Bittersweet.

Father's Day should be a day for me to have fun with my kids. Instead, it turns into a miserable day of me thinking of all the things I have done wrong as a father. My oldest has never called me. NEVER. I am supposed to call her each week on Sunday at 7pm. Pretty specific, huh? That is because her mother and grandparents find it to inconvenient to let me know what is going on with their schedules so that I can attempt to make calls at other times during the week. Making phone calls from my house is not an easy task. Landon and Elizabeth have 1 volume level: LOUD. talking to a 9 year old on the phine is not easy. She is distracted by whatever is going on around her. I don't know if she even cares. I feel like I try. Maybe I should try harder. Maybe I should give up. I remember when I was a kid wanting to talk to my absent father. I would hear his voice on the answering maching and want to return the call. Longing to return his calls. I wasn't allowed to. In a way I hope they are stopping her fromcalling like my mom did to me. Because then I have hope that she cares.

The kids I have at home I don't know that I am that much better off with. I look with envy at other fathers that share their talents with their children. The high school sports star teaching his boy to throw a football etc. I have never been particularly good at anything. I have nothing special to share. I think they know it. Trying to teach my son to ride a bike, I cannot figure out why he is having such a hard time pedaling. A good friend pointed out that his tires needed more air. He pumped them up, and became a hero when Landon could all the sudden could get some forward momentum. It shouldn't have bothered me. It did. A lot.

Right now the kids are at church. They wanted to go there rather than stay home with me. More bitter than sweet.

Am I really this much of an ass....

So My friend Took this personality test, So I thought it would be fun. Now I just feel like an ass.

Your Type is INTJ

Introverted	Intuitive	Thinking	Judging
Strength of the preferences %
33	62	75	33

I'll post some excerpts form the results with my commentary.

To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of "definiteness", of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise -- and INTJs can have several -- they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know.

My buddies used to say If Steve is arguing the point he is right. It usually referred to music but that would qualify as my area of expertise according to this.

Whatever system an INTJ happens to be working on is for them the equivalent of a moral cause to an INFJ; both perfectionism and disregard for authority may come into play, as INTJs can be unsparing of both themselves and the others on the project. Anyone considered to be "slacking," including superiors, will lose their respect -- and will generally be made aware of this; INTJs have also been known to take it upon themselves to implement critical decisions without consulting their supervisors or co-workers.

I ran into this problem in my Safeway days a lot. I told my 'superiors' more often than I should have what I thought of their lack of performance. Fortunately, most of them were too stupid to realize I was serious.

Typical INTJ career choices are in the sciences and engineering, but they can be found wherever a combination of intellect and incisiveness are required (e.g., law, some areas of academia).

While the career opportunities never came about, Science and engineering has always intrigued me.

Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.

This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship). To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. :-) This sometimes results in a peculiar naivete', paralleling that of many Fs -- only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness.

Probably the strongest INTJ assets in the interpersonal area are their intuitive abilities and their willingness to "work at" a relationship. Although as Ts they do not always have the kind of natural empathy that many Fs do, the Intuitive function can often act as a good substitute by synthesizing the probable meanings behind such things as tone of voice, turn of phrase, and facial expression. This ability can then be honed and directed by consistent, repeated efforts to understand and support those they care about, and those relationships which ultimately do become established with an INTJ tend to be characterized by their robustness, stability, and good communications.

Wow- that just summed up most of my past relationship fights. I bet if my wife reads this she will think I added the smiley,but it was there from the initial analysis.

Due to my upcoming milestone birthday I have been doing a lot of looking back on my life. There are things I want to change for the future. This just made me realize I may have further to go than I thought.

Child Health care.

Anyone have a couple hundred thousand dollars I could have? Anyone at all??Damn. Maybe then I could get the kids to the doctors they need without digging my credit score farther into the hole.

Elizabeth has had a strange bruise looking thing (hematoma?) on her bottom lip since May when she fell down the stairs. It has always looked strange, but never really seemed to bother her unless someone asked. She always chimed in with "I fell on the stairs". Around Christmas time, it developed what looked like small blisters on either side of it. They also have a tendency to bleed quite profusely. A couple days after Christmas her lip bled for over an hour and a half so we took her to the urgent care center here in town. After waiting for 1.5 more hours in the waiting room the bleeding stopped 10 minutes before we got to see a doctor. His reaction when we tell him about it: "Thats really weird" I wanted to hit him. No kidding it's weird, if it was normal I would take care of it at home, you buffoon. He said he thought it might be infected, so he said the antibiotics she needed for her concurrent ear infection would take care of that too.. There has been no change in the lip. Tonight it bled for 3 hours or better. I don't even know where to take her.

Landon, on the other hand, seems to not be responding to his medication anymore. He takes Guanfacine to aid in impulse control. It used to help a lot. Now I see no change before or after dosing. I finally started giving him melatonin at night so he would sleep through the night, even then i'm not sure how early he gets up, since I could sleep through a hurricane. The last pediatrician that was seeing him has moved back east, and introducing new doctors is always a pain, since, Landon is inevitably on his best behavior when we need him to break down. There is no way to know what will set him off, but we have not had a meltdown-free day for several days now. If you have not seen one of Landon's full on meltdowns count your self lucky. I need something that can calm him down in an instant. A well timed re-direct can work, but the wrong one will just escalate the meltdown exponentially. I have no way of knowing what will be a trigger or a pacifier. He doesn't technically meet Autism diagnoses, but shares many of the same symptoms. I don't know what type of specialist he needs. He has seen Autism specialists, they say he in not autistic, and recommend ADHD specialists. The ADHD specialists say he is autistic. I just need some freaking help.

2009 BCS season

Due to bragging rights rivalry with some good friends,I figured I would analyze the bowl game records of the various conferences to see who had the best bowl season. I do concede that my beloved Pac-10 had a horrible bowl season. the SEC however was not the best overall (though they did get the title game). I would say the best over all was the Big 10, who won 4 out of 4 bowl games against opponents ranked in the top 25 as of the last BCS rankings. I could complain for days about the ranking system, but this is the accepted data to use, so that is what i will go by. I guess the Pac-10 SEC competition will have to be settled on the field next year GO DUCKS!!

My data

Christmas is over.

Christmas is over. And yet, i still don't find the relief I wish would come.

Christmas is at once both the greatest holiday and the worst rolled into one. The absolute joy of children and the spending time together of families in the celebration of Christ's birth, along with stress disappointment and crowds.I used to like Christmas, and in fact, I still try to. It has become harder and harder for me to truly enjoy this time of year.

Music:
As a self proclaimed music lover, the music of the season drives me nuts.... Maybe it comes from my years of working retail and listening to the same 12 songs over and over again. I know there are artists that have made wonderful original holiday related songs,(I was sent a great one by the Sick Puppies on their email list this year) but they get 0 airplay. It is all the same Jingle Bells, Oh Holy Night, Rudolph the Congested Reindeer, over and over and over again. Growing up the radio station 97RockI listened to played a selection of rock Christmas songs, many of them originals. I don't know why no one else has the balls to play something out of the ordinary.

Gifting
"'Tis better to give than receive." I have heard this quote thousands of times since i was a child and for the most part it rings true. I do enjoy picking out a thoughtful gift for someone that they will truly enjoy, or even better, NEED. I hate how we are pressured to exchange gifts. I went out of my way this year so that someone I bought gifts for would not have the time to feel obligated to give me a gift in return. My gift is a token of friendship and thanks, and I need/want nothing but continued friendship in return. Friendship means more than the paltry amount I can spend on a gift. (Even if they did think it was too much when opened). On a slightly selfish note, I have rarely gotten anything I actually wanted as a gift. I'm easy to please, give me an iTunes or Home Depot gift card. (On a slight tangent: this goes the same for Thank You cards (birthday, wedding, etc. in my book. If you want a card from me because you give me something, save your money and just buy your own damn card. If you want to make sure I like the gift you should have taken the time to get something I really wanted.)

Family Drama
Forced family gatherings can be wonderful, or they can be a disaster. Some people take what should be a great time of sharing and enjoying each other's company as a time to 'air the dirty laundry' so to speak. If you have a problem with a family member deal with it privately, don't include it in your pre-desert toast. My family life is complicated, partially due to my own indiscretions, partially to my family's. I have 1 phone call I make every year, and for the second year in a row it went un-answered/unreturned. I tried not to show it, but that ruined the rest of my day with the family I had around. It gets really hard to have a relationshp when only 1 person make any effort.

I had many other thoughts about this, but I guess I can leave that for next year's post-holiday rant. I hope everyone has a great new year.

I Hate Thieves

Grrr... As if I wasn't having a frustrating enough day; with the kids fighting all day long, and my new printer not deciding to network, Someone decided to steal my laundry soap from the laundry room. We have had stuff stolen from public laundromats before, and now refuse to use them. (I know you should not leave your stuff unattended, but try telling that to my kids). This however was in our LOCKED on-complex laundry room. There is a total of 12 apartments that have access to it. 1 of which is vacant. While I was waiting for my wash loads to finish, I was doing dishes in the kitchen. This points me right out the window . No one walked by in the entire time I was away. This means that the person responsible had to come from the other side. This leaves 2 potential apartments. So I peaked at what was running in the other machines. kids clothes. One of the 2 apartments in questions doesn't have kids. SO I went and knocked on the other door. I asked if they had picked up my laundry soap, thinking that possibly it was a mistake. 'We didn't take your stuff, i'm positive' was her reply. RIGGGHHHT. It just magically disappeared. I realize that a full bottle of detergent only costs 6 or 7 bucks, but still, this ruined our whole timing of cleaning, bedtime routine etc... all because people can't leave other people's stuff alone.....

New Blog

I set high hopes formy other blog,and not wanting to put sub-par entries in,I have negelcted to do almost any. So this will serve as my regular venting , get it off mychest page.

I have been thinking of starting this one for awhile, and I keep coming back to the recurring theme of stupid people annoy me. My days tend to be rather non-descript for the most part until I run into someone who missed the brain line, or their handywork.

Today it was at work. I had a simple task. Test a fire alarm system in a small alternative school and fill out the paperwork for the yearly test to appease the fire-marshal. I do this all the time. This one started easy, (once I found the right building, the facility is deceptively large from the street.) Everything was going smooth, smoke detectors were responding to the fake smoke nicely, pull stations working, panel operated on back-up power properly. I was about to see the light at the end of the tunnel on my short Friday, when I had a pull station that didn't respond. Then, another, and another. 3 of them. Since I knew all the smoke detectors operated on the same loop, I made the assumption that it would be an easy fix,with just a lose wire connection somewhere. Boy was I wrong. I took apart all 3 ,along with the nearest operational device. Whoever originally set it up did not follow typical industry accepted wiring practices. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS I said to myself. (along with many other non G-rated thoughts) Normal practice is pretty logical red goes to red black goes to black etc. I understand that some wire manufacturers use different combinations of colors in multi-conductor, which is fine,but at least keep all that are the same consistent. (if blue=red at point 1, blue should= red at point 2) it was completely random. So, what should have been a simple test turned into a fiasco and a return trip to finish solving the problem for me. THANKS PRIOR IDIOT.

On the bright side, I got home and got ready to go help the wife babysit 4 children for some good friends of ours, They were very good, went to bed with no problems and I had a peaceful evening as the wife fell asleep on the couch. :)