Awesome....

As some of you may know, Kendra and I have been trying to get pregnant for 1 1/2 years. We recently went to a doctor to get me tested. (by the way that experience was awkward) Today we got the results, I am infertile!!!! that's great news. That's just what i needed to hear, not only was the experience at the doctor emasculating, but now I have no seed. How am i feeling? Hurt, pissed, confused, and piled on with the last posts and other goings on in this ever so fabulous year of 2007, very depressed. Oh but don't loose hope, we get to go back in next week and find out what kinda pills and trials and tests they can do. If any of those are a success then maybe, oooh just maybe they can stick a needle into Kendra's egg and inject it with my steroid and testosterone laden seed, mix it together in a dish, and place it back inside, just the way it was meant to be. I am sorry if I sound overly sarcastic or brash but i have run out of emotions the past month and joy and happy never made it home from news years eve.

Jury Duty

Some of you may know that i have been on Jury duty since Monday of last week. This is something that i have always wanted to be a part of, I think the system isn't corrupt and placed into the hands of people who are impartial and fair the proper outcome can be reached. The case I was on involved five children, CPS, and the mother. CPS claims that they have given the mother every chance to regain custody of her children, and the only option from here is severance and adoption. I sat through 7 days of testimony and evidence, objections, examinations, cross examinations, opening and closing statements. We as the jury had the case for 6 total hours i believe before we came to a decision. We had to decide on two claims from CPS, if one or both were found to be proven then severance and adoption was the next step. I didn't feel that a co dependant personality was considered a mental illness, 6 others did. We all felt CPS had provided sufficient resources for mother to regain custody of her children. We all felt it is in the children's best interest to no longer be in the care of their mother and at that moment, severed the parental rights of the mother. Today on valentines day I told a mother that she is "mentally ill" and that she is no longer the parent of her five children. My heart breaks for her, her children, and the remaining family on mothers side. For the last three years she has been fighting this, and in a day its over. I always wounder ed what it was like to sit in on a trail. To hear lawyers do their thing, to hear the bailiff tell all to rise as the jury came in and out of the court room. My broken heart is for her, having her children taken away from her. For me, seeing those with kids not take care of them, but not being able to have any of my own. For me, taking away other peoples kids, but not being able to have any of my own. Ask me to judge a thief, ask me to judge a murderer, ask me to judge a drug dealer, but don't ever ask me to take someones children away ever again. I have always wanted to be a part of a trail, no one said it would be easy, but no one said it would be this hard.

Freaking B of A

Before I have a heart attack i have to get this off my chest and onto the fish wrap which is my blog. I have a bank account in both Arizona and California for reasons I am not quite sure at this point. So maybe two months ago i was using my check card from BoA and noticed that it was scanning off and on and also the three digit code on the back which allows you to make on-line transactions was rubbed off. I had then made the decision to call BoA and order a new card. So begins my ulcer trail. First off you cannot call the number on the back of your card from your Arizona account and expect to talk to a rep concerning your California account. So, after trying to go through all the right automated channels I finally spoke to a breathing person, I ordered a new card with them and hung up the phone. A week later I received my new card, called the activation number and began using my new card. After trying to make a purchase with my AZ that was declined i had Kendra look the balance up online, -400$. I was having a hard time figuring this out and had her look at all the recent transactions. She started naming them off and as she went through them i noticed something odd, they were all to Home Depot and Lowes, and other establishment of that nature. Well it was queer to me because those were all purchases I was making with my newly ordered CA card. Well using my awesome sleuthing skills i compared the numbers on both cards and, you guessed it Watson, identical!! So to sum up so far, old card dead, new card ordered, new card received, used, overdrawn, sleuthed.

Haha funny i thought. Called BoA and ordered the "right card." Made sure to verify the card number to make sure "we" didnt make the same mistake again, and also verified the address. Then I waited, three weeks passed and still no card. So i called again, verified the card number again and also the address and hung up. Waited another 8 days, no card. So lets sum up. Old bad, new bad, ordered not received, ordered not received.

Haha pissed. Called BoA tonight. Talked to the rep in my ever so restrained I am going to burn the place down voice, and explained my predicament. She told me that she only has on record the time i got the new bad card (AZ), and the most recent time i ordered the new card, (#2 must have been lost on the freaking Tandy computers that they seem to be using at the call center). So I convinced her to send me a new one, again verified the number on the address. Wait what? Can you repeat that? No my address is not on Mason Street in Santa Barbara!!! I haven't lived there in almost 4 years. So i asked her to explain to me why i have been receiving monthly statements for my AZ account, my CA account and our BoA credit card but for some (earmuffs) reason the address "tied" to my debit card is my old place on Mason. She had no logical explanation for me and her, "I understand, I am sorry we will get a new card out to you right away" was certainly falling on deaf ears. I wanted to scream into the phone so loud her mother went blind. How is that freaking possible? So now i have to wait until next wed to get my new card because it gets shipped this wed, thu fri tue wed (monday is a bank holiday), just my luck right? So lets sum up.

Bad card, new bad, re ordered (3)x, wrong address, two weeks. If i don't get the card on wed in two weeks i am closing all my accounts and STRONGLY encouraging everyone in my path to do the same. The only redeeming factor is we have a friend at BoA who helps us in resolving all the overdraft fees. Oh and by the way BoA is an acronym for Bunch of (earmuffs)

New 1955 Willys Custom!!!!

I want that!!!

WOW

What I did in the last 4 months.

Took pictures of baby Hailey

Met Flipper.

Got 2nd place in 80s night at the Main Squeeze.

I got my hair cut.

I looked at flowers.

I took engagement photos for Lina and Jose

I went to antartica

Finally got back in the water.

Oh so sorry

Please forgive the spelling errors, for some reason my spell check isnt wroking. Sorry Mom.

I have realized that i have been seriously lacking in my posts. Fortunatly i havent been taken from james link list quite yet, so i figure now is a good time to get some news out there. Things have been kinda the same around here, just cranked up to 11. I am working 60+ hours a week, which is good at the end of the week when i get my paycheck, but lately the "end of the week" really doesnt exist. For the first time in a long time i worked on a sunday. Uhhhhh, not on a sunday! Yes, it was my own decision, i really needed to get some things done before an inspection, and sunday after church was the only time i could get er done. Kendra is working like crazy as well. They just had their founders day yearly celebration and K was getting as much done out there as she could. She just recently had a review at her job and they relized how awesome she is and made her the "head" or "lead" at the welcome center. It will translate into a nice bonus at the end of the year, and also a pay raise. She is great at whatever she does, she has an awsome work ethic, rarely if ever takes a day off, she is always haveing to cut out early because she has so much "gone fishing" time stacked up. I am so proud of her and all that she has accomplished. Her hip hop class in Verrado with the kids is going good, she had a performance at the Founders Day Main Sqeeze varatiy show, and the kids did great. you should have seen K in the front row, coaching her kids in the moves. Speaking of Founders Day, the band Train (drops of jupiter, meet verginia) played at the event, I had good seats from my Main Squeeze booth. Josh and I were serving all sorts of colada smoothies and having a great time haming it up for the smoothie patrons. Church is cranked up as well. K and I have our respective groups on wednesday and thursday, then everyother tuesday one of us has a meeting. We are finding it hard to find time for eachother between work and church, but we will find a balance and catch up to this season in our life.

Oh here is a story for you. The other week K calls me at work and says hey do you want to go to a soccer game tonight. Heck yes I do. It was haloween night and after we helped out at the Harvest part for church we went to the new Cardnals stadium to take in the futbol game. Now when K called me she said "do you want to got to a club usa v. chivas de gudalajara soccer game. Club USA, nice I was thinking I was going to get a preview of some up and coming american soccer players poised to make the national team. We were going to be in box seats, and for my first time at the new stadium that wasnt such a bad deal. We get the and i noticed that everyone around us had their respective teams jersies on, none of which said USA on them anywhere. I also noticed the anouncments about parking, what you can take into the arena, and saftey were all in spanish. No I know Chivas is a team from Mexico, but hey, where is the American representation here! Well as we met up with Liz (the ticket holder) she informed me that it was a Chivas v. Club America game, which in Mexico is a gynormos rivalry. Club America has the word America but all other american ties ends there. So now it all made since, the jersies, the painted faces, and the mexican wrestling masks, we were in for a treat. This was my first real live "international" soccer game, and I told K as we were going in that she was in for some fun. I told her that all the soccer games she had seen in the past will pale in comparison to what we were about to witness. 60 drunk USA fans cramed into a small pub off state street has nothing on a stadium filled with pasionate futbol fans. As we were walking in we had just missed the first goal, but you could feel it. The sound was intense, and it didn't stop from there. On our way to our box we were side tracked by Liz's hook up there at the stadium and she told us it was "dead" over in our box and to follow her to another box. We made our way around and entered another box with about 10 people, eating and drinking, enjoying the game. I shook the hand of the man of the house and took my seat. The stadium is amazing, with the retractible roof open and the mild fall air, the sound of the horns and the sea of red and yellow jersies, nice. I learned that the field that the players were on actually retracts outside to reviel a concreet pad undernieth to acomidate concerts and other events that dont require a field. I learned all these things about the staduim from the CEO and Presadent of Cardnals stadium, we had been escorted to the owners box. Now if thats not the sweetest way to watch a game. He insisted we eat and have a beer, one of the nicest multy millonares i have ever met.

Well family and friends, i am not going to offer another empty promise of weekly posts, but i will do my best to get info out a whole lot faster. Oh and by the way, there are some new Name that House pics on my flicker site and I expect to see some comments on them asap. Listen to me, asking to hear comments when i take weeks to post, so selfish. Love you all

A bit like my Dad

Kendra got these two chicken coop doors from her mother and they were sitting around the house. I came home the other day and got this idea on what to do with them. I think it came out nice, what do you think?

Another New Toy

This is m new 20" iMac that i got in a going out of buisness sale at CompUSA. Nice...Also taken with my new 8meg Canon Digital Rebel......Nice

Another Photo Update

Take a look at the photo link to the right to see pictures from the wedding and our trip to Santa Barbara. Thanks for looking!

Oregon Pics

To see the pics from orgon click on the photo link to the right.

Oregon 1

The first day got off to a great start. My dad and i got up at 5am and met Doug and Jamie down at the launch to get out on the river and start slaying the fish. We pulled up to the river, (I can not give up the fishing holes), Doug set all the poles and we waited. The boat on the inside of us caught a fish and after they got theirs in the boat, and Doug was starting to poke some fun because of the color and size, one of the poles in our boat started going off, quickly we all came to attention, Bing Jamie, and myself all grabbed the poles that didn't have fish so we could get them out of the water and out of the way. Doug set the hook on the fish and handed the pole over to me, my first fish of the season, nice. It gave a nice fight, made a few runs after getting to the boat, but after maybe 10 min tops, I had it in line for Doug's net and got it in the boat. I was just happy to get one on after hearing that the season was going a bit slow before I had arrived, I take no credit for the amount of fish caught that day, but it was a good day after weeks of not so good. We didn't get any bites after that so decided to call it a day, when we got back to the launch there was a biologist there and he took the stats of the fish. 42inches and 37 pounds, longest one he had seen all season.


After fishing I went to hang out with my cousins Chantelle and Crystal down by the river, much like we did as kids. After sitting in the camper for a while and taking turns asking when we were going fishing, Luke (Chantelles boyfriend) and myself went down one of the inlets and tried our hand at trout fishing. I was using worms and I caught 1 sucker, and 1 perch. Luke on the other hand was fly fishing, and he didn't catch anything, but watching him was like watching A River Runs Through It all over again. Fly fishing brings a peace and poetry to fishing that I had never thought of. But i still caught more then Luke! After fishing again i went back to Mom and Dads, hung out, went for a walk, and visited with some of their friends.


So after day one, I had a great time fishing, thanks to my guide the River Raider and his sweet new boat. i got back to my roots pulling suckers out of the creeks and passing time. But the best part was getting to just sit. Sit with cousins, aunts ,uncles ,parents, and friends, and watch the river flow by, just like it did when I was a kid.


I will add pics to go with the stories tomorrow, please stay tuned.

Soul2Soul

That is Tim on the left and Faith on the right. This is the first song of the night and they popped up out of the floor, never turning to look at each other. They actually didn't look at each other till the end of the night, kinda building to the last song which was very close.