Camping? A no go...

We were supposed to be camping near Louisville this weekend. I spent all week getting ready, we got Sky out of school early, Mau got off early, we packed up the car and took off. Now, Mau was already salty about the whole thing because he was tired from working all week and just wanted to stay home so he was very reluctant and in a pissy mood for the 2 previous days. Everything was fine for 5 minutes of the drive then we saw an alert that the highway was closed due to an accident. We then spent the next 2 1/2 hours driving 8 miles, not even out of the metropolitan area while the dog slept calmly, Sky griped slightly and Mau would not shut up about turning around and going back home (ditching our reservation at the campground). After so long, I couldn't take the bitching anymore and reluctantly gave in. This brought tears to my eyes and made Sky full on bawl. Oh well, we made it back home in less than 15 minutes and Mau was happy.

On an up note, Matt & Vicki came in from Texas for the weekend. Matt is graduating again, this time with his masters degree and Vicki graduated from hair school a few months ago so his parents threw a party. It was great seeing them again and the party was fun. Shawn & Julie showed up and Bryan was there, all of whom I haven't seen in a long time so that was awesome. Throw in some good food, alcohol and Matt's relatives we don't know and it was good times.

Creepy Grandpa update #27: I spotted him parked last week. I kept walking up to say hi to Kari. We noticed 2 cops cars parked so I walked down and talked to them about the nuisance known as "Creepy Grandpa". The one cop seemed unconcerned (big surprise) but the other one drove over to check him out. A few minutes later, Creepy Grandpa drives out of the park with the cop behind him. The cop drives back up to me and says "I don't think you'll be seeing him around again.". Problem solved? Only time will tell. To date, I have seen no trace of him.

We dug into our life savings and saw Star Wars. It is the only film I HAVE to see on the big screen and was probably the last one I saw. Since then, of course, the price of a movie has increased by a dollar and the $23 spent on food consisted of 1 bag of popcorn, 3 drinks, a pretzel and a bag of Skittles. Jeez! In my opinion, it was the best of the 3 newer Star Wars films though...no cheezy shit geared towards little kids. I'm old so I briefly dozed off but only missed 10 minutes thankfully. Sky paid attention to this one and could actually have an intelligent conversation about it afterwards. Right on! After that we wandered in to the arcade so I could play DDR with my few credits I had left. Unfortunately it was being taken over by newbs and I had to get kind of pissy to point out that there was indeed a line and I was next. Just to be more of a bitch, I used credits they already had in the machine. Once I was done, they clapped in awe of my uberness and I left feeling powerful :P

Sky running Dragon Fist in the Newburg Open. 

Creepy Grandpa update...

Creepy Grandpa strikes again. I have made friends with a city parks girl. She's a dog lover and we chat whenever I see her up there. We talk about the freaks in the park and, of course, Creepy Grandpa's name came up. I was telling her to watch out for him. One day last week, while I am talking to Kari (that's her name), he drives up with some young girl in the car. Kari & I agree she's most likely a crack whore. The girl gets out and uses the restrooms for a long time alone. We joke that it adds more to the mystery of Grandpa and she walks over and writes down his license plate number while standing right behind the car he's in. She lets me know she's giving it to the park police to keep an eye on him. I see him the next day but he doesn't attempt to talk to me (thank god). So, the next time I see Kari, another park worker drives up to get my name and # in case the city police need to talk to me. He tells me they are possibly setting up a sting with a decoy and all. "Wow!" I told Kari. "We got results.". Soon Creepy Grandpa might not be trying to lure women into the woods anymore. I think they are basically trying to get him on a prostitution charge whereas my real worry was he was a registered sex offender (or worse yet, UNregistered) and a rapist. Either case though, I suppose the park is safer without his lurking presence.

We went to Louisville on Saturday for a Kung Fu tournament. The super bright and early start and the endlessly long day brought Sky home with a 3rd place trophy in fighting and a 4th place plaque in forms. He fought really well and nearly won his 2nd match. During this time, a karate mom went off on Mau for telling her child and ours to sit still and be quiet. The other little girl ran and told her mom (who, for some reason was not at the ring disciplining her OWN child) so the mom came back and laid into Mau. The judge shrugged it off and Shi Fu told Mau to sit down NOW...Mau sat down quickly. We saw Tommy again and partially taped his weapon form. We missed Tommy's other form due to Sky running his at the same time. It was cool seeing him again and he got 2nd place he said.

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Somehow we have an extra room now. We had put the futon in one of the upstairs rooms along with the turntables and the 2nd TV. I am not sure why I didn't think of this before but I just suggested Mau move the TV into the computer room so I have something to do while I am sitting out hands in poker. Sky used to watch TV in that other room but he's been grounded so much from TV lately anyways. Now that room is being coined "the turntable room" since that is all that is left (besides the futon, a catbox and records). We didn't have an extra room at the old house...I guess the dining room since we didn't have a table and that was the turntable room there. But we have a dining room here with a table in it now and we still have an extra room. Also the computer room here is twice the size of the one at the old house with an attached bathroom. Don't think I am crazy...I am not just noticing all this stuff now, after living here for 11 months. I'm just talking about it now.

Learn new things: Mau apparently has this fear of running out of toilet paper. Now this I never noticed before but recently we were in the grocery store, strolling down the cereal/paper products isle, and he lunges up onto the top shelf for the last package of the brand we buy. I let him know that I think we just bought some less than a week ago. He assures me no, throws it in the cart and we move on. We get home and I put the new package in the bathroom and guess what's on the floor? An unopened package of toilet paper. I let Mau know we were stocked and now we are uber stocked. He gets this panicked look in his eyes and says "I just wanted to make sure.". Hmmm, maybe he's got childhood toilet paper issues I don't know about. The next week we are at the store and he makes a move toward the brand we buy. "It's still on sale!" he shouts with glee. I let him know "We are cool for now, maybe next week.". He swears up and down that what we currently have will not last us, throws it in the cart and we move on. The next week I gave him an errand while I ran down that isle and got cereal quickly before he was able to spot the toilet paper. We got home and he states "Oh man, we forgot to buy toilet paper.".

Fun in the tent 

Adventures in camping...

We went camping with Keith & Mary Jo on Saturday night. It was a trial run with the dog but we all agreed, after pitching tents and setting up, that it's a 2-nighter next time and to bring more firewood. It was awesome and we lucked out weather wise. It poured on the way there but not once we got there. It was wet and the kids got muddy (they brought Sky's friend for Sky to play with) but we hiked and rode bikes all over. Our site neighbors talked all night but I semi-drowned it out by playing the radio all night. Mau & I got stupid trying to find a station to listen to...something from Illinois, people speaking French, and a lot of talking until we realized we were on AM. Duh. So we settled on classic rock for dreaming bizarre dreams. We accidently left out the makings for smores and Kali's food so needless to say, some sort of animals were possibly sick off insane amounts of chocolate, marshmallows and dog food. We found the wrappers to the Hershey bars but the whole marshmallow bag was gone. Luckily they didn't get into the cooler and do away with our breakfast. Mary Jo heard someone eating the dog food but said she was too scared to look outside the tent.

Kali did really well...she's definitely a camping dog. She just chilled in the tent if we left at all. She did bark a couple times when Mary Jo got up to pee in the middle of the night and was really into a boxer dog a few sites up.

This was Mau's first time camping and he really liked it. I grew up camping so I'm fairly seasoned. Not so much in tent camping...my parents had an RV so we had some luxuries. Mau handled making breakfast and some damn good coffee like a pro.

Sky bowling in the Pepsi State Finals 

Happy Mother's Day!

We drove up to Skylar's bowling tournament in Columbus. Good day for a mini road trip. Thanks to Mau's time underestimate for the drive ("It's only a 90 minute drive.") and stopping briefly to get some food, we had to bust ass to make it on time or face Skylar being disqualified. We did make it with 15 minutes to spare because the earlier division ran over. The center was nice but Skylar had a little trouble adjusting his style due to synthetic lanes. He's used to very oily wood lanes. He bowled an 83, 62 (tantrum throwing game) and a 111. His handicap series was 674 I believe, which was the highest of the group of kids he was with. They won't be posting the results until June and he cannot advance any further anyways since he's under 11 yrs. He got a plaque and a t-shirt so he's very proud...and so am I ;)

Afterwards Mau wanted to check out Dodge park up there so, with half ass directions, he drove us into the projects and up a dead end street and there it was. I really was amazed it was back there, right along the river. It was slightly beat up but pretty damn cool. There was a small group of BMXers there and they were very into Skylar skating. I took a bunch of pictures and everyone had a good time. 2 of the friendly BMX guys led us back to the freeway. I still don't know how they loaded 2 bikes into the back of a CRX. *shrugs* They did some back and forth geeky honking with us for a few exits. Come on, you have done it too...and not just once, admit it.

A little blast from last summer...FunkyB looks kinda nervous, don't ya think? 

Viruses, anyone?

We got the confirmation letter for the Pepsi tournament and it lists Skylar as a girl *snicker snicker*. He let me know that he in fact is NOT a girl. Well! After Mau & I made some jokes about a recent King of The Hill episode, I called the state director girl and got it straightened out. I would have just left it but he would have been in the wrong division come the big day and no one needs that hassle.

We got verbally abused by some neighborhood Bebe's kids. We were riding our bikes through the park when they all started yelling ignorant statements at us. After letting us know we are "homos" and "crackheads", they threatened to burn down our house and "smoke us". Mau doesn't take too kindly to this so he confronted them. They ran like, well, little kids and tried to shove Skylar off his bike. Yeah, they are little fuckers. Mau called the cops on them hoping to get them evicted or something. It's a joint neighborhood dream to see this family move away.

Even though I fancy myself as being a fairly intelligent computer user, I fell victim to a hijack. Extremely tired from playing some back to back poker tournaments, I shut down my PC by hitting "install updates and shut down" thinking it was a Windows update. Oh no, it was so NOT a Windows update. Instead I installed a beautiful gem of a virus. Once I got my PC to semi operate, I put in a distress IM to FunkyB who found out what I was dealing with and walked me through a very lengthy clean up process. Turns out my PC was the official party room for all sorts of fun viruses and trojans. Some even took a few vicious foot stomps to die. After all was said and done, I think I am virus/spyware/trojan/other icky unmentionable malware free. And yes, I feel stupid.

Our limelight is fading in league as we drop down to 4th place. We both bowled good this week but the other team is pretty good and we only won 1 game. Poo. Keith & Mary Jo moved into 2nd though so that's cool.