5 Weird Things About Me

I have been tagged by my fellow blogger Tech Daddy to list 5 weird things about me.

Ok, I accept the tag!

# 1. I have an irrational fear of "Cupie Dolls" or other doll like toys that can open and close their eyes, talk or otherwise act in a human nature. Probably explains why I have never watched or want to watch the Chucky movies. It's hard for me to sleep in rooms with them, look at them or even read about them. There is at least one member of the Ghost Hunters, on TV, who has the same fear. Once my daughter got one of these type of dolls for Christmas (from a cousin) and I forbid her to open it. I think we ended up trading it in for something else or giving it away.

# 2. I can name all the Presidents of the United States in order, (first, middle, last names), the party they served and the years they served. I am currently memorizing the top candidates names and info, so I will have President #44 ready to go. {Nothing personal against Hillary Clinton, but if she gets elected it would have made memorizing the last 4 very easy (Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton). Come on give me a challenge!

# 3. My High School sports team mascot was the Buckeye (a poisonous nut). We were one of only two schools in the nation, (The other being Ohio State University), to have the Buckeye as a mascot.

# 4. I hate the sound of Styrofoam rubbing against itself. I almost cry and just want to pass out when I hear the sound. Don't think I would make it as a superhero. Superman has Kryptonite, I have Styrofoam.

# 5. I also suffer from OCD. I have to have many things in my life in a certain order. My shirts and pants hang in my closet in a certain order. I make constant lists of things I want or need to do. I used to have my movies in alphabetical order and dishes in the cabinets stacked in certain ways. I am getting better, but you better not rearrange my closet or I might just freak out!

My Bonus Weird Thing is... I have a secret crush on Mrs. Incredible (aka: Mrs. Helen Parr, or Elasti-Girl) from the movie The Incredibles. Cute voice, stretchy, good mother, looks good in the new hero costume. I wonder if they make that costume for adult women at Halloween? My wife would be a great Mrs. Incredible, WAIT, she already is. LOVE YA HONEY!

Now, who to tag next! Hmmm, I don't know anyone else to tag that I read with any regularity. I'll think of someone though. Oh, Oh, I know...I'll tag my son....CmE Domain. He's almost 13 there should be plenty of weird things about him.

Rambling Thoughts

A funny thing my daughter said... Last night my daughter asked my wife, "Did you date anyone before you married daddy?" My wife told her she had. Then my daughter said, "I figured you did, because you dated the Raccoon Guy right?" My wife was confused, "Raccoon Guy?" My daughter said, "Yea, you know the guy who did the voice for the raccoon in the movie Over the Hedge." Then my wife understood. My daughter was talking about Bruce Willis. A few years ago my wife told me she thought Bruce Willis was handsome for his age and jokingly told me, that if anything ever happened to me, she would go after Bruce Willis. Every so often after that I would kid my wife about Bruce Willis being her "other boyfriend!" I guess my daughter thought we were being serious. She actually thought my wife had dated Bruce Willis, before she married me. Cool, my wife chose me over Bruce Willis. Boo-ya! How Funny.

The Major League Baseball Hall of Fame induction announcements were made today. The only player to be inducted this year will be Rich "Goose" Gossage. Congratulations! I know some of my blog readers are huge Cincinnati Reds fans and I know they are really disappointed that Dave Concepcion did not make it into the Hall of Fame. I would have voted for him myself.

I am ready for Baseball Season. I can't wait until Spring Training and I can start my personal critique of my Texas Rangers. I don't think they are World Series material again this year, but I am interested in seeing how our commitment to the young pitchers and outfielders will play out. Not a big fan of Milton Bradley but who knows, he may prove me wrong and actually act like a grown up in Texas. (Ha-Ha!)

Several months ago I promised to stop eating and doing a few things. (See Time to Give Up # 1 and Time to Give Up # 2. For a while I was very successful. I was eating better and I had stopped many of my bad habits. Apparently the Holiday Season killed my good eating habits. I ate way to much (as did most people around the holidays) and I put on about 8 pounds. My blood pressure has gone back up as a result, so I need to "Give it all up" again. I will do better, I will do better.

Being a political nerd...I am waiting to watch the primary results in New Hampshire tonight. It amazes me how the news analyst are "writing the campaigns of some candidates off" so early in the race. Aren't there 50 states? Why quit after only three states? It's a shame that money, or lack of it, also puts a person out of their bid for the White House. Why do you have to be rich to be President?

I did a quiz with my adult students at the college I teach at. Based on my recent blog about the Presidential candidates I just wanted to see if my "voting age" students could actually identify the candidates for President by sight. I printed pictures of the 13 active candidates (as of Jan. 7, 2008) and presented my students with them. All of my students successfully identified Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Most of them could identify John McCain. A small majority of them recognized Rudy Guiliani. One or two of my students recognized Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney (although they called him Matt Romney) and Ron Paul. Only one student knew who John Edwards was. No one recognized Dennis Kucinich (One of my students said he looked like a Hobbit. I laughed despite myself), Mike Gravel, Bill Richardson, or Duncan Hunter. Update: Jan. 10, 2008 -- Democratic Candidate, Bill Richardson, has announced he is withdrawing from his bid to become President. (click here for official announcement)

I wish could say I was more interested in the football playoffs. I like to support my local teams, especially The Dallas Cowboys. I do know they are playing the Giants on Sunday. My sister-in-law is a huge Indianapolis Colts fan. I just watch the playoff games and the rest of the season I watch when I feel like it. I do like the Super Bowl parties though. Good food!

Wanting to be Lazy on a Sunday Afternoon

It's the first Sunday of the New Year and I want to be lazy! To bad the ugly ole' world has a few other plans.

1) Today is our grocery shopping day. We would go on Saturdays but the coupons come out in the papers on Sunday. Since my wife and I subscribe and use the services of The Grocery Game we clip and organize our coupons on Sundays after church and then hit the stores to find the best deals. It really helps with our grocery budget.

2) Inspections are today! We all have certain "chores" and responsibilities in our home. On Sundays, the Wife and I go through a checklist to make sure everyone is doing their part in keeping our home clean and happy. So things get to be a little busy, (esp. if you haven't finished your part of the chores), trying to get things ready for inspection.

The inspections don't normally take that long, but the shopping can last a while depending on how busy the stores are. This takes up time that I would love to have just relaxing on the couch, reading, or watching the football playoffs. (In the spring and summer, I watch baseball!) Maybe I just want to take a nap!

Oh well, responsibilities are responsibilities! Maybe I can catch a few winks when we get back from the store...Gotta Go!

Who Exactly is Running for President Anyway?

OK, it's time to admit I'm a bit of a government and political nerd. I do not belong to any major (or minor for that matter) political party. In fact there are things I hate and like about both the Democrats and Republicans. I just like the political process and am fascinated with elections in particular. I memorized the Presidents of the United States when I was in 8th Grade and still know all of their first, middle, last names, and party affiliation. I am pretty accurate and stating their time served as well. NERD!

After watching the results of last night's Iowa Caucasus, it surprised me how many people have no idea who is actually running for President of the United States. So let me help you out a little bit. A couple of good web-sites to go to for some information are CNN's Election Center 2008 or Fox News' You Decide 2008. Both these sites give you a brief biography of each candidate, what their ideas are in some of the major issues and how many delegates towards nomination they have.

Now I present to you a list of all the candidates for the two major parties who are still in the race. Just click on their names to go directly to their official Presidential Campaign Site. Just to let you know Sen. Joseph Biden and Sen. Chris Dodd officially dropped out of the race after poor showings last night in Iowa.

First the Democrats

Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois

Sen. Hillary Clinton, New York

Former Sen. John Edwards, North Carolina

Gov. Bill Richardson, New Mexico

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Ohio

Former Sen. Mike Gravel, Alaska

And now the Republicans

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, Arkansas

Former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, New York

Former Gov. Mitt Romney, Massachusetts

Sen. John McCain, Arizona

Former Sen. Fred Thompson, Tennessee

Rep. Ron Paul, Texas

Rep. Duncan Hunter, California

Now I'm not endorsing any candidate at this point! I'm just presenting you the information so you can make an informed choice when you state goes to the polls soon for the party primaries. I strongly urge you to look at each candidate and see what their views and positions are, not only for President but for your Federal State Senate & House seats, as well as State and local candidates. Be an informed voter and choose wisely!

Update: Jan. 10, 2008 -- Democratic Candidate, Bill Richardson, has announced he is withdrawing from his bid to become President. (click here for official announcement)

How Many More Days Until the Next Break?

Today everyone in my family returned to our normal routine of school and/or work. (Actually my wife returned to work yesterday.) The kids were glad to be able to see their friends again, but were sad they didn't have more time to spend with some of their new Christmas goodies. My wife said she had a good day at work yesterday and it felt good to be back in the swing of things.

As for me...I'm bored! As a teacher, I tend to have to return to work a couple of days before the students arrive in order to do lesson preparations. Me being "obsessive compulsive" I already had the majority of this done before I left for the holiday break. So after being at work for about 30 minutes, I have finished my lesson planning and am looking for something else to do. I think we have some student evaluation paperwork to do, but that will only take up another hour or two at the most. That leaves 6 hours today and another 8 hours tomorrow to sit around, be bored and look busy. I am going to pray (after I blog) that God leads me to something productive to do to help me be a better teacher and be better prepared for when the students arrive on Monday.

It's always tough to return to work after a long break. Now I'm just wondering How many more days until the next break. (I think it's the 21st, to celebrate MLK Jr.'s B-day!)

The Pains of Being Disciplined

One of the hardest things to do when you are a parent is to effectively discipline your children, and yourself on occasion. It's hard not to let emotions take over and ruin good teachable moments or take the focus of the lesson you want your children to learn. For example...

Near the end of last year our family changed our rules system in an attempt to be more fair and be more ordered in our approach to discipline. The rules we adopted are based upon a book called, FAMILY Rules: Positive Parenting with a Plan (Grades K-12) by: Matthew A. Johnson. As a part of this system, when a family rule is broken, the offender must pull a card, or cards depending on the rule broken, to try an re-enforce positive behaviors rather than the negative behaviors we chose to do. Even parents must pull cards when they break rules. I have had to pull more than anyone since we started the system. (I accidentally ran a red-light {10 cards}, I have cussed twice {3 cards each time}, I was sarcastic in my words three times {1 card for each offense}, I failed to have my part of the parent's room straight in a timely manner {1 card}, I failed on my one day of the week to feed the dog {1 card})

The hardest part is when your children must pull cards when they feel they were "justified" in what they did or they feel they did nothing wrong. It's not hard to make the decision to have them pull cards or to even explain why what they did was wrong. It is hard to see them, when they genuinely feel remorse and they have to struggle to do the "punishment/good behavior re-enforcer" the card tells them to do. It's hard not to run over to them and just hug them and forgive them of all wrong doing. It's hard not to "take back" the punishment to stop their hurt. But we can't!

We can't stop them from feeling remorse. It's the feeling of remorse that causes our "pride" to hurt. It is that kind of pain that causes us to look inside ourselves and seek what can truly stop all of our pain and suffering. It causes us to seek our Father, Our Creator. It causes us to see that what wrongs we have done not only hurts ourselves, but it also hurts others. Our wrongs hurts other family members, friends, and most importantly it hurts our God. When we finally come to grips with this fact. We can seek forgiveness and accept His grace for what it really is. Not just an excuse to keep doing our bad behaviors, but the freedom from having to do the bad things in the first place.

So we watch our children as they cry and attempt to sort through their budding new emotions and feelings. We watch them and attempt to guide their feelings in positive ways so they don't feel that they are "totally evil." We listen to them as they try their best to relate their feelings to you. Sometimes it comes in angry outburst. Sometimes it comes in confused bits of conversation or writings on paper. We do our best to be patient and understanding. We know, sort of, what they are going through because we were kids once ourselves. It's just hard.

So really the hard part is just watching them learn. It's hard and painful sometimes, but they will live through it. I hope I'm not just rambling on and on. I tried to make a point. Maybe I am still learning as well and need to just write a few minutes to sort through what I am feeling as well. After all I am still a child myself. I am a child of the King!