Monday Mumblings

I went to see my father Friday at the hospital in Buffalo. It's a long story about how he got there, and I won't bore you with it. Let it suffice to say that even though he was born in 1935, he's 100 years old now. Two months in prison have aged him that much. He has tremendous pain in his foot (where he has no circulation) and his foot feels like an ice cube. They were supposed to do an angioplasty on him, but haven't yet for some reason. They did a doppler and a stress test and he'll know something hopefully today. My father won't survive his incarceration -- I'm sure of that now.

His half-brother, Jerry, is still missing, too. He's been MIA for 3 weeks now and, even though the state police have conducted massive searches in the woods surrounding Jerry's house and found nothing, we all still believe that eventually he'll turn up dead in those very woods.

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Linda, my younger daughter (middle child) called this morning to let me know that she's at the hospital, dilated to 3 cm and almost completely effaced (sp?). Looks like we'll have us a baby today. They're planning to name him Ethan Michael. Ethan is the second son born to Linda and Brandon -- his older brother Brandon Jr. was born in February of 2003 and is excited about having a baby brother so he can "...teach him to pee standing up!"

I guess I'd better get the ends woven in on that blanket and get it sent off tomorrow!

I'm tickled to death that she called -- our relationship tends to be turbulent, at best. But I think in the end, she wants her Mom. I think we all tend to. Let's keep our fingers crossed that he's healthy and there's no complications in the delivery process.

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Things are really falling into place with our new business. We got our federal EIN on Friday and expect notification within the next day or two for our state sales tax ID. After that, we need to get a merchant account with a local bank (so we can accept credit cards) and we'll be open for business. We already have a job lined up which will be an excellent start to Lisa's handiwork portion of the business. Our online store is almost ready to open -- just need to finish "loading in" the products and get that merchant account. We're very excited about this and I truly believe that, because our products will, for the most part, be unique and out-of-the-ordinary, we should have some success with this online store.

Of course, we still have to apply for our "conditional use" permit for the town (so that we can use a room in the house as a home office), and that will go before the zoning board in mid-September.
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It's that time of year again, and I've started my Christmas shopping. I got some really cute little read-along books for little Brandon, who will be 4 in February. They contain CD/DVD material so that it can be played on a DVD player, CD player or a PC and he can read along with the stories. They're actually useful stories for small children -- they teach them about themselves and emotions and consequences.

Vanessa, who will be TWELVE in February will be difficult to figure out. Last year I gave her a $50 bill that was trapped inside a puzzle cube. Everyone (including her 6 year old sister) could solve the puzzle, but Vanessa didn't want to put the effort into solving it. But, after everyone told her that they wanted some of the money if they solved it and gave it to her, she decided she was on her own and spent almost two months trying to get that $50 out of that puzzle. That was the most she'd played with anything I've bought her to date. Anyway, I hate to always give kids money but she's a "tween" now and just really hard to figure out as far as what she likes and doesn't like.

Annie, who will be eight in March, is a bit easier. She's still a little girl, still loves "yadybugs" and still loves her unicorns and fairies. I'm looking for stuff for her room along these lines. I've already gotten her some stuff from Old Navy.

Cher, who will be six in March, isn't too hard to get stuff for, either. She loves frogs -- anything frogs, like her mother.

Michelle, my oldest daughter, is pretty easy, too. I got her a sweatshirt (like Lisa's apron) that says "Step away from my tools," and a nice warm up jacket from the college I work at. I'm also going to get her the mini-saw attachment for her Dremel tool, along with some other smaller things.

I ordered the new version of Madden NFL Football for Joe, an annual tradition. I also got the complete series of Into the West for Lisa, along with an order for season 3 of The L Word. I got her a router table for her birthday (which is September 2) and will begin to look for things that I think would be useful for her as she does her handiwork for the company. Having wholesale purchase authority, I'm pretty sure I can get her some good stuff through the company, and write it off as business operating expenses. Best of all worlds.
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Only 18 more days until the NFL season starts. And it will open with a special edition of Monday Night Football on Thursday, September 7th -- featuring the Indianapolis Colts against the New York Giants. Peyton Manning against his brother, Eli. This should be a good game.

I decided that I'm no longer going to be a team fan, but instead will be a player fan. And I just love Peyton, have since he first entered the NFL. There's a lot of characteristics reminiscent of John Elway in that guy and I think that's why I like him. It's hard to NOT want to see him succeed, and hopefully this will be his year.

Of course, I'll remain somewhat of a Broncos fan, but it really hasn't been the same since John Elway retired. Along with his retirement, the loss of Ed McCaffrey, Trevor Pryce, Shannon Sharpe and now the offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak, the team just doesn't have the same spark. Their 10,000 points of light have dwindled to half that number, if you ask me.
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A news article about our case against my employer came out Friday -- nothing like being behind the times. The ruling came out about 3 or 4 weeks ago now. Slow news is good news?