she want's us to go and bag us a few of them thar critters or whut...

Ain't really been up to much. Recorded a song. How do I learn to sing? It's a toughie. I mean, I sound alright to me, but then once I play it all back I'm suddenly singing like a walrus. I dunno, whatever. I guess it adds character! I also found some songs on a minidisc - including the Kazoo
Funk! I'll put them on the Affekopf site when I get a chance. It's late now though so I'm going to bed.

I still have some funny links to show you, here's another one, courtesy of Dave (my bro)

Dispair, inc.

in Which I'm Feeling Under The Weather

2004-10-09T07:54:00.000-05:00

Not feeling too hot at the moment (or actually feeling hot all the time!) some kind of cold/flu thing is being really nasty to me. I didn't work yesterday,but I'm working today, although I'm still feeling very bad. I'll just keep on soldiering on through the whole thing I guess. I'm going back to bed now, this is hurting too much. I really only wrote this so I could put the ill face in the "How I'm feeling" bit. I got some really cool sites I can send you to. I'll do them one at a time. Here's the first:

The Framley Examiner

In Which I Finally Write Something

2004-10-05T09:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, okay... It's been a while. I've been busy so stop fussing already (or maybe you never even noticed...) Everyone came and had fun, even though Florida wasn't there. Talk about last minute organization coming off without a hitch! The only problem is that I drove a lot more than I was planning on, although not as much as I was expecting (post - hurricane. I'd have had to drive to Fort Walton to pick everyone up and bring them back, but everyone managed to change their flights to New Orleans) There's some photos on snapfish you can go and have a look at if you click here

Well you know what we've all been up to, and If you want to do it (again) in a couple of years (well.. Maybe not the same thing, I have a few new ideas about what to do, but you'll have to wait a while before I've actually worked it all out.) tell me and I'll sort it out. Tim had a great idea about setting up an account for everyone to put some money in each month (I was thinking 30 quid a month, a pound a day ain't that much for a super-wicked-fun holiday!) It would make it easier for me and you, all you'd have to do is get to the airport on time, and I would have like a proper budget to work out food and accommodation and activities and stuff, so it could be a proper holiday rather than the confusing (but fun) rush that we had this time. Also maybe we wouldn't have to drive for 13 hours straight to get to wherever we want to go.

As far as my life is going, it's going alright. I've got a bit of a cold right now, but nothing too bad. Our band leader at church has decided to quit, so that's all a bit up in the air. Apart from that, everything is good! Nothing else to say really. I managed to spend most of yesterday sleeping (these holidays are very tiring you know!) so now I'm fighting fit and waiting on a fax to send me off to make my millions selling lots of insurance. I've got some house work to catch up on so I've gotta go.

If you are interested in having lots of fun in the states in a couple of years email me and let me know. Just so I can get an idea of numbers and so I can set up the bank account (anyone know how to do that already? It's not a problem for me to find out, but this is one of the ways to do it!)

Sparky's 1st Blog, whatever that is..

2004-09-29T18:12:00.000-05:00

Hello!
It's hot, hot, hot here in Louisiana, and the only respite is in the air-conditioned shopping malls! I have a suitcase full of cold weather gear that remains clean and neatly folded, well we were going to the mountains after all! Only problem is even in the mountains it was scorchio. The day we went up into the mountains, up to Newfound Gap- look it up on a map of Tennessee, we were actually told by the tourist office that it was cold up there, but as with everything in the US they use relative terms, to them cold is about 75 degrees, for us that's a good summer!

Anyway we are back in Geismar LA now, at Ash and Pete's place (well Ash's folks place-Joe and Diane, they've been very welcoming, great people) and we've been up to all sorts of stuff, been to the outlet malls for cheap clothes and bits, got myself some all-American Converse Hi-tops (re-living my youth somewhat!) and 501's as well as getting my Sister's B'day present for Monday-Reebok trainers. We also went to Avery Island on Monday, home of the Tabasco Factory, yes THE tabasco factory, the only one there is for those of you who love it spicy, James I'm thinking of you here, I now have a set of FIVE different Tabascos, burning bums all round I feel!
Avery is a mad place, the McIllhenny Family set up the factory as well as a bird sanctuary and swampy bits with alligators and turtles and about a million dragonflies and mosquitos-ouch, many ouches, I hope I haven't caught some horrific disease! We actually stood on the bank of one of the lakes with a couple of mean, hungry looking gators 3 feet away in the water, nothing to stop them taking a chunk out of us but our own sense of self-importance! Aren't we daring...or should that be stupid?!

Last night was our New Orleans trip before dumping Cheryl at the airport,what a place! Every few steps you get another live band playing blues, jazz whatever, the architecture is just breathtaking and the atmosphere is to die for! We went to many bars, starting of at PatO'Briens for Hurricanes (Rum punch) though I had a Tom Collins instead (gin, sugar and lemon juice if I remember right), yes that's right I drank alcohol, quite a bit in the end, for me anyway!The group gradually dwindled until it was just Ian and me, so we headed for the casino, I won $50 on poker slots then blew most of it on more poker slots! Then we headed for the Hustler bar! Had to be done, I'll leave it to your imagination, but let's just say I'm glad my loan came through! Finally crawled back to the hotel in the wee hours, over-refreshed and giggling like schoolgirls!

I hope you all are having fun in Blighty because we're having a blast!! See you all in a few days, presents for some, stories for you all, missing you not, but thinking of you anyway, take care and be good, 'cos we're not...

Sparky

message after a long time from baton rouge

2004-09-27T21:07:00.000-05:00

hi y'all this is mama sue being allowed to put an entry on by peter rabbit, in our holiday party there is also crazy dave, smiley, big man, sparky and cher bear. we went on a long drive up north through several statesand arrived in tennessee (near gatlingburg - where dollywood is) as it got dark. we had to call at an office with a 3 year ol bear outside and get the key and directionds to our cabin. the cabin used to be called the lazy bear but now goes under the name of the blessing. we had to go up and around and up and around, it was now dark!!! it was an interesting journey. when we arrived we realised we didn't have much to eat but no-one was going back down in the dark!!. the cabin had 2 floors with porches on both and a wonderful view over the valley. much to sparky and crazy daves delight there was a pool table that didn't require money and was available 24 hours if need be, and on the top porch there was a hot tub, so what else did we need?
after having a three course meal of crisps (starter) maccoroni cheese (entree) and fruit (desert) with a nice beer or french wine we adjourned to listen to the night life in the smoky mountains - very very noisy.
we had a trip into gatlingburg and played hill billy crazy golf ( mama sue won - a sign of a mis-spent youth) shopped for the provisions and then returning up the hill (not so scary in day light), it was a good day.
the next day we stayed at base and just hot tubbed, played pool and in the evening had a bonfire in the fire pit. this was apart from the house which is just as well given mama sue's past visits to this country.
we then had a drive round the smoky mountain national park, well peter rabbit did the driving as they don't have many bends in the roads down south so any experience at turning the wheel is good for him!! this is cherokee country and you could imagine them stalking you through their woods making sure you did no harm.
when we got back south peter rabbit and sparky collected big man from the airport and a longed for game of footie took place in baton rouge in a temperature of 88 degrees (mad dogs and englishmen).
oh i forgot we went to the shrine of bourbon manufacture on the way back and there will be a photo of peter rabbit with his hero available soon. they make all the jack daniels in lynchburg and it is a dry town so you can't buy it there. i am sure you will get all the info about this visit when people return to old blighty.
today we went off looking foe alligators and turtles and were successful............ i don't know what tomorrow will bring, but it sure is hot over here and i think we are all happy to be enjoying pete and ashley's company again. we might have an ocean between us most of the time but it just like we met yesterday.
i think thats all i have to put i now have to stand up and walk all the way outside (no raccons seen yet but plenty of humming birds) and get the blog master to do something to this to make it work so bye y'all
love mama suexx

In Which I Tell Everyone To Stop Worrying

2004-09-15T13:43:00.000-05:00

Alright, I'm still a busy chap so this has to be brief. Don't worry! i'ts only a hurricane. We're far enough away from the coast to get away without much damage/loss of life. The only bad thing is the traffic and the fact we might loose power for acouple of days. Hopefully (looking at it right now) it won't come close enough to do too much damage to the house we're going t0o stay in (Destin) It's going to get some surf though, so folks, pack those surfboards! I had a bad week last week. I only sold one small policy. Anyhow, gotta rush, Ash is being let out early. I'll keep you updated as long as we have power.

In Which I hope on Third Time Lucky.... Fourth Time Luckier

2004-09-06T23:31:00.000-05:00

I wrote a post a few days ago, but it didn't work (gosh darn it!) so I'm trying again. Fingers crossed it'll work alright this time!
I went out on the feild all by myself for the first time on Wednesday, and I sold a policy. All by myself! I went out on Thursday as well, I just need to go back and get a couple of signatures and I'll have another one sold. So in the last two days I've made about $600ish. Probably a bit more than that really. Who says working for a living doesn't pay?!
Ash lent me some money out of her pay this week and I bought myself a little reward (it's alright, it was only $60). I got a mp3 cd player and a little funky gadget that allows you to play it through the radio. All I have to do now is transfer all my music onto mp3 cd's. That should only take a couple of years!
Ash and I watched The Last Samurai and Something's Gotta Give. They were both actually pretty good you know. At least Ash and I enjoyed them. So out of all the people that I know that have seen the movie 100% of them thought they were pretty good. The Last Samurai irritated me a little at the end, but I can't tell you why without spoiling the movie, so I won't.
Is anyone listening to Modest Mouse? They're pretty good too. I've heard people compare them to U2, but I don't know where that comes from. Probably stupid people. Are they from Ireland? I don't think so, I suppose Float On could sound a bit U2ish if you thought most pop bands with a guitar and singer sound like U2... The rest of the album ("Good News For People Who Like Bad News" incase you were wondering what album Iwas talking about) sounds more like... Umm.... Good music. You probably all know about them anyhow, I think I'm a bit behind the times (I must be getting old. In just a few days time Ash will be a WHOLE YEAR older than me though. Poor old dear!) I could tell you about plenty of bands/musicians that you've probably never heard of though (at least the UK lot haven't heard of) so there! Oh you want to know some of them do you? Jack Johnson, Mofro, G Love and The Special Sauce (I know USies they've been around for ages, but they've never made it in Blighty), Hamell On Trial (I already told y'all about him. This is a reminder though..), Micheal Franti and Spearhead you can down load shows by most of those bands (the exception being Hamell On Trial) and billions of Grateful Dead and Phish concerts completely legally right here or here (you'll need to download a programme for downloading to use this site, just follow the links on the page saying TheSHADOW oh alright, you can just click on it right here, let me just sort that out...) Just don't sell them after you've copied them, that is illeagal. Anyhoo, it's getting late, and I have to work tomorrow. Goodnight!

I'm sorry, this is now my FOURTH TIME trying to get this blooming thing to post. What gives here? So I really wrote this the day before yesterday, or three days ago for you because you'll be reading this tomorrow, which is today. So this is me writing from yesterday, or today, to you tomorrow. Or today for you. So anyhow this was written two day ago right now, or three days days ago right now, depending on whether you read this today (yesterday), or tomorrow (today). Now I've cleared all that up I would tell you about what I did this weekend, but I've already written that once today (I mean yesterday to you when you;re reading this tomorrow which is today to me talking from yesterday) so I'm not writing it all again. If I did it would sound very angry. Oh, and I'm sorry about the lack of the links about where it says they're says be some but It's late, and it doesn't copy the links when I copy and paste stuff.

In Which I Tell You All The Interesting Things I've Done Over The Last Week

2004-08-29T21:37:00.000-05:00

So, since Tuesday I guess...

Umm... Well I worked Wednesday through to Friday, I'm getting better at it now. I've got a trial app (an application with no money, to check it'll go through before he pays anything) which I won't get any money on until it's actually gone through. he had a blockage removed from his heart three years ago. I'm not sure if it'll stop him from getting it (I hope not at any rate!) I did actually sell a cancer policy to a copper, she already had lots of life insurance. The problem with cancer policies is that they don't really give me much money immediately, I only get 25% of the 40% I should be getting of each policy, usually I get 65%. The rest goes in my bucket, which is there in case they cancel their policy and I don't have to pay the company back they can just take it out of there. That works out at about $15... $15 for the week isn't too great! Maybe next week will be better.

I'll also be working in a more affluent area when I'm out by myself which will mean bigger policies, but unfortunately rich people are harder to convince about security after they die. Still if I sold two policies to the richies, it would be the same as 4 policies to the poories. I did do a whole presentation by myself (once Crystal actually let me without butting in!) so overall even though not very fiscally rewarding, it was educationally rewarding. I just have to learn to make friends with people quicker.

So apart from boring work (which is actually quite interesting, meeting lots of nice people) what else have I been up to? Well I've been watching the Olympics when I get home in time. Did anyone else think that the Olympic flame looked like a big spliff? At least from the side it did anyhow. It's good seeing people win something they've been dedicating their lives to winning, they're always so happy. It almost make s me cry really (alright I'm a great big girls blouse, but at least I admit to it!)

Saturday I didn't work. I put together a bit of a song, now all I have to do is work out some words to it. That's the hard part...

It was Joe's Birthday on Saturday, Gordon and Stephie came over. i had practice to go to though so I didn't get to celebrate with them much. I made him a cake (Lord knows we can't afford to buy anything at the moment, I had to scrape together 55 cents for a lighter!) I also applied for a credit card, I hope I'll be able to get one, otherwise I'll be screwed for the holiday. Unless I can sell a few policies in the next couple of weeks.

Today was a good day, church in the morning (I messed up one song) and church in the evening, that contemporary service I was going on about. The monitor (the speaker the band listens out of and guitarists put their foot on when playing a solo) wasn't working very well (it kept cutting out) but we overcame that. Boy I tell you, the Holy Spirit was in that place tonight. I think that's the best service I've been to at that church. The song I messed up in the morning I got right in the evening. So that was good. It was all very exciting. A good 60 people turned up (or is that 60 good people? Whatever!) I came home and Ash and I watched the closing ceremony for the Olympics, and I came in here and started writing this. Once I've finished it I'm off to bed. So there you go, all up to date. Hurrah!

Ash is taking time to get used to the anti-depressants that's she's on now (she just changed medication.) It's all a bit upsetting really, there's nothing I can do to cheer her up or fix her(it's a chemical imbalance in her brain, not actually anything making her sad. That's a common misconception with depression. It's not actually triggered by any outside thingys. It's all in the head) I wish I could help he in some way. All I can do is pray. Only one guy I know can fix her proper for good and that's my Lord. I guess I just have to trust in Him more. Easier said than done, but I know he'll help me. What was it Father Vic said in the sermon today? "The Lord fixes a fix to fix you and if you try and fix the fix by yourself without his help he'll just fix another fix for you to fix with his help." Something like that. I know it had a lot of fixes in it! So I guess this is a fix that we've got to fix. Along with the fiscal situation, Ash's job, and about a million other things. I can still praise the Lord though no matter what kind of crap He's putting us through. After all I'm alive, Ash is alive, I have friends and I'm able to help other people worship Him (and that really is only the start of that list!) So I can praise Him everyday! Hallelujah!

Everybody heard of 50 pence yet? Rich told me about him the other day. Well here's a site with all his songs to date on:

Singing Fish

In Which I Can't Think Of A Title

2004-08-24T18:13:00.000-05:00

I didn't work today. Well at least I didn't work at work, I worked at church instead. I was stuffing envelopes for the Alpha course, and helping to write a bit in the newsletter about it. The Alpha course that is, not me stuffing envelopes.

So that's been my day. Nothing really to report. I have spent most of the day singing Winter Wonderland and Santa Claus is Coming To Town for some bizarre reason, I can't really explain why....

That's really about it. Nothing more to say. I know some of you are real happy about that. At least you managed to read this one to the end rather than put it in the "look at later" file!

In Which I Sell My First Policy

2004-08-23T22:46:00.000-05:00

Just a quick one, I thought you'd like to know that. It was only a small one, my commission will be about $100, but it's a good start.

The gymnastics are being a bit controversial aren't they? Did anyone see the high bar contest? That Russian dude should of got more eh? All of those gymnastic fans going crazy. I was thinking, it could be the start of gymnastic hooligans out rioting on the streets. They wouldn't be like normal hooligans though, they would do double flips over the cops, be swinging from lamposts and all that crazy kind of stuff...

Anyhow, it's late. I'm off to bed. 'Night!

In Which I Tell You What I Forgot To Tell You Last Night

2004-08-22T22:27:00.000-05:00

Right, it was the main reason for me writing yesterday, but I got so tied up in writing other things that I completely forgot about it. So I'll just start with it this time. Word of warning to Lindypoo... That's right, more raccoon stories... You know our four friendly neighbourhood raccoons that I told you about, well they came back last night. While Ash and I were out having a cigarette. We were sitting in the chairs justin front ("Justin Front" is a good friend of mine... oh alright it's a typo!) of the catfood, the raccoons main target. Two of them just ran straight past us and started tucking in, so they were within a foot behind us (although we couldn't see them because they were behind us) and one of them ran up and stopped about two foot in front of us. The Mama raccoon was standing well back, and called them nack after about a minute and they ran off. Ash and I just froze... Those little guys have big claws and big teeth and probably rabies so it's a bit of a scary situation to be in if you're surrounded by them and one of them starts hissing at you! Imagine being in the middle of a load of badgers... I'm sure it'd be pretty much the same. I went out this evening at about the same time with a camera, but they didn't show up. I guess they just don't show up when you're expecting them.

Apart from that excitement, there's not much to tell. The service at church today was excellent. The band was really tight, I only fudged about four notes, there was about nine new people there, so all in all a success. We all went out to Macallisters afterwards and had a jolly good time there. There's going to be a contemporary evening service starting next week. We're going to be playing about 14 songs in total. The sermon is only going to be seven minutes long according to Chandler, the youth leader. That makes a change from the sermons that Father Vic gives. Today's sermon was about five sermons in total. Four too many for that service. He needs to learn to keep the message short and sweet. At least he's starting to loosen up a little. It's wuite a big change going from a normal service to a contemporary one, the main difference being that a contemporary service is actually fun. Isn't that what the Lord wants? To Rejoice with Him, rather than just go over the same old stuff? Sure! Repetition equals lack of passion in my book. Unfortunately if there's one thing that's resistant to change in this world it's the church.)

Poor old Paula Radcliffe eh? Such a shame. Still she gave all that she got, and you've got to respect her for that.

The other thing that's happened is there has been a major miscalculation with out budget. Business' in this country don't think about taking money out of your account as soon as they can (which is clearly bad business sense, after all if they had $30,000 worth of cheques that they waited a month to cash, then they would loose money that they could've gained in investing it for a month, right?) they just wait until you can't possibly afford it, then get together with all the other places you go to and say "Now! Let's screw them over!" So Ash is feeling pretty down right now, I really don't care. It's only money. If there is one thing that I've learnt it's that money comes way, WAY down on the list of thing that actually matter. No matter how much you have it's not enough. In my opinion the most important thing is to know that God loves you, next is knowing that other people love you (everybody's loved by someone, it's just some people won't even think about saying that until it's too late..), next is your health, then about a hundred other things, and then money. Sure money is helpful, but it's not what life is all about. God will provide, just trust in the Lord (that's what life is all about!)

Anyhow, that's a bit preachy, sorry. In fact this whole post is a bit preachy in a way. By the way, if anyone has any questions they want to ask a man who is truly in love with Jesus then you can email me and I will try my best to answer them to the best of my ability, or get someone else to answer them, or just tell you I don't know the answer (No one knows all the answers, that's where faith comes in..) For example, don't try and make me explain the holy trinity to you, all I can say about that is that an omniscient God knows how it works, that's someone with more knowledge than everyone living or dead put together, so that's good enough for me.

Whoops, still preachy. I'd better go to be before I give you all a headache! Goodnight!

In Which I Go To A Party!

2004-08-21T22:16:00.000-05:00

Yup, went to a party in Jackson, MS. It was GG's (Granny 'Gomery) 76th birthday. It was fun, but I'm sure it wasn't as fun as Rich's housewarming/engagement party that was probably going on at pretty much the same time... It was just coke, no Jack to mix with it. Still we had tasty tacos and everyone had a good time catching up.

I read a really cool comic book on the way there and back called Marvels. Boy! I tell you it was real good. It was about a photographer who was living in New York while all of the superheros were about, and he's telling the whole story from what he saw, and it's actually painted, not inked like most. It took the artist four months to complete one comic (usually an artist will do 3 or 4 comic books a month) and it's super realisitic. It very easy to call the bloke who painted all the pictures an "artist" because each panel is like a mini work of art. As it's so realistic you can look through it and see famous people in the background. The Beatles and Sean Connery (among other's) show up for Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman's wedding. If you are at all interested in superheros, comics, or just want a really good read and admire some amazing artwork, then buy this. If you only own one comic book it should be this one.

The evening has been spent practicing for Church tomorrow. We're starting to sound pretty tight now, at least better than we were in the beginning. Chris the drummer (who also plays sax, guitar, piano. He'll tell you what chords are playing on a song: "That's A minor seventh, E with an added fourth and a C sharp major ninth add 13... Basically he's on of those really talented types, which would be really irritating if he wasn't such a nice guy who just enjoys playing) listened to my music after we were done. It was kind of embarrassing really, because before that, we listened to some of Dave's friends stuff and that was really pretty well polished and musically accomplished - almost symphonic, and then he listens to me singing "Cheeseburger and fries, biggie size biggie size biggie size." Still he said he liked it, but then he's not really likely to turn round and say it's rubbish is he? I've noticed that no one that's gone to my website has commented on any of the music, and no ones said anything about it on here... Ash said to me... Oh I can't remember exactly what is was but it was kind of... How do I say... Forced. Oh well I enjoy singing along with myself in the truck and it entertains me making it in the first place, and pretending that people actually like it.

Well it's time for bed I guess... Oh, here's a funny website, I'm sure that you've probably seen al these videos before, but if you can watch the cat montage without laughing once then go to the doctor, you're either very depressed or dead.

Unoriginal.co.uk

'til next time.... Which might be tomorrow, or it could be next week... Who knows? My life is one big mystery!