It’s a fairly routine occurrence that something so uniquely petrifying happens. However, it’s not often that you have a chance to write it down. Typically, those random occurrences happen at times when you don’t have the opportunity to even scribble it down in some sort of legible and comprehensible format. Because of that, I usually have to rely on my less-than-reliable memory of the context hours and sometimes days later. My recall then comes into question and I can leave out some integral piece of the story so that during the retell, it makes absolutely no sense.

No worries about that tonight as I’m writing in raw format from something Son #2 did and the effect it left on my wife, myself, and unfortunately for him, Son #1. Now I’ll most likely post this entry a day later, but imagine for a moment you’re in our home, after dinner, on a sunny early evening. The boys have just finished playing outside and I’ve finished tuning my bike in the garage.

To set this up appropriately, I must also set the emotional mood of the evening. An hour earlier, following dinner, which by the way Son #2 wanted nothing to do with, my wife made smores for our consumption in the warm summer air. During this sunset in July, Son #1 and #2 lost their collective minds while eating smores. I don’t mean they were on a sugar high and bouncing off lawn furniture or fence posts. What I mean is that they lost it when melting chocolate and marshmallows oozed onto their manual extremities. You see, neither child likes ‘stuff’ on their hands. With melted, albeit not hot, chocolate on their hands, both kids screeched for help and napkins. Son #1 proclaimed his hatred for such a camping desert. Son #2 bee-lined to the hose and begged for it to be pressurized with water to cleanse his hands.

Keep in mind that both of these children will paint themselves and submerge themselves in mud puddles. So I wouldn’t have expected such an extreme reaction from a confectionary delight such as chocolate, let alone the camping delicacy known as a smore.

So let’s fast forward to bedtime. Both boys know the drill. When it’s time, it’s time. Arguing isn’t allowed but this never stops Son #1 from throwing a fit which I can only equate to spasmatic fish flop like bamboo chutes were under his nails and hot sauce was doused in his eyes. Instead, it’s just the catalyst of bedtime causing the disturbance. Now he’s hungry. Now he’s thirsty. Now he has a sore throat. Now the birds are chirping. Now the garage door is open. The list of reasons goes on. But after we interrupt and let him know that no excuse is going to alter our edict for bedtime, he loses his flipping mind. Remember my description of the fish flop above? Imagine that in a spare bathroom on the cold hard floor. Flailing, he lists his excuses and falls into an unintelligible crying and screaming fit. As he stumbles out of the latrine, Son #2 watches by innocently. Clearly the gears are turning. And then it happens.

Son #2 saunters up to Son #1 while he’s in his strike against being tucked in. And at that moment I honestly thought Son #2 was going to exhibit some sort of compassion for his older brother and console him during the outburst. I couldn’t be more wrong. Son #2 casually approaches in his best I’m-not-going-to-do-anything-wrong posture, stops and points right in his screeching brother’s face and says, “Faking it!”

Son #1 yells back that he’s not. Undaunted by the volume of Son #1 and the threat of dismemberment, Son #2 repeats in the same tone, “Faking It!” At that moment, the wheels fell off and Son #1 began swinging. Nothing connected except for his ass onto a common location in our house for time-outs. Again, Son #2 says, “Faking it!” If it weren’t for Son #1 trying to get all Sugar Ray Leonard on Son #2; I probably would’ve pissed myself. My wife took the younger boy upstairs for bedtime, as passed his older brother; he said it one more time. This left me with a combustible screaming and crying six year old whose feelings are now hurt and his throat is sore. Again, Son #1 makes excuses why he can’t go to bed and how he needs a snack. And in the distance from a floor and rooms apart, I hear the faint, “Faking it!” from Son #2. Here we go again.
With what felt like a month of trying to defuse Son #1, I’m left to just chuckle at Son #2 and his unique ability to push the right buttons on his brother. Son #2 is a jack ass. And I mean that in the most complimentary term of endearment. He couldn’t be any more like me. And while I’ve written a ton about Son #1 here in this entry, you can’t escape the fact that Son #2 is great at getting under your skin. He has the innate gift of something that will piss his brother off. I’ve heard him say things like “Angry!” to provoke his older brother but this was the first time I’ve ever seen him use a diversionary tactic of innocent compassion and approach within striking distance to point right in his older brother’s face and say something as aggravating as “Faking it!” in such a sweet high pitched voice like only a 2 year old can do.

I try to write with some sort of diversity in topic so that the reader does not get bored with the same old stories about skateboards and punk rock. In this instance, I couldn’t avoid writing about Son #1 again. The kid is never at a loss for saying something uniquely intriguing or behaving in a way only his mother could love.

I once opined about two things Son #1 routinely practiced. Singing and running. And sometimes, both actions are performed in unison. Fresh off his fifth birthday, Son #1 is a year older and ‘stronger’ because of it. He was showered with gifts and we’ve done our best to lay down the subtext that he’ll have to ‘donate’ some of his older belongings to the other kids. Of course, he agrees in theory. What I predict will happen is that he will lose it with such substance in behavior deterioration that it will justify its log here on this platform.

But not today. Let’s talk Son #1’s birthday booty and his penchant for singing. Of the many unique gifts bestowed upon him, there was one of which I had no clue to be a favorite. It was an old school sock monkey. You know the kind, the freaky gray and white cottony, drooping sock monkey with the red lips, yarn tuft of hair, and red monkey butt. Unbeknownst to me, Son #1 has entertained himself with Son #2’s new school, light blue sock monkey for months prior to this. Which, by the way, doesn’t have the freaky red lips and monkey butt.


This brings us to the meat of this entry. Son #1 now has his very own sock monkey. It didn’t stop him from liberating Son #2’s sock monkey from the boy’s crib. Now the two monkeys live together in a state of monkey bliss. While sock monkeys are a startling as a clowns or zombies, they become more intolerable and strangely freakish when you read my next statement. Several nights ago, Son #1 began to ad lib a song about his ‘love’ for sock monkeys. It was eerily similar in beat and tune to that of Brass Monkey by the Beastie Boys. First, Son #1 has never listened to the Beasties with me. I can only blame his mother for this. Second, it’s not about the Beasties and the lack of listener discretion, it’s about his lyrics and sincerity. While the exact lyrics professed will not be written here, it’s safe to safe to say they were ‘American Pie-ish’ in nature. My wife and I were rolling with laughter after the song performance. Suffice to say, Son #1 has love for the sock monkey.

Boy. Sock. Love. Three topics which would never be discussed in the same context or in mixed company, or in public for that matter.

What makes this story even more interesting is the draw this toy had when near other five year olds prior to bringing it home. Apparently, the new craze in public affection is ‘moose kisses’. As defined by another five year old, a moose kiss is a strong, and slobbery lap of the tongue across a body part, or in this case, a sock monkey’s mouth. I had the privilege of having my hand moose kissed. But even more disturbing were the little kids moose kissing the sock monkey. Is your child lonely? Get them a sock monkey. It looks like the blankets of Son #1 have been trumped for a sock with arms, tail, and red lips. At least the sock monkey feels wanted in our home.

Ahh, the beginning of a new year. That, usually is marked by the end of another year and artificially creates a justifiable reason to coordinate an event in the over excess of party poppers and cosmopolitans. Yes. The New Year’s Eve party. We had our own party which was absent of three foot tall tax deductions and infused with the aforementioned party poppers, a Motley Crue approved selection of adult beverages, and a camera to capture all of the inappropriateness and party-goers.

Because 2009 sucked and I was eager to see it booted out of the picture like a sleazy overweight politician getting kicked out of office after sexing an Argentine temptress. I’m hoping 2010 brings better tidings than 2009. In my schoolgirl giddiness leading up to our New Year’s Eve party, I concocted an idea to motivate my self and others to join in the festivities. The idea was to come up with a twisted 12 Step process to ring in the New Year. The fun was making it up as I went along. Strategically thinking what should be ‘classified’ as a step and what should not. Also, what ‘could’ be a step but shouldn’t because it may be offensive.


So here is my 12 Step list with a brief explanation of each step which I marched through on New Year’s Eve and posted step by step on Facebook for others to follow. As a disclaimer, each step was developed on the fly throughout the day.


‘The 'Betty Ford 12 Steps of Ending 2009 and Starting 2010.'

Step 1: Finding Nemo fruit chews, locate and eat them for breakfast.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Finding Nemo fruit chews are made from the joys of real fruit. How is this not part of the fruit group?

Step 2: Mud, find it and make sure you have enough on your rear derailleur that it won't shift.
The weather in 2009 sucked. Finally, I had the opportunity to get out of the house and jump my bike. The conditions were muddy-frosty-muck madness. It’s a metaphor for just getting out and living.

Step 3: Locate yourself some chocolaty crunchy balls and eat them for lunch.
See Step 1. Chocolate comes from a bean, a legume and is part of the Meat and Beans group in the food pyramid. The malted crunchy goodness is a byproduct of the Dairy group. Two for one right here in one small tasty item.

Step 4: Drop your tax deductions off at the babysitter (grandparents). If you don't have children, envy your friends with them for their tax deductions or mock them for always being broke ass.
A ‘friend’ of my wife seems to think that children are resource sapping draws on the economy and those without children are penalized for not procreating because they do not receive the same economic tax benefits of those with children. Screw that. I have kids and I am broke. People without kids are generally not broke. Save the drama for your mama.

Step 5: In the essence of socially appreciative actions, apologize in advance for drunken dialing/texting. While it is New Years, it's not always appropriate to drunk text your best friend's sister. Wait...yes it is.
This always happens. Alcohol + Libido = Inappropriate actions. Do a pre-emptive strike and apologize early for going past the point of good taste and dangerously close to a 1-976 hotline.

Step 6: Beanie weenies
See Steps 1 and 3. The finest of meat in all of the land. What kind of party doesn’t have beanie weenies? That’s a party I won’t attend.

Step 7: Locate a form of entertainment which condones the act of alcohol and energy drink consumption. Thanks Red Bull No Limit for my extreme excitement in jumping over the LBC and my drunken over stimulated screaming.
Parties can have wonderful conversations. See Step 5 above. However, having a television event which lubricates the discussions about the size of manhood it would take to jump a rally car over a harbor always enhances the party. Additionally, the sponsor’s energy drink works well in vodka.

Step 8: Always invite friends that are medical professionals to your New Years Eve party so they can bring their IV bags to properly rehydrate your drunken guests.
I don’t think this requires much explanation. Medical professionals in attendance can help prevent hangovers by intravenously delivering liquids.

Step 9: Always use proper glassware when serving your specialties.
See the picture on Facebook. Better yet. Don’t see it. Step 9 is a double entendre.

Step 10: Use your best French accent and toast your champagne at midnight.
None of us could muster up a French accent after THAT volume of consumption. It was much easier to use a Scottish accent. However, to be truly accurate, please masquerade as a French frog and pretentiously toast to the New Year.

Step 11: Done. Pass out.
Sleep.

Step 12: After all of the inappropriate photos are downloaded and the last suggestive actions and texts are out of your system and phone, enjoy the beginning of a new year. Rinse. Repeat.
Following the previous 11 steps will land you right here on Step 12, the proper starting point for a successful new year.


My 12 Step process for bringing the ruckus and celebrating the New Year’s arrival. Betty Ford tested Betty Ford approved. Happy New Year to all!

When I started this blog, I had four cardinal rules to follow. The first, never to name names. I didn’t want to single out people or draw attention to those who didn’t like the spotlight. The second rule was to ‘try’ to keep my entries less than 1000 words. Not doing so well with this one. The third was to use music to compliment the blog entry and capture the theme. The final rule was to never discuss work on this platform. This was basically for the same reason as the first rule. Furthermore, my current employer believes that its disjointed and damaged reputation is a function of its underlings blogging and Tweeting the company news to the outside world thus influencing the media to slant its opinions in a less than favorable direction. Yes, that MUST be it and not the blatantly obvious planning and execution dilemmas plaguing the company or the obvious avoidance of full disclosure of information to the news media within an appropriate time frame.

I decided that while my employer struggles to right itself and threatens the employment of the hardworking underpinnings holding this rickety mess together, I would buy a new automobile. A wiseman might ask ‘Why would you buy a new car with the potential of job loss?’ Ironically, it’s the one element in all of the chaos that I can control. It would be an understatement to say that I’m obsessive about decisions I make in life. My wife would probably characterize me as being a tangled neurotic mess of nerves and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. That’s not too far from the truth. So this thread is more about how I make my uniquely insane, yet educated, decisions and less about the purchased vehicle.

Interestingly enough, it started with an internal dialogue where I convince myself that I need something new. I was driving somewhere for some reason and was annoyed with traffic and the fact that I wanted to drive in a faster/slower/louder/quieter/lower/higher/your attribute here/ vehicle. Once I get to this point, it’s useless to consider any other responsibilities. I end up becoming so consumed by my current vehicular dilemma I generally forget about birthdays, anniversaries, and changing Son #2’s excrement-laden diaper. For this purchase, there were approximately seven unique prospects in different categories and segments that fell in and out of favor over the last two years.

Before I even drove any of the prospects, I began the careful assembly of the greatest financial analysis toolset to support my decision. I like to create spreadsheets to analyze and review stuff. I have spreadsheets for everything from the NPV of household expenses, to ROI on electronics, to long-term investment analysis on family financial status, to bike jump trajectory sensitivity analysis, to Son #2 name/meaning decision trees. I think you get the picture. The latest exercise started with a simple worksheet that outlined financing terms of an auto loan. Then it grew.

I added pull down menus for decisions. Then, fair market value sensitivity for the trade-in vehicles was added. I added dynamic real-time credit terms. The list of vehicles was expanded to include the seven vehicles but with various trim levels, configurations, and respective pricing. This data fed right back into the financial model through the menu driven system. Next was a sensitivity analysis piece which was driven off of the user decision matrix to illustrate the various lending scenarios paired with trade-in/down payment scenarios. All of this was controlled by a simple front end that accessed all of the decision variables on the back end. The goal here was to simulate as many financial scenarios possible for each vehicle.

Time to drive the vehicles and build in a performance metric to help influence decision making. The experience driving the cars is outside the scope of this post. Just know that I may now be on Johnny Law’s radar for neurological harassment of local automotive sellers. I went back and ‘refined’ (read: obsessed over) the spreadsheet. The driving experience and the spreadsheet narrowed the search to a two-vehicle race. Based on my value-indicating, financial-prognosticating, penny-pinching, performance-evaluating, number-obsessing spreadsheet, I finally decided on a vehicle.

The dealership provided eight different options of this vehicle because of my option configuration was impossible to satisfy. I had to make a sacrifice. I needed to build a second financial model spreadsheet for these eight versions. Each one had its own worksheet with its own financial model in the image of my first evaluation tool. This version then factored in manufacturer rebates and refined the trade-in scenario based on the current administration sales tax incentives. On this spreadsheet, I had a summary page which evaluated and scored all of the performance metrics of the vehicles, the positives and negatives of each, the dollars spent per positive and negative attribute, and every other metric I could think of to attach some sort of ‘score’ to. At the end of it all, all eight vehicles had a normalized ‘score’ based on all of the metrics. The top three scores became my three choices.

A deeper evaluation had to be done. Three different vehicles with three different prices and option compromises. Stay with me now, in the second spreadsheet, on each worksheet for my three final choices, I created one more sensitivity analysis based on trade-in and down payment. At this point, I knew my financing and potential cost of ownership. Now I just needed to determine how much the dealer ‘will’ give me for my trade-in. Financially, (trust me here) it made the most sense to trade-in a vehicle and receive the economic tax benefit rather than sell the vehicle outright and put a larger payment down. There was a ’tipping’ point and I had to make sure the dealer gave me a fair market value where I would get the best trade-in assessment.

Long story even longer, I’m the proud owner of a new family mode of transport. Gone is my motorized partner of the last eight years. Am I any more relaxed now that this is behind me? Who knows. But I will say this: at least I can commute to my potentially terminal place of employment in style and not-so-eagerly await the notification of the lack of need of my marketing services. If I am out of work in the future and you are in need of a 10GB spreadsheet that will thoroughly calculate your weekly Starbuck’s bill, I’m your guy.