over the past 3 years vicky has owned 3 or 4 tamagotchi's. this morning she has been begging me to get her another one, here is the conversation

vicky: Austin might have his tamagatchi!
dad: what?
vicky: his tamagotchi!
dad: so you have 3 tamagotchi's
vicky: Where are all the ones from when i was little?
dad: you lost them! i should not have to buy you things 4 times cause you can't take care of them!
vicky: The one I just lost fell out of my pocket somewhere!
dad: sorry... i should NOT have to buy things over and over again cause YOU CAN'T TAKE CARE OF IT!
vicky: and things shouldn't go crawling outa peoples pockets!
dad: haaaaaaaaaaaa!

after that i couldn't do anything but laugh. so if she does her chores im thinking i am going to break down and buy her another one. hopefully it doesn't grow legs like the last one did. maybe she should feed this one more then once a week so it doesn't have to grow legs to go look for food.

three weeks ago my gramma had knee surgery. last week my aunt katie came down from friday harbor to be help her recover. we don't get to see aunt katie very often so this evening we all went to gramma's for dinner. we had a fabulous night. the dinner was great, steak and potatoes, my favorite! after dinner katie showed the kids how to play the mbira, she can play it REALLY well. unfortunetly we had to cut the evening short, cameron came down with a horrible earache. luckily katie made us a togo box of the yummy lemon bars she made! now we are home watching the new lost show that we tivo'd and eating dessert.

here are the rest of the pics

there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with my wife. while i was at work she took the kids to a birthday party and some how brought 2 extra kids home with her. to top it off, vicky feeling left out, invited the next door neighbor to spend the night. so now i have 6 kids all screaming their heads off wanting to eat, then wanting dessert then wanting sodas. when will it end!? help me somebody, please help me. i may not make it through the night.

i never could understand why people thought high definition was so good. we hooked it up at pat's awhile ago and it didn't seem much different then regular tv. well i must have had something setup wrong, today i redid the wires and plugged it all back in and, in the words of vicky, WOW! going from regular abc to hd abc you can see a HUGE difference. it is extremely crisp and clear. its almost hard to watch the channels that are not broadcast in hd after you get used to it, it makes everything else look very crappy. go figure.

easter morning comes REALLY fast, especially when your youngest son doesn't go to bed until midnight. i think the kids had a wonderful time, i know i sure did. i even got a basket from my beautiful wife. she loves me so much!

hunting easter eggs is EXACTLY how it was when i was little. the oldest finds all the easy eggs while the others struggle to find the harder eggs that were supposed to be for the older ones.

now we are waiting to eat our honey baked ham, although heather chris(me) has started picking at it so it may be gone by the time lunch comes around.

[update: here are some pictures of us playing with our easter presents.]

[update #2: omg, i just looked at those pictures again, how gross are our chairs?? i swear with three young kids in the house you can't keep anything clean or new.]

the kids are so excited for easter to come, we just got finished coloring 2 1/2 dozen eggs!! now our hands are stained but it was a lot of fun!

here are the rest of the photos i took.

good friday isn't very good for me, my father passed away good friday 14 years ago. 14 years goes by in a blink of an eye, it seems like yesterday i was a sophmore in high school and my dad and i were playing ball in the backyard after basketball practice. showing me what i needed to work on. well fastforward 14 years and now i will be 30 this year and have 3 kids of my own. if i can be half the man my dad was my kids will be lucky. so far i don't think so, i miss him dearly, every day more and more. you would think it would get easier as the days go on, but they don't. you learn to deal with it, but it doesn't get easier. there are days when you wake up and you think it was all a dream and then it hits you like a ton of bricks.

yesterday on flickr i saw some cool pictures that people had taken that made their computer monitors look transparent. thinking it was very cool i had to do it for myself. here is what i came up with, pretty cool, now i need to find something better then my boring wood walls for the background.

cameron has posted his first blog all by himself! very awesome and his spelling is pretty good. good job cameron, make sure you keep posting!

over the weekend i was working on my computer and my five year old son came up to me and says, dad in want a blog! apparently he was upset that both his older brother and sister had one even though they hardly ever post anything on it. so i said ok, what do you want your .com to be? um, spiderman! haha, i said no sorry that is already taken by, well spiderman. really, he says, ok how about spiderjoey.com! so spiderjoey.com it is, he has posted three times and so far has gotten more comments then i think i have ever gotten. very cool.

we just got back from seeing robots the movie, best nap i have taken in a long time... my mom, heather and the kids really enjoyed it, i didn't appreciate the baby in front of us screaming and his mother talking louder then him. oh well i did get about an hour of sleep which was much needed and very nice.

everybody in the house is asleep. the rain just stopped and the sun is starting to come out. there is nothing more refreshing then taking a deep breath of fresh air after the rain. its just so pure and clean. the white puffy clouds are awesome. with everyone asleep its very relaxing to just sit outside in the peace and quiet feeling the breeze, i don't get many of these opportunities so you gotta take them when you can get them ;-)

last night was the annual girl scout father/daughter dance. from my previous post you can tell i wasn't really looking forward to it. not because i didn't want to spend time with vicky, just that these types of dance's aren't my thing. well last night my perception change, vicky and i had the best time! we got there just before 7 and got in line right away to take pictures. best idea, we stood in line for about 10 minutes. by the time we got our picture taken the line was wrapped around the gym and prolly would have taken an hour. after that we danced, talked to some of vicky's friends and just had a fantastic time. we stayed for almost two hours, which is an hour and half longer then years before. the setup of the whole night was way better then it has been in past years. definitely one of the best nights vicky and i have had just father and daughter without her brothers pulling at my attention. afterwards we went to the ice skating rink to meet up with heather and the boys. vicky ended up spending the night at her friends house with cameron. i hope that her night was as memorable as mine.

here are the rest of the pictures of the dance

tonight is going to be a busy one. first up, the girl scout father/daughter dance. my daughter is very excited, me i can do with out it. now i am all for spending time with my daughter, which is why heather says i have to do it year after year. in this setting its just not right. i hated school dances when i was a kid, and this is just as bad. i feel completely out of place, they play cheezy music, it just reminds me of being in 7th grade all over again. and to top it off its in a junior high school gym. well if it makes vicky happy then thats whats important.

after the dance, we are supposed to meet up with heather and the boys at an ice skating rink. its our friends sons birthday and they are having his party at the local ice skating rink, yes we have a local ice skating rink which i didn't find out about until very recently. this again is going to be very awkward cause i don't ice skate, nor do i or have i ever wanted to ice skate. somethings just aren't for certain people. and most things aren't for me, haha...

maybe to get through the night i should get a flask and fill it with vodka, maybe thats the difference with school, i was the only sober one?? hmm, thats a thought.

i was using googles new video search feature that allows you to search on a word or phrase similar to googles regular search except it will search the closed caption text of tv shows and it will find everytime it was talked about on tv.

after figuring out nobody has ever talked about chris crippen or my family i searched for anaheim hills to see all the different news stations that were talking about our neighborhood. wouldn't you know it we were national news and even the today show show talked about us, but what blew me away was jay leno talked about it, well joked about it, how cool is that??

See the pictures of these multimillion-dollar houses? Just sliding down the Hills. Anaheim Hills, because of these recent Rains. Huge homes, million-dollar mansions moving. They're moving at the rate of one inch an hour. That's actually faster than traffic on the 101. [ Laughter and applause ] think about this. You're stuck in traffic and your house is Pulling ahead of you. Hey! [ Laughter ]

how people make it to age 30. i am sitting here at the airport waiting to pick my mom up watching some very ignorant people. these people will sit and stare at the monitor where all the flight information is in complete horror cause they don't understand it. these people are not from another country, nor do they speak another language. for example, this lady had to ask 4 different people how to figure out when the plane was going to arrive. finally getting frustrated she leaves then comes back 10 minutes later asking the same questions. it amazes me how certain people make it thru an entire day let alone 30 years of life.

this afternoon i purchased my first iBook. now it wasn't for me, i haven't crossed over to the dark side. my cousin really wanted a mac for school, apparently she is really into creating movies and what not and got talked into "needing" a mac. i have NO CLUE what i just ordered. i have ordered hundreds of computer's (PC) and know exactly what i am getting every single time. as far as this mac, i have no clue what it is that i just ordered, whether or not its coming with any software or let alone an operating system. this is NOT like ordering from dell, where its as simple as anything can be, you know what you are getting every step of the way. ok, i just looked at the order again and yes it does come with an operating system, whew but i think that is it. i guess in a week we will see if i did it correctly, i hope so but i doubt it.

friday night didn't do much, the kids both had cub scouts and girl scouts. met a bunch of fun people at a party saturday night. sunday came WAY to fast, cameron had his pinewood derby race which took an exceptionally LONG time. he didn't win a trophy but he didn't get disqualified or lose every race so that was kind of inspiring. heather and the kids went to visit her sister and mom, while i stayed at home and worked slept.

while heather and cameron went to math night at cam's school joey and i decided to play a little catch since there was still some sunlight out. while we played in the backyard, vicky waited by the front door waiting for her friend alison to come bring her, her social studies book that vicky forgot at school (yes she is on restriction now). of course she needed it for her homework... vicky sure is lucky to have a friend like alison. anyways, after math night, cameron, joey and i are going to finish painting their pinewood derby cars. sunday is the race and this year we aren't going to cheat!! being new the the cub scouts last year we didn't realize you couldn't buy a pinewood derby kit. well actually you can you just can't use axel's which was apart of the kit. this year we are doing everything by the book. luckily i have a friend that is awesome with a saw and cut us out a couple of cool cars, picture above. now we just need to put the final coat of paint on, let it dry, put the wheels and weights on. cameron is pretty excited. we are gonna kick some a$$!

the coffee here sucks! it must be my addiction to caffeine that keeps me coming back, similar to a coke addict snorting lines off a toilet seat in a public restroom. everyday i think the coffee is going to be better and every single day i am disappointed. is it really that hard to make good coffee? well here at my office apparently it is. i can't seem to figure out what the problem is, is it the kind of coffee we brew, ya thats bad but not that bad. maybe its the anaheim water that is used to make the coffee? all i know is for every half cup i have to put in 6 packets of sugar... i think i'm about ready for my third cup.

for a while now it seemed like fridays were my most stressful day of the week. well not today, on my way in this morning i got a call that a computer was down. no power to it at all. for a quick fix i moved a computer that was not being used so that person could at least work. in doing so i shut down a printer that is NEVER used, except every other monday and of course this is that monday. all of this happened before 7am, something just isn't right with that. to top it off i didn't get much sleep for some reason my son decided to wake up at 3am and turned on his tv full blast. i went in there ask if he knew what time it was? he said ya 3 o'clock, i am not tired. then at 3:30 he came into our room to tell us his stomach was hurting, when i left at 6:15 he was sound asleep... oh i almost forgot i went to get some coffee in the lunch room and there were no cups, ahh!! what a day.

• created a cool dvd about our vacation
• played with the boys
• swept the backyard
• cleaned the kitchen
• did the dishes
• cleaned our bedroom
• cooked dinner
• did the dishes, again
• put the dishes away
• made dessert
• missed my wife terribly
• did not go to work, but should have

there is something wrong with my boys. all day they have been begging me to let them go swimming. finally i caved in and said fine, i put my camera in the marine pack, put joey's life jacket on and let them have at it. cameron had a blast, joey was frozen. cameron kept jumping in. after joey jumped in once and figured out how cold it was that was about the end of it for him, although he wouldn't admit that he was freezing-but the chattering teeth and legs that wouldn't stop shaking were a dead give away. they are now in the HOT shower trying to warm up. my boys are freaks, what can i say... just like dad.

here are all the shots i took

joey hanging out

on our way to cameron's game heather's sister, naomi, called to say she was on the way to the hospital she thought she was going into labor. heather told her to call when they admitted her. we watched the first inning of cameron's game where as catcher caught a foul ball. it was pretty awesome! and shocked the hell out of him. after that heather got the call and they needed her to drive ALL the way to temecula to watch tai, their one year old son. thank god my mom decided to come see cameron play so i left joey with her to take heather home so she could get out there. according to heather, the baby didn't arrive until 3am. congratulations naomi and mike! after i left, my mom says that cameron was playing short stop and caught another fly ball. again he couldn't believe it. very exciting, he is getting pretty good.

here are all the rest of the pictures

yesterday my gramma went in to have her knee replaced. the surgery went very well, the doctor actually said she should have had this done 20 years ago. today heather and i visited her in the hospital. she is in a LOT of pain but she looks very good. she was mad that she had the surgery though, kept saying can't we just go back to wednesday? in about two weeks after all the recovery she will be very excited i am sure as she won't have anymore pain in her knee. although i doubt that she will even remember that we were there she kept falling asleep and mumbling about puppies. it was pretty funny. gramma, i hope you feel better soon, we all love you!

this morning i woke up with loud thumps. not knowing what it was i ran into cameron's room thinking he fell out of bed, as he is known to do. the kids can't sleep in one area, tossing and turning and usually waking up on the floor. after checking on him and being shocked that he was in bed still sound asleep i went ahead and took my shower and forgot about the noise.

when i got to work heather called to tell me that they knocked down the other house. well now i know where the noises were coming from. i had assumed though that the house they knocked down was the house they red tagged a couple of weeks ago that was falling on to the property of the house they knocked down. but after reading this story, i realized that they knocked down the house that was still being built. the first one to actually fall over. very strange since the other house, the one that has been red tagged, has halfway fallen over already but according to the story they say they hope to save half the house. how do you save half a house? or are they hoping to stop the slide so they can at least make it safe for the residents to get back into the house to save their personal belongings? that has got to be the worst part of the whole thing, knowing that everything you own, pictures, furniture, memories are right there behind the doors but you are not allowed to go in. its like watching your house burn to the ground but instead of the fire taking hours, it takes months to destroy.

tonight we had a family party at pat's house. my cousin from texas had come out to possibly move out here. they are leaving in the morning so our family had a little get together to say goodbye. we had a fantastic night... its pretty sad when you get home and your kids are saying moms drunk, moms drunk. and to prove their point heather drops her bottle of beer and it shatters everywhere... can you tell we don't get out much? good thing we had a babysitter, family parties are much funner without kids.

[update: 5:30am comes around WAY to fast. shockingly i feel pretty good. unfortunetly my poor wife doesn't feel so hot. i think it was worth it though, thank you pat and jill for throwing a great party we can't wait to do it again!]

heather just called to tell me cameron got in trouble at school today. apparently some kid got hurt and was bleeding. cameron in no way had anything to do with the kid getting hurt but, and this is still debatable, stuck his finger in the blood and flicked it at other kids around. now instead of trying to teach my son why not to do this they give him a towel and some gloves and make him clean the blood up, unsupervised!?!? what the FUCK is wrong with this school? don't they have some kind of policy on biohazard pick up? doing a real quick search in google the first thing i found was a fact sheet from another school on how to clean up blood, which is not the way they told cameron to do it. doing another search i found policy after policy on the correct way to deal with biohazard and nowhere does it say you should have a 7 year old do it. heather said she argued with the teacher and got her to apologize and say it wasn't the best judgement but her intentions were good... what the fuck kind of answer is that?!? oh i am so fucking pissed right now i could scream. i hate these damn schools and their so called 'intentions'. why can't they do what they are supposed to do and teach the children why its wrong, instead they put my child in danger!? this is just not right!

it never fails that if one server goes down more are to follow. i haven't had to reboot any of our servers or touch them for that matter in atleast 6 months. we run windows 2000 advanced server on all of our 10 servers so going that long on a windows machine is cause for celebration. this morning one of our file servers ran out of diskspace, a huge file got backed up twice onto this server for some reason haven't quite figured that out yet. then the email server decides to crash on me. then in the middle of fixing that the dns server dies. thank god all it took was a quick reboot and now all is fixed but it was high stress for a minute. nobody needs to send an urgent email until the server is down.

it seems like all day today i have been waiting for my computer to finish one process or another. its getting to the point where i think i need dual processors, to bad dell doesn't make a laptop with that capability... right now i have 17 programs running and yes i am using all 17 programs at once, i am the master at multi-tasking, lol.