Squid Action

Catch Up

2008-07-17T23:30:00.001-07:00

Margo at the Splash Pad- B&W, originally uploaded by Pat Beyer.

The kids are getting older. Older and smarter.

There was a time when I could flat out lie to them and they would buy anything I said. If I needed Audrey to finish her meal, or let me give her a bath without her scratching my eyes out, I'd coax her by saying that it was my job as a dad. If I failed to perform my duties as a 'daddy', then I would be sent to daddy-jail. I never get into the specifics of where daddy jail is, or the more horrifying details like how she would only get to see me on weekend visitations- I just say that I'd have to go to daddy-jail and let it lie there, soaking in her imagination. Normally it worked, and she would finish her carrots, take her bath or shut off "Barbie's Stories: The Princess and the Pauper" (thanks a lot Kim). But tonight, as I told her that after "Monster Party" (again, thanks a lot Kim) she would have to eat dinner, she mocked me. Actually, I think the word balked would be a better way to describe it. I think "mock" implies that she would repeat what I say back to me in a high, whiny voice. Lets go with balk. So, after the balking and desperate attempts to distract me by drawing me into a twenty minute conversation on how, when she wakes up tomorrow, she's going to color with her water color set I pulled out the 'Blue Steel' of disciplinary lines. She stared at me for a minute and said, "I don't think you're going to daddy-jail."

I panicked. "Yes I will!" I said, desperate to maintain the one tool I have.
"No you won't" She replied cooly. Staring me directly in the eye with a flat, expressionless face.

My mind reeled as I ran through every avenue of logic I could use. She wasn't exactly saying that daddy-jail didn't exist. There was a chance that, though she believes it exists, she didn't think I was in a position to really suffer it's consequences. Like when I tried to get her excited about my new kindle. I asked her if she liked it, and she said no. "Everyone likes it!" I exclaimed. When she asked who I replied with my favorite line, "Oh I dunno... The President of the United States for example." Also, when she asks me to make up a bedtime story, I normally end it with, "...And once arriving home from their amazing adventure, they were greeted by none other than the President of the United States of America..." Since I use it so often she doesn't believe that I really have this daily connection with the President, though she believes he exists. But that will all change, as I'm sure everything else will, once Barack Obama is president.

Back to my point. I felt I had to take the concept of daddy-jail up a notch to maintain it's potency. I considered giving her statistics of prison-rape, or making her watch episodes of "OZ". In the end I just changed the subject by telling her she can have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Margo is growing a new tooth, so that means she has to get her standard fever and virus. The poor kid is still her cheerful self, but she's just crying all the time. The other morning, as I was escorting Erin and the two kids out the door to daycare- Margo, who was crying all morning, still stopped at the doorway to turn and wave bye-bye, mouth open and tears streaming. She's also talking more. She has been for a while. She can say "shoe", "No", "Please" and "No". She's also my wrestle buddy. We'll sit around in the porch, and all I have to do is drop my kindle/iPhone/People Magazine and stare at her. She'll eventually lock eyes with me, then smile and start running away while chirping like a dolphin. I'll chase her until she eventually drops on the floor and rolls over on her back to accept the inevitable tickle-fest. Since I don't shave much these days, my whiskers work pretty well on her neck under her chin. Most of the time, Audrey will walk up and basically say, "me too!" then slap me on the back of my head. Hopefully Margo will feel better soon since tickle fest is not as fun to do while she's crying.

Mom has spent the last few weeks going through some serious chemo treatments. A while ago we all made a trip to Rochester to talk with a specialist about possible experimental treatments that might be available to her. Turns out there is none. The doctor said that all they could do was give her a harsh regimen of chemotherapy to try to shrink the nodes in her lungs. She kept repeating the words, "harsh regimen". I swear she said it about five times. But it makes sense since it turns out that mom also has tumors on her kidneys. Something we didn't know about until that visit. Something that her current doctor never told her. Something we were all wondering why the fuck her current doctor forgot to tell us about. Her doctor is an ass though. A few years back she told my Mom that the mass on her spine was serious and she should get her affairs in order. After a biopsy we learned that it was just a calcium deposit- something that can happen when you throw your back out too much. Moron, I have no idea why mom hasn't dropped her yet.

Anyway, we learned that at this point there is no cure for her. And the chemo would only (hopefully) shrink her tumors and nodes down so she can extend her life. But, as we were told repeatedly, it would be "harsh". And it has been. In the first week or so she lost all her hair and she spends all her time either sleeping or throwing up. When she's not throwing up, she feels like she is going to any second. I guess there's no break in her day from that sensation either. They give her medication to try to suppress the vomiting, but it's not working. She ran into her idiot doctor during one of her chemo treatments, and she said, "Well, we'll have to start making marijuana brownies soon won't we?" My Mom, desperate for anything, asked if she seriously could get some medicinal marijuana. "Oh, no. I was kidding. We'll just try to come up with a combo of drugs for you." Fucking amazing. I've never met this woman, but I already want to key her car. After hearing that story, I started thinking of who the hell I know that still smokes weed. But, luckily she took a turn for the better in the last couple days.

Her laptop is broken again. It's really slow to start up, and crawls like dial-up when she's on the net. So I was over there setting up my old PC for her to use while I try to fix hers. I transferred over her pictures and music. My brother in law was nice enough to donate his video iPod to her so she could look at photos, video and listen to music while she spends the three hours in treatment every day. We loaded it up with tons of stuff of my kids and my niece, and I made my iTunes account active for her if she wants to download new music and audio books.

She sat with me and talked while I went though all the set up, making sure her printer worked, and her iPod would sync. At one point she ran off to dry-heave leaving me alone to stare at all the stuff she hung up in her office. She has paintings I made in highschool, drawings my niece made for her, and a make-up table with a mirror that is wallpapered in photos. I hadn't noticed since I was sitting directly underneath it, she had a bulletin board up on the wall. Among all the post-its with instructions on how to use her gmail account and run her printer, she had an illustration of a pair of pink, shiny lungs. Under that, written on a sheet of notepaper was a list of affirmations on her lungs being clean and healthy.

Crappy Day

2008-05-07T21:46:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, Mom went in for her first scan since her surgery. It was something we all were waiting for, and dreading at the same time since the outcome of the scan decided whether or not there would be any further operations to keep her around longer.

They were looking to see if any new nodes had grown in the lung they had cleaned out a few months ago. If there were new nodes, it means that they're growing rapidly and there wouldn't be any point in going into the other lung since they would just grow back by the time she recovered.

She went to her scan, and we all tried to go through the motions of our days today as we waited for her to come back from her meeting with the surgeon and phoned us the results. My morning started out pretty hectic since there was a lot of work to get done by the end of the day, and I was trying to get ahead in case there was bad news- that way I could stare blankly at my monitor without feeling guilty. I got through most of the day, but by two o'clock I was feeling jittery. I emailed my sister saying, "I feel like I have butterflies throwing up in my stomach" and she wrote back saying basically the same thing. By about two-thirty I thought I should warn my boss that I could be receiving bad news that would make me "start acting like a douche". Which was my cute way of saying, "I still have stuff to get done today, but I might wind up slowing down." I instant messaged him, and he was nice about it. He asked how I was doing, and I said I was jittery. But as I typed that I realized that I was on my second pot of coffee and had been chewing ass-loads of nicotine gum... Measurable ass-loads. So maybe I was fine.

At three o'clock Mom called on my cellphone. I answered and her voice seemed ok, almost up-beat. I said, "Hi Mom." as I got up and made my way out of the office to get some privacy out in the hall. With her happy sounding, matter of fact tone, she told me that they're not going to operate on the other lung. My Mom, she's a twisted bastard. The conversation was pretty short besides throwing in that she only had a few years. They said that they could try chemo to slow the growth, but it wouldn't make them go away. She added that she still wanted to come with me to pick up the kids from daycare at four-thirty. Something that I made fun of her for the other day. Who, when possibly confronted with really bad news, wants to do something so pithy like frolic with their grandchildren. I imagined it where the children are confused and horrified that we're going through the motions of pushing them on a swing, sliding down a tornado slide and spinning on a merry-go-round with them while sobbing uncontrollably. But anyway I agreed. She made me promise not to talk about it- to let her have a fun time with the kids. Like I said, she's a twisted bastard. I hung up and basically stood in the hallway staring at a wall.

Interestingly enough, when someone goes numb, or when I do anyway- it's not like in the movies. I stood there staring at a wall and thinking, "This is like on television. If I were in high school I would totally be clutching a textbook to my chest as I slid my back down against a locker until my butt hit the floor." Then it occured to me that someone could walk by, so I snapped out of it and got back to my desk.

I picked up mom and drove her out to our daycare. I was doing fine until I saw both Audrey and Margo freak out when they saw her walk around to the back yard where they were playing. Crying is like throwing up. When you're nauseous and you see something gross, your body just throws up whether you want to or not. Same goes for seeing a Hallmark commercial play out in front of you. But I'm not a homo, so I didn't cry. Something about blubbering in front of my daycare lady seemed un-gentlemanly.

We drove back to my place and got the kids in the house. Then as I held Margo and looked for a bottle of bubbles for audrey to play with outside, I could hear my mom talking to her as she changed her diaper. Something about hearing her talk to my kid in her sweet voice made me start cry-vomiting. Poor Margo, who I was still holding so her head was only inches away from my face, looked as horrified as I imagined. Even then, I was thinking about how this was like a Sunday night movie where I would grip Margo and demand with bear teeth, "Don't you ever leave me... You promise? PROMISE!"

I got it together and got the kids outside. But, as Audrey kept yelling for me to hurry up while I opened the foil from her bottle of bubbles, I started to break down again as I could see mom frolicking (literally frolicking) with Margo in the yard. So, I yanked the foil off and handed it to Audrey while telling mom I'd be right back. She knew what was going on and just said, "ok."

I went into the basement and did more cry-vomiting for a while. Again, as I'm doing it, I'm checking my email and straightening out the furniture that I re-arranged since I painted down there. Which looks awesome by the way. Painting the wood paneling gives it a "nantucket", old beach house feel. Makes the time I spend down there working much more relaxing.

After that I was fine. I took pictures and made cheerful small-talk. Erin came home and we all chatted and played with the kids until mom left for dinner with her friends. That's right, dinner. With her friends. Twisted.

Audrey's Second Easter

2008-03-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

I had high hopes for Easter this year. And I got the shaft.

Since Audrey is almost 3 now, I had planned on building up the whole Easter Bunny myth much like I did for Santa and the Elf on a Shelf that my sister bought for us the year before. It was a hit. The premise of the Elf on a Shelf is that you get the doll, and when the kids aren't around you put it up on a shelf or hanging from a picture frame. Then, when the kids see it, you explain that Santa sent this helper down to watch and make sure that they're being nice and not naughty. Sort of like being audited, or having Santa send in a Pinkerton to keep tabs on his investment. Either way, it should make Santa look like a dick, and support a climate of fear and paranoia amongst the children, but for some reason it has the opposite effect. Audrey loves the hell out of him. Each night when she goes to bed, I'd pluck him off of whatever cubbord knob, door frame or plant hook and put him somewhere new. Just to freak her out, I would move him while she was still up and watching television. She'd scream with delight when she saw that she had just missed seeing him move. A couple times I'd sneak into her room when she's sleeping and hang him up on a curtain rod. You'd hear her yell and clap when she woke up in the middle of the night and saw him there.

So, with that being such a success, I gave the bunny a shot. I took my sister and brother in law's idea of putting bunny tracks around the house and Audrey could follow them and find the baskets. They gave me a template and told me to use flower. Once the kids were asleep, and the cats were securely locked in the basement, I set to work laying down the tracks and sprinkling them with flower. Not as easy as you'd think. It's not like the stuff just spreads out nicely- it clumps together so you wind up pouring a ton on with the result being a bunny foot shaped iceberg, or albino pyramid. After a while I caught on to the idea of using a basting brush to get a thinner layer.

Since I couldn't put the tracks down on our hardwood floors (which is a huge percentage of our house), I just kept the tracks confined to the porch carpet which made Erin happy since she wasn't a fan of the potential mess. You can see the result here.

When Audrey woke up, I stumbled out of bed, scooped up the video camera and followed her down the hall and through the kitchen into what I thought would be a Hallmark commercial. At first she stood in the middle of the tracks and looked blankly around. Then she asked what they were. "Easter bunny tracks" I said cheerily, expecting her eyes to light up. Then she looked around some more and said, "Where's the bunny?"
"He's gone- He went back to Hopkins." That's right. I told her the Bunny was from Hopkins, MN. I wanted to change up the whole Easter Bunny story.
"Don't I follow the bunny to find the baskets?" She asked, looking at me innocently.
"No. NO! You're supposed to follow the bunny tracks to the baskets." I said. "So go ahead, follow the tracks. They start at the sliding glass door."

She wandered over cautiously. After a moment of stooping over one of the thickest prints, she said, "The tracks look like pancake mix."
I grimaced for a moment before muttering, "Not pancake mix- magic dust. Just look for your baskets." Eventually she found them and wasn't into it. There were only two baskets, one for Margo who was sleeping at the time, and one for Audrey. She apparently expected more. After that she tip-toed disgustedly over my tracks and sat on the couch where she demanded to watch Spongebob Squarepants. Amazing. After taking some pictures I vacuumed it up and resolved to somehow make it 'better' next year.

Later, when Erin's parents came over, they planted 20 of those plastic eggs with treats inside them. It was all over the house. Audrey woke up from her nap and was giddy as she looked for each one and placed them in her basket. Really, squealing like a pig with each new egg found under a pillow or chair. Clearly, Erin's parents had years of this under their belt, so they had the upper-hand. Defeated I sat down on the couch and began reading through an issue of People magazine that my mom had dropped off. Erin's mom told me how she had seen the video of Audrey looking for her baskets. "And I saw those tracks..." she added, trailing off.
"Oh yeah, what did you think?"
"Looks pretty messy."
"It's just flower, it vaccumed up pretty easily." I said.
After a moment she added,"you over-did it a little."

Mo-Cakes

2008-03-10T21:15:00.000-07:00

This weekend wasn't all that exciting. Friday Erin stayed home with Margo who had run a 103 temp the night before. Her parents were nice enough to come over and fill in my slot so I could work the rest of the day. That night I got together with Corey and watched the "Towering Inferno" with him and his wife. His kids are fun as always- But his daughter, Chloe, was sort of keeping her distance and being generally uncomfortable with this 'intruder' in her house. Up until then, she was always happy to see Erin and I whenever we came over, to thei point where she would jump up and down screaming, "Pat and Erin! Pat and Erin! Pat and Erin!" So I guess she's getting older. My neice was the same way. I think it has something to do with realizing that it's not 'cool' to jump up and down like that when you see people.

Saturday Erin and I decided to make pancakes and listen to Motown music. It was something that happened accidently one morning when we were making pancakes and I was playing a Notes Underground podcast of new music. One of the tracks they played was a mash-up of 1960's motown which had all of us playing around and dancing. Especially Margo, which is really funny to see. After that Erin thought I should get some more, which I did, and she called it "Mo-Cakes". After Mo-Cakes we spent the rest of the morning trying to get Audrey to pee in the toilet, which didn't work out too well. We followed almost everyone's directions and combined them into one 'super-potty training' session in the kitchen. The first trick is to start handing out as many apple juice boxes as she can handle. Then, you put the potty chair in the kitchen so she can have quick access to it. You use a doll that can pee, and show her how it's done. Then you let her take the full potty-cup-thing into the bathroom and empty it out in the big toilet. All that worked well, and she was genuinely excited to put a magnet up on the big white board when she 'tinkled in the potty' (which I kept screwing up and saying "Pee in the thing"). But she couldn't. She kept peeing and crapping all over herself before she could make it to the 'thing', and would then demand to put a magnet on the board. It didn't bother her one way or the other if it was going to work out. So we gave up after her nap and decided to go shopping.

Chippy, meanwhile, was getting better. Her fever was getting lower and she wasn't so lethargic when taking her naps. On Thursday I had to get her from daycare early and take her to Urgent Care since our pediatrician wasn't accepting anymore appointments for the day. Though, when I told them Margo's symptoms, the lady made it clear that I should take her to a pediatrician and not just a urgent care. Amazing. I picked her and Audrey up and went straight to the UC, but they didn't open until six. Defeated, I went home and called Erin. She later took Margo and the result was anti-climatic. They didn't see anything wrong with her. She had a high fever, but there wasn't anything dramtic about it. But by the end of Saturday night she was throwing tantrums and screaming her head off in a really weird way. Besides that she was normal all day. Sunday was the same, by the time evening rolled around she was throwing tantrums at almost nothing. She did it again tonight (monday night) and I was starting to get worried. Our daycare lady said she was fine all day, and there was no fever to speak of. I sat her down to eat something while she threw a fit, and she calmed down depending on what food I gave her. When she didn't want something she basically just swiped it off her table. I came to conclusion, after watching her try to mouth the words "Boo-baah" along with the television show on PBS, that she must be trying to communicate, but can't figure out how to do it, and is getting frustrated. She knows the sign for 'milk', and 'more' but that's it. So I'll have to try to get her to learn more.

Margo's first Birthday

2008-02-27T21:59:00.000-08:00

Margo had her first birthday this month (the 21st). The first birthday is probably the hardest to by gifts for since she doesn't know what's going on, much less appreciate her gift. So, she got clothes and books. She also got a cookie jar which she finally got the hang of putting the plastic cookies into, so she's been enjoying that.

I feel bad, but it hasn't been until recently that I've really began to appreciate Margo. I've always loved her, but it's only lately that she interacts and tries to wrestle that I've grown more attached to her. Before that she basically just cried a lot and pooped. I'm sure I would of felt this way a while ago, but Audrey tends to dwarf everything around her with her personality. That includes Margo's birthday, where she would run from one family member to the other wanting attention, and Margo would wander off to a corner to play by herself. I felt bad and made a point to stick close to her. It was her birthday after all.

So, Margo can make the "milk" sign with her hand now. I still need to get it on tape. She also meows like a kitten and makes "aaah" sounds after chugging down some milk.

Audrey on the other hand has started a relationship with an imaginary friend called "Tiny Tyrone". That would be Tyrone from the Backyardigans. This knowledge happened on one of the most horrifying days of my life.

I came home from work with the kids and let Audrey watch Max and Ruby which is a really, really safe show. But, Audrey managed to extract something sadistic from it by pretending to be "super bunny" like on the show. But, as she ran around the house yelling, "I'm Super Bunny!" she weilded a plastic knife from her little kitchen set. When I came into the room she yelled, "I'm going to cut you!"
"Wait, what?!" I asked.
"I'm going to cut you- I'm super bunny!"
"why do you want to cut me?"
"Because I don't like you!" she said cheerfully, and proceeded to slice me across my cheeks and throat. It was insane. I watched the episode later, and didn't see any reference to 'cutting' anything.

Later that evening she informed me that she had a friend, Tiny Tyrone. The same from the show, but he's really tiny. For some reason he's always crawling around on the ceiling and she needs to get him down. The only thing I've ever heard about imaginary friends comes from a vincent price audio book I heard as a kid, and that invisible friend told the kid to kill people. I figured it was Tiny Tyrone that put the knife in my kids hand.

Later that evening, when we were putting her down for bed, she got fussy and Erin decided that we wouldn't read a book to her because she wasn't listening. That sent Audrey off, as expected- what wasn't expected was that she would start running around in a circle in her room yelling, "Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!" I slept lightly that night.

The next day I figured that I should try to play it safe and make amends to what ever I did to piss off Tiny Tyrone, so I helped Audrey make a small home for him out of a Sleepy-Time Tea box. Including wallpaper, a rug and a kitchen drawn on one wall. I cut out a window and Audrey cut out pictures from a magazine to glue on the walls. Erin origamied a bed and drew a pillow on it. Hopefully that will appease him.

Mom and her cancerous lung

2008-01-19T21:26:00.001-08:00

Even though Erin has talked me into posting on my site again to document what's going on, my heart isn't into it. Not lately anyway since mom went in for surgery.

Mom had been getting results back from her CT scans showing that she had a spot emerging in her lung for a couple years now. First it was just one spot that was too small to do a biopsy on, but then they did once it had gotten a little bigger and it turned out to be nothing. We all breathed a sigh of releif and tried to get back into the routine of our family's, friends and work. Another six months after that more spots showed up and they grew. Something like 10 of them in one lung. This time a new doctor wanted to have another biopsey done to see if it's a sarcoma. I still dont' know much about sarcoma's, even after scowering the internet. It's really vague.

Basically it's cancer, but it doesn't show up as cancer. When she had that tumor in her cervix almost 4 years ago, it appearantly grew these cells and sent them out through her blood stream. Like most things in her blood stream, they hit the dead-end of the capillaries in her lungs. From there they started to grow, and if left alone they would continue to grow into tumors that would eventually be inoperable. So, the surgeon decided to open her up and deflate her left lung and feel around for the little lumps and cut them out with a 'stapler'. He kept calling it that. I don't really want to know what it is.

So I took a day off to go into the meeting with Kim, Denny and Erin to talk to the surgeon and find out what is happening and what is going to be done. Everyone came out with their own conclusions on whether to think it's a good thing or a bad. I was feeling pretty down about it as the surgeon talked more and more. At one point Mom looked at me from her chair with a sad expression of, "This is killing you." I haven't seen that kind of expression on her since I was a kid, and my bird died. But I'm not a homo, so I didn't cry.

A few days later I took another day off to go to the surgery. I went with Mom and Denny to the hospital at five in the morning. She checked in, and after an hour wait, they took her to the prep room. Denny and I waited in the main lobby until they called us up. We sat by mom's bed as she waited to go into the O.R.. When we first arrived, there was a minister there by her bedside praying for her. For some reason I was pretty pissed to see that. Something about having someone praying over my mom in her hospital bed made the situation even more dreadful. I just wanted them to get the hell out and let us talk to her so we could all reassure each other that this wasn't as bad as it seemed. Denny and I held her hand, and tried to joke to lighten the mood. A nurse came in to do something, then an anesthesiologist, then the surgeon. Once she was drugged up they wheeled her off. It was weird not to stand and stare sullenly as they quietly took her away- like a scene from a Sunday night movie on the Hallmark Channel. I think Denny was doing the same, because the silence was broken when one of the nurses brought up the bag I was wearing. It has a buckle on the strap like you would see from a seatbelt from a car in the 70's.

Denny and I sat around talking about all sorts of stuff until Erin showed up. Then he retired to his magazines about hunting while Erin told me about Audrey and Margo's drop off at daycare. The time was ticking by pretty slowly. She was scheduled to go into O.R. at seven o'clock and be done at ten. We went to the cafeteria, and walked around. Thanks to the fancy iPod, I surfed the web and sent off some emails to people who wanted to know what was going on.

Sometime around ten-thirty she was finally out and in the 'in between room' that they had to monitor her and let her wake up from the anesthesia. I don't know how long it took, but eventually we were allowed up to see her. I was pretty tired since I hadn't slept the night before and was up so early. I would like to say that I was up because I was tossing and turning from worry, but in reality it started with that, and resulted in my getting heartburn from eating cashews until one in the morning. Anyway, since I was tired and groggy, I didn't really know what to expect, and wasn't adiquatly worried enough as I normally am about everything. So I kept reminding myself to prepare for the worst. I've seen my dad in the hospital for gall stones when I was a kid. It can be some pretty scary stuff.

Before we saw her the surgeon sat us down in a little room and told us how it went. Basically he flattened the lung and went over it three times before he finally closed her up. The initial biopsy confirmed that it was a sarcoma and not some friendly bacteria. I pretty much figured that was going to be the case, but it still felt weird hearing that. We all asked questions, and danced around the one we really wanted to know which was, "How bad is it? If they can't operate again how long would she have?" But no one asked. Though we all talked about it later. The doctor kept framing the experience as if it were some kind of computer virus. He would say in a calm, regretful tone of an IT person, "Yeah, these are buggers to get rid of." Then sit quietly. He also talked about how things like this are the burden of living. I should of been annoyed- like I was when the clergy person prayed over mom, but for some reason I wasn't. Probably because he wasn't being condescending, and was being matter of fact about a subject that he deals with all the time. I had overheard the conversation that another surgeon had with another family, and he treated the operation like a football game. Talking loudly and bluntly and without any emotion. You could almost feel that he was removing himself from that room as he spoke. Also, he had the door wide open so all the rest of us in the waiting area could hear. Pretty crappy. Luckily for us, our surgeon was quiet and respectful. He sat there patiently as we all reflected quietly. Erin said later that you got the feeling from him that he would of sat there all day until we let him go.

We finally got to see her and she looked fine. She was awake and chatting. She looked good and seemed in a pretty good mood. Pretty quickly after we had got in she asked what the verdict was. I told her and she thought about it for a second- staring off into a corner of the room. Then she didn't seemed too let down about it.

She had to stay in the hospital for five days after that, and we visited every night. On Sunday, when I was there I got a call from my friend Corey who wanted to stop over and say hi. So he met us down at the hospital and since mom had some other visitors, the two of us went down to the cafeteria to get something to eat. Erin showed up as we were leaving and said that she wanted to go back in to get some food. Lucky for us since we ran into Toby and her boyfriend in line. It was nice to all hang out and joke around. Even though we were the only ones laughing in the place. I'm sure we grated on everyones nerves.

I was pretty nervous about mom going home since she was going to be taken off the epidermal and put on regular pain killers. The doctors kept warning us that it could potentially be a really painful recovery. But she seemed to do pretty well. Or so she said. Actually she was in a lot of pain, and surprised the hell out of me when she broke down on the phone crying and telling me how bad it was. She's finally better now, and making trips out shopping for groceries (with Kim or Denny's help).

From here we wait until the next C.T. scan and see if any more nodules pop up in that lung that was just operated on. If there are none, they will operate on the other lung and then keep checking her. Hopefully she will be clear for years before they would have to operate again. But then there's always the possibility that the nodules will pop up again on this test, and they will advise against operating. Since sarcomas in the lung aren't supposed to respond to Chemo, or radiation there would be nothing we could do. So I'm pretty nervous.

Mom getting her lung worked on

2008-01-17T21:09:00.003-08:00

Lookie that huh? My mom and my daughter frolicking in the sun. That's just great. Blogger is a pain to customize their templates. But posting an image from flickr is pretty darn easy. More on Mom tomorrow.

Margo speaks

2008-01-15T21:29:00.000-08:00

I feel bad for Margo (our second kid).

When Audrey was born, both Erin and I fawned over every gurgle and spastic move she made. We had already applied whatever personality we thought we saw in her, and videotaped the lamest things out of sheer joy and wonder. But, now that we deal with mini power struggles from Audrey on a regular basis, we've pretty much skipped over all that initial fun with Margo.

It's not that we just took her for granted right away. We dealt with four months of her screaming every night from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.. It was ridiculous. Both Erin and I wondered how long it was going to go on, and if we could make it. So, by the time she settled down and stopped the screaming habit, we didn't have the same energy that we did for Audrey. So, we commented on how great Margo was now that she's all smiles and content to sit quietly for hours on end, and pretty much neglected the part where we take pictures of her, video tape her or dress her up in weird costumes we buy on a whim from baby gap.

That's changed though. Unlike Audrey, she's picked up on flipping over, crawling, standing up with the help of a couch or table and other gymnastics right on schedule. Where as Audrey was like our infant for over a year, Margo is practically a teenager at 10 months. So now we can't drop her in her high chair and basically forget about her while we try every trick in the book to get Audrey to eat her Gnocchi- now she throws her cheerios at us while announcing, "Uh-oh".

You also can't hold her. She wants you to. She'll crawl right up and stand her self up by holding on to your pants. Then, she'll look up at you with her huge cheeks and sweet two-toothed smile until you pick her up and smooch her face. After hooking you in, she'll then start twisting and contorting her torso around while whining until you put her down. Once you do, she'll begin the process all over again.

Another trick is how she's aligned herself with the cats in our house. Audrey used to try to grab their tails and talk to them. She could talk to them because she learned to talk so early. But since Margo has spent all her time learning all the physical skills, her speech is limited- which doesn't stop her from trying to talk in the kitten's primal language. And it appears to work. Every morning when I go into Margo's room to pull her from her crib and get her dressed, Octavia darts in and leaps into the crib as if ready to carry out whatever orders Chipps (that's my nick-name for Margo) barks out. She will wail her gentle, "Ooooooh... Ooooooh" like a kitten without lips and Octavia will twist around on her back, exposing her belly in ecstasy. I can only imagine that Chipps is sweetly cooing to Octavia on their take over of the kitchen, so they can get at the coveted bottom cubbord where we keep the snacks.

Anyway, my point is that from the last few months of neglect was born a personality of power in the form of Chippy. She seems determined to get our attention by force, and only gets worse every day. She's cute as hell, but I have creeping memories of Bradbury's "The Small Assassin" that I had once read in junior high.

It's back up... I guess.

2008-01-14T22:25:00.000-08:00

So I said this website was dead. I was too busy to actually post anything in here, and the few posts I made were so mundane that the result wasn't really something most people wanted to read.

So, with a second kid to take care of, I decided to take my life back from the screens of literally thousands of readers and retire into fatherhood. But then my wife informed me of something I hadn't considered. I had been keeping this thing for years (since aught-three according to the last time I visited my archives) and there was a written record of life before children, during the birth of Audrey, the cancer treatments of my mom, the death of a grandmother and the birth of Margo. She pointed out that it's going to be something that our kids will probably look back on to learn more about what their parents were like. And Margo is going to be pissed that I decided to cut it off right after she was born.

So that sucks. I barely have time anyway, but now I have to start this up again so I don't piss off a daughter who doesn't even know my name yet. My plan was to take away a lot of the administrative crap I had to handle with wordpress and just use blogger. I know, lame. But who cares. The teeming masses who read this will just be so friggin' happy that I'm back that they won't care how it's delivered.

I better be the subject of every one of Margo's book-reports from kindergarden through college.

Audrey and Margo with their toys

2007-09-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

I wish that after taking such a long break from writing, that I had something exciting to say, but I don't. I have a ton of stories about my kids and getting a new playstation 3, but none of it is something even I would want to read. So I won't do that to you...

I've been pretty busy at the work place. It's been a busy summer, so I've put in a lot of extra hours to make sure I'm all caught up. Normally I would be annoyed, but the people I work with are so nice about it that I'm not. Normally, if I'm up working late, my boss is too- so everything evens out. The draw back to that is I haven't had any time to take photos, write in the old blog or post anything up on Tiny Dead Bunny. Willhelm has been doing his best to keep that dying thing going, but it's no use. I keep looking at it, and I have ideas, but no time to make anything. It's summer- I've always heard that no one is doing stuff on the internet during the summers, so I'm not too upset about it.

One thing was facebook. I normally didn't really get into that crap. Like myspace. Too cheezy with all those music players screaming at you when you land on the page, and some seriously horrible web design going on. But since I can't actually write anything regularly, I thought I needed something for friends to go to for updates (and for me to get updated about others) without my actually having to 'create' anything. I ran across facebook a while ago but never used it.

But a couple days ago I got a couple invites from some old friends and when I looked at who's using it, I saw that my sister and her friends were on it. Bizarre. So I set my self all up and have been keeping in touch ever since. Even these posts show up on there. Talk about lazy. So yeah, I've become one of 'those' people. Atleast I'm using my real name, on there, and not pretending to be a 14 year old girl.

My neice has had me reading her favorite manga "Death Note" which I thought was so cute. The books are actually pretty good, but I'm more impressed that she thinks I'm cool enough to be let into her little world.

I've also found out that the word 'Slapnuts' can be a powerful, and positive thing if used correctly.

That's all for now. I'll try to come up with something better next time.

Audrey and Margo at Granny B's house

2007-07-22T14:16:00.000-07:00

Harry Potter day is the most magical day of all! I'll start at the beginning. Wednesday night I was up all night because my right arm was killing me. I got all of an hour's sleep. Erin was concerned that maybe there was a heart issue, but I was more concerned about Carpal Tunnel syndrome.

So I went in to work late on Thursday because I made a doctor appointment. After some muscle squeezing they confirmed my worst fears. I have carpel tunnel going on in both arms, from years of computer work. Balls. So now I have to wear a wrist brace thing on my arm while I work and when I sleep. It's humiliating. I can't continue thinking I'm bad ass if I have to wear a wrist-brace on my tattoo arm.

I talked to Erin on the phone and told her the news. She cracked up. Later in the conversation, I told her that I ordered the Harry Potter book and it should arrive on Saturday. She started laughing even harder. I've forced myself to read the first two books, and eventually listen to the audio books in an effort to struggle my through how boring they are to be a part of history when the final one comes out. I don't think they're all that boring when you get to the last couple books, but the first three were turd fests. It took a lot of effort on my part not to give up, but I made it and I was all set to read the last book like every other 12 year old out there. Erin thinks it's stupid that I'd force my self to waste all those hours on something I don't even really care about, so when she heard that I ordered the book she laughed, "So you're going to be sitting around in your pajamas reading Harry Potter with your little wrist brace?" She had a point.

Friday I had the day off since there was no daycare, and I spent it over at my moms fixing her computer situation. It was a nagging thing that I've been putting off for a few weeks since I was so busy. But I went over there with the promise that she'd watch the kids while I work on it. It took most of the day but I managed to get it all up and running, and then I secured her wireless network too.

The whole time I was doing that I was also working on the re-design that you're witnessing now (unless you're reading this through RSS- screw you). I have been mourning the loss of Deadwood, so I thought I'd dedicate my site to it for a while. I finally got it up and running late last night, though there are still a few issues I have to resolve. If you're seeing it on IE 6 or lower you're out of luck. You can still see the site, but not the way I intended with CSS goodness.

I woke up this morning to the sounds of Audrey sweetly screaming in my ear that mom made pancakes. I got up and stumbled out to the kitchen and wolfed them down. I love a Saturday morning pancake. Then, while taking my morning crap, I remembered that the Harry Potter book was going to come today.

Like I said earlier, I didn't really get into the books. It normally amounted to Harry being in serious trouble with people wanting to kill him. And the people in his school trying to protect him. But he'd always go against their instructions and go off exploring and try to solve the mystery on his own. I hated it because I kept fantasizing that someone would get killed because of his stupidity. Surprisingly, in Order of the Pheonix it actually happened, and of course the Half Blood Prince. So I started liking the books, because it was pretty much going against the 'child sleuth' way of writing. With the last book, I was hoping that it was going to be a blood bath with Harry being the final death. I imagined him stretching one hand out to the void while muttering, "... I'm really annoying. " Before expiring in Hermonie's lap. Of course, Hermonie lives. She's sort of the underdog, you gotta root for the underdog.

The book was finaly delivered by the mail carrier today at around noon. I saw him walking up and was awestruck by his amazing resemblance to Steve Jobs. He said, "You Pat Beyer?" I said yes, and he told me to enjoy as he handed me the package. Poor guy must have to greet everyone at the door on Harry Potter day. I imagine screen doors packed with screaming kids he has to paint a smile on his face for. But screw him, I got my book.

But then, as Steve Jobs was walking back to his truck, a red car pulled up to a screeching halt, and a woman marched out toward him, "Hi, I'm with Star Tribune. Have you been delivering any Harry Potter books today?" I was frozen with fear. I was praying that the guy wouldn't point out that he had just delivered a copy to this 33 year old man with a chincy starter-mustache and bed-hair. I didn't want to be etched into history this way. So I slowly backed away from the door. I considered closing the door, but I thought that would draw attention to myself. They mail carrier kept walking across my yard to his truck so I thought I was safe. I darted back toward the porch where Erin was laying, watching TV. I told her what had just happened, and she snapped into action. She grabbed Margo and headed out the door and into the street looking for the woman. She was dead-set on embarrassing me and having me interviewed. I kept yelling at her to get back in the house, and she finally relented after seeing the woman following the mail carrier down the street. Thank God.

After the kids had their naps, we went to target. As we drove past the main doors, I swear I saw planet Dan walk in the front. I told Erin and she started cracking up, "This is totally the day I'm going to embarrass you." she said. I told her I wouldn't be embarrassed. If she went up and talked to him, she's only embarassing herself. "What are you going to say? 'I read your blog!'? You'll look like a moron." She must of realized I was right because when we were in the store she saw him and quickly dropped the idea. Before that I asked what section she thought a famous local blogger would be in, and I guessed candles. Turns out I was partly-right. He might not of been looking for candles since he was in the home/office section, but there were candles on the end-cap. While Erin was off looking for make-up, I waited by an isle and Dan walked up right next to me. He was looking at something on the shelves, but he was all of a foot away. He smelt of lilacs. Audrey was whining about where Mom was, and I saw Dan look at her from the corner of my eye. I caught his attention with my annoying kid. Awesome.

Through the rest of our shopping experience, we kept running into him and I would make jokes of a section of "Us" magazine called, "Stars are just like us". They show candid pictures they've taken of the stars while they're out shopping, with captions like, "She lose their keys!" Or, "They are late getting to the book store!" I was saying things like, "He asks for Target Assistance!" as we saw dan walk past us with a Target employee.

So, all in all today was a pretty exciting Harry Potter day.

Watching the Apple Keynote on the big screen at work

2007-06-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I mention how much I like where I work now- with the boating trips and playing the Wii on the big screen during work, but today they put up the Apple WWDC conference on the screen so we could see all the stuff that is coming up live...

It's pretty funny to see how watching the conference has evolved over the years. Back when I was a big mac fan, I used to try to watch the live feed during work, and would grumble in frustration when the connection was lost and I wasn't allowed back on due to traffic. Now fan sites just go and report it live with photos and text that update every few seconds if you stay on their web page. If you want to join in on the geek-orgy go to http://www.macrumorslive.com/ to see all the new stuff they're coming up with.

Audrey Smooching Margo

2007-06-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't had a chance to write about this since I've been so busy working, but Erin went back to work on Wednesday and she felt pretty bad about it...

Tuesday was the day that we dropped off both Audrey and Margo at daycare. Erin was still home for the day, but she wanted a trial run to make sure everything went smoothly. I decided to take the day off as well so the two of us could hang out without having to worry about screaming kids.

We spent the day running around shopping so that Erin could get some new clothes for work. I managed to squeeze in some new pants as well. Then we ended it by going to "paint your plate" on a whim since we had walked past it. We picked out the same mugs and she painted hers with flowers, I painted mine with Kafka's "Metamorphosis" as the theme. Then we went home to snuggle on the couch and watch Oprah. I personally wasn't into the Oprah part, but I liked being able to snuggle on the couch without distraction like the old days.

We finally went to pick up the kids and brought them home. While I was making dinner, and Erin was with Audrey and Margo in the porch, I called out that dinner was ready. Annoyed that no one was responding I yelled again. Audrey suddenly bolted from the porch, past me and into her bedroom. More annoyed that Erin wasn't helping get Audrey ready for the high-chair, I gave an even more snotty, "Dinner's ready". But Erin was bent over in her chair with her hands covering her face. I asked if she was ok, and she said that she was sad. I was expecting that to happen- that she would have a hard time with the idea of going back to work after spending three months with Margo.

I ran over to give her a hug. I asked what happened and Erin said that she didn't know. How she was just sitting there and realized that she was with her family and started to cry. While we were talking, Audrey came running back with her favorite blanket saying in a panic, "Mommie? Blankie? Blankie make you feel better?" She handed Erin the blanket, which was amazing. Generally, Audrey is a jerk. She won't share anything with anyone. She won't even let you sit on her bed very long much less part with her favorite blanket. So to have her see that her mom was upset, and instantly run for her blanket was pretty sweet on her part.

She hugged Erin and repeated over and over that Mommy should stop crying. That of course, made Erin cry even harder. Audrey crawled up on her lap and wiped the tears off her cheek and leaned in for big hugs. It was the sweetest thing I'd ever seen, and I started to tear up a little. But I'm not gay.

I handed Erin a tissue to wipe the tears off, and Audrey instantly snatched it from me and started doing the wiping herself, which she would back up by wrapping her little arms around Erin's head and giving her big cheeky hugs. I could barely stand it.

Later, when I was putting Audrey into bed, I asked her if she remembered mommy crying. She said that she did, and ran off a laundry list of how she had brought her blanket, because it makes her feel better when she's sad- And how she wiped mommy's tears, and gave her hugs. I told her that I was really proud of her for being so nice and I swear the little bastard roller her eyes at me. I'm not kidding. She rolled her eyes and changed the subject to the Backyardagains episode she watched. I tried to bring up how she shared her blanket with mommy, and how that made her happy and made me happy- and she changed the subject again. So even after all that, my kid is still kind of a dick.

Fun Island

2007-05-14T14:13:00.000-07:00

There was more of a reason to celebrate Mothers day this year than normal since it was the first cancer test that mom took where she passed completely.

All of her other tests came up with strange things like the blob that appeared near the base of her spine which just turned out to be calcium deposits. Then she had the spot in her lung that we watched for almost a year before it got larger and was operated on. Turned out to be some kind of dumb cyst or something. So, this was the first test where there was nothing for us to worry about. She kept it a secret, so we wouldn't worry. At first I was bugged because I had this whole routine worked up involving sacrificing chickens, but after all the roller coaster doctor visits she's had, it was actually kinda nice to just hear good news without all the worrying. And no chickens had to die this time.

So we made two concrete blocks for her. One block had all of her grand kids footprints embedded in it, the second had all their hand prints. Getting Emily and Audrey to make their prints was easy enough, but getting Margo to un-curl her fist was a little bit harder. It all worked out in the end. I got Erin a "make organic meals for your kids" cook book along with a cook book holder for her since she's always trying to keep them open with the ingredients she's actually using to make the meal.

Since it was a cancer-free mothers day, we made a bigger deal out of the holiday than normal for Mom. We hung out and played with the kids. Then Brian and I played the Wii for a while when Audrey went down for her nap. Then, suddenly, it got really hot and humid outside. So when A.J. work up we all went outside and played on my neighbors new, monstrous play structure. You can't really tell from the photo, but it's almost as tall as the two story house it's built next to. I called my neighbor to ask permission to go over there, and she said it was fine. So Brian, Emily, Audrey and I all played on the thing (it's big enough for grown-ups to climb on and stand up in without having to crouch) while mom, Kim and Erin sat on the porch swing chatting. It was pretty much the 'All American-Suburban weekend' that Bakiwop would make fun of me for.

Audrey playing in the back yard

2007-05-09T14:12:00.000-07:00

Today, I grilled bratwursts while Audrey played outside near me. She sat down on the little step by the back of the garage and asked me what things were as she saw them. Like a bug that crawled by her foot, the gutter that stretched out to the grass near by, and a dead beetle's carcass being dragged by a greedy ant. I filled her in as best I could before offering to hold her up and watch me grill the brats.

The logic behind that is if I let her think she helped me cook the food, she'll actually eat it. And she did. She was in an exceptionally good mood which resulted in her giving me multiple hugs on my arm while I sat next to her at the dinner table. She talked about her food and showed me how her fork worked. We did our patented "Good times!" cheer while clinking our glasses (and her milk cup) together, then staring at each other while we gulped. She even amazed us by looking at her catsup bottle and exclaiming, "That's huge!"

She amazed me even more by quoting back the lines from "The Missing Piece Meets the Big O". It's the part where the missing piece meets the O for the first time and asks, "What do you want from me?" which I read in a high, whiny voice. Then, out of the blue, Audrey recites the big O's line, "Nothing."
I continue, "What do you need from me?"
"Nothing."
"Who are you?" I asked.
"The Big O!" Audrey says in her deepest, and most authoritative voice while clasping her hands on each side of my head. Then she leaned in and smushed her face against mine while giggling. I was shocked, and immediately picked her up and rushed her out to the porch where Erin and Margo were to have her recreate the scene again. She did- seeming shy at first, but by the time she said, "The Big O!" she held her arms up and then hugged my head.

My Dad turned 60 today, and he didn't seem to like it very much. I sent him a cheezy e-card wishing him a happy birthday, and he wrote back, "Thanks, but I am trying to ignore the whole thing. Love, Dad."

I send him another e-card of a enormous tomato on the back of a train bed with a message telling him that birthdays are a celebration of life, and he better celebrate life god damnit. I think I also called him a bastard, but I could just be embellishing.

Really, all this is just pressure that's leading to a final confrontation with my dad where I'm going to have to 'take him'. Every man knows that there will be a day when he'll have to take his old man. And if he wins, he can return to his family with a new sense of manhood, while the defeated father will walk despondently into a corn field, never to be seen again. The slightest thing he does that I don't approve of sends me off into violent tirades, and I realize that the next time I see him I'm going to have to take him on. I hope I can win.

Audrey looking for dandelions

2007-04-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

Besides going to a play on Saturday night, we've spent most of the weekend just hanging out in our back yard with the kids.

Saturday was a really nice day, and I got out early to cut down some more scrub bushes that were growing along the property line of the back yard. I also drilled some holes in the stumps from the tree cutting fest last fall and poured some plant poison in them. So hopefully those things won't keep popping up with new offspring. I also tried to hunt down and spray all the grape vines that grow on the ground. You'd think that having grape vines would be kind of nice, but not when they grow on the ground and get tangled up in your lawn mower. I'm not about to put up something weird like a trellis for them to grow on. I'm not a trellis kind of guy.

I was pretty tired on Saturday, so I dug out the lawn chairs that Erin and I bought a few years ago and never used. I showed Audrey how to use them so she could spend her time opening and collapsing hers while I took a nap on mine. You can find a picture that Erin took of that over on my flickr account.

We did pretty much the same thing on Sunday too. I took pictures of Team Beyer sitting around outside. After Audrey's nap Kim, Brian and Emily came over with Abby which made Audrey really happy. She loves that dog. After they left I grilled hamburgers and gave Audrey a bath and sent her to bed. All in all a pretty nice weekend even though we didn't do anything.

One creepy thing. A few weeks ago we had my Dad and his wife come over to dinner along with Kim, Brian and Emily. We all sat at the patio table and ate hamburgers. Ever since then, when I take audrey outside to play in the yard and I sit at the table, she yells at me to move to another seat. When I ask why, she tells me that I'm sitting at "Gampa Howie's chair." Or that I'm sitting in Carols chair. Weird.

Audrey and Margo in the morning

2007-04-29T14:10:00.000-07:00

Back in December, Erin bought tickets to the Gutherie with the idea that we would try to make an effort to get out more and keep the love alive. We got to see one show before Margo was born, and had to move our other tickets to this weekend since she was such a handful, and Erin was still recovering.

So we finally went and saw the "Merchant of Venice" wich was pretty good. They tried to make it more fun by squeezing in some funny stuff that wasn't in the dialog, which could of been really annoying but they made it pretty good.

During the performance, when the the prince of Aragon had just picked the silver box in an attempt to marry Portia, and was reading the poem that was basically telling him he was an idiot, lights started flashing on each side of the stage. They were weird, blue-ish white lights that blinked slowly like a really boring strobe light. I looked around and saw that they weren't just on each end of the stage, but also up by the exits behind us. At one point, the prince of Aragon made a face that seemed to express, "What the hell?" and Portia just held up her hands as if to say, "That's what you get." I couldn't tell if it was part of the play. I figured it wasn't, but with all the slapstick they were squeezing in between the lines, who knew.

Then a voice came over the P.A. saying that a fire alarm had been set off in the building, and that everyone should evacuate. Which we did. It was slow and uneventful for the most part, but started to seem weird when the ushers started to re-route people to other exits to hurry the group out. They seemed a little panicked. But everyone got out to the front of the building without any drama. Erin commented that it reminded her of the fire drills we used to have to deal with back in school. And until she said that, I had completely forgotten we ever had to do those.

After about ten minutes of watching people take pictures of the fire trucks with their cell phones, we were allowed back in. People assumed that the theater would just have us all go to intermission, so they started lining up for drinks at the bar. We checked with an usher who had no idea, so we just went back to our seats.

The show started soon after that, meaning that there was no intermission, so some people were probably locked out while they were downing their beers. The actors came out to pick up where they left off, and everyone clapped. The actors decided to break character and wave to certain people in the audience, or shrug their shoulders. Then, Aragon held up his poem to continue reading where he was interrupted, "And now... take your leave." Everyone laughed, and started another round of applause.

Shortly after that there was an intermission. Erin said how dumb it was that we all had to get back in the theater for another 10 minuets of the play before going back out again.

At that point, Erin leaned into me and said, "I bet they sat in the back planning that while we were outside." I said that I had thought the same thing. Later, when the alarm went off again during the scene when Bassanio won Portia's hand in marriage. All the actors gathered on the stage and talked among themselves as we all waited to hear if we had to leave again. Finally someone got on the P.A. and said it was a false alarm. Then we all waited for the lights and sirens to stop. Erin said, "I wonder when one of them are going to snap and yell, "I can't work like this!" I laughed, and pointed out how the guy playing Bassanio wasn't talking to the other actors, and was just standing at the edge of the stage staring at one of the exit doors intensely. Like he was just waiting for the alarm to stop. "I know," Erin said, "That's what I mean. I think he's trying to stay in character. I'm sure he's annoyed as hell."

That pretty much reiterated to me how lucky I am to have married someone who is just as crabby and know-it-all-sey as I am. We both spent the night complaining about the same thing, which is a defect in my personality that normally grates on people's nerves. Our kids will never have friends.

The show ended without any more drama. But on the way out, when we were going down the escalators, the guy in front of me said to his friend that he could smell smoke. I could smell it too, but I didn't care since we were almost at the door.

Sixer and Margo

2007-04-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

We're all sick and it sucks. I have a sore throat and that sand paper feeling on your skin from having a fever. Audrey is suffering from her second ear infection in a month, and Erin is getting the same sniffles and sore throat as I have. To top it off, Margo is getting something now.

Since my last entry, I've basically done nothing but work on my website and attend a photography meeting.

My website has suddenly decided it would be a great idea to have the header image change depending on what time of day it was. It's something I've done with flash for another site layout I've made in the past. But with that layout I even had it play flash movies showing the weather conditions. But wordpress keeps getting in the way of my XML parsing script, so my website had to settle or just showing the time of day. Poor kid.

The photography meeting I attended was pretty fun. I got to hear a speaker talk about their work, and then they went through all the submitted photos. Each photo had a rating attached to it, so they could see how well they did. The person who manned the projector would call out the rating if it did well, then ask "Creator?" so the person could say who they were and how they did the photo.

What made that stand out for me was that the person who was running the presentation looked a lot like the guy who plays Caesar in the HBO series "Rome". He even called out for the 'Creator' in a lazy, powerful way. Every time he would announce, "This... photo... It received an eight. CREATOR!" To which the person would say their name, I imagined him saying, "Yesss. This one pleases me. Creator, come- sit next to me. You will be my favorite for the rest of the night."

That's it for me. Even though I'm sick, and tired as hell I can't seem to stop screwing around on the computer when everyone has gone to sleep. It's the only time I get to myself to listen to music and do my crap, so I'm sure it's just adding to how bad I feel with this cold. So I'm off to try to sleep.

My work

2007-04-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

I thought I should make a post since I got an email from Susie and an IM from Toby telling me it's been a while. I guess I should be happy I have a fan-base.

Here's a picture of my new work space. I don't mind coming into work when I have two big Apple flat-screeen monitors to work on, and a coffee pot only a few feet away.

Work has been pretty good. There's been a lot of work to catch up on, so I've been pretty busy lately. But I'm a pretty happy kid. I've been hearing some things about my old job lately that actually made me say to my new employer, "I just want to reiterate how thankful I am that you hired me. Thank you."

The kids have been a pain in the flippin' ass. Audrey has contracted another one of her award winning ear infections. One of the drawbacks of the ear infection is that it actually has been proven to block a certain chemical in her brain from allowing her to say anything without whining. Even when she's happy about something, she makes it depressing or annoying. For example, we took her to the park last weekend and she played on the slides and climbing structure. She was 'happy' but you would never have been able to tell by any 'laughing' or general 'frolicking'. With a morose expression, she would climb the steps and work her way up to the slide. Then, after sliding down by herself, she would quietly state, "I did it..."

There was another little girl there who was playing like a kid should. Dancing around, shouting to her mom in a squeeky voice about how she wants to, "go down the twisty slide!" and generally doing what kids do at a park. So, when Audrey decided to get on the same swing set as that happy little girl, it was hilarious to see the difference. The one little girl was swinging and shouting "wheee!" while the other was slumped over in her protective swing-bucket, staring at the gravel as is passed under her feet.

At one point, the little girl said, "Aren't you having fun Audrey? Wheee!" and Audrey replied, "whee." Without any emotion. She better make a lot of money when she grows up, to make this all worth it.

Margo is still crying all the time. We've basically diagnosed her as colicky, but she has a doctor appointment today that may give us a better idea of why she's upset. We've tried everything we can think of. She's gotten better in the last week, but not by much. She smiles at us more not (when she's not screaming). So that's pretty cute.

In other news, I was out with Brian Sutherland on Saturday buying a new external hard drive for my computer. We stopped at the coffee shop to pick up a coffee for me and the wife back home. As we walked in, there were a group of about 5 teenage girls sitting at a table right outside the door. They looked over at us and giggled, then looked away. "Great" I thought, "They're making fun of something about me."

Then one of them chanted, "Converse..." Referring to my shoes. I ignored her and walked past her to get to the door. As I opened it and started to go in, she yelled, "Hey Converse!" I stopped and looked at her without saying anything. "You're wearing Converse." She said, laughing. I Looked off in the distance for a second as if to think about it, then gave her an impatient look of 'yup, you're stating the obvious.'

I've experienced this kind of thing before since living in Edina. I'm not sure what causes it, but a friend of mine called it 'entitlement' of the people living in this area. It literally seems to boil down to if you dress different. It's not like I walk around in a clown suit, but I've had kids say something before, but that was down in the 50th and France area, where people seem to be a little more teenage and snotty. But on this day, besides my offending Converse, I was just in a t-shirt and jeans.

After giving the "I realize you're making fun of me, so lets get on with our lives" face, she followed up with, "Nice shoes." I was kind of astonished that she was so bold, so I hesitated for a second. Then I said, "They are. Fuck you." in a tone more as if I were shocked by what she said, than in anger. She fell silent after that, and I went in. While at the counter I tried to continue on with the conversation Sutherland and I were having before being interrupted. Brian kept looking back at the girls through the window, and after a while he noticed that the girl who was doing all the talking was wearing Converse shoes too. Whoops.

He told me that before we walked out, so I was a little embarrassed. Made worse by the fact that they were still silent and averting their eyes when we walked by.

I felt bad for a while and thought about it, but I can't beat myself up too much. They were being obnoxious and I think anyone else would of thought they were picking on you. So, to put a positive spin on the situation, I've probably taught them that people are assholes. A important lesson that they needed to learn sometime. I've also proven that I can make a teenage kid feel bad. That's a feat in it's self. I should be a high school teacher.

Audrey couch

2007-04-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

Audrey and Dad with matching suits

2007-03-28T14:06:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day at the new job. It started off with Erin and I getting ready to take Audrey to daycare. We had bought her some new clothes, so when I was able to finally put her brown hoodie on, I got excited and put mine on as well. You can't tell in this photo, but we're both wearing brown sweat shirts and blue jeans.

After I dropped her off and came back home to get ready for work, we heard a knock on the door. It was Joan, who was there to do some more physical therapy magic on Audrey. Whoops. So we send her back on her merry way and I jumped in the shower. After a shave and some fierce, fierce talc- I was out the door with only 10 minutes to go. As I've said before, my new job is really close to my house so I was there with three minutes to spare.

I was trained in on their systems and other stuff and after a free lunch I got to hear about Prince (who they've done work for in the past). It turns out, he can be a really nice guy. Weird. For some reason I would of thought otherwise.

I got to leave early and head home to spend time with the wife and two screaming kids. Since I have the next couple days off, I'm going to get some shopping done and return some security badges from my previous jobs.

Audrey's empty sandbox

2007-03-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

Today Erin and I spent some time with the kids out in our back yard. We were given some plastic playground stuff from our neighbors that we thought Audrey would like. And she does, but it's ugly as hell looking and we don't know where to put it in the yard without being labeled 'white trash' by the neighbors.

So, we slid them around the yard for a while before finally settling for clustering them at the back end by a pine tree. A slide, a house, a plastic refrigerator and an empty sand box. As you can see from the image above, Audrey is tired of waiting for us to get some sand.

After cleaning up the yard and trying to sweep up the wet leaves from the patio, we walked down to our daycare and picked Audrey up. She wasn't as happy to see us as I thought she would be. She was involved in a power struggle to gain control of a plastic, flinstones powered technology car that a group of other kids were playing with. She pushed her way in and demanded that the others push her. Amazing. I never realized that I could raise such a jerk. But she's the kind of jerk I never really was, so I'm proud of her. We brought her back home in a stroller and sang the Dora the Explorer song the whole way. When we get to the part where the song repeats, "What do we need, what do we need?" She would say, "Milk" because she was thirsty.

We set her loose in the back yard while Erin and I sat on the bench and read magazines. Audrey, who has been told that her milk always has to be drank in the kitchen, was blown away when we said she could bring it outside with her. Like someone who's been brainwashed, she rejected it at first- Demanding that we stay in the kitchen while she drank her milk. So I deprogrammed her and I think it has changed her world.

Then we changed around the porch for our 'summer layout', and after we put audrey to sleep we watched "Planet Earth" that I had tivo'd. And that's it. not exciting but it's better than not posting anything at all

Snow Storm

2007-03-26T14:02:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd throw this picture up of last years snowstorm to remind everyone who's experiencing the nice weather of what it could be like if it wasn't for the blessing of global warming.

But that doesn't matter to me since I've got a Mac Book Pro and haven't left it's side since it showed up at my door a little under a week ago. I've been spending all my time trying to gather up the software I think I'd need and customizing it. I pretty much swore off getting another mac after my previous titanium G4 snapped in half and Apple refused to repair it even though my warrantee was only expired by a day. I had been sending it back to California off and on for weeks because of the multitude of problems it was having, (memory issues, motherboard touching the casing and causing the computer to short out, DVD drive crapping out, etc.) so when the screen suddenly snapped off I figured it was another trip back to the shop for pedro- which was it's name. But Apple said 'sucks to you', and I was left with a $3,000 piece of crap. Since I soon started at a new job that required that I work on a PC, I shelled out $700 and bought a box from Microcenter and vowed never to look back.

Which is what I did until I landed this new job at Treefort. I was pretty happy. There's a whole world of games out there that you can play on the PC that you can't on the mac. And they're cheap, even if they're brand new. So I was pretty satisfied, not to mention that getting copies of programs hacked is a chinch if you're not worried about viruses. But when I realized that I'm going to need another mac so I can work on projects from home when needed with the new job, I actually felt a twinge of glee. And now that I have it I'm happy as a clam. I don't know why exactly, but I like working on a mac better. Maybe it's an association thing since I've been using a mac in one form or another since grade school. But I guess not having the stress of worrying if my computer is just screwed up, or if it has another virus is probably the biggest benefit. I know that if my computer is acting weird I can just figure out which 3rd party application I've downloaded is causing the problem and just stop using it. I can still run windows on it using a program called Parallels, so I can keep using the old apps I've been using the last few years.

So, I've named this computer like I've done with all the other Mac's I've had before. Since it's a honking 17 inch with a 200 Gig hard drive, I've named him "Titus" and have a icon of an angry octopus.

Erin and Margo sleeping

2007-03-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

If "Team Beyer" had a news letter, I would list off the latest developments like this:

1) I got's me a new job. It's at a company called Treefort. I'm pretty excited to start because I'll be focusing more on design than development, and by the examples I've seen it looks like I can finally make my designs more stylized than the normal corporate websites I've worked on. I'll also be making touch screens and digital signage again which is something I missed, and the clients we'd be making them for are pretty exciting. It's also a short 7 minute commute from my house, which means I'll finally be one of those people that can bike or walk to work. Or, I can dust off the cut-off shorts and roller skates, whatever. The sky's the limit. The people also seem great, so I envision an inordinate amount of high-fives happening over cubicle walls during my work day. I say all this because I'm bragging a little bit. I also say this because my new boss reads this site.

I've only complained about my job on this site once, and that was back in '03 when I worked at Next Communications. It was a pretty tense environment over there during that time, and that week was pretty extreme, so I think it was justified. But now that the man who feeds my two beautiful, innocent children reads my site it's pretty much guaranteed that I never will again. The fact that he knows about this site, also means I can't pock-mark these pages with goatse pictures so I can be listed in wikipedia as 'that website with the most goatse pictures on it' like I always dreamed. But I guess I have to grow up and accept compromise sometime. I'll never be in a rock band, I'll never post complaints about work on my site, and I'll never be known as the site with the most goatse pictures.

2) Margo is doing good. She's producing mustard like you wouldn't believe, and she produces window rattling snorts and gasps that wake me up in the middle of the night. Being half asleep I stumble over to her crib and check to see if she's still breathing. She has been so far. So that's working out for us.

3) Audrey is the member of Team Beyer with the least cuddle points right now. She's been throwing tantrums that last about a half hour on average. She likes to do them in the middle of the night... Multiple times. It's reached a point where Erin and I have given up and just let her cry after trying to get her to crawl back into bed. She won't, so we let her basically cry herself to sleep on the floor and scoop her up into bed later when she's deep asleep.

4) Brian got me signed up for a photo club, so that should be interesting. Basically they just have a lot of speakers and they also judge prints which slowly whittle down the best photos to show at some state wide competition.

5) Erin is doing well, and she's slowly going insane from watching Regis and Kelly, Opera and Dr. Phil every day while she stays home with Margo. Personally, I'm a fan of Dr. Phil. I don't know why.

And that's it.

Audrey's Japanese suit from Yuria

2007-03-14T13:59:00.000-07:00

Poor Audrey was forced to wear an over-sized outfit that a friend of mine from Japan sent her. We took her picture so my friend could see that we actually used it, once.

I've been burnt to a crisp from lack of sleep. Erin, of course, has had it worse since she's had to wake up almost every two hours to breast feed. At this point the two of us pretty much sit on the couch and just stare blankly at the television. I try to remind her to take naps when the infant sleeps, but she doesn't seem to want to.

Last night Audrey acted up. Normally when we put her down to bed, she just drops off to sleep without any problems. We've been pretty lucky. But last night she woke up at midnight and wanted to watch television and play. I had to keep coming back into her room and lay her down while explaining that everyone is sleeping. After the third time she got up and called to us from behind her baby-gated door, she threw a tantrum. I waited it out for about ten minutes, and finally told her that she can get back into bed when she was done crying, and left the room. It's supposed to be the textbook response to a tantrum. Let them cry it out and don't stick around to let them see you responding to their fit. But she managed to keep it up for another twenty minutes. I checked in periodically to ask her if she was done crying yet, but that would just re-invigorate her to scream some more.

Eventually I got her back into bed and she was quiet for about a half hour before calling out to us again. More tantrums were thrown and Erin finally had to get out of bed to see if she could reason with her. Basically she couldn't. And after a few more times of getting her to lay back down, and having her get up again, Erin and I finally just let her cry herself to sleep in the middle of her bedroom. At about 3:30 Erin got up to feed Margo and saw Audrey sleeping on the floor. She woke her up to get her in bed, but that ignited another crying fit. Amazing. So tonight I've decided to stay up late (it's currently 1 a.m.) to make sure everyone is sleeping like they should before I bother to try it myself. I've been working on a technical document for work which involves taking screen shots of the website, but since I'm in la-la land I've been making a lot of mistakes. You've got to be pretty tired to screw up taking screen shots.