Cruise Pictures

The girls and I had a lot of fun on the cruise. It was beautiful weather. Emily did miss home and daddy. She asked numerous times if she could go home. It's kind of hard to walk off a boat though. Ally was wonderful. She ate well, (no surprise there!), slept well, played well and was totally happy. She loved it. Em did too, but she's a little older and missed her bed and daddy.

We are definitly glad to be home and are in the full swing of the Holiday's.

For those Michael fans out there, I just want to add that he has always had full access to the blog. So if you want to hear from him, he can blog anytime. And yes, the house looked Great!

The End...

I've always said to Jamie and leaving for work, "I won't say goodbye because I don't believe in that... I believe in, "See you Later". Today ends the saga of living alone for a week while Jamie was gone on the cruise. So today, I won't say goodbye to what I experienced this week, but "See you later". What that means for the future is difficult to know or how long to wait...

Today at work I got a fax from the future. The fax was from myself in the future giving me strong warnings. It was really cool! This does not happen often. When I get these faxes, it even has my own letter-head on them. Today it said something like, "Mike, the candy jar on Tera's desk is poisened! Do not eat from the jar! More details to come later" It was signed by me from me in the future.

Ok, did this really happen? Yes! Was it real? No. But it was really cool... If anyone watches "The Office" on NBC on Thursday's, it was the funniest opening ever as Dwight got the fax from his future self. I suggest everyone to get last year's DVD collection to watch the series, and then dowload this years episodes from Itunes on the internet.

An update on the house.... it is totally clean. I'd like to dedicate the house cleaning to my mother since it is her birthday today! I could not see myself allowing my wife to come home to a filthy, dirty house and know that my mother would have to be defending me that I was not raised that way. So to make Mom's birthday special, I decided to show the true colors of her son.

On a more personal note... I've learned that I am probably more difficult to clean up after than what I knew. Things piled up pretty quickly. So the work Jamie does that goes un-noticed, was really seen this week while she was away. So in the past, when I failed to come home and recogize how hard she worked to clean the house while I was away was really because I never knew it was dirty. Jamie does a fine job of picking up around here and she has earned her way back home :) All dishes are done, laundry done, bed made, fishes fed. It took 14 candles lit for two hours to bring new scents to the house.

Nothing so much to update on the time-line of what happened. It was a pretty normal day and I'd be wasting my effort to write and your effort to read if I list what happened in the last 24 hours. Mostly, my free-time was cleaning the house and getting it ready for home-comming weekend.

My brother has encouredged me to start my own blog or take over this one. I'm not sure what will happen as I've enjoyed taking over Jamie's blog this week. I'll take some serious thought to see if I'll continue in a new blog... my main concern is to make sure I don't get writers block and lose my audience...

So until next time... good-night America... "I'll see you later".

A side note...

I read an article today about Guns N Roses. They canceled a concert in Maine because they were told that they would not be allowed to drink Beer, Wine and Jagermeister on STAGE. This was clearly not an issue where they were canceling the concert because fans could not drink.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061110/ap_en_mu/music_guns_n__roses

Guns N Roses issued a statement: "a band spokesperson blamed fire marshals for "making it impossible for the band to perform their show to the usual high standards that their fans deserve."

Hmmm, I'm thinking something is wrong that they canceled the concert because they couldn't drink on stage. Did the fans think that by them not drinking, the band would not be abile to perform to the "usual high standards that their fans deserve".

So maybe I should not clean the house today and blame it on the fact that I was not able to drink in the house and it caused me to not be able to peform (clean the house) because I couldn't live up to the high standards any longer.

Preparing for the Closing Cermony...

Well, 24 hours until Jamie gets home. It has been really quiet around here and it is going to be very noisy soon with the additions of kids soon. I have not totally determined what time they will get home, but I'm thinking between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM. This is a tough angle... do I pick up the house tonight or take the chance that she'll have a late arrival tomorrow evening? I'm taking a poll of what you think I should do.

I found a very interesting thing tonight in the freezer. All those TV dinners that people think taste bad, including Jamie had a similar thing in another package. Jamie purchased a bag of frozen breaded chicken. Well, the chicken and gravy tv dinner is the same brand as the bag of breaded chicken patties. I never purchased the bag of chicken. So here is the interesting part... Jamie thinks the tv dinners taste bad (including the breaded chicken tv dinner) but she somehow enjoys the breaded chicken patties in the bag. I compared the two samples and they are identical. So maybe Jamie purchased this bag of breaded chicken patties as her way of telling me that she likes TV Dinners as well but doesn't want to admit it. Kind of like getting to pay the boardgame, Risk?

Jamie took the time to vacumn the house before she left. I wanted to let you know of an idea that I've stuck to all week. I've created traffic lanes in the house of areas that are safe to walk on and zoned off others that are off limits. You might ask why? Well, because if I do decide to vacumn before her arrival, I only need to vacumn 15% of the house since 85% of the house is zoned off. You are probably thinking, "Great idea Mike". If you like that idea, then you'll probably like to hear more of mine during our social gatherings.

I wanted to be the 1st person to say, Happy Birthday Mom!!! It is really tomorrow, but I'm actually on East Coast time tonight. You are asking why I'm on east coast time? It goes along with the idea of 15% of the house... I have my reasons, but this one is too complicated to explain.

Ok, enough chatter for now... I'm going to update the past 24 hours...

Wednesday:
8:00 PM - Watched a missed episode of Law and Order
9:00 PM - worked on music for Sunday
10:00 PM - Off to bed, been staying up too late all weekThursday
6:30 AM - Alarm off (Don't remember turning it off, snooze
6:39 Am - see below
6:48 AM - see below
6:57 AM - see below7:06 AM - see below
7:15 AM - see below7:24 AM - see below7:33 AM - see below
7:42 AM - I don't remember pressing the snooze button except once. I woke up and the alarm clock was off. My arm that was asleep was the think that woke me up. Wow, running late.
8:05 AM - no coffee from Chevron this morning... didn't feel in the mood. Almost made a U-Turn to go back, but pressed on to work.
9:30 AM - Went to the bank to make the Farmers Deposit... I always want to ask the tellers for their business but I have not done that yet. I think starting next week I will every day... I figure they can't say no forever and they are always forced to take my deposit, so they can't avoid me.
11:00 AM - Early Lunch today, made eggs and hashbrowns, made a huge mess.
12:15 PM - Back to work...
1:00 PM - 7.5 more hours until "The Office" on tonight
2:30 PM - spoke with an auto underwriter today... I needed them to approve an auto application that was going to be difficult. I've learned that if I use the charm with the, be as funny as possible, compliment them, and treat them like gold... they generally will do anything for me. Underwriters get yelled at my Farmers Agents all day, I've learned to do the opposite. Since they get yelled at all day, the nice person that makes them feel special is going to get the impossible done.
3:30 - Had a very nice referral from a realator today, It surprised me because I didn't know if she would ever refer her clients to me.
5:30 - On my way home... worked a little late tonight
6:00 - Dinner started, cooked the tv dinner with breaded chicken in gravy and then compared it to the bag of breaded chicken I was talking about earlier.
8:00 - Finished the 4th Major of the year in Tiger Woods Golf... took 2nd place. I was really mad as I had the lead going into the 17th hold of the 4th round. I Bogied, the 17th and was even. The 18th hole was looking good, I had a really easy putt, and missed it. So much for the dramatic tie-breaker!

Closing cermony is tomorrow... look for my last posting of the week. Until then... look forward to the most dramatic of all posts to come. This next one will be shocking!

Another Day... the countdown starts

Well, we are well past the half-way point with Jamie gone. I've heard reports from her during the cruise as cell phone reception is doing well. Maybe not so well today as they are heading out to Ensenada, Mexico. She says the cruise is going well but this one is really more geared for adults. The Disney Cruise that we went on two years ago was far better and had a lot more for the kids. Emily has been home-sick since the 1st day of leaving the house. Jamie suggests that she is used to her surroundings and probably finds security around home. Maybe I should re-arrange her room as a surprise :)

Joel did inspire me to consider re-arranging the entire house. I'm currently working on a new floor plan and ideas to see if the vision can work. Jamie would be so happy with me using my creative gifts. There seems to be one issue with making things work... I can't at this point seem to get the fridge upstairs and in the bathroom. It makes total sense to have it up here right?

Ok, so most of the people that read this blog are republicans. Here are my thoughts about last night... Looking to 2008, it was a really good thing that the Republicans lost control of the House and Senate. If the Democrats can not do a good job and bring the change that the American people are expecting, they will pay a heavy price. Loosing last night could be the set-up play for the Republicans to take the President, Senate and House again.

Jeremy had a brilliant idea that the Republicans should have taken a month ago. It was so good, that he was right up there with Karl Rove and belonged in the war room planning 2008. Jeremy said, "The republican senators a month ago should have got together and demanded that Rumsfeld resigns. Then if he did resign, it would have made the Republicans look like they are tough, want change like most Americans, and can still make a difference. If that happened, some of the Senators probably would have held onto their seats that they lost and maybe the Republicans would still hold onto the Senate". Made a lot of sense, those probably were not Jeremy's exact words, but a good summary of what he said. Nice idea!

Here is the update of what has been going on with Jamie gone on vacation...

6:30 AM - Alarm off (listening to headline news on the tv and music from the alarm clock at the same time for one minute) snooze
6:39 AM - Alarm goes off, I'm up. Checking news to see if anything dramatic happened overnight with the election. Nothing good or big happened, thank God I didn't stay up all night waiting for good things to happen
7:30 AM - Just realized that I wasted the morning reading the same web-sites and news that usually takes me only 10 minutes in the morning.
8:05 - Off to Chevron for the usual top secret coffee drink. I don't do this when Jamie is in town as my motorcycle does not have a cup holder. Going to miss the car next week.
8:10 - Got to work, Sherry my staff person informs me that she is more sore today from softball than yesterday. I was too but did not admit it, I suggested bannanas for her as I wanted to sound like an expert on the matter of health and healing. Yeah, legs were pretty soar today.
8:30 - wrote a lot of insurance that I was not getting caught up on... lots of appliations today. On pace to break 50 applications again this month... not bad considering this is all raw new business. Still looking for more leads.... hint... hint...
11:30 - Broke for lunch, Today was Top Ramon and Cereal. My character on Tiger Woods is getting really really good. I'm usually hitting 7 under par all the time now. Joel, watch out... I'm taking you down! I can't imagine how Jamie's skills are doing with a one week sabatical.
12:30 - Back to work... still trying to get all those applications into the system. I did land a new client today with 10 policies! Lots of work to do with him. Don't find these clients real often. Because of him, he is probably going to push us over 60 applications this month.
3:30 - Read comments on the blog today.... I couldn't believe no one made a comment about the guy I talked to yesterday that wanted to talk about his cattle (cows) for 19 minutes but take 30 seconds to complain about the $5 service charge. Very nice guy, but it was actually really funny. Apparently he raises very good beef... I am hoping to get some cow from him. He said if I got a cow and sent it to the butcher, I'd probably not get the liver and heart. I asked why not giving the suggestion that they use it to make dog food, he replied and said it is the best part of the cow. I asked if they put it in ground beef, he said, Oh yeah! He mentioned that if you buy lean gound beef, then it has the liver and heart.
4:30 - Met with Matt at the office (church and softball Matt). I like the fact that he has sales background and not afraid to talk to people. I see a lot of me in him... can't say much more as the free agency period has not started yet. He is still under contract.
5:15 - Off to home... ate chicken, fries and corn tv dinner. Jen called at around 6:15 to invite for dinner... might take her up on it later this week. Hey Jenn, if you read this, what is on the menu this week? :)
5:30 - Started the preliminary qualification round of Tiger Woods Golf on XBox 360 that can get me to the championship round.
7:00 - Took 1st Place in the 4 rounds. I shot a 61, 69, 64, 62. I was up by one stroke after the 1st round, down by 5 after the 2nd, down by 3 after the 3rd round, and finished in 1st place after the 4th with a 3 stroke lead. This game is getting good...

It has been very quiet around here all week... looking forward to seeing real people once I get out of this house by Friday night. The feeling of what it is like to be Mike this week... "I'm like Martha Stewart who just got out of prison but confined to house arrest for 6 months with the ability to leave the house for 20 hours a week to go to work and back." I make myself feel like Martha so that I don't feel guilty playing Tiger Woods so much. Do you think Martha had Xbox 360?

Day 3 - The update...

Hey, I know everyone would be shocked to hear of what I did today. You are probably really curious to know, so you'll have to read the highlights below. Something really shocking...

Monday:
9:00 - Worked on new worship music for church... got to learn about 15 songs by Chris Tomlin, Third Day, Todd Agnew, Hillsong. It was actually a good learning curve as I usually don't get a lot of time to practice.
10:30 Checked SF Giants headlines before bed, no new signings. I'm wondering if they will really re-sign Pedro Feliez again.
11:00 Off to bed, had to get ropes and special gear to crawl over the pile of clothes. It is turning into an obsticle course.

Tuesday:
6:30 - Alarm goes off (guess what? snooze)
6:39 - Alarm goes off, snooze
6:48 - Alarm again, I swear last time, snooze
6:55 - stayed awake before the alarm could go off
8:07 - Off to Chevron for my special .99 coffe. Secret recipie but it works, 1/3 filled with English Toffee machine mix, 2/3 filled with coffee, a splash off half and half creamer. I did that math on the way to work, if I did that every day and Jamie got her fountain soda every day, we'd spend $60 a month on morning drinks. It made it a little depressing drinking that, so I stopped doing math.
8:18 - Arrived at Farmers
11:34 - Lunch
12:45 - Back at work... looking for exit polls on the internet. Feeling confident the Republicans will hold onto the Senate
2:25 - customer called and talked about his cattle for 19 minutes and complained about a $5 service charge for the other 30 seconds
3:30 - Joel calls to warn me that the cops are again using radar on the speed trap. It is terrible, I know I'm getting 10 tickets this year as that hill is the highest statistical area of tickets handed out. My Realator should have warned me about that before moving. Props to Joel for the warning, saved me some dough today.
5:00 - Off to home to watch election results
5:15 - Pasta and meatballs in the tv dinner
5:45 - Republicans are loosing bad, started round 2 of 4 of my Tiger Woods championship
6:30 - checked election results, not looking good, back on Tiger Woods
7:45 - The house is a mess, I decided to do all the dishes and throw away trash. I filled an entire garbage can of tv dinner boxes and other trash from the counter. I only did this because I could no longer see or get to the espresso machine. It was desperate times.
8:15 - back to Tiger Woods, ate a bowl of jello and whip cream to initiate the next set of dishes that will pile on the kitchen counter
9:00 - Chatted with Brother Jeremy and blamed him for the Republican mess as his state was a major swing state
9:30 - Thought about softball game for next week, can't wait until Monday
10:00 - Started having panic attacks about the speed trap that I'll be driving through tomorrow... decided to consider setting cruise control at 35 mph.
11:15 - Getting ready to crash and enjoy the tv being on all night while I sleep, Jaime usually turns it off once she can confirm I'm in a deep sleep. I usually keep it on a major network channel so when I start the launch codes to wake up, I catch 30 seconds of news updates in the morning before going back to sleep during the snooze cycle.

Day #2 - The Expirement...

Well, it has been over 48 hours since Jamie left. I'm still working on the social experiement of what happens when a wife leaves the house for a week on a cruise. I'm not sure of what Jamie expects of me while she is gone except that I'm know she would want me to have as much fun as she is. So here is an update of what has happened since my last post...

Sunday (continued)
6:00 PM - decided to start working on "My Space" to get my site started. This was a goal of mine to help me feel young again.
7:00 PM - Back on the X-Box
8:00 PM - stopped playing X-Box to start 2 taped episodes of law and order
9:00 PM - finished 1st episode of law and order, started a bag of popcorn and did an expirement to see what it tastes like with skittles. It was actually really good, sweeter than kettle corn.
10:00 PM - Finished Law and Order, back on the X-Box
11:00 PM - getting tired, decided to start the launch codes for going to sleep

Monday
6:35 - Alarm is off (snooze)
6:44 - Alarm is going again (snooze)
6:53 - Alarm is singing (snooze)
7:02 - I now figured out with the Alarm going that the TV was on all night, it was confusing because, when I thought the alarm was off I was still hearing noise. (snooze)
7:11 - Alarm off (getting close to getting up, snooze)
7:20 - Alarm, not yet (snooze)
7:29 - I'm finally up.

8:00 - off to work, hard to focus because I'm thinking of all the things I could be doing at home since Jamie is gone. X-Box is one of those thoughts.
9:00 - Spoke to Jamie, Started to miss her around. It has been fun as we have been text msg'n for the next two hours.
11:45 - Lunch at home, tv dinner again (excellent)
1:00 - Back to work, thinking about softball tonight. I'm really bummed at this point that Jamie won't be there. I've always loved playing with her. I think it was more fun watching her have a good time on the field than myself playing.
5:00 - Off to home, getting the line-up card ready for the big game.
7:00 - Game started, team is looking good. Sad to not see Jamie in Left Center... I was always her cut-off when she got the ball. She always appreciated my direction in where she should be positioned in the out-field. Actually, she hated that.
8:00 - Game over... got to chat with the team and friends. It was a blast.
8:30 - on my way home... I was really thirsty and I forgot to get a drink. Jamie was always my wing-man in the car and would always give the clicking sound that she was thirsty. I forgot to quench the thirst and left the house to head to Chevron. Items purchaed, Dasani Water (Grape), Tall Boy Amp Energy (mountain dew), Diet Dr. Peper, Full Throttle.

The house update... it is a real mess. Tons of trash in the kitchen counters, lots of dishes, tons of clothes on the floor. I'm going to work on getting a camera from Joel and Leslie and take some photos for the next update. This is really a site that needs to be seen.

I'm thinking about getting a house cleaner Friday morning so that Jamie can see that I'm cleaning up. Really, as long as it is clean when she gets back, then I'm ok. I'd rather clean up the house in 2 hours Friday than maintain the house during the week.

Getting ready to go watch "Heros" on NBC... probably will check out the SF Giants headlines tonight, read some political web-sites to be ready to see what is new.

Tomorrow will be a great evening as I'm looking forward to watching the election results. I think the Republicans will hold the Senate but lose 4 seats. I'm predicting the Republicans will lose the house and the balance of power might be a difference of 19 seats.

Thanks for reading...maybe Thursday we'll have a get together here at the house in the dirty state it can be in. Jamie would love those photos knowing people were over with a dirty house.

Jamie, if your reading, I miss you!

The 1st 24 hours...

Well, Jamie is off on the cruise with her parents and with Emily and Ally. She doesn't get back until late Friday evening. In almost 6 years of marriage, this is the 1st time I will be living it up like a bachelor for about 6 days. I'm taking this opportunity to kind of live up those years of remembering what it is like. So below, I'll recap what has been going on.

Saturday:
2:30 PM - said good bye to Jamie and dropped her off. The house is spotless at this point, all laundry done and dishes clean. Jamie has only given me a few simple instrutions at this point, keep the house clean and return a battery charger to one of the girls in the church.
3:00 PM - arrived at home, got on the X-Box 360 and played Tiger Woods Golf.
6:00 PM - took a break from X-Box to eat a tv dinner (1st in many years as Jamie doesn't buy those). It was a mexican dish with beans and rice and only cost 77 cents. It was actually really good and looking forward to it again as I have 2 more of the same kind.
6:15 - Back on the X-Box 360 to work on my player skills.
8:45 - Took a break to watch 2 Law and Order episodes that were recorded as I got a little bored of the X-Box for the last 5 hours.
10:00 - Worked on music for church the next day.
10:45 - Back on the X-Box again.
12:00 - In bed for the night

Sunday
7:50 - Jamie calls in the morning to remind me to not forget an important instruction to return the battery charger to one of the girls in the church. She failed to remind me to feed the fish.
8:00 - took inventory of the house... clothes all upstairs on the floor, trash in the kitchen counters, 3 spoons, 1 plate, 3 cups in the sink. Not ready to clean all that up yet.
9:00 - Left for church
11:30 - Played indoor soccer after church in the school's gym. Jamie probably would have not let me stay for 1.5 hours like we did.
1:00 - Got home, turned on the X-Box while the next TV dinner warmed up. This time it was spaggetti and meat-balls. It was very impressive and again only 77 cents
1:30 - Back on the X-Box
5:00 - took a break from X-Box to blog.

I'm really open to ideas from others of how to spend the next 5 days. So far, so good. It has been really quiet around here... almost too quiet. I'm working on planning the next 24 hours right now.

A Happy and Hilarious Halloween!

We had a really great Halloween. We had 13 people over for tacos before we all took off trick or treating. It was a first Halloween for 3 little ones. Ally was the fat bumblebee, Isabella (aka Bella) was the fairy, and Weston was the giraff. They were all so cute and for the most part enjoying it. Ally didn't car for all her roundness, but she was still cute, afterall, Halloween at this age isn't for them, it's more for us! After dinner, we all went trick or treating and let me tell you, going with 2 four year olds, (well, Em's ALMOST four), was quite an adventure. They were a traveling comedy show. Emily told EVERYONE when she knocked that she was Barbie, (she tells everyone that everyday, so this isn't anything new). And after she got her candy, after every door she would run up to me and ask, "do we get to go again?" Although as the night progressed and she got cold, she started asking, "Are we done now?" However when I would ask her if she wanted to stop she would say no and run on to the next house. Tessa was our kind hearted indian princess. She always made sure any of the babies that went up got their candy too, going so far as when a lady forgot Allyson, Tessa took one out of her pumpkin and put it in Allysons. What a girl! Halfway through the night Emily declared she would no longer go to the "scary Houses" she would only go to the happy ones. And she stuck to that, everyone else would go and she would patiently wait with the mommies. It was a great night and we all got too much candy and plenty of laughing. If you haven't gone with preschoolers before, I highly recommend it!