AtwoodZoo

Memo to the person who used my credit card to charge $250.22 to Itunes

jeff atwood — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:23:36 -0500

Memo to the person who used my credit card to charge $250.22 to I-Tunes:

Why?

Why did you think it was OK to try and use my credit card to charge $250.22 to I-Tunes over the past five days? Did you think I wouldn't notice that someone charged more than $40 six times? Did you think that you could sit in your mom's basement and just keep charging whatever you wanted whenever you wanted?

I guess you did.

Guess what?

My friends at the credit card company are not very happy with you right now and evidently through the transaction numbers they can figure out when and where you downloaded $250.22 worth of stuff. So expect a phone call from them. From their fraud department.

Oh...and I know you thought it was cool to try and get $250.22 worth of free stuff but it really caused us a bunch of trouble. Cause now we have to contact a bunch of people and tell them about a new account number and do that whole drill.

So if, hopefully when, the people in the fraud department contact you about the $250.22 you charged to I-Tunes I hope it causes you a bunch of trouble too.

I realize that I am supposed to turn the other cheek and all that. And I probably will sometime soon, but right now, I'm just hacked off that you thought it was OK to charge $250.22 worth of I-Tunes stuff to my credit card.

Thanks for listening. (though I doubt you can hear me cause right now you are probably sitting down in your mom's basement listening to music you charged on my credit card)

Important verse (but then I guess they really are all important)

jeff atwood — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:43:52 -0500

have been giving a lot of consideration recently to all that the girls are doing and making sure that it ties to what is really important for them and their growth.

In his book, "Good to Great" Jim Collins talks about how 'Good' is the enemy of 'Great.' I am afraid that sometimes I am guilty of substituting a number of 'good' things in their (my???) life and crowd out the 'great' things.

Andy Stanley, pastor at Northpoint Community Church, talks about how we have a lot of kids who are "experience rich and relationship poor." They do a lot of things, but what is getting poured into their lives in terms of making better relationships.

At the end of the day, do kids (or do I) look back and go "if I had just made the travel team...or done karate and dance and gymnastics...or etc" my life would be better? Or do they look back and go "I wish my parents/teachers/friends/family/mentors had gotten more involved with "me," not just in getting "me" different places.

Just a lot to ponder....

"The Lord does not look at the things that man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."
1 Samuel 16:7

I seem to be more drawn to the outward, even with the girls...are we doing well in school...is (insert name here) in the top (insert subject here) class...is someone inviting them over enough...how are the standardized test scores (compared to)...is Suzie making a scene/do others think I am not a good parent because she is???

Rather than importat questions like... are they learning to love God...are they learning to love other people...are they generous...are they kind...?

23 pills

jeff atwood — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:13:00 -0500

23 pills.

Not sure why it just popped into to my head, but I just realized that Suzie takes 23 pills a day. Most of these are to keep the seizure monster back in its cave, a couple others to help with other things related to her challenges.

But in total, 23 pills every day. 12 in the morning, 11 at bedtime.

The other day a friend asked me "what is the long term impact of all the medicine that Suzie takes?"

And I said, "we have no idea."

But the truth is, we can't worry too much about the future. Because we have to do all we can to stop the seizures today and just worry about any long-lasting problems later. We need to worry about today, today and be concerned with tomorrow, tomorrow. (wow, that sounds like something that ought to be in the Bible...)

And because of the 23 pills I am mostly certain that Suzie can have a good day today so I am happy with that.

And thankful for the 23 pills.

Driving under the influence of a poodle

jeff atwood — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:10:33 -0500

I think we need to have a new law designed to improve public safety.

We need to immediately enact a law to cut down on "DUI-P."

DUI-P is "Driving under the influence of a poodle." I did not become completely aware of this acute problem until last week when I was substitute car-pooling for The Beautiful Bride.

As I dropped the girls off at school I noticed car after car where the lap of the driver was covered in in fur. How can a person safely operate a car in a school zone with a pile of poodle in their laps?

And from my very quick observations is seems that there is a direct inverse correlation between the size of car and the size of the dog hanging out the drivers side window. If a car-pooling momma is sporting a minivan, she may have a moderate sized pooch; if the car is up-sized to a big ol' Lexus or Hummer, the dog becomes the size of a rat with a jacked-up Ogilvy home perm.

Regardless of size, I think we have a national epidemic on our hands with the preponderance of people DUI-P. This issue only escalates when you add in factors like phones and coffee cups.

I can only imagine the lurking disaster when the combination of the busy-ness of the school drop off line plus an extra-hot double double latte (EXTRA SKINNY) and a cell phone call to finalize the tennis match is interrupted by a pint-sized poodle trying to scurry out the car window of super-sized SUV.

Keep out streets safe, leave the poodles at home for the few minutes it takes to run to school. They'll be fine.

Stop the insanity, let's wipe out DUI-P today.

The Thirsday afternoon here is a video I saw trolling other blogs

jeff atwood — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:43:23 -0500

Answer me this...is there anything funnier than someone falling on their face? Seriously?

(ht:Ragamuffin Soul)

The Three Vomit Trifecta

jeff atwood — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:34:48 -0500

I love September 30.

It is one of my favorite days of the year. Because a few years ago The Beautiful Bride was born. and that makes it a great day.

And like always we did something very special to celebrate this very special day. In the past we have gone to dinner, or painted pottery, or baked a cake.

Those things are all well and good, but today...we took the phrase "memorable birthday" to a whole new level.

This year we did something I would guess she will never forget. Because this year for her birthday, we gave The Beautiful Bride an "Extreme Home Makeover" as we turned her beautiful home into a vomitorium.

That's right this year, on The Beautiful Bride's birthday we hit the The Three Vomit Trifecta. All three girls sick at the same time. Maybe only a handful of times over the past three years have we hit the jackpot like this. But today...Shazaam...it was stomach funk galore here at the AtwoodZoo.

But instead of looking at this as a negative, I tried to focus on the positive. It was like one day-long surprise party. Because just when she least expected it, SURPRISE!!!! someone was tossing their cookies. Can't you see how this was a gift that just kept on giving?

So instead of cake and ice cream and dinner out, we had crackers and Immodium and loads and loads and loads and loads of laundry.

So on behalf of Suzie and Kenzo and Mabel we say Happy Birthday to The Beautiful Bride because there is no one we would rather have wipe the chunks out of our nose than you.

Tuesday Haiku - Congress

jeff atwood — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:49:27 -0500

In honor of their ignominious performance regarding the budget bailout on Monday, I offer a Tuesday Haiku about the U.S. Congress.

Completely worthless.

Utterly despicable.

Send them all home now.

Another reason I'm glad to live where I live

jeff atwood — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:40:11 -0500

I'm glad to live here becase you can leave your bike parked at the school until nearly dark, and it will still be there even through you left it parked there til nearly dark.

Cool Idea

jeff atwood — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:24:01 -0500

Thought this thing that Kurt Warner, QB of the Arizona Cardinals, does with his family is very cool.

Good Guy of the Week

Arizona quarterback Kurt Warner.

Karen Crouse of the New York Times wrote a good feature on Warner in Friday's paper, with a prescient story as the lead. Seems that Warner, wife, Brenda, and one or more of the Warner children have a practice the night before football games. They sit at their table in a restaurant, look over the dining room, and pick out one family. Warner then informs the wait staff that, anonymously, he'd like the dinner tab of that family of strangers added to his.

Crouse wrote the Warners have been doing this for several years "as a way of instilling in their children the joy of giving,'' and quoted Warner thusly: "We want our kids to grow up knowing that because of football we are so blessed.''

Just another reason why you can never say enough good things about Kurt Warner.

(ht:Peter King)

Monkey Brain Mash

jeff atwood — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:00:04 -0500

We did a science experiment the other day at the AtwoodZoo. We wanted to see if the car would smash monkey brains.

Our hypothesis was that the car would smash the monkey brains flat as a pancake.

Turns out we were right.

Who needs a fancy science lab to study the transfer fo energy from one object to another when you have a two-ton car and a couple of slightly soggy monkey brains.