The Moore You Know

Ada Conversations Part 4

2013-03-04T16:45:00.000-05:00

I am the pushover parent. Laura Beth tells me it's not fair because the kids will remember me as the "fun" parent while she will be known as the fuddy-duddy. She didn't really say fuddy-duddy, I have just wanted to use that word for a LONG time. But seriously, as a dad one of the hardest things for me to do is tell my children no. I give them candy when Laura Beth isn't looking and have been known to instigate tickle fights while we're reading stories at bedtime. My bad, LB.

In an effort to atone for my spineless parenting tactics, I thought I would list a couple of examples where I have recently had to tell Ada no:

Example 1:

Ada: Dad, can you take me to outer space?
Scott: Oh, I'm afraid not.
Ada: Why not?
Scott: To be able to go to outer space you have to be a super healthy, super smart, and a lot older.
Ada: Ok, starting tomorrow, while I am waiting to get older, I will only eat vegetables for dinner.
Scott: Well....
Ada: And, AND!!! 2 plus 2 is 4, so I'm already smart.

Example 2:

It was just Ada and me in the car. She had been quiet for a while when out of the blue she asks...

Ada: Dad is this a dream?
Scott: Is what a dream?
Ada: This...right now...is it a dream?
Scott: Nope.
Ada: How do we know this isn't a dream?

I'm still trying to think of an answer for that last one.

For other insights to Ada's profound wisdom, you can click here.

Texts from a Marriage...um Friendship: Duck Dynasty

2013-02-27T16:34:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I take text conversations between LB and me and turn them into a post. Probably because we are like the Brad and Angelina of the blog world and everyone wants to know the intimate details of our lives. I know what you’re thinking, Scott, you’re much too handsome to be compared to Brad Pitt. I know, right?

(Editor's note: This is my stock intro for when I turn texts between Laura Beth and me into posts. The below is actually texts between my buddy Taylor and me. We're not married. I don't have a stock intro for friendship texts.)

I don't care what it makes you think about me, Duck Dynasty is one of my favorite shows on television. If you haven't heard of it, it is reality show about a family of self made millionaires that like to blow up beaver dams. It may not be the most refined show on television, but I would argue that it promotes higher values than just about anything else you will watch (i.e. faith, clean humor, emphasis on family.)

Well, back in the summer one of the members of the show was going to be near my hometown doing publicity stuff so I emailed a couple of buddies and arranged for us to go meet him. It was Jace, my favorite of the Robertsons. Of course something happened where I didn't get to go, but my buddies did. And they both text me to let me know what I was missing out on. Here is my conversation with Taylor:

Taylor: 10min from meeting duck commander. Me and Bull have been in line for 1hr.
Scott: Im so jealous.
T: I am 20ft from him right now.
S: so you are probably standing on his beard?
T: Yeah, accidentally. And I think he shaved right before he got here.
S: Ask him if he is housing any small woodland creatures in there.
T: Actually, they did have a squirrel that could waterski here a few minutes ago.
S: Was it the one from Anchorman?
T: I don't know, but it was kind of a big deal.
S: Well, waterskiing or not, if Ms. Kay sees him he'll be stew.
T: If she's not busy with Phil.
S: I think we just described Phil's perfect night.
T:

S: Yall look so giddy.
T: Correct. We were.

I found these texts today when I was cleaning out my phone because the memory was getting low. It made me realize that I hadn't seen the Duck Dynasty gang in a while so I googled them and learned the new season of Duck Dynasty starts tonight! 10/9 CST on A&E. Obviously divine intervention is at work here so you should do yourself a favor and check it out.

And come to think of it, if I ever become a millionaire I would probably spend a little time blowing up beaver dams, too.

Who wouldn't?

Hand Raising and Hand Shaking

2013-02-25T15:54:00.000-05:00

Several months ago we started going to a new church. They raise their hands there. Not to be called on or anything, that would be weird. I mean during worship songs. Then, not too long ago I saw this video and thought it was funny. I hope you do too.

For the record, I pretty much hang around in the "Elbow Flapper" stage, but I've been known to mix in the occasional foot tap to keep things fresh. Also, I never sing out loud. The bible tells us to make a joyful noise, if I sang it would be the opposite of that. And the last thing I want to do is the opposite of what the bible says.

I really enjoy this new church. I feel like truth is taught there and they have a genuine love for the gospel. Also, there are a lot people with beards. Mostly men, which is good. But one complaint I do have is the older gentleman who greets you when you first walk in is a limp-wrist handshaker. It's like trying to shake hands with a wet tube sock. And it is the first impression of the church! This isn't a good omen considering you are hopefully at church searching for something solid.

He appears to be a sweet old man who I am sure loves Jesus. That's why I think I am going to say something to him next week. Just yesterday, I read this Tim Challies article where he points out that admonition is not only loving, but commanded in scripture. And the last thing I want to do is the opposite of what the bible says.

The church greeter's handshake form may be the most underrated, never spoken about factor a visitor's decision to return to the church hinges on. In fact, pastors or church planters that might be reading, you should probably hold an Emergency Handshaking Boot Camp for all the greeters in your church ASAP. You can use this post from the now defunct Dr. Awesome site to guide the itinerary.

Guys, we may have just blown the doors off one of the most crippling problems in the church of modern America. I'm not going to lie, it feels good. If you were here, I would give every one of you a congratulatory firm-wrist handshake.

Do you ever do the opposite of what the bible says?

NICU, who?

2013-02-18T18:18:00.002-05:00

I made a youtube!

He learned everything you saw from watching me practice in the mirror at night. They are such sponges at this age, guys.

3yrs ago last Thursday John came home from the NICU. While he was there, he had a NICU friend named Roger. I posted about him once, but all that is irrelevant. Last week, in an act of vengeance, John challenged NICU to a dance off and won. Mostly because he is awesome, but a little because NICU doesn’t have legs.

And yes, I posted this pretty much word for word last week on facebook, but I am posting it again hear because I am a lazy, lazy blogger. I'm sorry.

MLK, JR

2013-02-06T15:02:00.000-05:00

Last Monday was Martin Luther King, Jr Day. Also on last Monday, I listened to a Jay Z CD on my commute home. Correlation doesn't always imply causation, but this time it did. I am pretty sure one of Jay Z's songs had a xylophone in it. I wondered how a song I did with a xylophone in it would sound? Probably not the same as Jay Z's. Another one of his songs mentioned something about 30 being the new 20. I don't really know what that means, unless he is talking about weight. I have gained about 30lbs since I was 20. Though I did lose 8lbs in the month of January, so look out Ryan Gosling, here I come.

On that Monday morning, a radio station played Martin Luther King, Jr's "I have a dream" speech in its entirety. Have you ever heard it all the way through? Unfortunately, I hadn't in my previous 31 years of life but I did that day.You should right now:

And somewhere during that 15min+ speech, I'm pretty sure I turned into an elderly black lady sitting in church. While listening, I was all, "Mm-hmm!" and "You know that's right!" and I said it very vivaciously and with soul.

PS. I started to post this last week, however I came down with the swine flu and never got around to it. But now it is Black History Month so it is still timely.

The Office: Whoever vs. Whomever

2013-01-10T16:52:00.002-05:00

LB and I will celebrate 7 years of marriage come this April. In those seven years, we've experienced both good times as well as hard times that have all contributed in forging a strong union between us that is bound together by trust, covenantal love, and Netflix streaming.

Netflix streaming has played an intricate part in our marriage over the last several years. We have shared many laughs and many tears because of it. True, some of that was me laughing at LB's tears over a tv show, but still, they were shared nonetheless. A couple weeks ago we finished watching The Wonder Years (Side note: It has stood the test of time, we both give it a thumbs up.) and we were stuck with one of our marriage's most reoccurring issues: "What do we watch next?"

LB was insistent on The Office and I couldn't find anything better so we went for it. I was hesitant because these days The Office isn't what it used to be. I think it is common knowledge that it has been dying a slow painful death for the last 4 or 5 seasons.

The Office has become a lot like my 8th grade girlfriend. When I first met her, she was from a different town so I wasn't very familiar with her, I wasn't accustomed to her style, and honestly, I didn't really like her very much. I still hung out with her a couple times though and then one day, she kissed me. Suddenly, I liked her a lot. I REALLY liked her for a few seasons. Those were happy times where we laughed together and I would tell anyone who would listen how wonderful she was. Then one day the subject of marriage came up (See: Jim and Pam. More importantly, regarding my analogy...8TH GRADE!) and things took a turn for the worse. It was never the same after that. There was still the occasional bright spot, but for the most part it was downhill on rollerskates. I wanted to call it quits, cut it off while everyone had their dignity, but she WOULD NOT GO AWAY. Finally, we broke up. I can't remember exactly how, but given the fact that it was 8th grade, I probably just didn't answer the phone anymore.

This is The Office's final season, so in few months we will break up, too. Thankfully, Parks and Recreation, one of my ALL TIME favorite sitcoms, is still going strong so I won't miss The Office when that time comes. But as LB and I have been going through those first few seasons, I was reminded of how great The Office used to be back in its prime. Just last night we watched my all time favorite episode, "The Injury". That's the episode where Michael burns his foot on his George Foreman grill.

That is when I decided I wanted to pay a quick homage to the show. Remember the good ol' days. I think back to the show's glory days, one of the best things the show did was the conference room scenes. Bring all those guys together in one room and hilarity is sure to ensue. So I will close with one of my favorite conference room scenes, the Whoever vs. Whomever debate.

Ryan: What I really want — honestly, Michael — is for you to know it so you can communicate it to the people here, to your clients, to whomever.

Michael: Oh, okay…

Ryan: What?

Michael: It’s whoever, not whomever.

Ryan: No, it’s whomever…

Michael: No…whomever is never actually right.

Jim: Well, sometimes it’s right.

Creed: Michael is right. It’s a made-up word used to trick students.

Andy: No. Actually, whomever is the formal version of the word.

Oscar: Obviously, it’s a real word, but I don’t know when to use it correctly.

Michael: Not a native speaker.

Kevin: I know what’s right, but I’m not gonna say because you’re all jerks who didn’t come see my band last night.

Ryan: Do you really know which one is correct?

Kevin: I don’t know.

Pam: It’s whom when it’s the object of the sentence and who when it’s the subject.

Phyllis: That sounds right.

Michael: Well, it sounds right, but is it?

Stanley: How did Ryan use it, as an object?

Ryan: As an object…

Kelly: Ryan used me as an object.

Stanley: Is he right about that?

Pam: How did he use it again?

Toby: It was…Ryan wanted Michael, the subject, to, uh explain the computer system, the subject–

Michael: Yes!

Toby: –to whomever, meaning us, the indirect object…which is the correct usage of the word.

Michael: No one asked you anything, ever, so whomever’s name is Toby, why don’t you take a letter opener and stick it into your skull?

For the record, Laura Beth is my Parks and Recreation.

2012, the internet, and me

2013-01-07T14:53:00.001-05:00

As we all know, I didn't do much on the internet last year, especially around here. However, I did show up randomly in a couple other web places:

-I was in a Tripp and Tyler video. It came out last February and was about Super Bowl party etiquette. Given the fact that I am an Atlanta Falcons/Alabama fan, I don't want to say anything about football right now. ESPECIALLY ABOUT TONIGHT. OMGOMGOMG!!!! Anyway, here is the video:

-Also sometime last year, I guest posted for Jared Hollier at jaredhollier.com. My guest post was back when he used to be Badly Drawn Bible so I drew a bible picture badly for him. It was originally one of my white board illustrations from back when LB and I used to work in the church nursery once a month and I would make these amazing, elaborate drawings that would coincide with what LB taught and help explain the point of the verses we were studying. I would be so proud of myself and the work I had done until I turned around and saw LB standing there with her hands on her hips giving me the stink eye and saying things like, "They're 3yrs old, can you just. draw. a. square?" Whatever, Laura Beth, you're never too young to appreciate some good art.

Anyway, my guest drawing was about Palm Sunday. You can go see it here. I also sent him the one below but I don’t think he ever used it and I have no idea why. It’s about the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18.

Yes, I know I misspelled scepter, but to my credit the whiteboard did not have spellcheck. Plus, they were 3, they might appreciate good art, but they can't spell.

Ok, I lied, one more thing about football. I have a friendly wager with Jared. Back story: He lives in Texas and is a Houston Texans fan. The Texans went 12-4 in the regular season and won their playoff game this past weekend. I am a Falcons fan and they went 13-3 and had a bye this weekend. The Texans are in the AFC and the Falcons are in the NFC. That means the only way they will play each other is if they both make it the Super Bowl which brings me to our bet. Since I live in Georgia and he lives in Texas we have decided that if they DO both make it to the Super Bowl we will meet in Mississippi to watch the game together and the loser has to pay for the other's gas back home.

Here's the thing, we made this bet a long time and I don't think Jared even remembers it. So, my plan is to never mention it to him again UNLESS both of our teams DO go and the Falcons DO win. Then I will send Jared a bill for what the gas would have cost me. If the scenario I laid out does not unfold as I described, the bet will never be mentioned again. Though I don't really know if this plan will hold up in the court of law should Jared happen to challenge it. The only thing I know about the legal system I learned from watching Judge Judy when I was unemployed back in 2011. Fingers crossed.

Also, please don't remind Jared.

Ok, I'm trying this one more time

2013-01-04T14:01:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year, everyone! I know what you are thinking WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THIS? JUST STAY GONE. And I get it, I know that I should stop trying because it is just sad at this point. I post and am like "Hey guys, guess what? I didn’t quit blogging! Yay!!" Then go several months without posting anything and then come back and am like "Hey guys, guess what? I didn’t quit blogging! Yay!!" Then go several months without posting. Rinse and repeat, ad nauseum. Pathetic, right?

But the truth is, I just can't bring myself to quit. I really want to blog. So, this is me giving it one more shot. If I go for an extended time without posting, I promise I will hang it up for good and stop all this on again off again mess. This is me being transparent, guys.

Speaking of transparent, if I do fail and you still want to keep up with our family you should read LB’s blog. She is so transparent and open and writes good words and stuff, she should totally write for a magazine or something. Not one of those cheap magazines like US Weekly either, but something fancy like Vogue. Wait, is Vogue fancy? Sorry, I’m not up to date on my fancy magazines. Whatever magazine you thought of when I said fancy magazine, insert that one above, ok? Also, for future reference, what was the fancy magazine you thought of?

Sorry, this post has gotten way off track. I did not intend to talk about fancy magazines. Let’s bring it back in. Where was I? Oh, my horrific blogging patterns, here’s the deal… we will chalk 2012 up as a mulligan. Let’s forget it ever happened and move on in 2013.

So in a way this is kind of like my New Year’s resolution which is kind of a big deal because I usually only give myself easy resolutions that I know I can complete, like blink sometimes. Not this year, this year we are GOING BIG. Where big means to hopefully write more often on site read by maybe tens of people.

Aspirations, you guys. It’s always good to have aspirations.

Hey guys, remember me?

2012-11-06T15:31:00.000-05:00

I know, I know…it’s been a while since I have been here, but guys, I have legitimate reasons. I would go through them all so you would understand and have compassion for me but I don’t want to bore you, so let’s just skip everything and start with the compassion, guys. Deal? Thanks.

I will do a quick high level why I haven’t been around – its work’s fault. It started when another department lost some people so I filled in for them and was doing two jobs at once. They hired some people and I was back to normal for like a week. Then two people on our team left and now I am doing two jobs at once again. The bad news is while doing two jobs I have only been getting paid once. The good news is I was awarded the Associate of the Month. What does that mean? I now have a paperweight that says Associate of the Month on it which will come in handy if a slight breeze ever picks up in the office.

Also, for the past week I have been working in The Home Depot’s hurricane command center. It is kind of cool and we have been on several news stations including the Today Show. I tried to find the link to the video with me waving to the camera in the background, but was unsuccessful. I did find this video from Fox Business: http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1932487849001/. I was sitting in the row of desks right behind where the picture at the 1:02 mark was taken. Apparently, The Today Show and Fox Business have an issue with someone giving the thumbs up during their hurricane coverage broadcasts.

I’m on the other side of all of that stuff now so hopefully I can get back into the swing of things again and squeeze in a post during lunch every now and then. I realize I have posted two times in the past 3 months and they have both been about not posting. My bad. This will only make my 10^th post in 2012. Can I even call myself a blogger at this point? Probably not.

Ok, I think I’m done now. It’s been a while since I’ve done this posting thing so my conclusions are a little rusty.

OBAMACARE!!!!

2012-08-17T06:00:00.000-04:00

Haha, I'm just kidding. This has nothing to do with Obamacare. I don't even know what that means. But I did hear someone say Ron Swanson wouldn't like it so my official stance is: I am opposed. That is the foundation of all of my political ideologies, what my favorite fictional sitcom characters might have said about it. But seriously, I didn't know how to start since I've been gone for a month.

I wanted to check in and say I haven't quit blogging again. I know you were WORRIED about it. Several weeks ago they upgraded all our laptops to Windows 7 at work. The good news is MS Paint has a bunch if new thingies to paint with. The bad news, I lost all the posts I had saved. Then also at work, another department suddenly didn't have anybody that does what I do so I volunteered/was made to feel guilty if I didn't help them out. So now I am super busy at work because it is like I am doing two jobs. Which is better than last year at this time when I was doing no jobs.

Since this post is basically to say I haven't quit, I will end with why I quit last time. I wrote the below and was all "Whoa, I need to quit." So I did:

In my hometown, there were two separate grocery stores called Food World and Food Land. Growing up, I always wondered which came first. Like, whether Food Land was already there and then Food WORLD came in and one upped him. Or, if Food World was there first and someone less ambitious came along and named there grocery store Food Land.

I thought someone else should come along and open up a third grocery store called Food Galaxy! Exclamation point optional. Not optional? Having an in house laser tag arena. Because for some reason when I hear the word galaxy, I think laser tag.

But I am pretty sure the Wal-Mart Supercenter drove all the other grocery stores out of business back in 1999. So, citizens of Guntersville, Alabama, you can blame the Wal-Mart Supercenter for not being able to play laser tag while grocery shopping. Sure you get everyday produce and toiletries at exceptional values, but NO LASER TAG. Was that trade off really worth it?

I bet the Wal-Mart Supercenter* is also responsible for burning down the bowling alley back in '01**

*Dear the Wal-Mart Supercenter, I am just kidding. Please don't sue me. There is no merit to these allegations and I have no reason to believe you have anything against the spirit of fun.

**I am estimating the year that the bowling alley burned. I tried to look it up on Wikipedia to confirm it, but Wikipedia didn't have anything about the early 2000s Guntersville, AL bowling alley burning. What's up with that, Wikipedia?

See? That is why I took a sabbatical. Do you like laser tag?

Protect Your Copper Wiring

2012-07-02T06:00:00.000-04:00

Guys, it hit 106 degrees in Atlanta the other day. I think they said that was some kind of state record. I’m not sure because it was hard to hear over the 7 box fans I had pointing at me. No matter if was a record or not, that is hotter than I typically enjoy. It also made me think of this post I wrote almost exactly one year ago.

I saw on the news that thieves are breaking people’s air conditioning units to steal the copper wiring inside. I’d be so ticked if that happened to me. I’d be like Liam Neeson in Taken:

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills that I have acquired mostly while enjoying air conditioning. Skills that make me a nightmare for people who break my air conditioning. If you fix my AC right now that will be the end of it; I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kick you in the crotch then hurriedly run away before you have a chance to get up.”*

*Actual Liam Neeson quote from the movie Taken. Possibly paraphrased.

Seriously though, I wanted to warn all of you about this so you could booby trap your AC units or something. Maybe set a milk jug full of pennies on top of your units. That way the thief will be all “Oh, I will just take this jug of copper money rather than going through the trouble of breaking this air conditioning unit.” Because I think even thieves can be reasonable too if given the opportunity.

However, this is risky because I am pretty sure pennies are not even of made copper anymore which means they may not be a temptation to the thief at all, only proving how worthless pennies really are. If pennies can't avert burglars from breaking your air conditioning unit, do they even serve a purpose?

No matter what pennies are made of, chances are the thief will take your milk jug of pennies and steal your copper wiring. But the joke is really on them because you can put one of those paint ball things in your jug that explodes when the jug is opened. Like banks do. Then they will get arrested for being painted. I think that is how the judicial system works. Don't quote me on that though.

But for real, y'all, please don’t break my AC unit. It’s hot.

This was a year ago and I don't think I have heard of copper theft as being as big of an issue as it used to be so I can only assume my jug of pennies idea has made a difference. Or, they are making AC units out of whatever they make pennies out of now. Honestly, probably neither of those.

Is it hot where you are or should I hate you?

Happy Father's Day

2012-06-19T13:56:00.000-04:00

I hope you had a great Father’s day weekend. Even if you aren’t a Father, I still hope your weekend was pleasant. Mine was. On Saturday night, I got to grill out. I love grilling out. I think grilling hamburgers while in air conditioning would probably be my dream job. Except that would kind of be like working at Burger King and that doesn’t seem very ambitious. So never mind.

Then on Sunday, Ada woke me up by handing me a questionnaire she had filled out about me. I am going to copy it below, because as I may or may not have mentioned (I can’t remember) I am a very forgetful person and will probably lose that sheet of paper someday, but you can never lose the internet.*

*I take that back, based on personal experience AT&T seems to lose the internet about twice a week.

My dad is 30 years old.

His hair is black and his eyes are green.

My dad likes to wear church outfits.

He loves to eat hamburgers.

He is smart because he knows how to do a flip.

My dad works hard at work.

Daddy always tells me I love you.

It makes me happy when daddy plays baseball and catch with me and tries to “get me”.

If daddy could go on a trip, he would go to CVS and take me with him.

I love it when daddy takes me to the park and the movies and when he cuddles with me.

If I could give him a present I would draw.

For fun, daddy plays.

He likes to drink Diet Coke.

He weighs 100lbs.

I’ve known daddy for a very, very long time.

Daddy’s favorite TV show is football.

For the most part, she nailed it. I do think it is a little sad that the pinnacle of my intelligence is based on my ability to roll over, but I guess that is what you get from someone who aspires to work at Burger King.

Speaking of Burger King, I was reminded of this post I wrote near Father’s day a few years ago, before John even existed. My feelings have only multiplied with my children:

I remember one of the first times I felt like I was a true college student. The previous night my roommate and I had a bunch of friends over, ordered pizza, and spent the night playing xbox and calling each other names. It was fun. It always was. The next morning I woke up, shuffled sleepy-eyed into the kitchen to try and find something for breakfast. Those days, my breakfasts were usually microwave popcorn or canned ravioli. But not that morning, that morning I hit the jackpot. As I was rummaging through our impressive collection of condiments looking for anything I could put the condiments on, when something caught my eye on the counter beside the fridge: an opened pizza box with about a quarter of a meat lovers still in it. I grabbed the box and took it back to bed with me. That was college.

Fast forward about ten years later to this morning’s breakfast. Last night we loaded the family into the car, went to Burger King, and spent the night giving baths and tucking in. It was fun. It always is. This morning I woke up to Ada yelling, “Daddy, where are you, Daddy?” so I shuffled sleepy-eyed into her bedroom and took her down stairs to find something for breakfast. This morning I hit the jackpot. I ended up eating strawberry yogurt and granola out of a mini Little Princess bowl as I was walking around the living room with Ada sitting on my foot holding onto my leg. This is fatherhood.

I wouldn't go back if I could.

Ok, I am going to go try on some church outfits.

Do you like hamburgers?

Ada, aspiring artist

2012-06-15T13:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was in the kitchen cooking spaghetti. Real spaghetti, mind you. Not what I used to make in college that I appropriately named “college spaghetti". College spaghetti was just noodles and sauce. No meat. Meat was like three more dollars. You could make college spaghetti for less than $2. If you added meat, that brought the total cost of the meal to over $5 and at that point, you might as well go to McDonald’s.

So, yesterday I was in the kitchen cooking spaghetti when Ada walks up to me and says, “Daddy, when I grow up I am going to be an artist.” I was happy to hear this because now she’s finally aspiring towards a real vocation, rather than “Disney princess”.

I said, “You know your Aunt Sarah is an artist?” “Really?” “Yeah, we even have one of her paintings hanging in our bedroom.” She took off running towards our bedroom. A few minutes later she came back with a very serious look on her face. “So, what do you think?”

“She’s good…but I’ll probably be better. There weren't any shapes, like circles or triangles, you know? And I would have had more butterflies.” (Note: there are no butterflies in Sarah's painting.)

Sorry, Sarah…Ada's a tough critic. Just ask Laura Beth when she cooks ANYTHING OTHER than macaroni and cheese for dinner.

If you want to help Sarah get over this, I’m sure traumatizing setback in her career, you can go here and buy stuff from her.

Since we are talking about art, I thought I would try to capitalize and turn this picture I did with Ada several months ago into a profit. I will accept monetary donations in any amount for the print below. Also acceptable are gift cards to movie theaters and/or Chik-fil-a. True, you could just print it off yourself but that would be like stealing Jesus which I am pretty sure is EXTRA sinful and probably impossible since the gift of Jesus is always free.

In retrospect, I would have slid the text more to the right so you could actually see Jesus. But editing text boxes in MS Paint is tough. This exactly the type of stuff you wouldn't have to worry about if you buy something from Sarah.

Also, I would have changed it to Footprints on the Rainbow since rainbows are technically colored water so that would make the whole thing very biblical, but I didn't think about that until just now and like I said, editing text boxes in MS Paint is hard.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

So….our car melted.

2012-06-12T14:17:00.000-04:00

Remember back in the old days when our cars were the Altimater and Trina the Tribute? Well, we don’t have either of those anymore. And surprisingly, the Tribute had a more exciting exit plan than the Alitmater.

It started back in February when we received a letter from Mazda. I’ll summarize it for you:

Dear beloved Mazda owner,

FYI- your car might blow up. Don't worry though, we will fix it. Just not right now. We don’t have the parts yet. We will send you another letter when we are ready. Until then, don’t park near your house because you wouldn’t want that to catch on fire too. We will never have the parts for that. Thanks!

Your friends,

Mazda

Well, our car didn’t make it until the second letter came:

For LB the saddest tragedy of all was that she had just stopped at Sonic to get a Route 44 Diet Coke that she was never able to drink. There it lays, helplessly on the pavement, its innards mingled with engine fluid, liquefied carburetor, and the water used to extinguish the flames. In one respect, it was a wonderful way for a diet coke to go out...to be taken away by the water used to quench the inferno that parched our car the same way it has on so many occasions quenched the thirst that has parched our throats. Very meta. It truly did go down in a blaze of glory.

Our car catching on fire was postshadowing. (PS. I made that word up because I don’t know what the antonym of foreshadowing is.) At least one day a week for the previous 3 weeks, I got stuck in traffic on the way home from work due to a car catching on fire. By the third week, I was thinking “how does that even happen, how does your car catch on fire? If you’re not in the mob, I mean?” Because being stuck in traffic due to a burning car is decidedly less exciting than it sounds. Turns out it is A LOT less exciting when it is your car.

In very related news, we now have a minivan. I was tempted to call it a swagger wagon, but I don’t think it is cool to say swagger anymore. I’ve heard Lee Corso say it too many times. And we all know driving a minivan is the epitome of cool. Just yesterday I pulled up to a red light where some teenage hooligans were listening to their rap music too loudly, so I leaned down and cranked up the Veggie Tales. You ain’t crampin’ my style, homeboy.

In conclusion, if you drive a Mazda Tribute, always remember to park near someone’s house you don’t like. And read this, it will probably come in handy soon.

What is the most dramatic way you have lost a car? When I say lost, I mean totaled. Not forgetting which floor of the parking deck you were on.

This feels awkward.

2012-06-05T13:19:00.000-04:00

Guys, this is my first post in over 5 months. It feels awkward. Kind of like a high school reunion. Luckily, there will be no small talk involved because we all know horrible I am at that. Especially, if I am wearing pants that don't have pockets. Then I don’t know what to say OR where to put my hands.

I felt compelled to post because as you may or may not remember, I was let go from my job in June of last year. We are going on the 1yr anniversary and a lot has happened since then: I have a new job, we are in a different house, we have a different car, and I bought a pair of corduroy pants. The corduroy pants thing may not seem as a big of a deal as the others, but it was a HUGE fashion leap for me, guys. Also, a couple months ago I wore dress shoes with no socks. It was very European of me. Whoa, got a little side tracked there. My bad. I’m a little rusty.

Really, I don’t know what I wanted to post about. Mostly I just wanted to check in and let you know 1) I am still alive. 2) I miss you guys and have started to miss blogging lately. And 3) I didn’t want my last post ever to be about urinals. Or What Not to Wear. But mostly, not urinals. That's not the legacy I want to leave.

Recently I have been thinking about starting to try posting again. Mainly because I think not blogging is making me boring in real life. I don't even know if it that is possible. And also because Steve, an elder at our church, asks me about every couple weeks when I am going to start blogging again because my not blogging has forced him to read mommy blogs. I'm sorry, Steve, this one is for you.

I hope to have more posts in the pipeline. We'll see. But for now, I am going to keep this one short. My rustiness has already led me to talk about my sockless feet. If I keep going, who knows where this will go?

So, is there anyone even still reading? I haven't posted in HALF A YEAR. I don't blame anyone who may have jumped ship. The plus side is I bet there have been a lot less grammar mistakes on the internet over the past few months. But if you are still here, holla atcha boy. Let's catch up.

One more thing, during my blogging sabbatical, I didn't really spend too much time on the internet. So if you've written/seen something hilarious or poignant lately, leave a link to your favorive in the comments.

Confession, I really only care about the hilarious, I only put poignant to try and sound smarter than I really am. To be even more honest, I had to spell check poignant. A silent "g"?

English is hard, y'all.

I can't think of a title....

2012-01-31T22:12:00.003-05:00

I was emailing with my buddy, Bull, today and mentioned that I don’t know if I’d continue blogging. My reasons: I used to write while at work, but now my job requires thought so I can’t fit it in. After work, I have an hour commute which means I don’t have as much family time, so any extra time at home I spend with the kiddos or LB. In short, I rarely get ideas anymore and when I do I don’t have time to write about them.

Ok, that last paragraph seemed a little complainy. My bad. But the thought of not blogging anymore made me a little sad. So I’m making one last ditch effort while LB watches a DVR'd episode of What Not to Wear.

I don’t have anything to write about so I’m just going to spit my flow freestyle. FYI-that was rap talk for stream of consciousness. FYI-that was fancy talk for I’m going to make stuff up as I go.

Here goes:

I think the 5 second rule should vary in length depending on where you are. My dirt is not as nasty as the dirt in a QT bathroom.

Speaking of QT bathrooms, I think there should be sensors on the floors around the urinals that buzz when they detect stray urine. If you can go to the bathroom and don’t get buzzed, you win a free fountain drink. This promotes clean bathrooms so the employees won’t have to clean it as much and we get a free drink to replenish the fluids we just disposed of. It’s a win for everybody involved. Except people could just walk in, stand in the corner, say they went to the bathroom, and walk out to get a free drink. So I guess there would have to be a way to verify you actually went to the bathroom. That is where this idea proposal gets awkward. Obviously this has not been thought out, that is what stream of consciousness is, guys.

I judge a man when he is the only one in the bathroom and he is using the low urinal. I’m not saying it is right. I probably shouldn’t be saying it at all. I know that it is probably because someone was at the normal hight urinal when he came in, but still, I judge him.

Ok, I’m stopping this now, I dont like where it is headed. I had envisioned me making fun of What Not to Wear, but as soon as I started typing I dropped my Valentine heart shaped Reese’s cup on the floor. Then ate it anyway and then somehow started talking about urinals. I’m not sure how that happened.

My blog and I had a good run, and honestly, I’d hate for this post to be the way we go out. Even the title is bad. We’ll see what happens.

Stay classy, internet.

Echoes in the Pines

2012-01-18T11:19:00.004-05:00

Apparently we are supposed to blackout out our websites today because of soap or something. As with most things I am not informed enough about what is going on to form an opinion so I am going to choose to ignore everything. It has worked so far in life.

Plus, if I didn’t post today I couldn’t tell you about my blog buddy, David Robbins, new digital album. Echoes in the Pines. Full disclosure: there are things I like and things I do not like about his album. I like the name because I think echoes are cool, if you say something you like you get to hear it multiple times. I don’t like the fact that it is digital, therefore making it impossible to hang on my rear view mirror.

You may remember David as the man who took Urkel as the first overall draft pick in last year's TV March Madness Tournament. But In an effort for you to get to know David better and hopefully listen to his music, and hopfullier buy his music and hopefulliest make him rich and famous, I conducted a very serious, quite formal interview with him.

1) Tell me a little about yourself and how you decided to pursue music as a career.

I started writing songs at 13. It came more naturally than learn others' songs and I enjoyed it more. It was a proper outlet for me as a kid. As I got older, I think it just helped me cope with the crap life throws at you sometimes. It helps me process. As far as it being a career, I don't want to assume I'm that good yet. I'd like to but it seems a bit pretentious.

2) I lost my job and moved furniture, you lost your job and create music…does that make you a better person than me?

No. You can no doubt bench press more than me and would win in a bare knuckle fight. You are a real man. I'm a pansy songwriter.

3) Who are your biggest musical influences?

Townes Van Zandt. Leonard Cohen. Johnny Cash. Those guys all had a way with breaking your heart.

4) What is the saddest chord on the guitar? Why?

That's tough. I think it's a toss up between C and A-Minor. Every song that makes me cry has those two chords in it. They've been sprinkled with magical depression dust.

5) I’ve often considered singing to be the same as talking, only taking longer to say the words. Thoughts?

Correct. Crap. I'm out of the job now.

6) What is your favorite song? Musician? Album?

Chelsea Hotel #2 by Leonard Cohen is definitely one of my favorites. That and the entire Rain Dogs album by Tom Waits. Pure gold.

7) Flava Flav wears a big clock around his neck. I think all musicians should wear oversized household objects around their necks. Though, I would wear something more useful such as a cutlery set, however I am not a musician. What are going to you wear around your neck now that you are a musician?

A lawnmower. Or a chainsaw. Or a sewing machine. Something manly.

8) Have you ever considered going on American Idol? If so, would you wear a bee costume or a bikini top, or something else as equally zany?

Probably the sewing machine. That's it.

9) If one of your songs were turned into a dance song, like the Macarena or the Stanky Legg, would a shimmy be involved?

Probably. But there would most likely be whiskey involved. So maybe not so much of a shimmy as a stupor.

10) Other than acts like Rascal Flatts, Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber, what other musician's popularity is evidence that western civilization is doomed?

I actually respect Taylor Swift. She's a great songwriter for what she does. But other than that, Katy Perry. She is destroying our children's futures.

11) Do any of your songs "feat." guest rappers in the bridge?

Yes. Drake is on track 24.

11) My wife can play the tin whistle. Would you like to hear it?

More than anything ever, Boss Hogg!

12) I am pretty good at eating, one time I thought about this great invention where you build refrigerators with a mirrored back. This way, you wouldn’t ever not be able see food that might be hiding behind the gallon jug of milk. You are pretty good at music. Have you ever thought of an invention to improve your trade?

I thought of hooking myself up to an IV with chicken and smoothies in it, yes.

13) Did you ever consider changing your stage name to something awesome, like Sting or George Strait?

I thought about changing it to Bertram McFatFat. Thoughts?

14) One good way to get publicity is to have a very public feud with another artist. Who are you going to feud with, and how?

Tyler Tarver. We're going to slap fight like girls in Victoria's Secret.

15) I have been listening to your album while writing these questions. You are like, good and stuff. And I mean it, I’m not just saying that because this whole post is to get people to buy your music. Also, this really isn't a question so you can answer it by saying anything you want next, preferably something pleasant about me?

You are a gentle lover (of the arts), Scott Moore.

So there you go, I hope you enjoyed it.
I’m not sure if you could tell or not but I don’t know much about music. I’m secretly a sports talk addict. Honestly, it was hard not to end every question with “Now, I’ll hang up and listen.” HOWEVER, I really did/do enjoy David’s music and am not just saying that because if I didn’t he would write a song dishonoring or otherwise belittling me much like Taylor Swift does about all of her ex-boyfriends. I would totally listen to Ballad of Ben McLain over the breakdown of the Tennesee Titans’s second string offensive line.

PS. David’s name is David Robbins. If we were friends in real life I would call him Dobby, like from Harry Potter. This is probably why we are only blog friends.

PPS. I like Bertram McFatFat but would alter it just a bit to Bertram McFats-a-lot. To widen your demographic, obviously.

PPPS. Doing this reminded me of how much I enjoy interviewing people. If you have something to promote and would like for me to interview you for my sevens of readers. Please email me or leave a comment.

The first post of 2012 on January 9, so things are same as usual around here.

2012-01-09T13:55:00.003-05:00

So it’s 2012, and I got nothing.

I think it is because on Christmas morning, after opening all of her presents, Ada looked up at LB and me and genuinely proclaimed “It was everything I dreamed it would be.” At that point, I think my brain just chalked life up to a win and stopped working.

Still, my last post has Christmas in the title and sadly, Christmas is no longer topical. If you’ve read my blog for long, you know I like for things to be topical so I have this mounting pressure to post something despite not having anything to post. It is very problematic.

This post is what you get.

On the way to work this morning I passed a car that had a bumper sticker that read “140.6”. I didn’t know what that was so I googled it when I got to the office. Then it made sense as to why I didn’t know what that was. It’s the total distance covered in an Ironman race, including the run, swim, and bike ride.

I think the bumper stick is kind of tacky, myself. I mean, a few weeks ago I watched the entire first season of The Walking Dead on Netflix streaming, which is quite the accomplishment if you ask me and probably about the same time commitment as your little race, but you don’t see me defacing my car in an effort to inform the world of my accomplishment. Come on, Ironmen, have some class. Plus, why do you even have a car? If you are that proud of the fact that you can travel 140.6 miles without the aid of a vehicle then you should just run everywhere you go. It is more widely accepted to run with your shirts off, than drive around with them off anyway.

That last sentence was intended for men. Ladies, shirts are always a requirement for you. I shouldn't have to clarify these types of things.

Speaking of running, a while back, I wrote a guest post for Tyler Stanton’s site Reluctant Runners. I never really spoke about it here because it is about something I’m not proud of – how my relationship with Laura Beth is founded on lies and deception.

Also, I just found out last week a few of my friends will be running in the Nashville Half-Marathon. I thought about signing up and running with them, then I remembered that I am me. But in all seriousness, I do want to do a better job at being healthy. I plan on making some resolutions. But not now. Not in January. That is so cliché.

PS – if you are an Ironman, I was just kidding about anything above that may have offended you. You are a better person than me. Just in case you don’t find this disclaimer acceptable and want to do physical harm to me, I think I should let you know that over the Christmas break I did beat my dad in an arm wrestling competition. So…..

Do you have any bumper stickers on your car?

The Archived Post Relevant The Office Quote.

Michael: January three, 2011. A day which will live in-famously.

Christmas Potpourri. Warning: This post has nothing to do with Christmas. Or potpourri. I just called it that because sometimes Jeopardy has a category called “Potpourri” that includes a bunch of miscellaneous junk.

2011-12-21T13:25:00.003-05:00

-Fun Facts revolving around the title of this post: 1) I spelled potpourri and miscellaneous correctly on the first try. 2) My record of correct answers while watching Jeopardy is 26.

You are probably not as impressed with either of these as I am.

-I woke up late this morning so I was running behind. In effort to make up time, I was brushing my teeth and applying deodorant at the same time. Unfortunately, in my rush I got mixed up when I switched underarms and used my toothbrush as if it were a stick of deodorant. On the plus side, I get a new toothbrush without having to go to the dentist. Yay!

-Those are two totally different things for most of us, Antonio.

-Last weekend I watched Super 8 and Crazy Stupid Love. CSL was much better than I thought it would be going into it and there was one scene about 3/4 of the way through that I had to pause because I was laughing so hard. It is hard for me to recommend though because of one of the storylines and especially the way that storyline ended. However it was good to see my blog friend Tyler Tarver in a movie. (Sideburn Collective 4 Life!). I also enjoyed Super 8. It reminded me of that time I made a movie several years ago.

- My most favoritest tweet that I ever tweeted: Given our current economic status, I wonder if LFO would now settle for girls who wear Aeropostale.

-Last Tuesday I was on the radio. I won four tickets to an advanced screening of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. I called into my local AM sports talk show and played a game they call Mind Melt. They give you a topic and you have 10 seconds to list 5 things. They had run out of questions by the time they got to me so they made something up on the fly, my topic was: “Name 5 actors taller than Tom Cruise”

I laughed, then went blank and paused and uuuh'ed for about 4 seconds, which I am sure made for compelling radio. Then suddenly all of my favorite man movies came to mind so I started spitting them off: Will Smith, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis....I went blank again. I couldn’t think of a fifth, with 2 seconds left I finally spit out Katie Holmes.

They awarded me the tickets despite there being a controversy revolving around if Sylvester Stallone was actually taller than Tom Cruise.

I was super excited and called the other three guys in my discipleship group to see if they wanted to go. Plans were made and we were all set to go…until I talked to LB and she reminded me of the conversation we had the night before where she had told me she needed me to keep John that night. So it ended up, the other three guys went with the tickets I won, while I sat at home.

You can feel sorry for me now. Or send me a movie theater gift card. I will accept either.

The Archived Post Relevant The Office Quote.

Kelly: Jim!
Jim: Kelly!
Kelly: Oh! Oh my god! I have so much to tell you!
Jim: Really?
Kelly: Yes! Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes? They had a baby and they named it Suri. And then Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? They had a baby, too, and they named it Shiloh. And both babies are amazing!
Jim: Great. What's new with you?
Kelly: I just told you.

I have one thing on my bucket list: to grow old. According to Ada, I can go ahead and scratch it off.

2011-12-19T16:10:00.001-05:00

Conversation from last night while getting Ada ready for bed.

Ada: Daddy, how old are you?
Me: 30.
Ada: That’s old!!!
Me: Well, it depends. To you it is old, but to Mae-mae (my mom) it'd be just getting started.
Ada: No, 30 is pretty old.
Me: Thank you.
Ada: Are you going to die soon?
Me: I hope not.
Ada: Me too. When you die, are you going to go to Heaven?
Me: Yes.
Ada: Then that will be fun, right?
Me: I think it will be.
Ada: You are going to heaven because Jesus lives in your heart, right?
Me: Right, something like that.
Ada: Who lives in Jesus’ heart?
Me: That is a good question. You see, there is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Hol….
Ada: (interrupting) I’d miss you though, if you died and went to Heaven.
Me: Well, we don’t have to worry about that right now.
Ada: Yeah, you don’t even have a walking stick yet. When you get really old and about to die, you use a walking stick, so when you start using a walking stick I will worry then.
Me: Works for me.

I think after work today, I am going to walk in the door with a walking stick to see what kind of reaction I get. I bet it will be hilarious.

The Archived Post Relevant The Office Quote.
Dwight: When I die, I wanna be frozen. And if they have to freeze me in pieces, so be it. I will wake up stronger than ever because I will have used that time to figure out exactly why I died and what moves I could have used to defend myself better now that I know what hold he had me in.

Your questions answered, procrastinatedly.

2011-12-08T16:11:00.001-05:00

-If Jesus were a defensive back for the Alabama Crimson Tide (which would never happen because Jesus would never play for Satan), and He got beaten on a deep route (which would never happen because Jesus has excellent coverage skills), do you think Jesus would deliberately commit a pass interference penalty to save a touchdown? Yes. I'd elaborate but this post wound up being 900 words with very little pay off.

-What should be my new hobby? Nibbling the edges off pieces of cheese until it forms a state. Complete all 50 and sell it on ebay. I bet Colorado would be easy.

-Where are you going? To heaven, eventually.

-Why didn't I invent the iPod? Because you are not Steve Jobs. Which isn’t so bad now taking considering both of your life circumstances.

-How dare you? Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

-What is your favorite TV show? Too many to pick one, so I will provide a list of recent favorites and we can discuss in the comments if you wish:
Parks and Recreation
Modern Family
Breaking Bad
Sons of Anarchy
Dexter
Chuck

-Have you ever passed out? One time in strength training class when I was a freshman, a senior put me into a wrestling move commonly known as "the sleeper hold" until I passed out in the middle of the football weight room floor. When I came to, after what was apparently only a few seconds, I asked my mom what we were having for breakfast.

-Are you ticklish? yes

-Did you really save a kid lost in the woods back in 2001? Yes, but that is a story bigger than what can be told here. Know that it was a 4hr search that involved a loyal dog, me finding him in the last few moments of precious daylight, and ended with the once lost boy clinging to me as we trudged through overgrowth only for me to return him to the arms of his weeping mother. This is all true and should probably be turned into a screen play. Russell Crowe could play me. Or Zach Galifianakis, if he shaved.

-Why do you make so many typos? My typos are like knots in beautiful hardwood flooring. The imperfections create a certain uniqueness and charming allure. This is what I tell myself, anyway. The real reason is because for some reason the Lord has blinded me to my own typos and LB doesn’t have time to proofread for me. Where “doesn’t have time” translates to“would rather watch What Not to Wear.”

-Who’s your favorite Smurf? Papa Smurf because he is like the Gandalf of the smurfs.
-Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? I am. Honestly, I am scared of most animals. For example, my dad put me on a horse one time when I was 6yrs old and I was ok until it started trotting, as in simply walking briskly, and then I began crying uncontrollably. I’m scared of animals that are bigger than me and have hooves. So what?
-I work at the MPAA! Thanks for the unintentional shout out! My question is.. since you work at the Home Depot, do you now know what unique algorithm and/or matrix they use to decide how to organize their stores? I refuse to shop at Lowe's, but I also spend 15 minutes looking for gorilla glue at Home Depot.. First of all, thank you for refusing to shop at Lowe’s. I would send you a free bottle of Gorilla Glue if I had the capability. Moving on, I don’t personally know the algorithm, but have direct access to it. The girl who is responsible for replenishing Gorilla Glue sits on the other side of my cube wall. Her name is Tara and I can tell her you said hi if you would like? Also, can you tell me the algorithm the MPAA uses to rate movies? I would love to discuss your career field more? Like do you know of anyone looking for a screenplay about a boy lost in the woods being saved by Zack Galifianakis?

-Has a Home Depot store ever run out of salad since you've been there? So far, so good. Fingers crossed….

-What is your passion? Jesus, my family, SEC football, good television, delicious food, and not being disturbed while I am in the bathroom. Mostly in that order.

-If you had to describe your life situation by using one color, what would it be? Burnt Sienna

-If you could live in any TV show, which would you choose? I can’t pick most of my favorite shows, they would all be too scary to live in. Breaking Bad: I might do meth. Dexter: I might be serial killed. Sons of Anarchy: I might be forced to wear a leather vest. I would probably have to say Cheers because that seems pretty low stress. Or Perfect Strangers, just to see if Balki was really that happy all the time.

-What's your favorite cheese? Cheddar, topped with bacon and sitting on top of a piece of beef in between two buns.

-M&Ms flavors: Too many? Which do you prefer? My favorite is either peanut or peanut butter. Too many? No way, and I’m not sure why they haven’t made peanut butter M&Ms with a peanut in it.

In conclusion, I hope I did not bore you. But I did like doing these, so send me questions any time.

Rate My Weekend

2011-12-05T15:58:00.001-05:00

I am going to try to start something new. Life has been pretty busy lately so writing has been getting pushed to the wayside. I thought maybe if I gave myself some sort of writing deadline that is expected every week, I might actually do it. Probably not.

The success of this “series” also depends on how much you care about my weekend. Which, if I had a guess, would probably be very little. So this is pretty much doomed to fail from the beginning. Much like when I first decide to start trying to grow a beard. Though there has been speculation that my beard has magical powers, so maybe this will be magical too. Probably not.

Ok, so I was flipping through morning radio shows this morning on my way to work (now that I have a one hour commute, I get to hear a lot of morning radio shows, yay!) and the four hosts were having their weekly Monday morning competition to see who had the best weekend. They all give brief summaries then allow people to go to their website and vote. The winner gets the satisfaction of everyone else being losers.

In their format, the deejays are competing against each other. In my format, there is no way I can lose. So even if I have the worst weekend ever, at least I know I will win something. Really, this whole thing could be a ploy to make me feel better about my life.

However, I did think about taking on competitors. It could work like this: you post about your weekend on your site on Monday morning then send me the link. Every Monday, I’ll compile the links and let everyone vote. Anyone is eligible, just send me a link. The winner will be deemed the one who had the best weekend in all the internet. Or something like that. Because technically, anyone on the internet had the chance to participate. If it catches on we can come up with a better title.

I will go today and figure to win by a landslide since no one else knew about it before right now. Home field advantage. Although, I guess someone could whip something up and send it to me if they’re feeling lucky.

FRIDAY:

John had a stomach virus on Tuesday. Ada got the stomach virus starting Thursday night, so we were all pretty worn out. LB, Ada, and I all fell asleep at about 7pm while doing Ada’s bedtime routine. LB and I woke up around 8 and ended up watching several episodes of TLC’s What Not to Wear that LB had DVRed.

SATURDAY:

Was interrupted during the SEC Championship game by our town’s Christmas parade running about a block away from our house. Ada wanted to go see it, but LB was at a baby shower so I had the kids by myself and John was already asleep. I thought about setting up the baby monitor then putting the house phone right beside it and calling it with my cell while on speaker phone so it would be like a travelling baby monitor. But then remembered Ada had been sick so I probably shouldn’t get her out in the cold. Excellent parenting decisions all around on my part, I believe.

Though Ada was pretty persistent about going so, as I told twitter, I ended up telling her that all the sirens were just because the fire trucks were on the way to a really huge fire. They just weren’t in a very big hurry. And the local high school marching bands were there to play inspirational music.

SUNDAY:

Watched the Falcons blow it to a 3rd string rookie quarterback which caused me to lose a bet with Jared Hollier from Badly Drawn Bible (also, you should go check out his site. He draws the bible badly there.) and had to change my Twitter profile to this:

Apparently Jared loves Sarah Palin. Or hates moose.

Which really isn’t as bad as it could have been because I don’t really know anything about politics, so I don’t know how embarrassed I should be. I know Sarah Palin can see Russia from her front porch and was Bachman the one that was accused of witchcraft?

Found out that Alabama will be going to the BCS National Championship Game! Roll Tide!

There you have it.

If anyone thinks they can beat my weekend filled with a vomiting Ada, watching TLC’s What Not to Wear, lying to my sick daughter to get out of going to the Christmas parade, watching the Falcons lose thus losing a bet, and finding out my NCAA team of choice is getting a chance to play for the national championship, send me the link and will become fierce rivals. If not, sleep well tonight knowing my weekend was better than yours.

For now you are rating the awesomeness of my weekend. If I get a challenger, we will switch the voting to simply who had a better weekend, them or me. So for now, we are going with the 5 star rating system, where 5 stars equals Awesome and 1 star equals the opposite of that.

How was your weekend?

PS. I will definitely post answers to your questions this week. Pinky swear.

Guest post from Bull, the MLK Jr. of Christmas Lights

2011-11-25T11:13:00.002-05:00

Surprisingly, I actually did get a few questions from my last post. I plan on getting the answers up early next week. Until then, I have a guest post from my buddy and old Dr. Awesome cohort, Bull. He sent me this post earlier this week but if I had posted it before today, the Friday after Thanksgiving, I would have felt like a hypocritical racist. Enjoy!

Are you familiar with the term "Christmas creep"? It's when stores start putting up their Christmas decorations way too early, which for the mall is usually around Labor Day. The worst offender is Target, which has spent so many years getting earlier and earlier with their Christmas creep that they've actually looped the calendar and the Christmas stuff you see on display now is for next year. I'm against Christmas creep. I don't think any Christmas decor should be on display until after Thanksgiving, like in the Bible when the Israelites put up their Christmas stuff (note: check this biblical fact before submitting post to Scott). However, I broke my personal preference this year. The Saturday before Thanksgiving, I went up in the attic, drug out the Christmas boxes, and started untangling strands of lights. My little girl has been potty training, and as a reward for successfully putting tee tee in the potty as opposed to on the floor, I decided to let her "help" me put some lights in the bushes on front of the house. Yes, it's a few days early, but potty victory trumps Christmas creep (that should be the slogan for something, I don't know what though, maybe a very special episode of a CW show). Everything was going fine until my wife revealed that she was a total racist.

I guess I should back up a couple of steps. We were developing our strategy for decorating the house, which I thought should be somewhere between minimalist and Clark W. Griswold, and I was unpacking several strands of multicolored lights. As I plugged them in to verify that they still worked, my wife informed that she only wanted to use white lights on the house. "Whites only?!?!" I thought to myself with alarm. Who is this racist vixen? A disagreement ensued, with her taking the side that white lights look simple and classy, and me taking the side that she is a racist who hates disadvantaged minorities for no reason at all. I pointed out to no avail that Jesus loves all the little children of the world, including red, yellow, black, and white. She remained firm in her position that this is just Christmas lights and has nothing to do with being racist. But I know better. We ended up going with the all-white look, because my wife's feminine wiles are persuasive. But I'm sad that our house might as well have a big sign that says "Merry KKKhristmas!"

Friends, you have a choice this year. You can use multicolored lights, and promote love and unity. Or you can be a divisive bigot and use white lights only. Christmas blog poll: which type of Christmas lights will you use? Will you add strand after strand of many colors, and glorify the Lord through diversity? Or are you a hate-filled monger of hatred? Leave your answer in the comments section.

Hello, it's Scott again. You should have been able to tell because all the letters are leaning slightly to the right. I know some people don't like leaving comments, so to try and make a way for everyone to voice their opinion on such an important, hot button topic, I made a poll for you:

Note: Poll isn't viewable in Reader. My bad.

The Archived Post Relevant The Office Quote.

Michael: Abraham Lincoln once said "If you are racist, I will attack with the North."

4 Year Bloggerversary Q&A

2011-11-21T14:51:00.003-05:00

Last week was my 4 year blogging anniversary. It passed with very little pomp and circumstance. Mainly because I have a new job that does not allow me to spend any time writing posts. Now to get my job done, I actually have to think and stuff. If you would like to pay me so that I wouldn't have to work and could write blog posts every day, I would be willing to listen to that proposal.

Speaking of, remember back when I didn’t have a job? Haha, whatever. Unemployment is for losers. I know because when I was unemployed I felt like a loser. But now, I’m totally part of the workforce again. I am very grateful because I am getting a paycheck. Home Depot is grateful because their inventory is being planned for and replenished. It’s such a symbiotic relationship. Like monkeys eating bugs off of each other.

Before I move on, I wanted to note my favorite thing about my new job is that I have a cubicle just like Chandler on Friends:

So far, I have not had to look at a Wenus.

Anyway, back to point, my 4 year blogging anniversary. Yay! In the past I have celebrated bloggerversaries with things such as wordles and comparing myself with the marine corps. This time I was stumped when trying to come up with what to do to celebrate year 4. I blame it on that depression brought on by less daylight. I don’t know what it is called but I’m pretty sure it’s a real thing because Michael Scott talked about it once.

I finally decided to celebrate by doing a question and answer post with all of you. I’ve seen other more successful bloggers do this in the past. And by “more successful“, I mean pretty much anyone else with a blog. It looked fun, plus there is potential for me to get another post out of it. I’m always big fan of efficiency. And laziness.

You can ask anything, serious or silly, as long as it would be rated PG by the MPAA and LB deems it acceptable to answer. Disclaimer: If I do not know the answer, I will make it up (read: anything about politics or television shows that come on the CW.)

To get the gears turning, here are a few example questions:

-What is your favorite TV show?
-Have you ever passed out?
-Are you ticklish?
-Did you really save a kid lost in the woods back in 2001?
-Why do you make so many typos?
-Who’s your favorite Smurf?

I realize I am setting up myself for possible embarrassment here if no one asks anything. I am ok with that. The question is, are you ok with possibly sending a man suffering from Daylight Savings Time Depression over the edge. Remember, whatever happens, it’s your fault.

The Archived Post Relevant The Office Quote.

Michael: Ok, you know what? I think that everybody is going to vomit due to boredom. Sorry, he is very lame. Um, let's see. Seasonal affective disorder! A depression that includes weight gain, fatigue, irritability, brought on by the low light of winter."

Darryl: Thank God we only had a baler to deal with.
Lonny: Yeah, that dim light is a b****, ain't it?
Michael: Ok guys, you know what? I didn't--- I didn't interrupt when you were having your presentation.
Darryl: Actually, you did.

Texts from a Marriage #2

2011-11-08T06:00:00.004-05:00

Sometimes I take texts conversations between LB and me and turn them into a post. Probably because we are like the Brad and Angelina of the blog world and everyone wants to know the intimate details of our lives. I know what you’re thinking, Scott, you’re much too handsome to be compared to Brad Pitt. I know, right?

LB: I am so tired. My head is killing. I think I’ve reached my limit and I just might be on the verge of going nuts.

LB: But I have to spend my evening learning how to play the tin whistle.

Me: You LOLed me.

LB: Did you say lol to cheer me up? Ada needs to go to bef super early fyi

Me: Did it cheer you up? If so, then yes. I will get Ada to bef as early as I can

LB: *bed.

LB: Unfortunately the only thing that could cheer me up is a bed and about 12hrs to sleep in it.

Me: How convenient would it be if the only thing that could cheer you up was a tin whistle?

Backstory - LB leads a homeschool group once a week and once their focus during the musical portion of the day was the tin whistle. Since LB did not have any previous experience with the tin whistle, she had to go to a class one night and learn it so she could teach it. That was why I was putting Ada to bef.

Think of this post like US magazine’s Just Like Us section. If you play the tin whistle, that is.

Do you text your spouse?

The Archived Post Relevant The Office Quote.
Dwight: Excuse me! May I have your attention please? There has been an accident on 84 West. Cars have skidded off the road into the safety railing. Several cars have flipped. There is broken glass everywhere. Several people are injured.

Pam: Do we know anyone who was in the accident?
Dwight: Brad Pitt. Also there will be no bonuses.
Stanley: Why would this affect our bonuses?
Dwight: They are unrelated.
Kelly: Is Brad ok?
Dwight: He will never act again. Also, this branch is closing.
Oscar: What is going on here?
Angela: Are we out of jobs?
Dwight: Yes.
Kelly: This is karma because of what he did to Jennifer Anniston.