Author: Steven

So Märia got to go surfing today, which left me taking care of the little hoodlums and doing some chores.  Who would have thought that I could hange a light/ceiling fan all by myself, running the wiring and everything!  I also cleaned up some and played with the kids, keeping them fed and changed.  That really is a full time job.  So I only wrote roughly a quarter of what I had to write today to start on track.  Ugh.

1667 words a day is 50k words in November, and I wrote 431 on day one.  But I will catch up, you guys motivate me! Go Jason go!

Okies, having so many ideas in my head right now, I can tell this is going to be a long post, so sit back and bear with me for a bit.  =)

Jason mentioned it earlier, but let me tell you what we are doing in November.  Jason and I are participating in NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month.  Between 1 November and 30 November we both will be completing a 50k word work of fiction.  

I attempted this last year and got about 4000 words into it before I skipped writing a few days, tried to play catchup, skipped a few more and realized I was way too far behind to write a little more than 40k words in the last 2 days.  =)  So I have to make some rules for myself if I plan on finishing a novel this November.  

Rule number 1:  No Glenn Beck.  I don’t know how many of you know this, but I listen to every word that Glenn says on his radio show, which comes out to about 105 minutes a day.  I download the radio show via podcast, so I get to skip the commercials.  What I don’t get to during the week I finish on the weekends while I do dishes or fold clothes or whatever.  Well, in the month of November there will be none of that.  Dishes and clothes folding time is time to think about a novel, and the time I normally sit down and listen is time to actually do some writing.  (This rule of course only goes into effect November 5 or 6, depending on when the news dies down… I will get into this a little later).

Rule number 2:  No NewsFire.  Märia mentioned this earlier.  Newsfire is a feed reader.  Basically I have about 40 website blogs that I am subscribed to and newsfire downloads all the articles to my computer so I don’t have to go to the individual sites to see if someone posted something worth reading.  I don’t even know where to find half of these websites anymore, it has been so long since I actually went there, since Newsfire makes it so very convenient!  But considering I get probably 2-300 articles a day downloaded to my computer, and I probably spend an hour a day rooting through them to see which are worth reading and which I can just toss, I am thinking that I could use this time more productively writing.  

Rule number 3:  Everything I write is immediately available to everyone to read.  Now I don’t expect you to actually read my sorry rambling excuse for a novel, but I do expect someone every once in a while to check to make sure I have written!  Keep me accountable! (Jason!)

That is it!

Ok, I mentioned politics up there, and I have been having a few thoughts about the upcoming election.  Let me preface this by saying I fully expect that we will be electing Senator Barack Obama as our next president.  I really don’t see any other outcome being really possible.  But let us suspend reality for a bit and look into the possibility of Senator McCain (who was the worst Republican candidate, and that is saying something considering Huckabee was in there!) actually pulling this thing off.  

National Guards across the country are mobilizing across the country to fight the riots that are expected to ensue should this happen.  And if said riots were to happen, I wouldn’t blame the rioters!  Think about it:  Sen. Obama is expected as of now to win in a landslide, The polls are wildly in his favor (on average) and the exit polls are probably going to be the same for several reasons.  First of all, conservatives have always been the ones more likely to tell exit pollsters that it is none of their business who they voted for.  But we have a new issue thown into the mix this election cycle.  No one wants to be thought of as a racist, and the media and Obama supporters (although not really the Obama campaign) have convinced many that a vote against Obama makes you a racist, or shows racist tendencies.  How many are going to come out and say they voted for Obama just so no one looks at them like they are a racist?  So with more conservatives than liberals telling the exit pollsters to jack off, and more McCain voters saying they voted for Obama than Obama voters saying they voted for McCain, the exit polls could show a clear Obama win, while they official results could come back far closer, perhaps giving McCain a win!  And we wonder why we are preparing for riots!

Not something I heard on Glenn Beck or read somewhere, just something I was thinking about…

I thought I would write about cute things our kids do…  But I don’t like doing the short posts so I saved a bunch to do all at once.

Last Wednesday I was watching Seporah and Felicity while Märia was at work, but lots of cleaning needed to be done, so I got them occupied playing with blocks in the living room and started doing the dishes.  Well, I can’t just do dishes, I need talk radio on in the background to keep my mind occupied so I don’t die of boredom, so I was sitting there listening to Glenn Beck and doing dishes when I notice something is wrong.  I don’t know what it is yet, so I keep doing dishes.  Then I realize what is wrong.  I don’t know how long it has been since I heard the little girls playing!  So I go looking for them, not in our room, not in their room, not in the bathroom, and that is it for rooms!  So I freak out and look down to the ground from the lanai and down our walkway outside the house, and still no kids!  I finally find them, hiding in our closet, almost done with a whole bag of Nestle Crunch, Seporah feeding Felicity and both of them very happy.  

Märia and I sometimes take Felicity and Seporah on the bus for convenience or fun or something, but they have just never really liked the bus much.  Well, Märia and I rode our bikes to the bottom of a hill that we decided we couldn’t get back up, so we decided to take the bus back up.  Märia had an idea to make them not go nuts on the bus… she called it the Choo Choo Bus!  Seporah had enjoyed the train at the Dole Plantation so much and likes toy trains so much that I am shocked one of us didn’t think of it earlier, but once we did, no more bus problems… if you don’t count all the other riders looking at all 3 of us yelling choo choo the whole ride long.  

Seporah has been playing ball really well for about a year now.  She catches really well, and throws the ball right back.  She can catch the ball all the way across the room even!  Well, she recently decided a way to make the game more fun.  She hasn’t caught a ball in probably 3 or 4 days  now.  When I throw it, she makes like she is gonna catch it, and then she “misses” at the last minute.  And then there are the inevitable “uh oh”s and chasing the ball down.  But she is having a ball, so what can I say?

Darn Albright genes… Felicity’s teeth are coming in all crooked like.  But I guess there has to be a downside to the Albright good looks she got.  =)

Yeah, I know I am not as funny as the other three master bloggers.  =)

I apologize, this was written last saturday about last saturday, but I realized I messed the map all up and didn’t want to go back through and fix it right then, so I saved it for later and later never came.  So here it is in all it’s imperfect glory.  I left the aquarium and kapiolani park out of the map.  That probably adds 3-4 miles to our trip.  =)

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So we had lots of fun today.  We went off to downtown Honolulu this morning, parked the car (Point A) and walked to the Royal Hawaiian Apple Store grand opening.  It was the same as the Kahala Apple Store opening, long lines, loud music and free tshirts.  Lots of fun.  =)  Seporah and Felicity were both really good, so it worked out well enough.  Then we rode our bikes to the flee market on Diamond Head Road (halfway between b and c) and bought some bread, honey and drank some water.  Mostly we just needed a quick break, as the bike ride up Diamond Head Road is all uphill.  So after our break we rode the rest of the way up to the opening to Diamond Head Crater, and briefly considered hiking up it, but were worn out enough, and the sun was coming out, so we decided not to hike up.  So we rode back down the hill, and since the wind was in our face we felt much better than going up the hill.

Yeah, I know, I didn’t finish this post, or proofread it, or anything.  Sorry  =)

I took Seporah to nursery yesterday and she started putting the chairs down for class. I went to help but she kept moving my chairs like I was doing it wrong. When the teacher came in she put two tables right where Seporah had put the chairs. I don’t know if I am ready to not know everything in my daughters life yet. 🙂

So we gave Seporah some cereal in a bowl because she was asking for it, but we wanted to get her to share with Felicity. As Felicity was reaching for it, Seporah dumped the cereal at her feet and hit her with the bowl. Now if Seporah has learned anything, she has learned she has to be gentle with Felicity, so believe me when I say she gently hit Felicity with the bowl. =)

Märia and I were getting a little frustrated with them and went into our room where Seporah followed us. She showed us the empty bowl, obviously asking for more. We told her it was in the living room. She looked at us and said “Mess! Mess!”. We said, of course it is a mess, we saw you make the mess, you ought to go clean it up. She looked up at us offended and said “Baby! Baby! Baby!”. It was quite obvious she was trying to blame the whole thing on Felicity. =)

I am sure Jason will tell you I was really good at blaming him for things I jacked up, but that is probably just how it works with siblings. We were just surprised at how young it could start! =) So that was first number 1.

First number 2… We ate at the California Pizza Kitchen… and didn’t like our meal! Now you have to understand, we LOVE the CPK and eat there probably 3 times a month. We have had almost everything on the menu and everything is wonderful. But we tried this Thai noodle dish, and it was just horrible. I had to try it 3 times just to be sure!

And First number 3… For the first time that I can ever remember, Märia actually asked to have her food replaced. She has had lots of meals that she didn’t like, and a couple of different restaurants, but she has never actually said anything about it. Today she got a free meal. =)

So I do a variety of jobs in video and audio support, sometimes at different hours.  Last night was the Town Hall meeting for Schofield Barracks.  It started at 5 and was supposed to go until 7:30.  Yeah right.

So it didn’t actually get started until 6, and from 6 to 7 they had presentations from different organizations on base telling upcoming activities and what organizations were doing to improve the community.  At 7 the whining began.  From 7 until 9 (when they had to cut people off) soldiers wives and even some soldiers came in and cried about how terrible life is.  Here is a list of some of the more absurd ones.

• OMG!!!!  I am an E6 with 5 children living in the large housing area and this E4 with 4 kids moved in next door!  I can’t believe they let E4’s have that many children!  They should sterilize them or something at 2 so that they can’t move into big houses next to me!  What happens if their kids talk to mine!?!  I feel like such a babysitter now!
• My neighbor keeps parking in my spot!
• My neighbor’s music is up too loud!
• My neighbor’s kid is riding his skateboard without a helmet!  (The MP rep actually recognized the lady who made this complaint as someone who recently got a ticket for using a cell phone while driving.  She got huffy when he stated so in front of the whole crowd but she shut up)
• The noise from the intersection keeps us up all night!  (Their solution went about like this “We are planning on planting a treeline as a sound barrier in Fiscal Year 09 to take care of that problem.  It should only take 3-5 years for the trees to get big enough to stop the sound.”  The complainer loved that answer)
• “My wife and I don’t shop at the PX anymore because the workers don’t enforce the dress code.  When you walk in all you see is teenagers with tank tops and baggy pant and their underwear hanging out.  If you want us as customers you need to start enforcing the dress code.”
• “What can I do to make the MPs enforce the rules.  When I call them to my neighborhood all they do is talk to the neighbors/kids/teenagers/hoodlums and then they go away.  Nothing gets better”  I wanted to strangle this lady; she had no tact and spoke as if she was better that everyone. 
• The commissary doesn’t carry enough whole/healthy/organic foods.  (The Commissary rep actually told this lady that she should fill out one of the feedback forms and that wasn’t something worthy of town hall time.  I wanted to kiss the guy!)
• “Who reads the Post General’s ‘open door policy’ email?  I sure never get an answer and don’t feel anything gets done!”  I didn’t even know there was a Post General email we could get ahold of him at!  =)

We mentioned a few days ago that Seporah had a stash somewhere and we found it yesterday! It was behind the entertainment center. She had a white grocery bag with a York’s peppermint candy, lots of gum, lots of toddler snacks, Apple Juice and a big bag of chocolate. And we’ve been wondering why she hasn’t been eating for the past couple of weeks.

Oh yeah, and we found the last 7 boxes of mac and cheese, so we weren’t quite out.

Well, I have been far sicker than I am now, or have been this go around, but I have never been sick this long. Märia and I got sick last Thursday, the 22 of May. We really haven’t had any respite since then. Yesterday I still had a 103.7 fever and today I am still up over 100. And that isn’t even the worst, but the worst isn’t fit for public consumption. Ewwww =)

So I have a new job. I work as an Audio/Video Tech in a television studio! The station is TV2. I always thought of AFN as the only army/military station, but apparently Hawaii has their very own station that is piped into all the Hawaiian military installations, barracks, hospitals, and can be specially requested from the local cable company by soldiers living off base.

My new job so far has been to set up cameras and sound systems. Lots of mixers, mics, speakers and amps. We have done lots of ceremonies and celebrations and so forth. I am also learning video editing and video transferring. There is lots to learn and I actually work all day long. This is really a first for me in my military experience. I never have had a job where I have work to do that takes all day. I have to decide at the end of the day what to finish quick and what to leave for tomorrow!

I will talk more about it later, but it is lots of fun. Tired now and going to sleep.