As is to be expected, things are pretty hectic for my first day back after a week off. The week was good - I got most of the things done that I wanted to get done, including spending a bunch of time just playing with the kids. I think Julia will have a rough time adjusting to me going back to work - she and I had a lot of fun.

But besides all that - Noel Prefontaine - I hate you. Can’t make a field goal to save your life, and then someone else has to take your extra point duties on the last touchdown? You know, that cost me the game in my CFFL pool. Never mind the improbable blocked kick for a touchdown in the dying minutes of the final game of the week. Bah. As I said to Jason - My head asplode.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “But it comes with a free Frogurt!” - “Evil” Store Owner

Poker was great last night - I wound up nearly doubling my buyin - I left with $19 (and had to throw $0.70 into the dead hand kitty - so I was very very close to double) I caught some good hands, and got paid off (particularly great was the one hand of Lizzy where I “flopped” an uncounterfeitable four of a kind which “turned” into five of a kind and was bet into the whole way by a guy who then called every raise I put in…

I’ve got next week off, so posting here will likely drop off to zero for the next 9 days while I am away from work.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Hey, hurry it up with the cards, Lenny: I’ve got you clocked at two miles per hour.” - Homer

I got Quake 2 installed last night and joined in Jason’s reindeer games, and got my butt handed to me because a) I’m out of practise, b) I suck, c) I wasn’t familiar with the key bindings I was using and d) I was playing on the projector.

I tried posting a video on here, but my blog is old and busted and won’t let me post the YouTube thing inline. So, instead, here’s a link to the page on YouTube

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I’m a Murdiddly-urdeler!” - Ned Flanders

Both kids remind me of me sometimes, but in totally different ways. William reminds me that as a kid, I was hard to handle at times. Quick to anger, quick to forgive, he is very like I was as a kid. High energy would be an understatement sometimes.

Julia reminds me of the quieter side to my personality - the side that seems to have emerged as I got older, but was always there when I was younger. She’s got a temper too though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I could substitute her name in the first paragraph in a year or two. Often she reminds me of a particular memory I have from when I was a kid.

Flashback wavy lines

I remember only parts of the scene - I was likely between 6 and 8 years old. We went somewhere with a bunch of people, and we had a bonfire/hot dog roast type of thing. Each kid got a bag of Old Dutch potato chips. While the rest of the kids were off running around and playing or something, I sat there with a stick, roasting each empty chip bag in the fire. Completely absorbed by the beauty of the fire and the incredible process that resulted in a miniature potato chip bag on the end of my stick. I wasn’t totally unaware of my surroundings, but it was close. At one point, one of the parents made the comment that I was “off in my own little world” which I was. As a kid, I spent a lot of time with my imagination - either alone or with friends. Julia seems to be very much like that. She’ll sit and play by herself without paying any attention to the chaos going on around her. Laser sharp focus on the task of playing in “her own little world.”

Here’s another childhood memory - this one was from when I was 3 or 4 I guess, because it was at the house at the corner lot of town - I don’t think we were living there when Bryan was born, so that kind of dates it a little. Mom used to babysit “Inch” whose real name completely escapes me now. Inch and played pretty hard. One particular game we loved to play was to “ride the train” any time it came through town. We weren’t close enough to the train tracks for our game to be dangerous, but living on the edge of town, we could see the trains and obviously hear them. Whenever a train was going, we’d rush out to the garbage can holder thing (that wasn’t used to hold garbage cans) and jump on it, pretending to be on the train. We’d rock back and forth on the rickety structure, and I can almost feel the old worn wood swaying back and forth under my feet right now.

One other memory I have from that house was a big hail storm. We were rushed inside to get out of the hail, but for some reason I wanted to go outside, so I put an ice cream bucket on my head and ran out into it to pick up some hailstones. The stones were big, and I came back inside pretty quickly. Once the hail had stopped, we went back out with pails and picked up some of the bigger ones.

Don’t get me started on the time(s) I got my head stuck between the bunkbed and the wall because I didn’t want to use the ladder to get back down from the top bunk.

So, that’s a little bit of insight into me, and a little bit of insight into how I see myself in my kids.

Simpson’s quote of the day:
Bart: “Grandpa, why don’t you tell us a story? You’ve led an interesting life.”
Grandpa Simpson: “That’s a lie and you know it!”

I was pretty tired last night, and my back was sore, so Erin took the kids to the indoor playground while I stayed home and relaxed with medication coursing through my veins. After they got back, I took William up for a bath while Erin tried to get Julia to go to sleep. After an hour+ of Julia not sleeping, we swapped kids, and Julia and I watched Curious George while playing fake money poker

The poker was interesting - I sat down to the right of a big stack who quickly showed that he was tired of playing by going all-in every single hand. The funny thing was that people would limp in, then fold to his inevitable all-in raise. So, fortunately I picked up a pair of queens, and “laid a trap” - ie, limped like the rest of the idiots. For half a second, I thought he wasn’t going to go all in this time. Fortunately he did, and his 8-4o was no good. A few hands later he ran into another player who was tired of his play and called with Q-10d which was good against 7-6o. Not the play I would have made, but then, who am I to judge. So, after that guy was gone, the Q10 guy winds up eliminating half the table when his AQ holds up against QJ and AJ, so now he’s got a massive stack, and it’s just him and me. We played heads up for a while, and he was pretty passive on the button, letting me check down hands that I would have folded preflop. Anyway, one particular hand, I had A9, and the flop missed me, but looked like if it hit him, he wasn’t laying it down, and if it missed him, I was ahead anyway. The turn and river gave me an ace high straight for the nuts, so I raised the pot (something like 800) He reraised me all-in (something like 65,000 for me, he had 130,000) So I called, expecting a chop, but lo and behold, he had a lowly 9 for the sucker’s end of the straight. He never played another hand with me the rest of the night.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I’m sorry. My mother always said if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all.” - Marge

Julia’s vocabulary continues to increase. This past weekend, she picked up “Birthday” and somehow made the connection to candles on a birthday cake. It’s pretty cute. She’s frustrated by the fact that she still doesn’t have as many words as she’d like, but she’s getting there.

I’m going to take a moment to talk about an incredible football play though. In the dying seconds of the Riders/Eskimos game, the game appeared over, when Riders QB Rocky Butler was apparently sacked at about midfield. The ball had popped out though, and after a recovery and two handoffs, Rocky had the ball back. He tossed it to Kenton Keith, who ran with it for a bit, then tossed it to Andy Fantuz, who then threw it across the field to Jason French. French then ran with it for a few yards, then threw it back across the field to Keith, who was ultimately stopped short of the endzone, when the ball popped out and was recovered on the 4. It was an unbelievable play, and it very nearly resulted in the worst final play of the game for the Esks since Milt Stegall romped for 100 yards and a touchdown earlier this year. That was pure entertainment, and I’m glad I got to watch it unfold. It would have been better if the Riders had managed to score, or if a marching band had walked onto the field or something though.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Suck-up Riverdale punks. Think they’re too good for me.” - Homer