So, when the Psychologersons came over for dinner on Saturday night, eventually conversation turned to my recent sleep issues. They made a few suggestions on sleeping well and then offered the most horrible theory I've heard yet.

"Mike, maybe you're just a morning person."

A what? A what-ing person? Ewwwww!

Let's be perfectly clear. Morning people are the worst possible kind of people. They're annoying and cheerful and tragically unhip. I can't possibly be a morning person. I only have two of the three required attributes!

Meanwhile, in a soon to be intersecting thread of this blog post, Hank has recently signed up for a "boot camp" style exercise program. It's an early morning group program offered in our neighborhood that combines strength and cardio exercises. It's the sort of thing that I used to do back when I was training to run marathons. You know, back when I was crazy.

Her program was supposed to start today, but not enough people signed up, so the instructors called last night and moved Hank to next month's session. That left Hank, who likes having exercise buddies, stuck without a current exercise program.

This was God laughing at me. See, there I was, earlier in the weekend, mocking the very notion that I was going to start willingly getting out of bed early, refusing to give in to my body which apparently has little interest in sleeping until a reasonable hour, when suddenly I'm presented with a compelling reason to rise at an inhuman time. I don't really believe in a God, but if there is one, he is a vengeful and mocking Lord (which, to be perfectly honest, probably makes him a little more accessible).

So, today, we got up early, and jumped rope, and pulled stretchy bands, and did crap like that. Now I'm tired AND sore.

Daisy had a playdate with a girl from her class yesterday.

A playdate, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, is what we used to call "playing" when I was a kid. However, in the modern urban era, we don't let our kids stroll around the neighborhood trying to round up a stickball game, because there are kidnappers lurking under every stick and child molesters drooling behind every ball. Additionally, the invention of the atomic clock allows us to schedule our children's lives to the millisecond. ("Daisy! 300,000 milliseconds until it's time to leave!"). So, much of Daisy's social time is filled with precisely timed play "dates".

Anyway, one playdate thing led to another and before you knew it we had invited the other family over for dinner on Saturday night. We had interacted with the other kid's parents a few times and they were always super nice. The wife seemed to radiate sweetness and the husband was always supremely friendly and outgoing. They were the sort of people who would make me wonder what had gone so tragically wrong with my own DNA.

So, they come over for dinner, and they're helpful, and charming, and nice, and good conversationalists, and pretty much perfect people. And then the other shoe dropped.

Me: So, Bob, what do you do for a living?
Bob: I'm a psychologist.
Me: Ah, and your wife? She mentioned something about a practice. Is she also a psychologist?
Bob: Yes.

At which point I thought, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

I'm not sure exactly why, but psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, and psychoanalysts of any kind freak me the hell out. This is at least the third couple we've had over for dinner where at least one member of the couple is a head doctor.

Maybe I'm fearful that they'll use their evil powers to look inside my brain and find secrets so deeply hidden that I don't even recall burying them. Maybe they'll instantly analyze our family and conclude, "Mike, you're emotionally stunted. Hank, you're enabling him. Daisy, we're taking you away to the land of success and happiness."

Is this just a one way street? Are they looking fearfully at me wondering if I can tell that they don't have a password on their wireless network? Or that they always retype words instead of using cut and paste? I think it's just me.

They sure were nice. Too bad we can never see them again.

Thank you all for your advice on how I can sleep better at night. I learned the following:

- The younger generation gets their wisdom from TV commercials
- Write notes to myself (Hi Mike! Go to sleep! ps. You rock! Also, fewer exclamation marks at night!)
- Take Tylenol PM

I guess if I'm looking for rubberstamp approval for ingesting pharmaceuticals, I've come to the wrong place. From now on, I direct all my questions about drug taking to my handy rubber stamp. Helllooooo, stampy!

I am happy to report, however, that despite my lack of sleep, I'm not quite as cranky as I thought I'd be. Sure, I FEEL like throwing the cast iron pan through the window, but it's really heavy. Ok, maybe I am cranky. Cranky and weak.

Thankfully I still have telemarketers on whom I can take out my frustrations. I had this conversation yesterday:

Ring ring ring

Me: Hello?
Telemarketer: ....
Me: Hello! This is the part where YOU talk.
TeleM: (robotically) Hello, may I please speak to Michael Ogblay
Me: Hmmmm.... You are.
TeleM: Hi Michael, I'm calling today to conduct a survey.

Often at this point in the telemarketing conversation, they'll ask permission for my involvement in the survey. Instead, this guy charged right ahead, which I thought was rude since these things often take about 15 minutes. So, I decided to be an ass. I contemplated my strategy while he blathered on with his first question, which I didn't really hear. Unfortunately, he finished talking before I finished thinking.

TeleM: .... so, yes or no?
Me: Um.... Purple.
TeleM: (typing) And you would say....blah blah blah... strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree?
Me: Square root of negative one.
TeleM: Ok, and how many times a month do you blah blah blah?
Me: Vishnu
TeleM: And are any members of you family employed by the press or a marketing agency?
Me: Nauseated.
TeleM: (more typing) Alright, and blah blah blah, yes or no?
Me: Half.
TeleM: Half? Pardon me?
Me: Half? Did I say half? Oh, that makes no sense. Sorry. Couch. My answer is couch.
TeleM: Uh.... um.... Ok, I think that wraps up our survey. Thank you for your time.
Me: You're very welcome.

I can't believe "Vishnu", "Nauseated" and an imaginary number were fine answers, but "Half" threw him for a loop. One of us was off our game.

Forgive me while I delve into some technical details of human physiology. I did major in bio electrical engineering.

The human body is divided into two major systems: the awakey bits and the sleepy-time bits. My awakey bits are fully functional. I eat and crap with reckless abandon. Also, I work and exercise and blog with adequate mediocrity. Everything appears to be fully functional.

My sleepy-time bits are broken though.

I'm not exactly sure what's wrong with those bits, but for the last month or two, I've just been sleeping like a baby, a colicky baby from hell.

Some nights there's an explanation for wakefulness. Maybe Daisy is coughing or perhaps Hank gets up to do whatever it is that Hank does at night (masonry?). Other nights there's no real reason why I suddenly find myself awake. Once I'm awake, I'm awake for several teeth gnashing hours.

Hank always asks me, "Why do you look at the clock when you wake up? Why don't you keep your eyes closed and happily drift back to sleep?"

That's a two-part answer. First, I HAVE to know what time it is. It's who I am. If I don't know what time it is, I'm lost in the space-time continuum. I'm nothing. Secondly, I can't "happily" do anything once I wake up. I'm PISSED! I'm mad about waking up again. Unless, it's just a dream that I've woken up, there's nothing to be happy about.

I can't figure out why I've been sleeping so poorly. The period of time kind of correlates to when we got our new mattress, but despite the torture inflicted upon the mattress during delivery, it still feels pretty comfy. I've tried to figure out if I sleep better if I don't have any alcohol, or if I eat less at night, but I can't pinpoint it.

I mentioned my sleeping woes to our friend Juliet the other day. We had this conversation:

Juliet: Why don't you just take a sleeping pill?
Me: I occasionally pop a benadryl, but not often.
Juliet: No, a REAL sleeping pill, a prescription one.
Me: I'm scared of them. I'm scared I'll get addicted to them.
Juliet: So?
Me: Well.... then I'd need to keep taking them.
Juliet: So?
Me: .....

She had a point. I could keep taking these damn things as long as they make them. I keep paying my health care deductible, I might as well start billing those bastards for something. Hell, I might start taking Ambien just for the hilarious stories to blog about.

Any ideas?

Hank and I went out for a fancy dinner this weekend to celebrate her birthday. I always feel a bit out of place in a fancy restaurant, so I try to hide my hot-sauce-and-beer tendencies with a coat and tie (pants too!). I'm not fooling anyone.

Naturally, I was the only guy in the joint wearing a tie. Actually, that's not entirely true. The entire wait staff wore ties. Also, a table filled with eighty year-old men were similarly festooned. So, it was the geriatrics, the employees, and me. My style is classic.

The menu was pretty tasty looking. Hank suggested that since we don't make it out for fancy dinners very often, one of us should order the prix fixe menu (five mini courses) and the other one should select some different assortment of items, so that we could maximize the number of dishes that we'd get to taste. That sounded dandy. Hank was interested in the prix fixe offering because it came with a wine pairing. Since all wines taste the same to me (kind of winey) I was fine with that.

(I'm not joking about all wines tasting the same. I mean, I'm pretty sure I could tell the difference between red wine and white wine if I were blindfolded, but that's about it. Years ago I confessed to Hank that I was pretty sure I was missing whatever gene enabled a person to distinguish good wine from swill. She assured me I was incorrect so we staged a wine tasting. I purchased three bottles of merlot: a $2.50 bottle from the grocery store, a decent $10 bottle from our local wine store, and a good $50 bottle.

We invited Liz and Larry over for the tasting, and poured out a glass of each wine. We labeled the bottom of the glasses and then mixed them up. Each one of us tried to guess which one was which.

Liz, Larry, and Hank nailed all three. I had no clue what I was drinking at any time. Well, to be honest, I got a bit of a clue about which one was the cheap one when Hank sniffed the glass, gagged, and then refused to drink it. I was unable to detect the swill-like taste that made her eyes water.

Anyway, the point here is that I am a bonafide wine moron. Makes me a cheap date though.)

I did enjoy hearing the waiter describe the wine pairings to Hank though. He'd come over, describe the wine with adjectives that seemed completely unrelated to consumable substances, and then close by saying something like, "And this wine has a high level of acidity, which is the obvious pairing for your scallop tart." He seemed almost apologetic at the lack of creativity in the wine selection. I gave him a stern look and clucked disapprovingly.

My food was tasty though. Basically, I had chicken, but they called it "hen" and they glazed it, and covered it in oatmeal flakes, and marked it with a B. It tasted like chicken.

The dessert was yummy too. They called it a "classic cocoa custard", but it didn't seem very classic. It was rich, and turd-shaped, and had little crispy cocoa bits in it. It was, however, the tastiest thing I've ever eaten that looked like poo.

None of this was as delicious as the piece of leftover Zachary's pizza that I had for lunch today though.

Busy....with....baseball......software...........Back....soon...........

I went to my first baseball game of the year today.

The Giants suck pretty hard this season, but April is always filled with optimism (and showers), so a baseball game is a great place to be. Hank and I played hooky this afternoon and had a lovely time watching the Giants win a rare game.

I'm much more of a baseball fan than Hank, but she puts up with me pretty well. I know just enough about baseball to talk constantly about it, but not enough to actually have any insight. We had conversations like this:

Scene: Early in the game a St. Louis Cardinals hitter made a crappy little hit that dribbled near the pitcher. The Giants pitcher, Noah Lowry, rushed over, picked up the ball, and made a horrible throw to the 1st baseman. The 1st baseman was unable to catch the ball, allowing the batter to run to 2nd base, when he should have been out at first.

Me: The amusing thing about that play is that it won't count against as a earned run against Lowry. Since there was an error on the play, it's not an earned run, and thus doesn't count against the pitcher EVEN THOUGH it was the pitcher's error. *snort*
Hank: *smiling* Hmmm.
Me: When I say "amusing", obviously I mean amusing to me.
Hank: I know.

In other news our contractor poured the concrete slab down for the room we're adding to our house. Of course when I say "our contractor poured", I really mean, "illegal Mexican immigrants poured". They did a top notch job though. It looks so smooth, I even refrained from marring it by scrawling "OGBLAY WAS HERE" or "M + H 4EVER" in the cement. It's hard to justify vandalizing your own over-priced construction project.

What font do I use to express how tired I am?

Lucida Grande? Because I'm grande tired? No. I'm not very lucid. I'm like venti lucid. Crap, is that more or less than grande?

Times? Because it's Time for bed? No, too early.

Webdings? Is this even readable?

Crap, now I don't remember what font I normally use. Stupid brain.

Anyway, I'm not tired for any interesting or funny reason. I just haven't been sleeping well. I keep waking up early and then.... well, then just being awake. It's really annoying.

I'll wake up at some point at night, lie there for a bit, and then reluctantly/hopefully look at the clock, praying that I've slept enough. I don't want to see a number starting with 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. Bad bad numbers. Go 6!

Actually, yesterday I got up early on purpose. I had to drive down into the official corporate office to give a presentation to some guys who had flown all the way from India to take my job. So, I had to explain to them how to do my job.

I got up extra early because I had done a crappy job of preparing for the presentation the previous days, so I needed some extra time that morning. Why I felt compelled to actually do a good job of teaching these guys how to take my job, I'll never know. But, given that software developers in India work for a LOT less money than I do, I doubt this will be the last time that one of my gigs goes overseas.

Mostly I yapped at them about all the things I had done wrong on this software project over the years. It was more of a multi-hour apology than anything else. There's no reason to spend lots of time going over the code that's well-written, so I focused on everything I had done poorly . I could tell they were impressed.

Actually, it's hard to tell when someone from India is impressed. They're usually doing that back-and-forth head-shaking motion when you're talking to them. This is the motion that denotes "no" in this country, but apparently denotes "yes, I understand" in India. It was kind of a my-head-shaking-says-no, but-my-tremendous-politeness-pretends-to-respect-your-code type of day.

Spending over 2 hours commuting to the office each of those days reminded me how much I value working at home. I can't fathom how much crappier my life would be if I had to spend 2 hours driving each day. I'd have to give up VALUABLE things like this blog. Unimaginable for us all.

Ok, I'm going to go stumble around my house in a sleep-deprived daze for a bit now. See ya.

We went over to my sister's house today to celebrate my niece's eighth birthday. A trip to her house is Daisy's favorite thing in the world, because it means she gets to spend time playing with her two cousins.

The three girls often disappear for long chunks of time. Occasionally we'll see one of them sprint across the house, desperately trying to complete some incomprehensible mission. Usually they're trying to be discreet and if they realize that they've been spotted, they'll launch into their one counter-defense: high-pitched squeals.

At one point the three girls converged upon me, yelled "Grab him!" and dragged me to their room. The leader of the group, a 10 year-old, got up into my face.

"Are you willing to join our army?" she demanded.

"Ooooh! Snacks!" I parried, noticing the bowl of crackers. "Can I have a snack?"

"Only if you join our army! Otherwise you'll be our prisoner and you'll get no snacks!" she barked, giving me the cutest little evil-eye you've ever seen.

"What would I have to do in your army?" I asked.

"You'll have to help us spy on the grown-ups."

"No deal. Grown-ups are way too boring to spy on."

"Then you're our prisoner! And you CAN'T escape!" she hollered, as if the force of her will could make something true.

"I outweigh you by about 100 pounds. I can pick up and move any of you three. I'm outta here."

I got all the way to the bedroom door before the three girls had successfully launched and attached themselves to various parts of my legs. I had one kid on my right foot, another wrapped around my left knee and a third perilously hanging off my belt. I moved down the hallway slowly, carefully lifting each girl-weighted leg and stepping so as not to squish any tender body parts. With each step the girls screamed and sought to fortify their positions. It was a comical and satisfying trip to the living room. Being an under-muscled man of average height, it's rare that I get to feel like a physically superior giant. I relish those moments.

Later, back at home, Hank asked Daisy why the girls wanted to spy on the grown-ups.

"To hear what you guys talk about when we're not around!" she explained.

"I'll tell you what we talk about," I began, "We discuss where we hide all the really good candy. And we play with all the great toys that we never let you see."

Daisy eyed me skeptically.

"Mostly though," I continued, "We have races running with scissors."

It's good being the dad.

This is it. As I type this post, the annual fundraising auction for Daisy's school is in its final hour. So, assuming the universe is a rational place, at some point in the near future, my wife should unplug from the Auction Machine. Resistance was futile.

I was supposed to be at the auction tonight, but Daisy was under the weather, so we were unable to ship her off to the sleepover that had been planned. Consequently, I've been hanging out with her today. That mostly consisted of scaring the bejesus out of her with tales of cryogenics, and then following it up with a maddening discussion about why manhole covers are round. I was unable to convince her that there was more to it than the fact that the manholes themselves are round.

Dames.

Diggity dang, things are getting busy around here.

Hank has been working around the clock on the fundraising auction for Daisy's school. The auction is this weekend, which means I get my wife back in a few days. She's been mumbling to herself at the laptop for days now. In fact, if I were to transcribe her last few sentences uttered in my presence they would be:

"Ok, ok, ok, CTRL-S....Catalog. Ok, let's do this... Go back.... *unintelligible mumble*"

That's not a hypothetical. Those are the words she said "to me" in the last 60 seconds. I think her pet name for me is "Catalog" and I think she wants to CTRL-S me. Mmmmmmm.

Meanwhile, I've been playing with my baseball predictatron 2000 program. One of my friends has grown weary of hearing me talk about my virtual riches, so he signed up with an online casino and has started making actual bets with real money using a modified version of my recommendations. After a couple dozen $5.00 bets, he has made a grand total of.... $4.00! He is a tad underwhelmed.

Of course I'm still bragging to Hank about my pretend bets. She constantly hears me saying things like, "You know, if instead of making imaginary $5.00 bets, I had been betting $3,000 per game, I would have earned $46,000 in the last 9 days!!"

To which she usually replies, "Font size is all wrong!"

And, finally, I had another PTA Board meeting tonight. Unfathomably, I signed up for another year of being Lord Secretary. I think I did it because I'm finally developing a level of competency at it. I sucked for so many months, it would be a shame to quit now. And tonight we finally reviewed the annual budget. I gotta say, if there's one thing that makes a PTA Board meeting more exciting, it's a line-by-line examination of the annual budget. We scrutinized that bastard like a team of proctologists at a J. Lo concert. (And THAT's why I don't do more similes).

So, that's what I've been up to. You?

I don't make friends easily. I suppose it could be because I'm sort of an ass, but I prefer the theory that it's just kind of hard for grownups to make friends. If you were to draw a graph of friend-making ability vs. age, it would it would peak at around age six, and then slowly drop off as age increased. Also, the desire to graph friend-making ability vs age pretty much puts an end to anyone wanting to be your friend.

Group situations are easier though. Hank and I occasionally reach out to other couples and that sometimes works out. We've met a few other nice couples through Daisy's school and that's led to a couple of social outings. We didn't become best friends forever, but as long as there are a few laughs or some interesting conversation, that's all I can really ask. Well, an orgy for once in my life would be nice too, but that may take more planning or booze than I'm willing to take on.

So, a couple weeks ago I'm at one of Daisy's extracurricular activities and I'm chatting with another dad, who is half of a couple that we've socialized with. We had some idle chit chat and then this:

Ray: So, have you seen that new movie, 300?
Me: Nah. Looks pretty cool though.
Ray: Are you interested in seeing it?
Me: Sure. I think we could go for that. You thinking that we could all share a babysitter some night?
Ray: Well, that, or we don't even have to get a babysitter.... We could uh....
Me: .... Leave the wives at home?
Ray: Yeah.
Me: 300 probably isn't Hank's cup of tea.
Ray: Or Ella's either.

So, there it was. We planned an outing for just the two of us. It was sort of a man date, a man date where we'd see a movie about the homo-erotic Greek empire, which is, I suppose, the sort of man date that goes well in San Francisco.

Tonight was our big date. We left the wives and children home, shared some popcorn, and watched muscled glistening hairless men slaughter each other on an Imax screen. It was my own tiny blip on the friend-making graph. Sure, he had to put up with my incessant blabbering about my baseball software, but that's part of what makes me so endearing.

What's up for next time? I suppose we could go shopping or maybe sit on our beds and talk about cute boys. Best friends forever!

Reminders are handy. Some people tie strings around their fingers, other folks use post-it notes. I'm going to use this blog.

Dear Mike,

Don't be a dick.

Hugs,
Mike

Hank has been working like crazy for the last month or two on the annual fundraising auction for Daisy's school. My reaction to this has been annoyance.

I mean, I know that doing volunteer work for our public school system is a good deed. Without people like Hank assisting both in the classroom and behind the scenes for the auction, Daisy's school would be much poorer curriculum-wise and financially. That much I understand. However, let's look at the flip side of this coin: me.

With Hank spending so much of her time being an asset to society, it left her a lot less time to do things like watch TV with me, or make me dinner. I responded to this situation by doing extra household chores (because I'm not a 100% ass), but my resentment was pretty obvious. I bitched and moaned a bit the first few weeks, but after a while I just suffered in silence. There was a lot of silence.

On Saturday night Daisy had a sleepover, so Hank and I were at home alone. We had briefly discussed the idea of having a date night, but we left that unplanned since we both knew that the auction work tended to fill any time vacuum that Hank had. Amazingly, after an hour or two, Hank announced that she was done working for the evening and was available for a date.

Even though I was now presented with the very thing whose absence had made me cranky over the last few weeks, I was still annoyed, filled with lingering resentment. So, we went on our date (to see The Queen) but I was cranky, civil but cranky. Over the previous few weeks I had perfected an attitude of plausible anger deniability. I didn't want anything to be MY fault, so I had been civil and occasionally helpful, but mostly stoic. I offered my logistical assistance for household issues, but not my emotional support. It was my own little protest.

So, I sat there in the movie, and contemplated my behavior that evening and the preceding weeks. I had been fighting a battle against Hank's volunteerism that I was unwilling to lose. Losing sucks. I was NOT interested in supporting her efforts.

I fast-forwarded in my brain to the end of the evening, when I'd be laying in bed and reflecting upon the day. Would I be happy that I continued my emotional protest? Would I be proud of myself?

I shook off the temporary weakness and repeated my mantra, "Losing sucks." It held for another 30 seconds or so.

I considered whether there was any possible reason why I shouldn't tell Hank that although I still resented all the time she spent on the auction, I was sorry for ruining our date, being distant for the last couple weeks, and generally being dickish. I determined there was no possible reason. I could just TELL her how I felt. It was the obvious course of action. I had been a dick. Again.

When the movie ended, I pulled her aside and made my little speech. It went pretty well.

And that's the story of how Mike didn't ruin his marriage yet. We'll see how I do during next year's auction.

And I heard the movie was pretty good. I missed a lot of it.

Ladies and gentlemen, this week marked the beginning of the 2007 baseball season.

This is exciting to me for three reasons:

1) I get to watch and listen to my beloved Giants play. It's highly likely that they'll suck this year, but in April, even the lowliest team has promise and hope. I keep little bottles of The Cream and The Clear near my TV for good luck. Go Giants!

2) Last week, for the first time, I got into an argument at the grocery store with a sports fan about the merits of the Giants newest pitcher, Barry Zito. Having been a sports idiot for the majority of my life, it was immensely satisfying to trot out the 99% useless knowledge that has accumulated in my brain the last few years and use it to smack down my local butcher. We both look forward to future confrontation.

3) My baseball program! Although I ignored my baseball Predictatron over the off-season, I revived it just in time for this season. I made some good tweaks to it, and over the first three days of the baseball season, it has performed remarkably well. Although I realize that three days of data is insignificant, I am remotivated to try and find a legal way to make money off this thing. Go me!

Daisy is on Spring Break this week, and given that she's still only 7, that means play-dates and amusement parks rather than beer bongs and chlamydia. So, we took our 4th annual trip to Marine World, our nearest amusement park.

I've written about Marine World many many many times, but it's either this or another video of me staring at the rubble that was my lawn.

Actually, it's not even called Marine World any more. Now it's Discovery Kingdom. Of course they didn't change anything except the name and logo. You can almost visualize the Six Flags executives sitting around a gold-plated boardroom table, eating freshly peeled harp seal sushi, and ruminating on the lack of financial success of Marine World.

"Higgins, give me your best idea for turning around Marine World!"

"Um, making the rides less crappy?"

"No! You're fired! Bosworth, your turn."

"Moving it to a location that isn't in the middle of nowhere?"

"Moronic! Off to the gallows! Tewksbury?"

"Changing the word 'World' to 'Kingdom' ?"

"Genius! Higgins, give Tewksbury a Rusty Trombone!"

I can't even imagine what kind of bonus the "Discovery" prodigy got.

Not much else changed. The employee population still seems to be comprised of slow-moving teenagers and adults who weren't visionary or motivated enough to pursue their true calling in the field of sloth. These employees, who man the front line in Six Flags' war on fun, spend the lion's share of their business hours doing one of three things:

• Monotonously repeating the legal height requirements for their assigned ride. This is the Six Flags version of the MPAA announcement you see at the beginning of each DVD. I pantomimed the pressing-the-fast-foward button each time I heard that speech today, but it was just as effective at Discovery Kingdom as it is against my DVD player.

• Moving tragically slowly. These workers moved around like they don't realize that there was an entire line full of eager children whose spirit had not yet been broken. They moved at a glacial pace, as though the rides actually involved watching glaciers melt. Actually, that wouldn't work at all, because the employees would only move fast enough to run that ride once per day.

• Stopping the rides at incorrect times. We didn't go on a ton of rides today, but on three separate occasions we saw employees press the Stop button on a ride when the cart/boat/coaster was mere feet away from it's start/end point. Each time the riders would be forced to remain quietly in their seats while the Master Ride Fixer would be summoned from his under-the-bridge location in some remote corner of the amusement park. Each time, this ride-wrangling genius, the very same guy every time, would evaluate the situation, and then hit the Go button. Masterful!

I only tried to engage the employees in conversation once. When Daisy lined up for one of her kiddie rides, I casually asked the pimply employee (not to denigrate my fellow members of Zitoslavia), "How many kids have died on this ride?"

"Died? None. Well, I mean, none since I started my shift."

Good enough.

Actually, today we didn't spend 90% of our time in the toddler section. For the first time ever, we brought another kid along on our annual trip, one of Daisy's friends, Baboo, who was a big fan of adult-sized roller coasters. Baboo is the tallest 7 year-old I know and met the height requirement for every ride we saw in the park. So, we split time between Daisy rides and Baboo rides.

Daisy still loves the very timid rides. She'd be delighted to go on a ride where all you did was close your eyes and pretend that you were hugging a rainbow. She'd squeal with delight.

Baboo, on the other hand, either wants to be flung upside down, or doused with water. If there was a ride where you just stood in front of a fire hose and it propelled you ass over tea kettle, that would be her little slice of heaven. Even when we went to animal shows, she wanted to sit in the front row so that we'd get splashed by jumping dolphins or whales.

The kids compromised pretty well though. Baboo put up with the kiddie rides and Daisy expanded her horizons a bit by going on some rides that were actually appropriate for seven year olds.

All in all, a successful day. Meanwhile, the beer bong continues to collect dust. And I'll assume that my crotch itchiness is unrelated to a chlamydia outbreak.

I'm bummed to report that my Achilles injury seems to be much better.

That means that I can run again, which means that my glorious running vacation has come to a unpleasantly abrupt end.

I ran 3.5 miles on Thursday that were pain-free. So, this weekend I joined up with my running club and ran about 8 miles. Unfortunately, the problem with running vacations is that in addition to making me resent running, they also sap my ability to run, diminishing my sole athletic competency with every passing day. Consequently, the 8 mile run was pretty sucky, i.e. I was sucking wind the whole time.

And how's the beloved remodel project going? Eh, see for yourself.