Vicissitudes

I heard a story on the radio on the way into work today. It was about gifting and tipping around Christmas. The past few years have been so difficult I couldn’t even begin to think about giving gifts or extra tipping anyone. This year is different, finances are getting better, my son is healthy, and life is back on track. So I started thinking about all the people whom I would like to thank (outside of the normal family) with a gift this year.

1. Teachers
2. Boss(es)
3. Bus Driver
4. Usual Waitress at our favorite Greek restaurant. Lucky’s! We go there after our Saturday morning soccer game and gymnastics.
5. Coach?

Those I do not gift where many do.

1. Mailman – Always a different person
2. Garbage Men – Never the same
3. Barber – I just can’t find one I like
4. ?

Anyway. If I think of more I’ll put.

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I tend to stay up later than I should. Maybe I can’t sleep, maybe I don’t want to sleep? Like tonight. I have to get up at 3:45am to reboot a few servers. Sure I could setup a job to reboot them but I just don’t trust doing that. Should I sleep and believe in my cellphone/alarm clock? Should I stay up?

Either way I watch a lot of TV. What seemed to be an accident let me to watching Corner Gas on WGN (I recored Scrubs). After the first time I was hooked! Who would know that Canada could produce another good show. Never thought The Red Green Show would be topped. Anyway, here is the link, again. I won’t get into describing the show but here’s a taste from youtube.com.

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I was browsing the GOP websites and wondered why don’t I put some links?  So I have two nice RSS fees to the right and some links, your usual GOP.gov, GOP.com and I cannot believe I never up this back in, RushLimbaugh.com!

Whatever happens PLEASE don’t let Hillary get in office.  I shouldn’t have to explain myself on that one.   Oh, you better get one of these.

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I’m going to try to do this blog thing again. May not last long but at least I will keep relatively current with the photos.

I found a great plug-in called Nextgen Gallery for WordPress for all my photos. Take a look by clicking Children or PhotoPhone above. I also did away with any real html coding for Paterek.net and went strictly with WordPress. I do not have the time to setup all the necessary junk to make a page look nice. Especially when this does everything I want and makes it easy!

If you want, pass along this page to share what I have. I will do everything I can to upload more photos of the children. I will also make an attempt to put my “photography” up here as well, maybe I will get a suggestion or two.

That’s all I have to go home.

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Last year was the first time I seriously watched American Idol.  Chris Daughtry kept me interested.  This year I watched the auditions – laughing at all the fools hoping for another Chris in the bunch. I had high hopes for Phil Stacey but after last night I do not see him going far enough. My final hope is for Chris Sligh who in my opinion has potential. He is no Daughtry but he can be good.

Therefore, I’m finding it difficult to keep my attention on the show because nobody really thrills me. That beat-boxing guy is entertaining but just not my style. I am sure you are wondering why I am not discussing any of the girls on Idol. Too much Motown. Some can sing but I cannot take the music. That being said, I believe the girls are far better than the boys are this year and we will see another girl win. Not sure who and I do not really care.

Last season’s constetants – the only ones worth listening to (except chicken little).

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Variety reports that Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis who wrote last night’s Lost episode “Tricia Tanaka is Dead” have signed a overall deal with with Lost production company ABC Television Studio (formerly Touchstone Television) through 2010:
< http://www.lostblog.net/lost/tv/show/lost-writers-sign-deal-through-2010 >

I couldn’t let this go, I had to say something…

Hurley is a great character, I enjoyed last week’s only because of him (it was nice to see Cheech again too).  I think trying to carry this show until 2010 will be like watching endless reruns of Friends.  The first season was by far the best thing ever on TV, second season it took a big dive, now season four three the only episode I can justify remembering is Hurley this past week.  I hope I’m wrong, I still watch every week, but I’m not counting down the minutes like I did the season one.  Loyal till the end (The Rescue)

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I have been searching for the best opportunity to get back into my career.  Since early fall I have been out of a job but it was almost a blessing as my wife went full time to work and I am able to spend time with the children.  Squeeze in the job hunt and I have zero time for anything.  This explains why I have such a large gap in posts.  It is funny that the positions I would be perfect for never consider my resume.  When the time is right and the opportunity is perfect, it will happen.

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Things are not going so well.  I’ll write later, sometime.

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Now that my power is back on, here are a few photos of the snow storm we got this week.

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It’s been a while since I’ve written to this blog deal. With that I thought I should say a few words for no apparent reason.

Job searching is going slow. I’ve been up and down about the entire ordeal. Mostly positive but when nobody calls you in for an interview it starts to beat down your confidence. I still find myself wanting to go back to my old place. My heart is still there. I keep in touch and am told that things really are not going very well. Not saying that it’s because I am not there but the things involved are IT related. I really need to clear the driveway of snow.

Sometimes babies cry and you just don’t know why. But sometimes you know, they are hungry, tired, or bored and need interaction. Simple picking them up is enough to make them happy. I guess no matter how I look at life I am lucky. I have a wonderful wife. Not saying she is perfect. It would be nice to have a meal cooked by her, or have the dishes and kitchen clean. But she is so good with our children I can’t say anything bad. My boys are true boys who will one day make me proud. That almost sounds like they haven’t made me proud yet but they have. In their small ways each day I think, “what have I done to deserve such wonderful boys?”. And then there is my little girl. She was the one crying just now. They way she smiles at me just makes everything go away. I melt into her heart and I am hers. She will get what she wants, I won’t be able to say no. Papa’s little girl. She is making her little baby sounds right now and the boys are mimicking her. Well that’s done, it’s turned to screams with some laughter mixed in for show. All is well again, my youngest boy just ran over to me and spoke some words incomprehensible to adults, smiled and ran back to play with his brother. It won’t last but it makes me proud to be a father. Speaking of, what am I don’t on the computer when there are toys to play with, blocks to knock down and children to hug? Not sure either.

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