Tag-Archive for » michael «

chile quake and other weekend stuff…

27 Feb 2010 by admin

wow…things have just been crazy in the last couple of weeks; both man made and natural occurrences.

early this morning there was an 8.8 earthquake in chile and a week or so ago a 6.9 quake off of japan.

we saw a professor in alabama shoot and kill 3 professors and wound 3 others and a man shoot and wound two middle school children in littleton, colorado .

natural disasters, while horrific, are just that – natural.  it is the way of the earth and you cannot stop them.  countries prepare as best as they can.  unlike haiti, apparently chile has rather strict building codes because they are in an earthquake zone.  they have already said that any building found not to be built to code would result in the owner or builder being prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

the shootings on the other hand are horrific and entirely preventable.  i am constantly amazed at our lax gun laws within the united states.  i understand that our constitution rather ambiguously talks about gun ownership.  i have no doubt in my mind that if the founding fathers were alive today, they would not have intended for the the constitution to be interpreted in this way.

the nra would like for you to believe that more guns are a better thing.  if everyone is armed no one will hurt anyone else.  i think it’s bullshit.  absolute bullshit.  unless you are a hunter, law enforcement or military you have no need for a weapon.  me having a gun in my house would NOT make me safer.  as a matter of fact, i would be less safe.  there is the possibility that my child could be hurt by the gun or if there ever was an intruder, that they gun would be turned on me.

i heard the nra say repeatedly, after the virginia tech shooting rampage, that if the students and teachers had been allowed to carry weapons on campus that they would have been safer since they could have taken out the shooter.  that’s a huge maybe there.  who knows if they could have gotten to the shooter.  how would they have known who it was if everyone around them is armed…it could have been anyone.  and once you begin shooting…why should the guy next to you trust your word now?  it would be absolute chaos.

i think the whole gun thing has gotten out of hand.  and now that obama is in office, the crazies have come out of the wood work.  americans are flocking to buy guns and stock up on ammunition.  i say with a totally strait face…these people are crazy!  if these people honestly believe that obama is leading us to a fascist, socialist state they are cuckoo.  there are plenty of laws in place and certainly many people within the government that would stop that from happening.  though i guess it is questionable when you think about the fact that most of those people stood aside and let bush/cheney rape and pillage the laws of our land.

i won’t go on any longer…you get my point.  i’m a gun safety person rather than a gun rights person.  that’s it…it won’t change.

the day seems to have been wasted really.  my husband and i did our chiropractor this morning after breakfast at ihop.  he then had to go to work (he’s still there 7 hours later!) and i headed home.

a friend was supposed to come down from LA and deliver the girl scout cookies i ordered from his daughter.  i waited until around 11.30 to text and find out if he was still coming.  he said he was.  i waited until 12.50 and then headed over to the spectrum where would we be meeting.  i assumed that was enough time.  turns out he wasn’t even walking out the door until then.  bummer.  i had already told the boys we would do something this afternoon after i was done meeting him.  so, he turned around and went back home.  that’s why i like plans a bit more concrete….

that’s saturday so far.  we’ll see what happens this evening!

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alexander skarsgård and a great day…

20 Feb 2010 by admin

as i said in a previous post…alexander skarsgård is pretty amazing – he can act, write and direct.  so after discovering this talent, i’ve checked out and joined some of the fan sites.  wow…i know that there are obsessive people but some of the fans on these sites are a bit scary.

yet another gratuitous shot of the swede...

this guy seems to be down to earth…or at least as is reported.  he’s not afraid to post a story about losing his virginity or even take a goofy acting role.  he’s self-deprecating and seems to have a sense of humor.

listening to some of his interviews about sweden makes me miss living in europe.  when he mentioned (in an interview with ekomiko, see below paragraph) that he missed living in a city that allowed him to walk over to friends or stop by the pub and walk back home…it made me miss living in zagreb.  zagreb isn’t the international city that stockholm is but it still had that wonderful european feel.  my husband and i could run out for coffee or a beer just down the block at the local pub.  if we wanted to go down town to have more than one beer…we could jump on a bus then a tram and be there in no time.

i do have to say it irritates me a little bit how she interrupts him quite a bit.  she’s kind of annoying but sweet and he is amazingly gracious throughout.

i feel like i’m a friendly person for the most part!  for most of my life i was painfully shy.  i was forced to stick my head out the door when i had children.  you can’t be that painfully shy and interact with teachers and other parents.  it’s still hard.  i still have trouble in social situations.  i hate it…but it’s me.

we have a woman at our local grocery store called jasminka.  she’s from bosnia and the most smiley grocery store clerk i’ve ever met.  when we found out she was from a serbo-croatian speaking nation, my husband and i made it a point to occasionally use our croatian with her.  a dobar dan here or there a dovidjena when we leave.  it’s fun and friendly.

i had the desire to go out to a pub tonight here in california but then i realized it would be no fun.  either my husband or i would have to abstain from drinking so that we could drive home legally and safely and what fun is that?

anyway…that sure wasn’t where i wanted to go with that post.  on to the great day portion…

the great day is simple…a nice adjustment by our friendly, funny (and not bad looking) chiropractor.  breakfast shared at IHOP with my dear husband.  and an afternoon spent working on my blog while drinking a glass of clean slate riesling from mosel, germany.

clean slate is my new favorite wine.  i’m notoriously terrible at picking wine.  i tend to go for bottles that are pretty or names that are cute or cool….usually with a bad outcome.  so i tend to let michael choose the wine and he usually picks a winner.  i’m not a red wine drinker normally…i prefer white.  and of the whites…i prefer rieslings most of all.  that has been the standard everywhere i go…

anywho…that’s my day and my small commentary on a.s.

i not sure where many of my alex pics come from so i’ll give you the link to the most reputable of the sites i follow.  according to the site managers, they have the cooperation of mr. skarsgård for the site.
skarsgardnews.com
Category: family, friends, michael, opinions and thoughts, shannon  Tags: , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment

saturday – almost the usual…

23 Jan 2010 by admin

as i may have mentioned (repeatedly probably), our saturdays usually follow a pretty well established routine. we deviated just a tiny bit yesterday. michael was pretty tired so although i was up at 5 (getting to be a routine thing) i ended up having to wake michael at 7.45 to let him know that we had to be at the chiropractor in 45 minutes. so no early breakfast at ihop.

as with most men…it took michael no more than 15-20 minutes to do all that is required to make himself presentable on a saturday morning. we were out the door by 8.10.

dr. micah was there today, thank goodness. i’m starting to feel a difference in my back. today for the first time in quite awhile (under no emergency circumstances) i ran up the stairs…several times. that in itself is a feat since lately i’ve been climbing the stairs in a most comedic fashion!

after the doc, we decided to do a late ihop breakfast. i love it when you’ve gone somewhere enough times that they know what you like. without asking, the busboy brought us coffee with french vanilla creamers and ice water with lemon…i like that. we ordered our usual breakfast to share…pancake combo.

michael has started tanning again recently since his bone density came back worse than expected. the doctor said that this would help with the calcium deficiency. when he finished, i realized it was 10.10. tyler had a birthday party to attend at 11! yikes!

i tried calling home several times but when the boys sleep in…they really sleep. luckily, tyler is fast in the shower. he was able to make himself presentable and we were on our way. this was his first invite since we’ve moved here. dustin is apparently a nice kid and his parents seem nice as well.

we had a pretty chill after noon…michael and thomas played variously on the ps3 and their computers all afternoon while i cooked, cleaned and played on my computer.

it’s been chill evening too after picking tyler up. a quick trip to the grocery store, chili dogs for dinner, more ps3 time and now i’m headed to bed to read until i’m sleepy.

Category: california, family, michael, miscellaneous, shannon, thomas, tyler  Tags: , , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment

floods and doctors…

19 Jan 2010 by admin

today started out rather ordinary…except for the fact that i woke up at 2:30 am. other than that it was the usual. take michael to work, come home, take the boys to school, grocery store and laundry. same old, same old.

fast forward 5 or so hours…the rain picks up outside, the wind is howling, it looks dark in the sky. the next thing i know, the emergency broadcast system comes on tv with tornado warnings! i thought we were well away from that once we left the midwest. i was sorely mistaken. thankfully, it never got anywhere close to me or the boys for that matter but michael was closer to the projected path. again, thankfully it didn’t happen near him either. the rain came down fast and furiously. it was torrential at times. kaitlyn called and told me she had hail in her neighborhood! our side/front lawn quickly become a river and the backyard a pool.

the busby river with the horan falls in the foreground

our in ground pool...

as quickly as all of that horrible weather whipped up…it was gone and we had sunny skies again. i guess that a california winter for you! i worried about picking the boys up from school in this mess but by the time i needed to pick them, it was fine.

i asked michael what he wanted for dinner this morning and jokingly, he was exact in his request – pork chops, au gratin potatoes and asparagus. so i gave him just that…it was fantastic! i make dinner early on dr. appt. days and the boys and i eat early.

we have our chiropractor appt. every tues., thurs. and sat. so after i picked him up from work we went right over. i asked the dr. h. if i could snap a couple of pics and he was ok with it. (thank goodness he was back from his seminar! i would not have had another adjustment from the other guy…awful.) i’ve been getting pretty bummed out about the whole back situation and contemplated letting tonight be my last adjustment. michael said give it another month so we’ll see. it usually feels a bit better after dr. h adjusts it but it goes right back to hurting. the neck is so much better but still needs a lot of work. i’m not sure how much he can do for me but we’ll see.

anyway…i tried to get some decent pics but the room is so small…i may have to try again thursday.

michael's back cracks like broken glass with this one

michael is usually smiling and joking through the whole deal

dr. h working on the neck

i usually have a grimace on my face

i forgot to mention that somehow…someone hacked my facebook account. i think someone has gotten ahold of my croatian blackberry and was able to access it from there. they left some rather nasty status updates which left me terribly embarassed. i figure it is the croatian blackberry because they also uploaded a photo of a dinner that michael and i had for our anniversary in 2008 which was on that phone. jerks! i hope they burn in hell.

coakley lost in mass. i knew she would…it was just too dire to pull out a win. i don’t think it’s a referendum on obama for being too far left. i think it’s a referendum on obama not being left enough. he left his supporters standing dumbfounded to try and appease the right. it just can’t work that way. he better redirect his focus or he will a landslide loss in nov. and huge democratic apathy.

my days are pretty boring and routine but it is fun to talk about all the small stuff!

Category: california, family, healthcare, house, michael, miscellaneous, shannon  Tags: , , , , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment

sunday in the garden…

17 Jan 2010 by admin

our house had some landscaping done when we moved in but we’ve been trying to improve and add to it. i did a post earlier about some of the new plants we added at the beginning of the year. they are all thriving so far.

we planted one rose bush which was cut down to the bare stems. it’s been two weeks and those stems are already covered with leaves!

this is one of the wonderful things about living in california. almost instant gratification. i don’t have to wait until spring or summer for results…they’re happening right now! we’ll see if this turns out to be a some spring bulbs. two weeks later and they are showing little tiny sprouts just poking through. i hope that they will blossom.

michael in the side bed garden

today, we added a second elephant ear to the the side bed. it was a beautiful specimen; in much better shape than the first one we bought. i hope it takes. the first one is looking a bit yellow and droopy.

we bought california poppy seeds to plant as well. michael wanted the color mix…i like the solid red. so we have the color mix in the side bed now. i also bought a white version to plant in my pretty blue pots. i hope they bloom. i would like to have those on either side of the front door.

the hydrangeas are thriving and the back yard looks good too!

Category: california, family, garden, michael, shannon  Tags: , , , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment
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