Well, it’s been a pretty good weekend.

The Irish Woman went through her stuff in the basement and repeated the amount I got rid of last week. I helped out with the heavy lifting. She found some of her baby pictures, and it’s amazing how much Baby Bear looks like both of us.

Our peach tree finally ripened its fruit, so I picked it all on Saturday night. After blanching, quartering, and mixing with a light syrup we made, we got 6 quarts of peaches to freeze for later and enough left over for a peach cobbler tomorrow night.

I actually got a couple of hours to myself this afternoon when the Irish Woman took Baby Bear to a baby shower. I took an uninterrupted nap, and then practiced with my bow. Only a few more weeks until bow season starts, and I want to be sure that I hit what I’m aiming at.

Oh, and the countdown has started. 7 days to the return of football! Go Raiders! Go Vikings! Go Redskins!

Well, this afternoon I broke down and cleaned out the storage area in the basement. I’ve been holding onto some old furniture and stuff from before the Irish Woman and I got together. I threw out three boxes of VHS tapes (do I even own a VCR anymore?), most of the furniture, and a lot of old junk that I’ve been dragging around for who knows how long.

I find I need to clean out my clutter every so often or it takes over. Having Baby Bear made me look around at my life and realize just how much cruft I’d allowed to build up, both physically and mentally. Over the past 3 months I’ve gotten rid of a lot of excess baggage, gotten a handle on my workload at the job, and cleaned out a lot of closets. I’ve had 3 weeks of vacation to spend with the kids and relax, and I’ve been able to breathe and prioritize a bit.

I haven’t done something like this in a long time, and it shows. But I’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff, I’m feeling better, and I’m happier.

Girlie Bear, Baby Bear, and I went to a local produce farm this morning to buy some stuff. I was hoping they’d have blackberries for picking, but no luck. We did get some really nice squash and zucchini for dinner tonight, and about a bushel of sweet corn that was picked early this morning.

There’s something wonderful about the smell of freshly picked corn. Reminds me a lot of my Grandmother’s house in North Dakota. She always had fresh produce from her garden and the local farms in the summer, and would spend weeks canning in July, August, and September. I honestly can never remember Grandma buying actual food at a grocery store, just dry goods that she couldn’t grow herself. Her freezer was kept stocked with deer, fish, and pork from her multitude of grandkids, and she lived off of that and the canned fruit and vegetables.

Anyhoo, Girlie Bear will be shucking herself a bushel of corn this afternoon, which will then be blanched, cut, and put in the freezer for later this year. With the cost of food going up as much as it has, the Irish Woman and I have decided to put back as much meat and produce as we can while it’s still fresh and cheap. I’ll keep back a few ears for dinner tomorrow night, and a good time will be had by all.

The AP has published a story about how Senator Obama has decided it was a bad idea to let his kids participate in an interview with a gossip show.

Step 1 – Allow yourself and your wife to be interviewed by Access Hollywood so that your “human” side can be seen by your adoring public, as if the frothing at the mouth crowd needed any more reason to love you.

Step 2 – Let the reporters get to know your kids.

Step 3 – Let the reporters tape the interview with the kids in the shot.

Step 4 – Let the reporters put microphones on the tots and ask them questions.

Step 5 – After the interview has aired, express regret for allowing your kids to be used as a cute distraction to the fact that you’re a vacuous excuse for a human being.

Step 6 – Profit!

I wonder what his next trick will be, maybe letting them spend the weekend over at Britney’s so that TMZ will get some shots on their front page?

Just one more reason that I’d vote for a yellow dog before I’d vote for Obama.

I was watching the Today Show last week, and they were all ga-ga over the new pictures of Jamie Lynn Spears’ new baby. I personally don’t think that showing glamorous pictures of an unmarried teenage mother with no education and no job on national television is such a good idea. Let her raise her child and get out of the spotlight. I also almost barfed when the “reporter” on the segment mentioned how her mother, Lynne Spears, raised her in a traditional household. Yeah, traditional in the “let my teenage daughter dress up like a street walker and dance on TV” sense. Puhlease.

But I held my craw down and went on with my morning rituals while I waited for the real news to come on.

A few moments later, Today did a segment on the new NBC program called “The Baby Borrowers” in which teenage couples are given the responsibility of caring for children in different stages of development. The producer was on to defend the show as a social experiment which tries to convince teenagers in general how difficult it is to raise a family, especially at a young age. I’m not a fan of the show, but the Irish Woman is intrigued by it, so I’ve seen one episode. Some of the kids do really well, and most of them really try to do the best they can. Some are real train wrecks, and it’s sad to watch them.

I don’t agree with the idea of letting young strangers be responsible for your children, but I agree with the message.

But it occured to me that NBC was sending mixed signals here. In one breath, they were talking about how beautiful it is that an underage girl can have a baby, and in the next they’re trumpeting a show that’s ostensibly designed to prevent teenage parenting.

So which is it, or do they not have an agenda at all? Are they caught in a moral quandary where they want to coo over a baby while at the same time trying to prevent identical situations from happening, or is this a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing?

I dropped an email to the NBC ombudsman, but no answer so far. I’ll not hold my breath.

OK, here we go. As I stated earlier, I’m a Republican. I’m not arch-conservative about most things, but I tend to agree with the GOP than I do with the Democrats.

This year, John McCain is the nominee of my party. Senator McCain was my senator when I lived in Arizona, and I’ve had a few chances to listen to him speak. Overall, I agree with what he has to say. Yes, he tries to work with the Democrats, and he doesn’t toe the party line each and every time. That’s a real reason I like him. I’m not interested in electing another party drone idealogue who has to have it his way or no way.

That being said, he still has to earn my vote.

I know he’s very good on defense, but what about economics? I saw a headline that he’s promising to balance the budget in his first four years, so I want to see details on how he’s going to do that.

What is he going to do about shrinking the footprint of the federal government? He’s always seemed to be anti-pork in the past, but what specific cuts will he try to get through Congress in order to limit government and cut the budget?

He says he’s for the individual right to a firearm, and overall his record agrees with that. But what will he do to better enforce the existing gun laws?

I’m not extremely happy about his stance on illegal immigration. I don’t know how we’re going to secure the border, but something needs to be done. And a big fence isn’t the answer. If people want to go over, under, or through a physical barrier, they will find a way. What is Senator McCain proposing to do about the millions of illegal workers that are here already?

And while I know the government can’t do much about the price of petroleum, is Senator McCain willing to start a Manhattan Project for renewable energy that doesn’t come from overseas and doesn’t destroy the environment and drive up the price for other commodities?

So there you are. You’ll notice that I didn’t mention gay marriage (none of my business, I’m married to a woman) or abortion (I’m against it, but I’m even more against the government telling someone what to do in regards to their morals and body). Not that I expect replies here, but I’ll be keeping an eye on the news outlets for answers to these questions.

I’m taking a few weeks off from work to spend them with Baby Bear in July. I sent out the obligatory email to my coworkers and customers letting them know I’d be out. The avalanche of work has begun. I may be starting vacation in 36 hours, but I may be working for the next 36 hours straight. Got to love it.

The Irish Woman has an alter ego named Gopher Girl. Gopher Girl has a super human ability to create holes in any pristine section of green lawn. She especially enjoys digging large holes for ponds, but has also been known to dig up an entire flower bed in order to exercise her talent. If necessary, she will dig from sunup to after sundown. No amount of fussing on my part will get her to stop and come in, even when the heat and humidity climb into the 90’s.

Over the years, she’s put in two ponds in our front yard, both dug by hand with a garden shovel. The first one was dug when we first started dating, but has had several incarnations since then. About every year or two she replaces the liner, or changes the location, orientation, or size of the waterfall. The plants and flowers around the pond have changed quite often, but for the most part she’s become satisfied with them. To her credit, she’s bought a few plants from the nursery and then split them as they grew to fill the pond and flower beds.

Of course she started out with some nice expensive koi and other pretty fish, but they just didn’t seem to want to survive. Now she just buys 25 cent goldfish at the pet store and puts a bunch of them in the pond. We usually lose a few a year for unknown reasons. Several fall victim to the neighborhood cats and racoons, and once I think we lost quite a few to a crane who cleaned out the pond. For the first time, we seem to have gotten baby fish from the goldfish this year. Currently, we have almost 40 fish, including the new babies.

In addition to the fish, we have attracted quite a large family of frogs. I’ve seen everything from little frogs the size of a dime to a bullfrog big enough to wake up the kids when he starts croaking.

All of this wildlife and fish so close to the windows in the living and dining rooms makes for hours of entertainment for the cats. Imagine 3 housecats sitting in an open window, having a conversation with a bullfrog and begging us to let them out, even for just a few minutes. More than once, Koshka has squared off with a raccoon or cat through the glass door when they come by for a little seafood.

Once that pond had reached a sort of equilibrium, Gopher Girl began work on another pond, which I have titled “The Lagoon”. Again, it was dug and put together entirely by hand. This pond is about 3 times as large as the first, and is much more intricate. It’s divided into an upper and lower section, which are connected by a small waterfall. The pump and filter for the pond is at the bottom of the lower section, and it feeds a rather nice waterfall at the top of the upper pond. It’s quite nice, but several hundred square feet of plastic liner means a lot of opportunities for leaks and tears. Maintenance on this pond has kept her busy for almost 4 years.

Overall, I don’t mind the ponds. I don’t help her much with them, but it’s her hobby and it keeps her happy. While she’s working, of course, my front yard looks like a missile test range somewhere in the Southwestern Desert, but it gets better once she’s finished and the plants fill in the new gaps. Of course, that only lasts until Gopher Girl gets the itch again and begins pitching chunks of Kentucky clay into the mulched flower beds.

Recently, Gopher Girl replaced the liner on the smaller pond, and when I came home last night, about a quarter of a ton of rock had been moved to re-create the perimeter of the pond. A new place had been dug in the side of the pond for the pump and filter, and some plants had been replaced. Apparently this wasn’t enough, because one of the beds in the backyard was dug up and several hills of beans had been planted.

With her need to dig satisfied for the time being, Gopher Girl has gone away, at least for the moment. I didn’t even have to hide the shovels this time.

Last night, Baby Bear was sitting on my leg as I did some work on the laptop. Koshka, our Siamese, jumped up on my lap to see what I was up to.

For the first time, Baby Bear noticed the existence of the cat. He immediately squealed, smiled, and leapt across my lap to grab two little handfuls of fur. Koshka jumped straight up and did her best to take off running across the hardwood floor. On her way up, she managed to gouge a few holes in my leg with her rear claws, but I didn’t even feel it between keeping control of the two month old and laughing.

This bodes well for things to come. The cats will have someone to play with, and the toddler-to-be will have three moving targets to entertain him.

Well, I’ve finally gotten on the band wagon and created a blog. First some info on myself. I’m the Daddy Bear here. I have 4 cubs, Junior Bear, Little Bear, Girly Bear, and Baby Bear. I have a wonderful wife, the Irish Woman, who puts up with me and my spawn with a smile on her face.

I work for a large U.S. company in Kentucky, and have been here almost 8 years. I’ve lived all over, both as an adult and a kid. When I was younger, I was an intel weenie in the Army, and did a lot of really fun things and a lot of really boring things.

Junior Bear is a typical teenager, trying to get through high school with as little damage as he can.

Little Bear is my younger son, just starting middle school next year.

Girly Bear is my one and only daughter. Yes, she is Daddy’s girl. She’s still in grade school.

Baby Bear just turned two months old. He’s currently working on learning to smile and hold his head up.

The Irish Woman is as strong as steel and as soft as lamb’s wool. Her eyes can show light on the world and can cut me in half when they flash lightning. We’ve been together for 7 years, and married for 4. She’s become a great co-parent to my kids, and is a great partner to me.

As for me, I’m a 40-ish schlub. I’m a Republican, socially moderate and fiscally conservative. I’m pro-gun and pro-defense.

The rest you’ll learn as you read.