Oh, Wow!

Becky and I are watching TV and this commercial came on. I've been laughing non-stop for the past 10 minutes and thought I should share it. Maybe it will get you rolling too, especially if you're familiar with racing games. "Lame" LOL!

LOL

Tagging over 1,600 pictures of clip art can drive you a little crazy and tired so Becky got me some Energy Juice to keep me going. Although is does have certain side effects...

There's really no point to this post. Except to post that video that we can't stop laughing at.

Mud Adventure

Another day at home studying and looking for work. I'm having another interesting time finding strange job postings. Reminds me of long ago when I was looking for work and went to a make-believe graphic design interview that turned into a pyramid meeting. It wasn't a one on one meeting. At least 30 people showed up. The best part of the 3 1/2 hour meeting were the last 20 minutes. The lady who was leading the meeting told us a story that went like this: I was in WAL-MART one day and saw three little mexican children counting their change to buy Doritos and I thought -What is this world coming to?- so I threw them a $20 bill and said, "Go get some Doritos." Then she cried. She went on to tell us how she got several people to sign on to her website chain and so she used the money from that to buy her neighbor groceries. Then she got out a guitar and sang us a song about how we needed to sell lots of web space so we could use the money to save children. Our efforts would make the world a better place. It was unbelievably ridiculous.
I came across the same kind of stupid want ad in my job search recently.

I found this graphic design listing online...
This is for a graphic design position. I know because I scrolled back to the top to make sure. I must say this is the first time I've ever heard of a graphic artist needing to be able to stand and walk for an entire shift, move easily around the entire property, have the ability to push, pull, reach, bend, twist stoop, stack, crouch, kneel and balance when performing job duties. Usually I sit in a chair when I'm working with Photoshop. Maybe I should try doing some squats and pushups while working, I do have a laptop. I could even try the whole balancing thing while I hold my laptop with one hand and work with the other. While I'm doing that I also need to be able to focus, listen and respond to visual and aural cues, all while tolerating second hand smoke, varying noise levels, rising and decreasing temperatures, bright lights, vibrations, crowds and poor air quality, which I think is mostly brought on from the second hand smoke that I'll have to tolerate. WHEW!

I didn't bother applying, mostly because I hate second hand smoke...

and I don't do well in areas with high temperatures. Otherwise I totally meet the required qualifications.

I also found this. What's funny about this is that it's not even a job posting, but instead it's mocking someone else's posting for a graphic designer.

On Saturday Thomas invited us to join him, Sonha and Josh to go see How to Train Your Dragon. I took Emily and Parker and they really liked it.

When searching the Megaplex website for showtimes I see very simple things that are very annoying, especially when I was told that I don't have the ability and lack creativity when it comes to my work, but this kind of crap just beams ability and creativity. I can only imagine how much ability and creativity it takes to find the IRON MAN 2 standee online, download it and post it on your website.
In these moments I ask myself if it's really that hard to just make something from scratch. It's not. Go ahead, search for some IRON MAN images, but then take 5 minutes and turn it into something that looks like you actually did some work. Anybody can download a picture off the internet.
I can see now that it's more about quantity than quality.

After the kids got home from school today I asked them if they would help me with my toy picture for today. I told them that we would be driving to the place where we've gone offroading before and they were very excited.

When we got to the spot the kids immediately asked me to go race through the patches of water. I told them we would go through one because I had to get a picture before sundown. Well... I drove into a pretty big puddle that looked shallow, except it wasn't. The front right tire of my Jeep sunk right into the mud and it went up to the headlight. As I tried to drive through it the whole right side of my Jeep sank till we were sitting at an angle. Parker started freaking out like we were sinking in quick sand and we weren't going to get out. I put it in reverse and the rear wheels pulled us out. Suddenly fear turned into excitement. "That was cool, Dad!" "Woohoo," they cheered! The kids thought it was the coolest thing ever.

When the kids got out to look at the Jeep they couldn't believe how deep in the mud we actually were.

After our little mud adventure I had the kids help me with my picture idea.

I shot several pictures and I'm happy with how they turned out.

A big thank you goes to Emily and Parker for their help. Then we had to pack up because it got windy and we got caught in a sandstorm.

Parker was even excited to clean the Jeep when we got home.

We had a really great time.

Girl gets punched. Police arrive. Bully pees a little.

I've been wanting to update this for a while. We've had soccer games, my car got fixed and cleaned, I've been playing a lot with the kids, I went to a business expo and today Thomas and I saw IRON MAN 2.

The movie was awesome! Great action flick and great humor. After the movie we had lunch at Burger King.

Meanwhile Emily was having a birthday party with her friends. The girl in front with the glasses got punched by a dimwit neighbor kid, so Becky called the police. If it were me I would've just put on my steel toe boots... But Becky called the police and an officer showed up immediately. The officer questioned the boy and drove him home. The officer told the kid that if he hit any more girls he was going to jail. The kid cried and Becky thinks he even peed a little.

Monday with Linkin

It's been four weeks since I got fired and this morning I sent off the sixth resume. I got the kids ready for school and then Linkin and I went to give Thomas and Josh a ride. Thomas has to drop him off at Grandma's before he leaves to work, so I offered to help since I have the day off.

Yesterday Thomas came over for shrimp and to get a few hundred pictures I've taken of him, Sony and Josh in the past couple years. Sony didn't get to come because she was with her Mom and Josh had to go to a birthday party, which I guess was totally boring because he soon called asking if he could come to my house. Josh's Mom drove by and pushed him out before we got to see her. I think she was running late on her way to the Snake Mountain Sunday night house party. Anyway, we had a lot of fun.

So this morning I got Thomas to the bus and then Linkin and I went home to play.

For lunch I had a spaghetti omelette and some green Hawaiian Punch. It's delicious Sonha! :)

Linkin had Cheerios...


and then he tried a funyun. He actually liked it.

My AT-AT is #1

My AT-AT photo, that I took back on January 3, 2009, isn't just famous on flickr and TotalFilm.com. Now it also won 1st place on Worth1000!

play time

Spent the day with my kids today. I should be thanking Burke... uh, Saruman... Cypher... Scar... I've been seeing the good that came from his betrayal. Yes, my boss holds a special spot amongst famous movie backstabbers. Enough of him though.

I've actually been enjoying my time with my kids while trying to find new work.

Yesterday and today we've been racing cars, playing with Bakugans and watching cartoons.

Linkin loves watching the cars race.


Linkin had one of those power house messy diapers, so I had to change him into something else.

Then he wanted some Daddy time to play his little game of sticking his slobbery fingers in my mouth.

We played Bejeweled for a bit. He loves watching Becky & I whenever we play.
Then I went on flickr and found out that one of my ATAT photos had been posted on Total Film.com as part of the 50 Coolest Star Wars Flickr Pics. That's cool.

Here's the link to my photo.


After playing for hours Linkin fell asleep and I went outside to enjoy the cold air. Emily came and took my picture. We'll see what happens next.

I was set up

by my boss, who for the last year and a half would ask me how my family was doing and how my world is. My world is a world of rage right now. I worked at Megaplex Theatres for 8 years and this is how it ends. I'm given a ridiculous, outrageous review and then one week later, on the 19th, I'm fired for it and now today, the following Monday he already has a replacement.

This is the only way I know to get rid of my anger. If I'm going to move on I have to get this out of me. I was betrayed. For what? There must be something to gain for him. A big raise this year, because now he was able to save more money by hiring a new guy for half of what I was worth. Plus, by setting me up to be fired he won't have to worry about giving out a severance package. Some say he was intimidated and had to get rid of me to feel more superior.

This whole thing makes me sick.

Really I would like to nominate Jeff for employee of the month for being such a good example to me of what not to be.

For several months he had me wasting my time by designing things he was never going to use. I guess that was supposed to make me angry so I would just quit, except that I don't like to lose. So in the end the only way to get rid of me was to use his imagination to come up with the worst review he could think of. It's just not right and I have been battling with the rage inside of me all weekend.

I'm trying my hardest to remember the lesson I learned Sunday.

"The ability to turn everything into something good appears to be a godly characteristic. Everything, no matter how dire, becomes a victory to the Lord. People who follow the Lord's example cannot be defeated".

To me this is not an easy feat.

One other thing I thought of was a quote from a great movie.

"Life is a storm. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes."

I'm praying I can make it through this storm.

We Love Snow

I think the weather man said we were going to get a light snow fall in the mountains.

The weather man tells good jokes.

So I used this opportunity to take my 127th toy picture.

The kids put their snowsuits on and went out to build a snowman.

They went from this little ball of snow...

to this.

I couldn't believe it when I saw it. It was massive. I grabbed my gloves and helped them build their huge snowman.
Parker jumped off the giant snowball several times
while Emily worked on the second snowball.
Emily got a carrot from Becky while Parker started on another snowman.


We built two. The snow was excellent! Perfect for making snowmen.
The top fell off the second one so it became a short and fat snowman. The kids had a great time.