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Tuesday, June 22th, 2004: Took the kids to see Harry Potter #3 which was pretty good. Much better than #2 which I didn’t expect since I didn’t really like book #3. I guess they weeded out all the boring stuff from that book. There’s something that I’ve kind of noticed ever since I read book #5…being a wizard or witch is completely pointless. You’re not allowed to do magic in the muggle world, your life is always in danger, grownups argue and fight like kindergarteners. In book #5 Harry had to choose a career path and all of his choices revolved around various magic things. There’s all these professions that involve regulating magic. It seems like, overall, magic is just a huge burden. I think Hagrid said in the first book or movie, “We can’t tell muggles about magic or they’ll be wanting to use it to solve the world’s problems.” What a bunch of selfish bastards. Lots of magic spells also screw up electronics which I think was explained in book #4. Or maybe it was just wireless transmissions. It seems like they just spend their entire lives learning magic so that they can work at magic-related jobs and defend themselves from people that are using magic to kill them. Do they even teach regular subjects and skills in their schools?? I’m not saying I don’t love the HP series, I just think that if it were real it’d be very pointless. Saturday, June 26th, 2004: We went to the races tonight to see Casey and Ryan race. Guess we spent about 3 hours there. It got cold and I forgot to bring jackets. What’s up with the weather this year? I’ve only turned on the air conditioner a couple of times this month. It’s not supposed to be in the 60’s and 70’s in June. I want to go swimming. We did a bunch of other random things this week that I can’t remember. It’s been a really busy week but I can’t remember what happened. We saw the Garfield movie at some point which was better than I expected. Went to Casey’s birthday party at Pizza Hut, a baseball game. Hmmmm. I need to find time to write in this thing more often. Wednesday, June 30th, 2004: Had Kristine’s kids all day. Took everyone to see Spiderman 2 which opened today. Great movie. So great that I went and saw it again 4 hours later! Me and Tricia decided to go out and saw Spiderman 2 again. Only this time we drove to Edwardsville and saw it in a theater with a bigger screen and much better sound. Saturday, July 3rd, 2004: Did stuff all day. Lots of stuff. At dawn we drove to the Alton police station and watched the fireworks. We were kind of far away from them this year, but it was still good. Sunday, July 4th, 2004: Did more stuff all day. Lots of stuff. At dawn we set off a bunch of fireworks. Didn’t get arrested.
 Tuesday, July 6th, 2004: Went to Jamestown with the kids and saw Two Brothers at the theater. I hate animal movies, but the kids liked it. Went to a gaming center and let Emily play Halo Online for awhile. The gaming center didn’t even have the full version of Halo, it was a demo. I sure am complaining a lot. Friday, July 9th, 2004: Took the kids to run a few errands with me. Instead of driving to them all, I parked in the middle of where we needed to go and walked to all of the places. I usually only do this when I’m by myself and the kids weren’t too happy about it. But it’s amazing how much fun a little thing like a walk can end up being for them. Between walking to the post office, Blockbuster Video, the bank, convenience store and Walgreens, we ended up buying water rifles for $1.99 each and playing in the uptown fountain for about 30 minutes. They were both soaked by the time we left so when they got home they continued to play in the hose for another hour. That’s good, cheap entertainment.  The other day I put an ad in the paper for our cat. I’ve convinced the kids that getting rid of her is a good idea. I’ve tried asking friends and family but nobody wants her. The 5A place says they have too many cats to take mine. The humane society says they can’t guarantee that they won’t put her to sleep. So I’ve resorted to an ad and it’s working pretty well so far. I’ve gotten 3 calls today and one lady stopped by. She seems very interested and promises to call me tomorrow morning with an answer. Here’s a picture of the cat - it’s the first photo on that page. Since the kids don’t live here anymore and the cat seems really bored without them (and I’m sick of the cat hair all over the house), it seems pointless to have a cat. I’m too lazy to take care of animals anyway. Saturday, July 10th, 2004: Payton’s friend Braden came over for the morning/afternoon. We went to Riverview Park for awhile for a picnic of chips and soda. But mostly we just hung around the house all day playing video games. Yesterday we rented Ratchet & Clank Going Commando for PS2 and me, Emily and Payton are all addicted to it. For the past 2 days we’ve been fighting over who gets to play it. We’re pretty far into the game but I have no idea how much longer it goes on. I think it’s due back on Wednesday so I hope we can manage to complete it by then. Last year we ended up with a demo of the same game and we were pretty addicted to that for a few weeks. And that was just one level. I can’t believe it’s taken us a year to finally get around to renting it. I’m usually not into games but I love this one. Emily’s got her friend Shelby spending the night tonight. Right now (it’s midnight) they’re in her room, singing songs to each other and recording them on my digital recorder. Hopefully they don’t erase them - that’s the kind of thing a parent can embarass their kid with when they’re a teenager. Muhahaha. Sunday, July 11th, 2004: Today I was supposed to meet the infamous Roxanna but she stood me up. She was supposed to be in town, visiting a friend who lives nearby so we arranged to meet at Steak N Shake. I waited for awhile, then gave up, got a shake and left to do birthday shopping for Payton. Since I didn’t have the kids for the rest of the night, me and Tricia went out. Had some supper at Applebees and then went to see The Terminal in Edwardsville. Saturday, July 17th, 2004: Took the kids to Target to buy toys. Their mom sent a $20 gift card for Payton’s birthday for him to pick something out. He picked a Spiderman Lego set. Emily got a $5.00 gift card and she combined that with some of her other money to get a $10 set of Pokemon cards. Payton’s birthday was earlier this week. He got a Spiderman web-blaster, a couple Power Ranger sets, a bunch of magenets and a few other things that I can’t remember. Sunday, July 18th, 2004: Took the kids to the City Museum for the day. I also brought along their friends Mikey and Andrew. Watching 4 kids in that place by yourself is pretty exhausting! We came back home around 5pm. Took Mikey and Andrew home around 8:30pm. Monday, July 19th, 2004: I worked a lot today. In the afternoon I took the kids to Blockbuter to pick out some games & movies. I ended up buying The Butterfly Effect on DVD for myself. It came with a bunch of extra scenes and a director’s cut with an alternate ending. Usually a director’s cut is interesting to watch but it doesn’t ever make the movie any better. And deleted scenes are fun too but you’re always glad that they left them out of the movie. That wasn’t the case with this movie. Watching the director’s cut made this movie so much better than it was in the theater. The extra scenes tied in perfectly with the alternate ending. And the ending was so much better, I don’t know why they used the other ending in theaters. I guess it wasn’t happy enough. I loved the movie when I saw it in the theater and now it’s even better. Everyone who’s reading this should immediately go out and rent/buy The Butterfly Effect on DVD. Go! NOW! Tuesday, July 20th, 2004: Finished up work early so me and the kids went to the swimming pool all day. Stayed there until almost closing time. Saturday, July 24th, 2004: Went to a few yard sales today. The kids got cheap toys, a large box a Legos for $2.00 and I got a Sony Clie’ with a 128 meg memory stick for $30. I’ll be able to sell both items on Ebay for about $70. Free money! Emily ended up bringing a friend home from one yard sale and she’s been at our house all day. The temperature is pretty weird for July - it’s been in the mid-70’s all day. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be even colder. Weird, since it was in the upper 90’s a few days ago. Friday, July 30th, 2004: Took the kids to see Spiderman 2 again. This is their 2nd time to see it and my 3rd. EvilCal and his girlfriend showed up tonight for a visit. Saturday, July 31st, 2004: Went to the Alton Block Party with the kids. Hung out there for a few hours until they closed down the kids stuff. Watched a Blues Brothers tribute band play for awhile and then went home for the night. |
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Thursday, June 10th, 2004: Got up at 7am to leave again for Oregon. I’m picking up Emily and Payton and bringing them back to Illinois for the summer. It’s a 3 day drive back which is a pretty long drive for the kids so I’ve removed the passenger seat of my car and I’ve built a table and bolted it into it’s place. This table will hold a TV and Playstation 2 so the kids can play games and watch DVDs on the way home. Hopefully this will make the drive a little easier on them. They seemed to really hate the drive TO Oregon, but that one was 5 days long with no air conditioning so this one should be slightly better. We’re also going to make a pitstop in Montana for a few days which they should enjoy. Here’s a picture…  My drive didn’t get off to a very good start. I got about 90 minutes out of Alton and got a flat tire. Apparently I ran over something and it put a big gash in the side of the tire. This happened just 2 minutes before a Wal-Mart so I’m thinking that Wal-Mart is probably throwing spikes on the interstate in front of their store to help out with business. Curiously enough, Cal got a flat tire on his way to Texas last year and that was in front of a Wal-Mart as well! I pulled into Quiktrip and put the spare tire on and then drove to Wal-Mart. They told me it’d be more than a 2 hour wait to get a new tire. So I found a tire shop nearby and they had it done in just an hour. In the end, I lost about 2 hours of driving time and $70 for a tire. Otherwise, the day was really boring, as expected. I ran into a lot of really bad thunderstorms. The radio kept warning of hail, tornados and damaging winds in Kansas but I managed to somehow miss all of it. I made it to about Cheyenne, Wyoming before stopping at a rest area for the night. I think that was at about 1am. Friday, June 11th, 2004: It was cold last night! I wasn’t really expecting it to be cold since it’s June. The radio said it was in the 30’s so I had the heat on for a few hours. At least my car wasn’t covered with snow like last time, though. I got up at 5am and started driving again. Once again, a boring day. I’ve been listening to a lot of mp3s and a lot of talk radio. Before I left yesterday, I wrote on my back window with window paints which seems to be becoming a tradition with me. This time it says, “HAPPY NEW MONKEY!” and it’s causing nonstop stares as I drive. The stares are more of the “What in the hell…” variety this time. My window from last month simply confused people but I think the confusion this time is much more intense.  While I was getting gas this morning I noticed a guy staring at my window. I said “hi” to him and he said “hi” back to me. I said, “Happy New Monkey.” He didn’t reply and avoided eye contact with me. Nobody has actually asked me what it means yet. They just stare and/or laugh as they drive past me. Right now I’m sitting in a truck stop diner outside of Boise, Idaho, eating waffles, bacon and writing all this. Maybe I’ll add something to the side window before I take off again. Or maybe not. I should reach Bend, Oregon by 8pm tonight which is where I plan to stop and spend the night. I don’t know what I’ll do all day tomorrow. Maybe visit the Saturday Market again or just play around on the net all day. My plan is to pick up the kids at some point and then leave early on Sunday morning. I think Kalispell, Montana is 10 hours away which is where we’re going. Saturday, June 12th, 2004: I got to Bend last night. There were no rest stops that I could find and I didn’t feel like finding a good truck stop to sleep at so I just got a cheap motel for the night. I ended up waking up and leaving the motel at 6:00am or so. In the morning there was some kind of hot air balloon race happening. I sat outside of a Starbucks and played on the net for awhile, then started driving to Albany. I got there around 10 or 11am and picked up the kids. They wanted to get started on the drive so we ended up driving all day instead of hanging around Albany. We made it to Idaho before getting a motel for the night. The kids added some new drawings onto my windows - Payton put some Pac Man ghosts on each side window and Emily wrote “Beep Beep” hoping to make people honk at us. As I was driving through Portland, some guy honked and I looked over. He took his hands off the wheel to give me the peace sign which made his car just about swerve into the next lane. His wife grabbed the wheel to stop the car from going anywhere. Wednesday, June 16th, 2004: I haven’t written much this week because we’ve been busy. We got to Montana on Sunday around 2pm and have been here since then. It’s been cold this week so we haven’t done a whole lot of outdoor things. Yesterday we went on a Geocache in Hungry Horse which involved about an hour of rock climbing. We’ll probably be leaving for Illinois tomorrow morning. Today we went to Norm’s News for lunch, a pottery shop to paint pottery, another geocache in Whitefish that we failed to find and then swimming in the lake by the geocache. Thursday, June 17th, 2004: Me and the kids left The Spessa’s house around noon and drove all day. Right now it’s 11:00pm and we’re in a motel in Hardin, Montana. I went into the office and asked how much a room was and the lady told me $48.00 but she didn’t take credit cards. So I checked my pocket and only had $43.00 in cash. The lady told me that would be enough - she said she would just take the cash and not claim it on her taxes so it’d be like free money. Good thing I’m not an IRS agent! This motel is the worst I’ve stayed in this year…there are extension cords tacked all over the walls instead of receptacles built in, there’s no thermostat on the electric heater and I have to turn it on by turning on the circuit breakers (it’ll probably get really hot tonight!), the paneling is different colors every few feet, the light switches are all in bizarre places and extension cords are running out of my porch light to power my air conditioner and all the other porch lights. At least it’s clean and has cable! Today I drove about 10 or 11 hours which is 1/3 of the trip. Tomorrow I’m hoping to drive from early morning until late at night. I doubt I’ll actually make it to Illinois tomorrow night but I’m a little hopeful. It’s slightly more than 22 hours according to my Street Atlas program but I always seem to do it a little faster than the program suggests. Maybe I can get there at 3am or something. I’ll probably end up in a motel in Missouri though. The kids have been really good in the car today, mostly just watching Futurama DVDs. Let’s hope tomorrow goes well too. Friday, June 18th, 2004: It’s 11:00pm and we’re sitting in a Motel 6 in Mitchell, South Dakota, watching Johnny Bravo. We’ve still got 12 hours to go so I guess I’ll get home around 10:00pm tomorrow night, hopefully a little earlier. I’m tired of driving. Today we got a late start and made a lot of stops. We stopped at a cool place called Wall Drugs in Wall, South Dakota and wasted about 2 hours there. Saturday, June 19th, 2004: We made it home at exactly 8:00pm. The drive was much easier today than it was yesterday. Payton’s quote of the day: “Daddy, how much Pokemon can you read before your head explodes?” |
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