This has been a very interesting year.

My oldest has graduated high school and is off to college.  So far so good on that front.

The day job continues apace.  Some changes, but still the same basic job.  There are enough people out of a job nowadays that I won’t complain.

Irish Woman’s job has been chaotic, but things are evening out.  She still labors at making doctors happy with technology, which is still the most thankless job I’ve ever seen in IT.  She also labors with the madness that is life with me and my hellions, so she has more steel in her soul than most.

Girlie Bear is starting to show symptoms of teenagerhood.  She continues to enjoy doing stuff with her old dad, but frilly dresses, lip gloss, and boys are creeping in.  She’s discovered science fiction and is reading it as fast as I acquire it for her.

Little Bear is doing very well in school, and has started looking forward to high school.  In 4 years, I’ll be halfway through getting my kids through school.

BooBoo has firmly ensconced himself as the apple of his mother’s eye, and his dad thinks a lot of him too.  Parenting is becoming easier as I learn to understand what he says.

The other pets are still crazy.  We have gone an entire year without gaining any mammals in the household, which is pretty amazing considering our track record.

Over the last year I’ve met a lot of good folks through the #GBC, and I hope that this year I will actually meet them in meatspace.  I plan on going to a bloggershoot or two, and am trying to figure out finances to make it to the NRA convention in Pittsburg this May so I can meet the cool kids.

I hope this year has been as good for everyone else.  I really appreciate the feedback y’all give me in exchange for my brain droppings.  I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year!

There appears to be a direct relationship between how bad I feel when I’m sick and how many cats cuddle up with me while I try to get some sleep.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Well, the yearly global period of madness is almost over.  My faith in humanity is returning.  We at Case de Oso had a good Christmas, but I was reminded again why my ancestors spent the winter huddled around a fire drinking. 

As I mentioned earlier, Boo had a solid case of the ick, but antibiotics and prescription strength decongestants are kicking strep throat’s butt.  By Christmas Eve at 7 PM, he was ready to take on the world.  By which I mean he was ready to enact flying headbutts to my thighs in order to get me to wrestle with him.

Christmas Eve evening found me starting to not feel well, and by bedtime on Christmas I was well and truly sick.  A quick trip to the doc in the box on Sunday found me with a raging case of strep throat (hooray for parenting a sick kid!) and a sinus infection.   I’m not surprised.  The treatments I get for my arthritis work by suppressing parts of my immune system, so I’m quite susceptible to whatever bugs come down the pike.  Also, having at least one family member sick is a family Christmas tradition.  I’m on a pretty strong antibiotic to kill whatever is at work.  In order to feel human while the immune system does its magic, I decided to get some good cold medicine at the pharmacy.  After going through the criminal background check to get sudafed, I am reminded again why I hate meth.  The paperwork to get Aleve Cold and Sinus pills was almost as onerous as the one I fill out to buy a gun.

Christmas Eve afternoon found Little Bear, Girlie Bear, and me in Walmart doing their Christmas shopping.  Boo was given a talking Woody doll from Toy Story to match the Buzz Lightyear he got for his birthday.  He was also given a Viking combat kit, which consists of a horned helmet, a war axe, and a shield.  He took to that like a duck to water.  It’s good to see that some of the ancestral memories live into the next generation.  The kids picked out a purse for their mom, and found a very nice flannel nightgown for Irish Woman.  Now I don’t normally purchase clothing for any woman.  Finding something that A.  looks nice on them and B fits is too much of a mine field.  But I figured it’s a nightgown, what could happen?

Christmas Eve dinner at our home is traditionally Swedish Meatballs.  Been that way since before I was born.  This year we broke tradition and made pasta and marinara sauce with spicy Italian Sausages.  Why, you might ask?  Well, when one wishes to make Swedish Meatballs and goes to the store to buy groceries for said meal, it is usually a good idea to actually purchase the meat for said meatballs.  But the Italian food was good, and no-one complained. 

That evening, we let the kids open the bulk of their presents.  All of the presents from parents and to each other were opened on Christmas Eve, while stockings and “Santa” gifts were opened on Christmas morning.  The older kids had already been given their big Christmas present, so they mostly got books and clothes.  I gave Little Bear his first Heinlein novel, The Green Hills of Earth, and Girlie Bear got the “Olympians” trilogy, which she squeed over.  Apparently I’m a cool dad for letting her read sci-fi that doesn’t include sparkly vampires.  As a side note, I’d like to thank all of you who made suggestions on what to get a young girl to get her into sci-fi.  It worked.

Irish Woman was very happy with the nightgown the kids bought her.  That is, until she tried to put it on for bed.  Apparently we bought it two sizes too small.  Ooops.  And this children is why DaddyBear doesn’t buy women clothing.  She was a good sport about it, but I could tell she’d rather be wearing a new nightgown rather than the sweats she changed into.

BooBoo, being the only Santa believer in the house, made out like a bandit on toys.  He got himself an easel for arting, oodles of books, both reading and coloring, and a Radio Flyer tricycle.  To say that the trike is a hit would be an understatement. He climbed on it first thing Christmas morning, and had to be coaxed off of it to open his other presents.  I’d like to put a shout out to the engineers at Radio Flyer: Thank you so much for not messing with a good design.  In an age where I budget three hours to put together stuff on Christmas Eve, that little trike went together with a hammer, a crescent wrench, and a screwdriver in less than 20 minutes. 

After taking the two older kids over to their mom’s for the rest of Christmas break, we trundled over a friend’s house for Christmas dinner.  Our friend provided the hall, drinks, sides, and dessert.  We provided Beef Stroganoff.   A good time was had by all, and Irish Woman was able to imbibe since I didn’t feel up to drinking.  She sampled a new product our friends had found, which was Woodford Reserve Maple Finish Bourbon. Basically, Woodford Reserve took several barrels of their single barrel bourbon, and after appropriate aging in oak barrels, let it sit for a few months in a maple barrel.  Irish Woman reported that it had a very snappy finish, and the maple really came out in the end.  I will have to try it next time we’re over.

Yesterday was spent doing not much at all other than cleaning up the inevitable mess of dishes and such.  I did get to take a nap for almost an hour, and that luxury reminds me how precious sleep is.

Today, it’s back to the old grind, but it’s a short week, and I hope to be well enough to have a few drinks to bring in the New Year. 

I hope everyone had themselves a good Christmas!

A feline is unable to digest pine needles.

That is all.

Geek humor, but good geek humor.

Just wanted to with all of y’all a Merry Christmas.  Have a safe and fun weekend!

No snark here today, sorry.

To the receptionist who was able to squeeze BooBoo into an appointment today, thank you.
To the adults who shared a waiting room with us for almost an hour and a half, I’m so very sorry.  Thank you for your patience while I tried to keep a cranky two year old entertained.
For the nurse who took us back to the smaller interior waiting room and put on cartoons for BooBoo, thank you oh so much.
To our wonderful family doctor who gave up half her lunch break today to see BooBoo, thank you.

Today I was reminded why I love going to a small practice in our neighborhood.  Turns out Boo just has the ick, and will be fine in a couple of days.  We were just worried it was something that would get worse over the holiday weekend.

When I was in the Army, one of my favorite marching cadences was “The Army Colors”.  This is slightly different.

The zombie colors
The colors are red
To show the world
That we’re undead

The zombie colors
The colors are black
To show the world
We’ll eat your back

The zombie colors
The colors are blue
To show the world
We shamble on through

The zombie colors
The colors are white
To show the world
We own the night

The old warrior slowly ran the stone down the length of his sword.  This weapon had been made for his grandfather, and he was planning on passing it along to his own grandson.  He could be buried with some of his lesser weapons, but this piece of family hardware would pass down the line along with the strong bodies and tough minds that had set him and his brothers apart during the wars.  Once the edge was sharp enough to shave with, he ran an oiled rag down its length to protect it from the elements.

Next came the shield.  He polished the leather, wood, and iron of it lovingly.  He noted every chip and dent, remembering the blows that had made their mark over the years.  He would need this old friend’s protection again today.

Next came his war kilt, chain mail shirt, and helm.  He strapped his sword across his back, and attached his long dagger to his ankle where it would make a good back up weapon.

Bowing his head before starting his march to battle, he prayed to the gods, both old and new, to protect him as he faced the ravening hordes he was sure to encounter today.  He thought of all the old comrades who had gone before him, and the young men who had come home half mad from the sights he was heading towards today.

Once both his body and spirit were armed and armored, he stepped out onto the black plain that lead to his goal.  He squared his shoulders, but knew that today might be his last.  Too many gray hairs graced his head, too many battles over the years ran through his memory for him to expect to see the sun set on this day.

As he walked forward to battle, the sights and sounds of this day burned into his soul.  The high pitched ringing of a bell, the soft music that filled the air, the old warrior knew they would be the sounds that would take him to Valhalla.  The red and black clad herald of  the madness within greeted him as he walked through doors that magically opened for him.  The noise of the horde immediately pressed on him like a wave.  Undaunted, he waded into the lair of the enemy, intent on his purpose.

The last thing he heard before the noise drowned out all sanity was the merry calling of the door keeper:

“Merry Christmas!  Welcome to Walmart!”

So no kidding, there I was.

Just prior to Christmas 1991, I was assigned weekend duty as the driver/runner for our battalion’s Staff Duty NCO (SDNCO).  Basically, a Staff Sergeant and I  spent Friday night and Saturday sitting in the basement of our battalion’s barracks, answering the phone, signing personnel in and out of the unit, and making sure that the revelers in the Op Stop battalion bar didn’t get too rowdy.

Yes Virginia, my battalion operated a bar in the basement of our barracks.  Our commanders made the sensible decision sometime in the 1970’s that it made more sense to fill the unit’s morale fund by selling beer and well drinks to the soldiers in the barracks than by holding bake sales and car washes.  Also, this kept that group of burgeoning alcoholics out of the bars and off the roads.  This kept the SDNCO and the battalion leadership from having to bail soldiers out of jail for fighting and DUI.  As a matter of fact, prior to the Op Stop being shut down in 1993, our unit went 12 years without a DUI.  Considering that the majority of the battalion was aged 20 to 25 and were being set free in a country where alcohol in all its forms ran freely at periodic festivals designed specifically for drinking them, that’s quite an accomplishment.  The weekend after we pulled down the bar in the Op Stop, we had 4 DUI’s.  That’s probably something to consider when you try to keep people from doing things you don’t approve of. They’ll probably still do them, but probably won’t do them in as safe a place as you’ve just taken away.

Anyway, that December weekend saw our valiant troops doing their best to drink Bavaria dry, and I was sent down the hall several times to turn down the music and the drunks.  About 3 AM the sergeant I was working with went down and shut the lights off.  A crowd of about 50 rather inebriated, highly trained, and motivated soldiers then tromped upstairs.

It had been snowing all evening and into the night.  I went out every so often to sweep the snow from the walk in the front of the building and the front steps.  I planned to shovel the parking lot after breakfast on Saturday.

Saturday morning came with a brilliant winter’s sunrise, and was followed very closely by the battalion’s Command Sergeant Major.  This senior NCO was feared and loved by us all.  He was what we called a Tusker.  He was an old elephant who had come home to Augsburg to finish out his career.  He had probably lived in about half of the barracks on our little post over the course of his 30 years.  Only the occasional inconvenience of being sent back to the States for a year or so had kept him away from Augsburg. He was also one of the few people I ever met with an Army Security Agency combat patch.

After checking in with us and chatting about how bad the roads were and how glad he was that he lived within walking distance to post, the Sergeant Major walked upstairs to his office on the third floor.  Moments later, the phone rang.

“What the !#$!@# is going on down on the battalion square?” this normally calm, composed old soldier was yelling into the phone.  A quick look out the back door let me know that my Saturday was going to be long and difficult.

After leaving the Op Stop that morning, the dedicated warriors of our battalion had neither walked home nor gone upstairs to their rooms.  They had taken advantage of the cover of darkness and the newly fallen snow to erect an erotic winter wonderland in the battalion square.  Every conceivable sexual position had been crafted in snowpeople.  They must have worked at it for several hours, because there were about 25 snowpeople engaging in a frozen orgy.

The SDNCO gave me charge of the desk and ran upstairs to wake up everyone he could find.  Over the next hour or so the still drunk and hung over soldiers of our little intel unit obliterated their works of art under the watchful eye of an irate Command Sergeant Major   While no pictures were taken that morning, I later saw several Polaroids of the figures as they were being constructed. A military operation of such stealth and social worth has not since been accomplished.  While there was some grumbling about innocence and being made to knock down such fine works of sculpture, there was also quite a bit of giggling as the obscene statuary was destroyed.

In memory of this wonderful holiday memory, I give you this: