Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

I am by no means a game dork, I cannot recite the lines from any of the Star Wars films(ok I know a few) I can't tell you what the maximum warp speed of a Constitution Class Starship is, but I do enjoy Star Trek. I love Godzilla movies, I have all 29, I love Japaneses Sci-fi and oddities. I have more than a few bootleg DVDs i.e. things that WILL NEVER be released legitimately on DVD, The first Fantastic Four movie from the mid 90's, a movie SOOO bad, Stan Lee bought it from Rodger Corman so it would never be seen. Same thing with the Captain America movie, Legends of Superheroes from the 70's. Adam West and Burt Ward trying to reprise their Batman and Robin roles from the 60's... Bad, bad show, lasted 2 episodes.... Anywhoooo, not a game dork, but when this game was coming out, I really wanted to play it. I have the other Call of Duty games and the online play is phenomenal!!!! Darlene was off for the next few days and seeing as I had to work, she was willing to go to the store and pick the game up for me at midnight so I could jump right in when I got home and start playing.
Great game, I suck at it though, I can't take 2 steps without getting killed. Like the others, I will catch on and get better at this game. These guys have no life, for example, if my wife comes over to me while I am playing and wants to make love..... game's done... back in 15... don't want to leave the X Box 360 on too long. I will be playing and earning rank.

A Day out and About....

Well... the one day off I will have for the next 12 days was very well spent. I can home caught 4 hours of sleep and got up to spend some time with the family. We got to the zoo around 2 pm, the weather was chilly and a bit wet. We had the whole place to ourselves!!! No lines or rush to view the animals, we took our time and enjoyed the sites. The only problem I had was getting in, I remember back in the "Day" you paid your admission and you went in. NOW.. they want your zip code and city. Apparently if you live out Pierce County, you pay more, then they give you this computer ticket that has to be scanned at a turnstile to get in. What happened to the days when you could just buy a ticket and go in??? Andrew went NUTS!!!! He is at a great age for this, it was nice to just let him sit in front of the exhibits and just look the animals in the eyes. These were magical moments.
At first, Andrew was really intimidated by the elephants, these are massive creatures.

A Sand tiger shark... The sharks are my favorite exhibits, these creatures are both fearsome and beautiful.
Andrew wishing he was a spider.....
MEERKATS!!!!

My wife, Darlene was a big fan of Meerkat Manor, a show that lasted 2 seasons on Animal Planet. We spent about 40 minutes watching these little cuties.....

Just missed the Gibbon swinging by. The Gibbon would hang on the ropes in front of the window interacting with us.
After the zoo, we took a ride on the light rail running thru downtown Tacoma. We promised Andrew a train ride after the zoo, he was very excited and really enjoyed the ride.

For dinner we ended going to a little Mexican restaurant in Spanaway called Hidalgos, as the Asia BBQ stand at the Freight house Square was closed. Very tasty food at reasonable prices.

Sometimes Things Can Be Too Much....

I want to do this more often, but I hate typing and sometimes not knowing the words to express how I feel makes me feel stupid. The only reason I am posting now is because my friend Tim mentioned that I haven't posted in a while.
Where to start...Things have not been going great at work, just about everyone has a short fuse. A is pissed off at B for not doing their job, B is pissed off at C and C is pissed off at everyone. This is one of the benefits of working alone, if something doesn't get done, I have no one to blame but myself.
I really don't like working alone anymore, my wife and I work opposite shifts, I am alone when I go to work, I am alone when I come home... no one to greet me when I come home. My wife commented that is feels like we are roommates. She's right, we only have a couple hours in the evenings, half a day on Saturday and we have Sunday for a family day if we want to do something. I am working 6 days this week, have Sunday off then I have to work 12 days straight. The guy that normally works my nights off is going out of town and we are short handed as is it, we just don't have enough people to fill all the shifts without overtime.
To add to the frustration, the customers seem to be becoming bigger jerks than ever. I work in Tillicum, not the best area, there are a lot of low life's here, you have to have eyes in the back of your head. One of my fears is that some were to happen to me, and one of these low life's find me first, they are more likely to go thru my pockets, empty the register, grab whatever beer they can carry before or even IF they call for help. I am disliking these people more and more each day. At the first of the month, their welfare kicks in, at 12:01am on the first, they are hitting the ATM. They get upset with me because their money isn't in. When it does finally hit, they are like hyenas and the ATM is a carcass. They gather around, each one withdrawing as much as they can as many times as they can before the ATM runs out of money. In my opinion, if you are on welfare, food stamps,or both, you should have to provide DSHS receipts for what you are spending the tax payers money on. I am sick of my tax dollars paying for their beer, cigarettes, gambling habits and drug use!!!
Enough about work, things are O.K at home, just wishing I could spend more time with Darlene and Andrew. Andrew is growing like a weed, and learning fast.... too fast. I like to play Call of Duty on line on my X Box 360, you can play with anyone around the world and I have gotten to talk to folks as far away as Australia. I have to really watch what I say when I am playing as Andrew will repeat EVERYTHING. It's at the point now where I will be playing, I'm not cursing, but when my character get shot, he'll yell "Dammit" or "SON OF A BITCH". Needless to say I am trying to be very careful when I play and he is around.
My 18 year old daughter is being a complete and total bitch, I had to shut off her cell phone for good on November 1st, I got the bill on October 28th and it was for over $400.00. I called Verizon to see what happened and they said that on of the phones have over 136.00 in download fees for songs and ring tones. Holy Cow!!! I called her and asked what was up and why, she said she was bored. I told her to have the money to me by the 1st of November or the phone will be shut off and stay shut off, her response was "It can just be an early Christmas present" No money by the 1st and she was ignoring my calls and text so the phone is gone. I later got an e-mail saying the I never want to talk or see you again. At this point, although I am hurt, this is her choice, not mine and this is one less leach I have to deal with. I am getting a strong feeling that my oldest son is going the same way as he has made no effort to come over for almost 2 months. I have tried to set up a visit, he is busy every weekend, they do however have time to see their grandma each week..... go figure. The way I see it, I have a few more months of child support left to pay then I'm done. If they can't make time for their dad, then the bank will be closed!!! My ex has given Margaret the money that's has been saved over the last 18 years for school and she has spent it on everything BUT school. She has complained that I haven't given her any money for school, not true, when they were visiting, they were paid to to chores on the farm. She did not put one cent away for school.
Done with that, I would like to spend a bit more time on the magic thing, I was off for a week due to a strained abdominal muscle and took that time to learn a couple new effects, Daryl's Acrobatic Knot, 3 Fly 3 and the Rubic's Cube. The cube was pissing me off, if you make a wrong move, you have to completely take that damn thing apart, put it together and start over. I took that thing apart 10 times before I got it down, I even made a few new curse word in the process. Working on the effects now, hoping to smooth them out.
I talked to my good friend Tim, he is making a nice oak table stand and a new table, looking forward to seeing it. Today...well I hope to get home and catch about 4 hours of sleep, I would like to take the family to the Zoo as we haven't been there in a while. Andrew is 3, this will me a magical experience for him. Then we plan to park the car at the park and ride at Freight house Square and take to train around Tacoma. And last but not least, there is an Asian BBQ place in the Square that serves a great Bulgogi beef..... DINNER TIME!!!! The family really needs a day together as the next 2 weeks are gonna be really rough.

Turning 40 And Now????

Well folks,or given the comments I get off this blog, folk, I hit the big 40. Yes I am 40. I really don't know where to go, I have two grown kids and a toddler. I have a wife I love and loves me, but is a bit peeved at me because I will use the credit card from time to time. I shouldn't buy frivolous stuff given the way things are. My latest, and will have to be my last purchase for a loooong time, an M16 airsoft rifle. Why? when I have all this paintball gear. Paintball is expencive to play. I used to go 2-3 times a month, went down to once a month, down to a couple times a year, down to once a year. It costs me about $80.00 to play, now a day of airsoft costs about $10.00. So I can go more often and work on my paintball skills without spending a lot of money.

Blog, Blog, Blog, Blog......

Yeah,.... I know it's been a bit since I have blogged, been a bit busy. Last weekend, I took the family to the Pierce County Fair. It's a small fair held in Graham and the main reason I went was to see my good friend Jeff Evans perform, which was the best part of the fair. Jeff puts on a really good show and he was promoting his new magic DVD. On Tuesday the 11th I went to Issaquah to help Jeff with his DVD release party. I had a good time helping out and teaching the young ones magic tricks. And It was a 4 day weekend for me, which made for a short work week. On Sunday despite the cool temperatures in the morning, I took the family and a couple friends to Wild Waves. We had the whole park to ourselves!!!! We didn't have to wait in line for anything!!! Even when the temperature warmed up a bit, it still wasn't crowded, we were there from open to close. I am a bit sore from running up the stairs to the water slides so many times without a break. After that we all headed to the Olive Garden for dinner, it was nice to spend the day with some good friends. What a great day!!!! We have really gotten our money's worth out of the season tickets. We will try to go at least once more before the Summers over.

4th of July weekend

Aahhhh, the 4th of July weekend is upon us. I'm on vacation and my wife has a 4 day weekend. On Thursday, I had to run to Tacoma to pick up my wife's nephews, Ben and Micheal. Their mother is out of town with some guy she met online and grandma didn't have the time to take them anywhere for the 4th. So we took them in, we have plenty of room. Friday we pack up and all go to Wild Waves, What a mistake that was!!!! The place was packed solid. There were some water rides that had lines an hour long just to get a tube to wait in another line to get in the water. We mostly stuck to the wave pool, still packed!! Things didn't start out very well on Saturday, I go outside to tend to the farm animals and noticed that my mail box is open....AGAIN!!! This has been going on for about a week, so we had to get a P.O. box, but still I was sick of this/these jerks!!!! I got my air tank, went to the paintball field and got it charged. Seeing that I still had 1000 paint balls, I would have some fun after the fireworks!!!!! We then headed out to Fort Lewis for their Freedom Fest, I go mainly to see my good friend Kevin Wolfe. Ive been going for the last 10 years or so and it's the same show every year,but I never tire of it. Kevin has even taught me how to make my own cardiographic effect. Why pay 175.00 for a magic effect when you can made one for less than 10.00. Mine doesn't look as good as Kevin's or Martin Lewis', but it looks O.K.

After the magic show I hung around and chatted with Kevin a bit while Darlene to the kids around and played. We then went home, I fired up the grill while Darlene took care of the animals for the evening. The plan was to grill up some ribs and have a picnic in Orting before the fireworks. Real pleasant evening and a good fireworks show, the kids had a blast!!! The show was put on by the Orting Lions, so it's not a very big show, but hey, it's close to home. We get home and get the kids to bed and everything settled down for the night. I put on my cammies, tactical vest, load my paintball rifle, grab my radio to keep in contact with my wife, grab my taser(should anything go wrong) and hide in the bushes across the street from my mailbox. Once my eyes adjusted to the night, I could see everything just fine. I didn't have to wait long before I heard movement in the bushes then saw a flashlight. I tell Darlene to call the police as I see someone come out of the bushes, cross the ditch and open my mailbox. I took my paintball rifle off "safe" and lit his ass up!!! I know I hit him because I heard the "splats"....... and the screams. The police were at my house within 5 minutes, I gave them a description....white male, white T-shirt.....covered with green paint. It took a bit to get this on paper as the deputy was laughing so hard. They didn't find him, but, we haven't found our mailbox open anymore!!!

My daughter finally got the bug outta her ass and is talking to me and coming over for visits again. She wants to earn some cash, So I pay her to help out around the farm. Her brother comes over to help out and visit me. It's good that she is some what back to normal.

"Vacation... Is All I Ever Wanted"

Well, right now, I'm in the middle of a weeks vacation. I have been at my job long enough to have earned 3 weeks paid time off, the hard part is getting the vacation request approved. You see, there is only one other person trained to work graveyard, so if one of us needs time off, the other will have to work a couple weeks straight without time off. At this point the most I can get off at one time is a week. I work Monday thru Friday, 11pm to 7am, so if I want do want something on a Saturday, I need Friday night off. It does get a little frustrating as one of my vacation requests was denied because there was no one to cover the shift, this was the night of my daughters graduation, I still went, I just couldn't hang out afterwards. I count my blessings though, I did get Fourth of July week off.
The week started great, a very dear lady friend from high school found me on Facebook. We were very close in school, we hung out at lunch, I walked her home from school, we just never crossed that boyfriend-girlfriend line. I left to serve in the Army and we exchanged letters for a while. I did tell her I had a crush on her and I lost touch with her when I deployed to Egypt for 6 months. Over the last few years,when I got access to computers, I have been trying to find her and she has been searching for me. Lifetime network had this long lost friend show that she sent a request to, no luck. We are now exchanging emails keeping each other updated and we talked for a couple hours on Sunday. She was rather surprised that I stayed in Washington, she in living in Elgin, TX. and is engaged to be remarried. It was great to reconnect with her.
We started off balls to the walls on Saturday, I got off work, saw it was a nice day and took the family to Wild Waves. I bought season passes in February for 49.99, this is half price and will pay for itself in two visits!!! I was up all night and day for this, it was worth it. I tell you, we couldn't get Andrew in the water, but once he was in, we couldn't get him out. The only water rides he could do were the wave pool, Hook's Lagoon and the Python water slide. He didn't care too much for the water slide, but he's not quite 3 yet, we'll take it slow as we don't want him to be scared of these rides.
Sunday was nice too, The Tacoma Magic Club had its monthly meeting, I really enjoy going to these meetings, even if I don't perform. This month, we had a guy out of Portland selling some stuff, wasn't too impress with what he was offering. He was selling a levitating card, I have the material for that, enough to last a lifetime. He was also selling a effect kinda similar to Rocco's Delight. Then my good friend and magic mentor, Rick Anderson gave some insight on performing Sponge Balls from Mouth. A fun and gross routine!!!
The weather was nice on Monday so we decided that just Darlene and I would go to Wild Waves and Andrew would go to daycare. The bad part of Monday was it was 9.00 admission to Wild Waves.... Son of a Bitch!!!!!!! That place was packed, we spent 20 min in line in the turn lane just to get into the parking lot!!! There is a long line of cars waiting to get in and some BITCH! drives past us all and almost hits a car in line to cut in!!!! Really!!!! Are people that F&^%% Shallow,that they can't wait a few minutes to get in!!!!! The line to get in was LOOOONNNGGGG. We had season passes so we at least got to bypass the line.The lines weren't too bad at first,but we had too leave around 3ish when the place really got crowded. Lines were too long and the wave pool was packed. There don't seem to be any special events planed for Friday, so we will try again.
Andrew is home with me all week, I have time off, I'm not gonna ship him off to daycare. I hardly see him when I'm working. I will really be working on his potty training. We have a little incentive for him. If he goes #1 in his potty chair, he gets 1 jelly bean. If he goes #2 he gets 2 jelly beans, if he does both, he gets 3. If he tells us he has to go and goes he gets a bonus jelly bean. Now, he's getting too smart, he tells me he has to pee, goes to the potty, uses it, gets a jelly bean and a bonus one. Then after we are done and get back in the living room, he will tell me he has to poop. we go to the potty chair, he uses it, gets his 2 jelly beans, then he says" I want bonus jelly bean" LOL!!!
Later today, I am taking Andrew to a park in Orting and get him worn out. This weekend is the Fourth of July, we will go to Fort Lewis for a couple hours, watch my good friend Kevin Wolfe's magic show. We will come home take care of the farm animals, cook up some ribs and picnic fixin's then head to Orting for their fireworks display. It's small compared to others, but it's not very crowded and doesn't take too long to get out and it's close to home