Once upon a time.......

"Once upon a time there were two squirrels walking though the forest."

The squirrels saw two rabbits and the rabbits were very hungry. The squirrels had a good friend named Ashtyn that fed them peanuts so they called "Ashtyn!!" "Paaaaaa Paaaaa" because they hoped that Ashtyn and Papa would bring them peanuts. Luckily Ashtyn was close by visiting the Magical Elf who lived in the rainbow tree. He lived downstairs from a flatulent elf that was constantly having to pee.

Ashtyn heard them and came running with peanuts for them. The rabbits and squirrels ate a whole bunch of peanuts until they couldn't eat anymore and then they were pretty thirsty. So they went to the farmers house and talked to the mouse and asked if he had any milk, he didn't but he talked to the puppy, who talked to the kitty, that talked to the little boy in the house named Landen and he went out and milked the cow for them and gave them some milk.

Tracy was mad that Landen went out and said "no, no, Landen" and put him in the corner.

Now the squirrels and bunnies were full of milk but they were hungry again so they went back into the forest and called out "Ashtyn!", but she didn't come. So they went deeper into the forest and called for Ashtyn again. This time Ashtyn came and fed them more peanuts. Then it was time for the squirrels to go home so they asked the bunnies to come over and play. The bunnies thought that would be fun so they went over, but bunnies can't climb trees and the squirrels lived in a tree. Luckily a giraffe was walking by and and the bunnies got on the giraffes head and he lifted them up to the top of the tree. So the bunnies and the squirrels played legos and Barbies until it was time to go home. The giraffe came by and lifted them back down to the ground.

Thats the end of the story. Ashtyn got sick last night and I took her to the clinic today, they checked her for RSV and put a nebulizer mask on her. NOT A FAN OF THE MASK!!!

So daddy made up a story of bunnies and squirrels and peanuts to settle her down. She has 7 days of treatments so now I have to think hard for new material. I think the next one I'll play off that and go with turtles and squirrels that are looking for peanuts...... maybe throw in a little froggy with a limp or something.

A Night at the Movies

Reggie Jackson once said:

"Every hitter likes fastballs just like everybody likes ice cream. But you don't like it when someone's stuffing it into you by the gallon. That's how you feel when (Nolan) Ryan's throwing balls by you."

Kids have an affinity towards animated movies. It's just a fact and Ashtyn is no different than any other 2 year old. Lion King, great movie, Nemo..... love it! Monsters Inc. might be cinematic brilliance. That's the first few times you see them though. After the 152nd time of seeing any movie you're going to be sick of it, unless it's 'Hoosier's', 'Major League' or 'The Outlaw Josey Wales', but those are exceptions that prove Reggie's point that there can be too much of a good thing.

We're in that stage right now where Ashtyn "prefers" that a Disney movie be running on the TV from the time she wakes up until the time she goes to bed. Not to say that she watches TV all day, she doesn't, but it's a calming influence to her when she can go upstairs and fake boil some grapes and doughnuts on her toy kitchen set and then pop down to see if Cinderella has made it to the ball or if the blue fairy has turned Pinocchio into a real boy yet.

We try to limit the amount of TV she watches so we've hidden the DVD's out of her reach so that when she wants to watch one she has to come to us and ask to 'pick one'. That's right, at less than 2 years of age she is able to open the DVD player, take out one DVD, replace it with another and get the movie going on her own.

Two things occur to me when I see her interacting with technology now. The first is, how can a cartoon movie like Cinderella, that was made in the 1940's still be able to transfix a kid today like it did back then? And two, I think my daughter has a higher IQ than I do..... A 22 month old kid shouldn't be able to load load her own DVD, even to the point of holding it by the hole in the middle so that she isn't touching the shiny side. There still manages to be fingerprints all over them, but they are scratch free for the most part.

Just thinking about what she already knows and what the future holds for her, Ashtyn is always going to live in a world where every piece of knowledge or media is going to be at her fingertips with a phone an iPhone, iPad, Xoom or whatever other device allows her to 'Google' something. Thats actually pretty cool. The first time I heard the word Google it was spelled googol and it was this astronomical number that we'd heard about in 3rd grade - it was a 1 followed by 100 zero's. Me and Chris Southam set out to conquer and write a googol over lunch hour one day. We wrote it on Mrs. Perron's chalkboard, plus or minus a few zero's and we were proud of ourselves. In retrospect, when people talk about "there's an hour I'll never get back", yeah that one still makes me think that skipping recess to voluntarily write on the chalkboard was a bad idea and an hour I'll never get back. We were visionary though and were Googling before it was cool.

But also to my point, Ashtyn will always have everything at her fingertips. If she wants a certain song, she'll always know that she can log onto a site somewhere and download it within seconds and listen to it at her disposal. Unlike her father that spent 3 weeks of laying in bed waiting for the Top 9 @ 9:00 on 93.7 KIZZ to play Vanilla Ice's "Ice, Ice Baby" so that he could "dub" it. For the younger generation, "dubbing" wasn't rolling on a set of 20 inch rims, it was waiting for the radio to play a certain song that you liked so that you could push the record button on your boom box stereo and record the song to a blank tape. Kind of like a stone age version of Napster or Limewire. The problem with getting your music in this fashion was that the stupid DJ would talk into the intro of the song and you'd have some lame voice covering up "Yo, VIP, Lets Kick It" with "here's Vanilla Ice again at #1 with Ice, Ice, Baaaaaaaaby". "Please shut up Ms. DJ, cuz now I'm going to be back here tomorrow night to try to get a clean dub again. *sigh* The '82 Ford Escort with a Kraco stereo just ain't gonna attract the babes unless I'm crankin Vanilla."

Those of you that remember Vanilla Ice and dubbing are giggling right now.

I suppose I had a point to this blog at somewhere, but it just kind of digressed into nothingness. Maybe this post is just nothing more than a welcome back to all my friends and also a welcome to the new ones that have taken a liking to "Da Crib".

Hmmmmm........

Suppose it would be decent of me to post on here again someday soon.

Baby food, not just for babies anymore!

Raise your hand if you've ever been in the grocery store and looked at the baby food section, wondering what some of it tastes like? This post is dedicated to you!! I've cut out the confusion for you and I'll let you know what to try and what to stay away from.

Yes, every single item I list below I've personally tested so that you can shop with confidence the next time you go buy food for the baby that you don't have.

It's odd, some of the things that you think would be horrible, like butternut squash are very good, while other things that you think would be good, like banana's are kind of blah and tasteless.

In no particular order, here are some of my fav's and non-fav's.



Biter Biscuits - don't be fooled by them looking like Nutter Butter cookies. Even when dipped IN peanut butter they still taste like cardboard. I even tried dipping them in milk and they just ended up tasting like a soggy shoebox. Pass these over.



Folks, you're not gonna go wrong with these!!! They're shaped like a Cheeto, they smell like a Cheeto, they crunch like a Cheeto...... and surprisingly they taste like one too! Granted they aren't as cheesy, but they are made from whole grain so you get a bit of a roasted corn flavor in there. A pity the cans are so small, cuz you can pound one of these in no time.



Call a spade a spade here. It's cough syrup. Maybe Jamarcus Russell should have used this instead of codeine syrup in his Purple Drank. It's so packed full of electrolytes that they forgot to add decent taste.



This one may surprise a few of you, and I admit I was skeptical as well. Especially since I've tried all the other flavors of puffs and although they may smell like blueberry or apple, they taste like packing peanuts. These actually have a nice sweet start and finish well. They pair excellently with a nice Pinot Grigio or possibly even a Cabernet.




One word. Barf. They have a taste and consistency of a clay pigeon target and could be used for target practice, but I would recommened using #4 Heavy Game Load to break them. They also work well for proping up a wobbly table.




If you're a yogurt fan, then these are your treat. Me and Ashtyn have been known to pound a bag of these while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.



Culinary excellence. Cherry flavored apple sauce, pureed to perfection. Somebody at Gerber had better have gotten a high 5 for this creation!



I know I said in no particular order, but I did save the worst for last. This isn't even so much a review as it is a warning. Somebody at Gerber should have gotten fired over this one..... Mash up some turkey and vegatables, take out all the flavor and then blend in a healthy dose of blackboard chalk. It's like a paste and no amount of water will wash the taste or grit out of your mouth. That a baby can eat this and grin is beyond me, unless they are grinning, thinking about the faces daddy will make changing their diaper a couple hours from now.

Danger........... is my middle name.

"UP!! UP!!!"

"No, No."

Those two words are probably the most spoken words in the house right now.

Unfortunately, Ashtyn has a penchant for danger like her dad did back in the day. Obviously I don't remember, but way back in the 70's I was a master at figuring out how to take toys and build ladders to get out of playpens, cribs or any other device designed to keep me in.

Like dad, Ashtyn wants up on everything, but tests the boundaries and ledges of whatever she's on. The other day she was standing on the couch and Grandma Kelly came in the front door and called her name. In about the time it takes her to fill a diaper she was running across the couch and attempted to leap off the edge of it. Luckily mom was there to catch her.

So now we constantly walk around behind her waiting for the next thing she's trying to climb up on or jump off of.

I have a bad feeling that when she learns to count it's not going to be "1,2,3,4....", it's going to be "3,2,1, BUNGEE!!!!!!"

How to cancel a credit card

Anyone else have that credit card in their wallet that serves no purpose? No purpose other than as a emergency window scrapper in the winter and to prove to yourself that you can’t pick locks when you lock yourself out of the house?

Ever try to call in and cancel that card? Better set aside an entire afternoon to talk on the phone OR, use my surefire way to get through to Habib in the Cancel Verification department quickly.

First off, let me qualify this by saying that a crying baby is about the most distressing sound in the world and I hate seeing Ashtyn crying, but sometimes they just aren’t happy with the current situation and feel like they need to voice their opinion on it. In these cases, use it to make the most out of a bad situation.

I’d tried to cancel this particular card several times in the past and because I don’t normally have 3 hour stretches to rebut every one of their rebuts as to why I should keep it, so I just give up and keep the card to get off the phone. Usually the calls go something like this:

Card Company: “Can I get your social to verify who I’m talking to?”

Me: “Blah, blah, blah”

CC: “Thank you Mr. Miller, how can I help you”

Me: “I’d like to close my account today”

CC: “Ok, well I show that you’ve been a member since 1997.”

Me: “I know, and I feel like in some really cool club and stuff, but it’s not the Mafia so I want out.”

CC: “Well, I show that you have a really low interest rate for purchases and cash advances.”

Me: “Super, but unless its lower than my college GPA of 1.97 it’s still too high.”

CC: “Not every place takes checks”

Me: “They take debit tho”

CC: “What about big purchases?”

Me: “Yep, they’re called cars and houses. Banks give you loans for those and at less than 13.00% interest.”

CC: “What if it’s an emergency?”

Me: “I’ll call 911”

CC: “Money emergency”

Me: “I don’t need the ‘Sounds of the 70’s’ 17 disc collection that bad.”

CC: “I’m authorized to drop your interest rate by 5% today.”

Me: “Will it get me off the phone in the next 15 seconds.”

CC: “Yes”

Me: “Sold, looks like I’m still in the Mafia.”

That’s how it’s went for me in the past, they wear me down until I give up and keep the card. Not on my latest effort tho! Ashtyn wasn’t happy so I quick picked up the phone, pressed 17 buttons to get to a live operator and this is more how it went:

CC: “How can I help you Mr. Miller.”

Me: “I’d like to cancel my card.”

CC: “It shows you’ve been a member since………..”

{Ashtyn}: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!

CC: “I’ll put you through to verifications.”

Verifications: “Mr. Miller I understand you’d like to cancel………….”

{Ashtyn}: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!

Verifications: “Ummmm, I’ve closed your account.”

It’s an old axiom, but still hold true.
“Life throws you lemons, make lemonade.”

Nooooooooooo eating in the car kids!

"Hmmmmmmmm..... lets see. www.newsfromdacrib.blogspot.com"

"Ok, we're at the login.... username. What's my username?.... Oh yeah!"

"Password???? Lets try this!!..... BINGO!!!"

Even after all this time I still remember how to get on here!!

Seriously I'd have to rewrite 'War and Peace' to recap whats happened since the last post so here's the Cliff Notes version. Read further for more details after the photos.









Ok, to start off, a certain little girl turned one on May 13th!! It was for a girl so nice we had to celebrate twice, once on her actual birthday with friends and family in town and again a week and a half later when the whole family could get together. We thought long and hard, but went with a Minnie Mouse theme for the party and although we talked of lobster and prime rib, we went with tacos in a bag for the lunch fare. Ashtyn knew something was up and giggled when we sang happy birthday to her, but I think she had more fun playing with kids than anything.

On to #2. Hopefully you weren't all blinded by the shine from the ring. Thats correct though! On Saturday, August 20th 2011 (assuming Katie doesn't kick me out of the house first) we will be officially married! Since this will be the last of 7 Miller weddings, I'll assume it will be the best as well. Bring your dancing shoes and check your liver at the door!

#3. An odd pic you say? Yes, but also what I'll be hunting this fall in North Dakota. There are 3 once in a lifetime big game tag chances in ND - Elk, Moose and Bighorn Sheep. Most people feel fortunate to have ever drawn one. This is my second. I also drew an Elk tag in 2006..... E-mail me for the next winning Powerball lottery ticket numbers if you want. This story is gonna get some play in the coming months on the blog.

Last but not least, fly fishing! When I went two summers ago to the Madison River in Montana I was hooked, last year I was a little preoccupied with things to worry about fishing. "See you honey" and leaving Katie with a 2 month old baby just wasn't gonna happen. This year things worked out and we got into the trout pretty good.

So now the reason for the title of the blog. "No eating in the car kids!". Tomorrow we head out for our first family vacaction of sorts. My youngest brother is getting married in Fargo and although we've been back to Sherwood and Herreid several times, this will be the first hotel stay for little one. We're both a little nervous on how things will go, but barring a 3 hour meltdown by Ashtyn from Bismarck to Fargo I'll consider it a success!!

So thats about it for now. Nothing to funny in this post, but it'll give us some fodder for our next fireside chat.

Since last post

Just to get you up to speed since my last post. Ashtyn has gotten her drivers license and is going to the Prom next week.

At least it seems like that long since I've posted anything. I'm hoping to catch you up here in the next few days on the happenings in the crib. Some will rejoice, others will wish that I'd just go away. But like Brett Favre or a bad tuna fish sandwich, I always make a return.

I PITY THE FOOL!!!!!

Ashtyn doin her Mr. T impression at bath time.

A Random Post

Never a dull moment, which means few moments to stop and blog.

As I told you before, Ashtyn got some tubes put in her ears about a week ago. We haven't seen a huge change in her personality as of yet. She babbles, walks and crawls around as much as she ever did before. Her sleep patterns took a turn for the worse the week following the appt., but it's gotten better the last few nights so at least we can get some sleep as well now. Yeah, we still go to bed early because she gets up early, but we'll take it!

Here are a couple of pics from the hospital, pre-op.


She had fun in the play area and Katie wanted to keep her surgery wear. She did look pretty cute in it.

Hopefully this is the first and last time that we need to have tubes put in for her.

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And now, since there's so much that happens, but none of it good enough for a post in it's own. Random things that happen with us:

While watching the Olympics
Katie: When does Ooko Uno skate again?
Skeet: *Insert questioning look by me*
Katie: I know, I know, it's Apollo Uno........
Skeet: Ummmmmm..... Actually it's not, it's Apollo Ono.

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In my opinion, Katie got the best Valentines Day gift ever. Or at least the best besides a picture of me to hang at work. She got a pair of Oakley Sunglasses.

Pretty sure she's the only one in Bismarck with them since none of the dealer locations carried them in town and I had to order them off their website. Here's the ones she got.

For those of you that know me, you know I have an addiction to Oakley sunglasses. Not sure why, but I do. From the first pair I bought in about 1996 to the most recent ones, I still have them all. Except one pair that I took a bad hop grounder off the face with a few years ago.

She wanted to know one time how many of them I had. I told her, "don't worry about it."

She also isn't sure how many guns I have down in my gun cabinet and only I know where the keys are for it. Should be pretty easy to sneak a new one in down the road if need be.

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Katie was mad last night because her phone wouldn't charge. Turns out her charger was broke. I thought "Hmmm. Charger should at least last as long as the phone." Turns out she's had the same charger for the last THREE phones! I thought that every phone had a slightly different plug in so they could jab you $30 for a $2 cord on all new phones. Guess Alltel hasn't caught onto Verizon's game yet.

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Last night Katie also made meatballs and gravy. As she was getting everything done she mentions in passing "startin to come together" and then asks me what movie thats from.......... There's two movies that I can recite front to back and show you all the mess ups on - Major League and Hoosiers. That quote is from Major League and Lou says it to his 3rd base coach Tim Leech as he's running out of the dugout.

I wore out 1 VHS tape of Major League watching that movie (for those of you old enough to remember VHS). I also wore out an 8-Track tape of 'Survivor' once as well..... for those of you old enough 8-Track. "IT'S THE, EYE OF THE TIGER, IT'S THE THRILL OF THE FIGHT!!"

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And now, 10 random things I think I thought.

1.) A baby's interest level in something is double in proportion to your interest in it. You like your cell phone, remote control and iPod, they REALLY like your cell phone, remote control and iPod.

2.) Most everything gets easier with raising a child as they get older, except changing diapers.

3.) 9:30 is a bit late to be getting to bed.

4.) Coming home from daycare, the on ramp changes from 2 lanes to one. There's always 1 person who thinks they can leap frog the entire line in the driving lane. The other day, all of us in the driving lane teamed up to prevent her from getting over and she had to drop to the back of the pack. WOOO HOOO!!! Stay strong brothers.

5.) We can dress Ashtyn in a pink dress, with a pink coat and pink shoes and someone will inevitably still refer to her as 'him'.

6.) Apple with Cherries baby food is delicious. "Honest Katie, she was that hungry tonight! She wanted 2 packs instead of 1!"

7.) Getting a baby ready to go on a winter morning for daycare is like preparing for a Space Shuttle mission. The car seat even has the same 3 point latching system I think.

8.) The Twins need to sign Joe Mauer to a long term deal NOW!

9.) Ashtyn will probably see on TV at least parts of 162 Twins baseball games this year.

10.) I was watching the Price Is Right the other day. Drew Carey referred to the one prize as "a brand new color TV". Aren't we to the point yet that the color part is implied??

Bigfoot, Nessy and Fish Face

Ever notice that when theres something that your kid does that you'd like to get a photo or video of, they'll never do it on command? You have to be in the right place at the right time, like someone was for these two pics of Bigfoot and The Loch Ness Monster.


We've been trying to get Ashtyn to do her fish face for a picture for the better part of a month and either the camera is too slow in taking it, or when we try to imitate it to try to get her to do it, she looks at us like we got into a batch of the hippie lettuce.

And then by chance the other day she did it out of the blue while Katie was taking a random pic of her.

The other thing I've noticed is that things that used to excite the bejesus out of them one week turns into mundane the next, with no explanation. It was always easy to take her to a mirror and she would bust out laughing and then two days ago it was "yeah, I've seen myself in the mirror 437,000 times dad. That was so January."

Her new thing is to put random pieces of cloth in her mouth and crawl/walk around with them. She likes bibs the best, but socks or dishtowels work just as well.

As most of you know as well, Ashtyn went in for ear tubes yesterday. Everything went well - more on that later this week!

The Adventures of Little One

6 ear infections
5 COLDS AND SNIFFLES!!!
4 months not sleeping
3 something , something
2 teeth a cutting
And a case of RRRRRRRRR-SSSSSSSSS-VVVVVVVVVVV!!!!!!!

Say it to the tune of the ’12 Days of Christmas’ and you might get a mild giggle. I couldn’t think of anything for 3.

Little one is quite the trooper though! Even with all the ear infections, colds, etc., she’s a happy baby 90% of the time, which makes us wonder what she’ll be like after next week!

We’re not sure if Ashtyn has had 6 ear infections or just 1 since she was born that never really went away. I think there was one time we went to the Dr. though that they gave her ears the all clear so there was maybe a couple weeks that she was infection free. The big news though, is that she’ll be having tubes put in her ears next Tuesday! Kind of scary for mom and dad, but if it lets her get free of the infections we’re all for it!

She’s found a new gear these days and has discovered the joys of the pots and pans in the cabinets, how easily dish towels come out of drawers and that real cell phones are much better to chew on than fake ones. I even got out an old cell phone that powers up still, and she’d still rather play with ones that she can text or call random people with. FYI - if you get a text from me or Katie that says “XY^*XJDDLSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP&&&&&&” or a call that you hear jibberish on, it’s probably not from us – Ashtyn is just checkin in with her peeps.

Her taste buds are getting a workout these days as well as she’s moved into the next level of baby food. Gone are the single serving bananas or carrots. Now it’s squash and corn or apples and cherries. Katie is under the assumption that if she doesn’t like something, Ashtyn won’t either. “Yeah, I gave her peas tonight, she didn’t like them.” So the next night I feed her peas and she eats the whole package. Hmmmmmmmm, interesting!! I can’t wait for the day that she asks for seconds on pickled eggs, baked beans and onions. I bet she’ll like her steak medium-rare and her chili with more than just a hint of Tabasco in it as well.

Her other new favorites in no particular order are:
1) Standing - although she doesn't see a lot of point in it since she can't do more than take a step or two.
2) Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and the Hot Dog song.
3) Crawling as fast as she can away from mom and dad.
4) Reading 'Babys First Farm Book' and 'By The Light of the Silvery Moon'.
5) Mirrors
6) The sounds of M, D and G. MA-MA-MA!! DA-DA-DA!! GA-GA-GA-GAH!!!!
7) The DVD player, Playstation or any games or discs that go with them.
8) Shoes
9) Purses and their contents.

And finally......
10) Shopping

She's going to cost daddy some money someday with those last 3.

Now for your updated photo gallery!

Your Bob Ross Memorial: Whiteboard Pic of the Month

Rusty, this ones for you.

They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot

Everyone else got a Christmas vacation so I thought I should too. I’m not going to make excuses for my lack of posts and especially the Whiteboard Pics, I was just tired of doing it for awhile. But after seeing that people are still logging on daily to see if there’s a new post I thought I should remedy the situation.

It’s not like me to spew venom, but since we’ve been training the little one to sleep through the night, neither of the adults in the house have gotten much sleep either and unlike lil Ashtyn, we don’t get to take a nap in the car on the way to daycare or sleep for 2 hours when we get there. So we’re both a little crankier than normal. Don’t get me wrong, Ashtyn gets funner every day with the things she does and she gets out of every situation by smiling. Her new game is to go to the steps and look back at us, then the second you get up to go grab her she starts laughing and going up the steps as quick as she can.

Last night when I was watching her as well, we were up in her room and she kept wanting to play with the night light. Babies and electricity don’t mix well so I unplugged it and slid it to the middle of the room. Ashtyn is fascinated by lights so she crawled over and grabbed it, crawled back and started trying to plug it in. That was the end of that game, but it goes to show that she’s putting two and two together now. “This thing here needs to go here for the light to come on.”

Now, what I’m upset about today isn’t the lack of sleep. That assumed when we had her – babies cry at night. What I want to talk about today is a growing epidemic and one that has infested NISC to the point where I need to write on it. It’s parking or peoples’ lack of ability to do such. This isn’t New York where most people never learn to drive and the ones that do, don’t learn until they are in their 20’s. This is North Dakota where either:

A.) You grew up on a farm.
B.) You grew up in a small town and worked on a farm.
C.) Had relatives that had a farm and visited or worked on it.
Or
D.) You’re from North Dakota and it’s assumed that one of the first 3 are correct.

One inalienable right that we have is that we drove at a young age and take great pride in being able to back and/or park a vehicle into the tightest spot possible. If you worked on a farm it’s a given that you can back a grain truck to an auger or maneuver a trailer for unloading. But as the number of farms have dwindled, so has the number of people that grew up or worked on one and hence, our ability to park. Like anything you use it or lose it.

When I started at NISC 9 years ago, the ratio of parking spots to people was fairly high, maybe 2 or 3 to 1, but as the company has grown that ratio has probably dwindled to 1.5 to 1 and the prime spots by entrances is less than that. To some though, that hasn’t stopped them from thinking their car is in need of at least two of them. Here is a pic of the bang up job some people did this morning. A classic case of “Monkey see, Monkey Do Parking”. One person on the line gets slightly off and then several more poor parkers just continue the mayhem until you have someone come from the other side and park correctly. Essentially creating the hated “half spot”.


Yes, I know, its winter, lines are tough to see, but still, don’t you say to yourself, “Hmmmm. I know the lines are straight but I’m not” and realize that something is amiss? Evidently not, because I see it every day!

Here is another case of the “Overconfident Parker”. The one who says “Look at me, I can’t park, but let me back in to prove that I can’t.” Sometimes we need to say to ourselves, “I admit I have limitations, I need to pull in head first.”


This one is just blatant disregard.


Finally, my favorite situation. “Fruit Basket Upset”.
This is where people park from all sides and at all angles, with multiple spacing problems. They could have just as well blindfolded a 10 year old and had him Valet park the lot for the day. Pitiful.

You’re probably saying “You work with these people, aren’t you afraid of retribution from them?” Not really. Only about 3 people read this and those with parking deficiencies have been admonished in the past. It’s kind of a running joke now to take phone pics and e-mail them to the offending parties.

Awareness is the key and the first step is admitting you have a problem.

Do we got the clearance, Clarence?

"Roger, Roger."

Well, maybe not. "Blizzard 2009" is taking shape somewhere over the US and may delay or cancel our scheduled trip to Sherwood for the Christmas. Two questions here:

1.) Why, when the dates align and you get an automatic 4 day weekend for a holiday, does the weather always have to try to ruin it for you?
2.) Why does the Weather Channel insist upon naming the blizzards with the year now?

We know it's a blizzard, we know its the year 2009, 15 years from now we're not going to say "Do you remember Blizzard 2009?". No, we're gonna say, "You remember that blizzard we had 15 years ago? Back in about 2009." I seriously think they are so bored at the Weather Channel, that they are going to start giving them actual names like hurricanes. Blizzard Bob, Blizzard Bill, you get the idea.

Maybe they could even hire former legendary Minnesota Vikings coach Denny Green to come on and explain about the 'Calcutta Clipper' as well.



So yeah, I'm hoping that things turn out well and we're able to get out of town Thursday afternoon, but we'll see. It's not like 5 years ago when I drove 450 miles to Minneapolis on icy roads to watch the Dolphins play a football game. It still amazes me to this day that Steve Thompson carried on a cell phone call as we were driving down the interstate sideways without missing a beat in the conversation.

The cargo of a 7 month old baby and the weather aren't something to be toying with.

Anyways, Merry Christmas to everyone! Hopefully the Silverado is pointed north and locked into 4WD about this time tomorrow!

Your (belated) "Bob Ross Memorial": Whiteboard pic of the month

Here at the blog, we've always tried to stay with the times, especially when it comes to the whiteboard pic. But alas, the world moves much faster than my snail pace. So even though this is a few days or weeks late, here it is! Obviously not my best work, but it'll have to do for pacifying the masses.

For those of you not from the Bismarck area, there was a mountain lion shot in the Bismarck city limits on November 27th, up by the former Home Depot location. (No, I wasn't the triggerman).

That's probably why it closed up. People are just going to quit coming around when you have mountain lions. They're just bad for business.

Flat and No Trees Has It’s Privileges

I’ve been spending the week working in northern Wisconsin and although it’s nice country, flat with no trees has it’s privileges. I’ve stood in the middle of a grass slough somewhere west of nowhere in Renville County, North Dakota and made a cell phone call with perfect clarity. I’ve driven countless miles in the same area deer hunting and had a dozen radio stations or more to listen to and I’ve always taken for granted that that’s the way it is everywhere.

Not here, not in northern Wisconsin. My daily drive takes me from Hayward to Cable, about a 17 mile drive through the forest and while Hayward does have some cell reception, it rapidly decreases the further you get from town. On my drive back the other night I spun through the channels on the radio and found one FM station that came in with regularity and the song playing was a Wilson-Phillips song. So there was my dilemma – Wilson Phillips or flip to AM and choose between a station from Iowa talking about Big 10 volleyball or a station doing 1924 replays of the Clicqout Club Eskimoes.

For those of you not down with the Clicqout Club Eskimoes, click here to find out more about them than you want to know.

I’ve reached another milestone in my life this week as well. To this point I’ve seen the worlds largest Holstien cow, largest Sandhill Crain, Walleye, concrete whale and fishing lure. Add to that list, The Worlds Largest Muskellunge!!! Located near the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame, it’s a 143 foot fiberglass tribute to the Musky. Rumor has it that around Christmas time here, Santa makes an appearance out of the mouth of the fish, which can either be very exciting or very disturbing to a young child I suppose.

Also, if there was any doubt that I was in Wisconsin (normally the Old Style Beer signs and cheese factories are a clue) I was helping out a lady in the plant dept. with some software issues and heard more than one CSR on trouble calls end their conversations with customers with “You watchin the Packer game tonight?”

Yep, I am definitely back in Wisconsin.

Look who's talking

“Hey, how’s it goin?”

“Just hangin out over here by the stairs, nothing too much going on with me. Don’t worry, I have no intentions of climbing these stairs today if that’s what you’re thinking. Yep, just haaaaaaaaaaaaangin out!”


“What!?!? I’m just stretching my legs here. Gotta keep the calves loose and stuff ya know??”


“Ok now, just a quick check over my shoulder to see if they are look…….. darn. Staring right at me.”



“FINE! I’ll come over here then! Plenty of stuff to get into here as well.”

The Watermelon Crawl

There is some truth to the saying "they grow up so fast". 2 weeks ago, Ashtyn was flirting with the idea of getting up on her hands and knees. Everyday a little more bold, working the arms, then the legs, then face planting into the carpet. By Monday of this week she finally put A and B together and came up with this.

Not too bad I thought. Then Auntie Kaylan stopped over and left her Coach purse on the floor one day and Ashtyn was all into that. Kaylan likes to think that Ashtyn is now into Coach. No Kaylan, her main focus at 6 months is eating, sleepin and messing up diapers in that order, but if you want to believe its the purse then so be it. Daddy won't be shelling out a truck payment on a purse anytime soon. Today, she'd really gotten into moving about. Evidenced by this video.
Crawling wasn't enough for her today. She decided to see how far she could pull her self up the stairs. She did make it up one stair before I grabbed her off.

Here is a pic of her pulling herself up on me.
We also had Thanksgiving at the condo. Here I am carving the turkey.

And a nice little family photo.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

The Snake Dance

Back in the day we used to do something at the football homecoming bonfire called the snake dance, where the high schoolers all joined hands and then ran down the streets of Sherwood and thru the businesses that were open. I think it was some kind of spirt/pep rally thing to get us ‘psyched’ for the football game on Friday and also gave us a chance to run thru the only 2 businesses that were open at that time of night. The Roughrider Saloon and the P&R Bar. I tried to explain the concept of the Snake Dance once to Katie, but she didn’t get it. I’m not sure I ever understood it either, but since I’m about 50 years older than her she doesn’t understand the concept of typewriters, rotary dial telephones or the US mail system either. Friends used to hate if your phone number was something like 990-0990 cuz it took forever for the dial to come back around and if you messed up you had to start the whole process again. Whatever. If it’s something that important you need to tell me, mail me a letter and I’ll get it in 2-3 working days……

Anyways, one of the things with buying a new, used house is that the previous owners often overlook things and live with it. Sometimes for decades. One of those ‘overlooked’ things at the condo was the drain system. Overlooked might be a kind term, forgotten or ignored might be better used in this sense. Someone needed to tell them that if Drano doesn’t work the first 7 times that more drastic measures were probably in order. Off to Lowes I go again to buy a drain snake!

Snaking drains is a bit of an art form and similar to the Fish Ponds at carnivals, throw the line in and hope you pull a good prize when it comes back – not the stupid Strawberry Shortcake temporary tattoo (it took me many years before I realized that the ‘bait’ for that game was a card that said boy or girl and that they were messing with me real bad).

I grossly underestimated the level of stink I would encounter the first go around although the fact that the plastic PVC pipe threads had literally fused together should have clued me in that it hadn’t been taken off in awhile or ever. Down the snake went though, hitting the bends in the pipes but still moving until a depth of about 12 feet, at which point I gave it a couple of twirls and started to drag whatever was on the end, up…….

Let me list a few of the things I would have rather smelled than what came out of that pipe.
1.) A rotting skunk carcass
2.) Raw sewage on a 110 degree day
3.) A rotting skunk carcass in raw sewage on a 110 degree day.

Needless to say the lid of the toilet went up just in case lunch needed to make a reappearance. It didn’t, but I did run down to stick my nose over Ashtyn’s week old diaper bin for some fresh air. I didn’t eat supper that night, or for the 12 hours for that matter and a new battle plan was in order. Gas masks, rubber gloves and if I could find it, that cream that homicide detectives rub under their noses before the go into a murder scene. Lowes didn’t carry that though. Too bad Engh’s Hardware in Sherwood isn’t closer cuz I bet Timmy could have found in row three between the Tupperware and the cattle prods.