Stupid Fat Hobbit

Okay, many of you know I am obsessed with Tolkien, Hobbits and the Lord of the Rings but I also have a small fixation on the Harry Potter series as well.  I’ve been waiting, almost patiently, for the release of the trailer for the new movie (for book 6) but began to worry when it didn’t come out by the time the Dark Knight was released.  It was released on my birthday though I didn’t realize it until today.  So, if like me, you are enamored of the HP books/movies, here is the new one.

I’m not sure if I’m encouraged or not since I was not very happy with the Order of the Phoenix movie.

Okay, I’m not normally a twice a day post-er.  Let’s face it, I’m not that great of a once a day post-er but I’ve got to tell you, my birthday was as good as it could have been without my wife being here.

I bunch of my friends from work took me to a restaurant I’ve never been to before Tim’s Rivershore in Dumfries, VA. This restaurant is right on the river, in fact you can back your boat up to the dock and walk in to it if you would like. I think I’ve only had boiled crabs once in the past 25 years but I made up for it today.  I ordered 1/2 dozen medium crabs and they accidentally brought out a full dozen.  Undaunted, I charged forth and ate them all.  They were not the fullest crabs I’ve ever had but they were delicious and added with the ambiance of the restaurant, I could not have enjoyed myself any more.

After lunch, I went back to work for a little while and then headed home to the kids.  My friend, Evelyn, had taken them out for a couple of hours yesterday so I assumed they would have a gift for me when I got home but…Jeremy (14) grilled steaks with rice and gravy and Becky (12) baked a yellow cake with chocolate icing and Happy Birthday Dad written on it. They also bought me a new book “The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth” which I cannot wait to read (though I have to at the moment).  Finally, there was Ice Cream (Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough).

I don’t think a man could ask for a better day when his wife is halfway around the world, do you?

I am 43 years young today and as most of you know, Hobbits give birthday presents to others on their birthdays.  This morning, as I was running, I said a decade of the rosary for all of my friends who read this blog and for those whom I love around me.  I had planned to create a poem for the occassion but like most things, I did not get this accomplished.  Maybe sometime in the near future I will have enough quiet time to sit down and compose something for you.

I pray that you all have a most wonderful day!

When we moved into our new house a couple of months ago, we were told that the old microwave misbehaved at an alarming rate and would need to be changed sooner or later.  Well, later came sooner than I thought it would this past weekend and I finally got fed up enough with it to go to Lowe’s and purchase a new one.  Of course, the model we had is no longer available (the company is not even around anymore) so I had to purchase a completely different model with a different mount (requiring holes to be drilled and all that crud).  Anyway, we pull off the old microwave and to my shock and amazement, there are bird feathers stuck to the back of it.  Now, I’ve seen birds make nests in dryer vents and the like before so this was not a complete shock to me except that one of the feathers was extremely large (like a fully grown dove large) and this caused some strife in my mind as I considered what I would find in the vent.  I decided to check the vent outside before going any further because if I was facing live animals I was going to behave differently than if I was facing dead ones.  Sure enough, the vent had heavy duty chicken wire covering it with these massive screws so I guessed that someone had already determined that birds were getting into the vent.

So, I go back inside, put on my handy-dandy surgical rubber gloves and mess around with the vent cover, making enough noise that any living creature would scuttle away or at least let me know it was there.  Since I got no response, I pulled the inside vent cover off and was immediately hit with the smell of old, nasty birds’ nest.  I can also see what appears to be the remains of two, count’em two fully-grown robins.  I grab a couple of plastic bags and start to remove the dead birds, which had apparently been dead for a while because there was nothing but feathers and bones, and as I’m removing the ones I can see, TWO MORE BIRDS FALL OUT OF THE VENT!  Four stinking, nasty, disgusting dead birds are in the vent that leads to the place where I cook 30-60% of my meals on any given night.  I don’t remember ever using that much Lysol on any one item before in my life; I just hope it was enough.  I think I’m also going to check that outside vent cover a little better as well to make sure that this doesn’t happen again…

So, when the missus told me that she was going to be deployed to a place far from Middle Earth, I was a bit concerned for our health and well-being.  I knew that I hadn’t arrived at 43 on accident and that I could fend for myself okay but still I knew in my heart of hearts that this little 6 month jaunt was not going to be a piece of cake.  Of course, I could not show that to Mrs. Hobbit as the prospect of leaving her family for 6 months was hard enough on her already and I didn’t feel she needed the added pressure of worriting about us. We all put on our strong faces and behaved like these 6 months would fly by and she’d be back before we knew she was gone.

We dropped her off at the airport and then the kids and I had a nice talk on the way home about how things were going to need to change and that I would need their support and that periodic freaking out by the old man should be expected and that they should just go to their room and pray for him if that happened.  The problem is that after 3 1/2 weeks, the old man has held together just fine and the kids, with the exception of 1 broken thumb, have done just fine.  And the broken thumb could have happened anytime, it was just an accident within the confines of a normal, everyday, day.

School has not started yet and I know that things will change dramatically at that point but really, that is going to impact the time line of when we go to sleep and what we do as soon as we hit the door in the afternoon.  We’ll have some adjustments to make but really, I think things are going swimmingly at the moment.

I really just wanted you all to know that your prayers are working and that we truly appreciate them.  Please keep them up and we’ll in turn pray that God blesses you and keeps you safe as well.

I love my pets; probably not as much as chatty does but none the less they allow us to share their house with them and feed them just as much as any other pet allows their human to do.  Oliver, the cat, loves his servants greatly and feels that they do quite a tolerable job, for humans. I’ve never really gotten inside the head of the hermit crab, Hermie, but he seems to be satisfied to live in his home and occasionally redecorate it so that his humans have to visit it and put it all back together again.  Max, the Chihuahua/Terrier mix is the virtual definition of the small, hyperactive dog that you have ever seen on TV, Movies or Cartoons.

Max loves to go on long walks and claim ownership (pee on) of every tree, bush, and bug that he can find.  Yesterday, we were on a particularly long walk when Max stepped off the path and started sniffing at something in the grass.  I noticed that whatever he was sniffing at kept jumping a little bit but not running away so I stepped off the path to see what it was.  I took this picture with my phone:

One down, three to go!

This kind of thing never ceases to amaze me! This little thin snake has one of the hind legs of this frog in its’ mouth and is working on the rest of it.  We didn’t stick around to see who won this battle but my money is definitely on the snake.

***As I was sitting down to write this, I opened an e-mail from one of my very best friends.  Her father died unexpectedly yesterday afternoon and I just ask that those of you who pray, pray for him and for his family left behind here on Earth. Those of you who do not pray, I would ask to ponder the eternal truths of this world and examine your conscience.***

Okay, on to the topic at hand; text-messaging language. Sometimes as a parent, the Hobbit finds out things that surprise him, maybe even shock. It has been a good while since he was shown the following bit of information but he knows that many parents do not realize this is happening or believe that their hobbit offspring would not participate in such activities. 

Some hobbit children have been known to use their cell phones in class to text answers to test questions to each other (mundane) and other hobbit children have used the camera on their cell phone to take pictures underneath the desk of the female child (in a skirt) next to them (disturbing).  These issues are generally handled at a macro level and are don’t return for a good while.  But the text language (lingo) issue is more prevalent and harder to deal with because responsible adults are not always aware of what is going on.

So, without further ado, please check out this link to the Top 50 Acronyms Every Parent Needs to Know.  This site, NetLingo, also has a list of statistics that parents should be aware of.  Now, the Hobbit is not trying to scream ‘the sky is falling’; in fact he usually prefers to allow his children to learn most of their life lessons via experience believing that the burned hand learns best. But in some cases, the life lesson can be so dire that the parent needs to be more aware.  And yes, the Hobbit does periodically check the cell phones of his children for these types of messages (he pays for them after all).

Just so you don’t think this message is all dark, NetLingo also has some great resources for learning the normal, generally acceptable text messaging language. It’s fun to learn and causes the children to freak out in the most humurous ways when they find you using it to converse with them.

Honest Abe was a great communicator

Now you might want to know where the Hobbit is going with this here postie thing and why this seems to be important to him.  Over the past 3 days, I’ve had several conversations with my children that I don’t necessarily want to take back but I certainly wish I had handled better.  Chores were getting a little lax and with Mrs. Hobbit (AKA, that is Affectionately Known As, the Enforcer) off fighting the war for God and Country, Hobbit here had to put the hammer down.  Since Mrs. Hobbit and I tend to fight our battles a bit differently, the kids did not respond to my second and third requests in a manner which satified me that they understood who was in charge.

Having one teenager and one ’bout to be’ teenager, I know that they are hard-headed, stubborn, and sometimes, well let’s just say, unintelligent; but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to look one straight in the eye, ask them if they took care of the Hermit Crab, have them say yes, and not have to go to the Hermit Crab cage to see if they in fact did take care of the Hermit Crab.  Unfortunately, we’re not quite there yet! So, after much ‘communication’ with the young’uns, I believe they at least understand where the line is that they crossed and that if they cross it again, papa hobbit is going to have an aneurysm and make them care for his vegetable self for the rest of his life.  Those kinds of threats work so much better than corporal punishment I think.

Anyway, though it sounds like I’m placing all the blame on the kids, really I know where the blame lies.  It is my mothers fault, completely and utterly.  I can remember being about 14 or so and having a particularly ‘good’ day.  My mom looked me square in the eye and said…you know what’s coming don’t you…she said ‘One day, you are going to grow up and have children exactly like you!!!‘  So there you go, I have a son who has picked up all of my worst male habits and a daughter who has picked up ALL of my worst habits!

Okay, okay, I know where the comm problem is in our house and I would love to tell you that I’m working on it diligently.  To be honest though, I really only think about it late at night when I’m feeling guilty about how I reacted to something that happened that day and trying to goad myself into going to Confession as every good Catholic should do monthly (which makes me NOT a good Catholic lately).  Can’t we all just g ge get along??

Well, at Mass last night I got to see our new priest first hand.  We’ve spoken once out in front of church and he seemed like an okay guy but then at Mass I had to catch myself a couple of times.  He has a very intense look about him and is (apparently) ADHD because every time there was a noise in the church, his eyes would dart out in the direction of the noise.  Due to this intense look on his face, I noticed several people who never seem to get up and move to the cry-room, getting up and moving as if they had been shocked by their seat!  I found myself caught between disapproving of his looks and appreciating the fact that these people were taking their children to the back so that we could hear what was going on.  I realize the man is human and having spoken to him twice now, I’m certain that he has no idea that his looks are that aggressive.  He’s just a great guy from upstate New York who loves Jesus and Mary and is serving the Lord as best as he can.  I found myself actually reminding myself that the man is not an actor and it is not his job to entertain us but to impart the Word of God in his own unique way.  He really seems to be devout as well so I can’t wait to have him over for supper and engage him in conversation.  I just hope that I don’t make any noises in Mass that cause him to look my way; my kids are too old for me to take them to the cry room…

That used to mean a fair amount of liquor and a little Bwow Chicka Bwow Wow but as I’ve mentioned before my wife is in Islamabad for 6 months so no Chicka till January.

Anyway, I got a call from an old associate yesterday about 2pm and she needed help because a graphic artist had created a rendering for their website but was several weeks behind in migrating the design over to the web and she was now 2 weeks past her deadline to her boss.  I really did not want to take on another website right now because a couple of the ones I maintain are requiring a lot of time and energy at the moment.  Plus, the kids usually start complaining when they don’t see anything but the back of my head for a week.  But I told her I would take a look at what she had and I’d let her know what I could do for her. 

Well, it turns out this guy is a print artist and I knew as soon as I saw the design why he had not converted it over.  It was a beautiful piece but there was hardly a straight line anywhere on it!  The web is not like print, everything really needs to fit in some kind of rectangle.  You can make circles and curves appear but it’s not the simplest thing you can do.  Anyway, I took one look and thought ‘much bigger than a bread basket’; they only have 6 pages but there are 2 different designs and to top it all off, it was created in InDesign, the one part of Adobe Creative Suite 3 that I don’t have at home and I’ve used it maybe twice at work.

The problem is, I saw this as a big challenge and I wanted to take it on.  Sooo, zip forward to 3:30 this morning (11 hours straight with one 30 minute break for supper with the kids) and I’m closing up shop with a completed recreated design and a fully-functional website.  Feel free to check it at www.bgcmotormadness.com.  One caveat though, I really hate the inner page design where there is a bottom graphic and the text within the page has to scroll internally.  If it were up to me, I would place the banner across the top and just let the text flow down naturally but I didn’t do the design and I didn’t think it appropriate to contact the lady at 1:45 this morning to debate the issue!

So this is the new hangover; pulling an all-nighter with my brain set to ‘full create’.  God bless you all, I think I’m going to start a load of laundry and take a nap.