Everyone loves a superhero (revised)

Which Super are you?
I was hoping to have Iron Man or Green Lantern a little higher on the list, but all in all, I think this is scary close.

Here are my results:
I am Spider-Man

Spider-Man 75% Superman 70% Robin 67% Iron Man 60% The Flash 60% Green Lantern 55% Hulk 50% Catwoman 45% Batman 40% Supergirl 32% Wonder Woman 22%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test



ADDED:
Here is the Dark Donnie Results:
Dark Donnie results:
I am Batman

Batman 75% Hulk 60% Spider-Man 50% Iron Man 50% Catwoman 40% Supergirl 32% Green Lantern 30% Robin 27% The Flash 20% Superman 20% Wonder Woman 17%

You are dark, love gadgets and have vowed to help the innocent not suffer the pain you have endured.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

I, Donnie, do hearby promise and resolve...

Ok, so if it's posted on the net, it's gonna happen right? I mean, it's got to?!?!
So, I figured I'd post my New Years Resolutions. Play along and see if/where we line up.
1. Don't take things for granted. Family, friends, job. This is the year to do, not wish or try*. Like Yoda says, "Do or do not. There is no try."
2. Lose weight. BP is 160/119 or something rediculous like that. That looks more like an IQ score before and after watching Dumb and Dumber. The goal is about 50 lbs. Diet and Exercise is the plan. I'm guessing we/I will be on the Adkins Diet, which has worked before and will work again!!!
4. Be better. A kinder, gentler Donnie shall prevail this year. The last year, I've been sullen and upset. Probably depressed, but that's a term that seems hard to define. This year will be different. More perspective, less anger.
5. The Longshot Resolution of the year is: Spend less money. It could happen.

*Note to y'all: xkcd is a funny, funny website, but you gotta be a bit nerdy to get nearly everything on the site.

Christmas is a time.....

Wow...what a weekend...sad and sweet.
On Friday, we had to attend a funeral for a friend.
One of the elderly ladies in my church passed on last week. This is the sad part. Sad for me, and for her family, not sad for her. Sister Alice was a great Christian woman and she is at peace and home with the Lord. No doubt.
Sister Alices' daughter, one of my favorite people in the world, Connie, told my wife that they where hoping her mom could be home by Christmas.
When Kim related this to my youngest, he thought that 'Home' was heaven. So he was happy that she had passed away last week....cause she would be home in time for the Birthday Party. I wished I had thought that line up!

So Friday we spent at the funeral and dinner. Saturday was finishing up Christmas shopping and stuff and Sunday started Christmas.

We go to my folks house on Christmas Eve and spend the day there.
We watched the Lions lose again. Ate a yummy dinner and opened presents. It's always good to spend the day with my folks. I don't do it as much as I should. That'll go to the top of New Years Lists.

Monday, we got up and had Christmas with the Kids....this is becoming one of my favorite times of the year. We used to spend New Years Eve Night at my In Laws...but once the other siblings started having kids, and my kids got older (drat) this got harder to do. So a few years ago, we started staying home and having Christmas at our house in the morning and then heading to the In Laws.

The kids got the normal toothbrush, toothpaste, candy and cloths. They also got some video games and such. They soon busted out the new DDR game. VV cool, especially when Mitch wiped out!

After that we went to the In Laws for breakfast (only so many ways you can spell yummy!) and presents.
After a while all the siblings showed up and things were right in the world. It's hard to put into words how much I care for this family, but I always feel it so sharply when were NOT all together. The last couple of years, Christmas has been spread out over there. Not everyone is lucky like us and can spend the whole day with the family. I realize that, but that doesn't mean I wish it weren't so.

Anyway, it was a very nice holiday...looking forward to the New Year...new resolutions, new decisions, new family memebers!!!

Fleas and Eggnog

Merry Christmas to all.
May your days be merry and bright.
May all your cards be live and your pots be monsters.
May the Lord bless thee and keep thee, all the days of your life.
May you never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you.
And remember, do or do not. There is no try.

We Are Family....revised

The other day, I posted about my 3 families. My immediate family, my wifes family (both immediate and extended) and my church. I forgot one other family. My work family.
I've been working in a "Professional" environment for 6 and a half years. Two years as a technician and the other 4 as a Business Analyst. In that time, I've worked with some of the most remarkable people.
I've had wonderful bosses who cared about me, my career and my family. I've made some of the closest friends of my life.

Yesterday we had our holiday lunch/party for our team. We ate dinner at Buca di Beppo's, which is 'oh my goodness' good. We had a blast just chatting and picking on each other and laughing. After that, most of us went over to Bill's house (one of my co-workers) for more fun and frivolity, revolving around playing cards and picking on Shivani:)

One of these day's, I'm going to have to find a new position within the company. I've been looking for a few months. I don't really like what I do anymore. I've been around this department for a long time and need something new. But the thing I'm most hesitant about in finding a new position is having to find a new family.

Glittering Jewels of Colossal Ignorance part 1

This is the first installment of a rant that I'd like to go on. As mentioned in an earlier post, I don't particularly like morons. Morons, idiots, jerks...that kind of stuff really gets on my nerves*. So on the GJCI posts, I'm going to point out people or instances of these that I see.
It pains me that the first group that I will pick on here is Christians. But this is like family, I can pick, but you can't. No really...I get very frustrated with Christian bashing, some times (a lot of times) it's called for. The people who are "Leaders" of the large Christian organizations nationally say and do dumb things that make others of the faith seem as insensitive and stupid as they. Things like Jerry Falwell coming out and saying that the September 11th attacks were a result of God's wrath on a sinful group of people. I don't believe that....can't find it in the bible.
That's just an example, not today's topic.
Today's topic revolves around Keith Ellison (D-Minn). He's the first Muslim elected to congress. He's got a bit of a problem. You see, when "they" swear you in to Congress, you know, to protect and defend the constitution, they make you swear on the bible. Well, Mr. Ellison has a bit of a problem with that. He's a Muslim. He don't believe the bible. He would like to swear on the Koran.

Now, here's where people ard displaying themselves as Glittering Jewels of Colossal Ignorance: People are upset with him over this. They are mad. How dare he not SWEAR ON THE BIBLE?!?!?! Why, that's, that's, unbiblical or something. How dare he? Doesn't he know this is America? Home of the Brave and Land of the Intolerant.
What is really ignorant about the stand that these people are taking is that this: Matthew 5:34 says, and I quote: "But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:"

Now, we can get all scholarly on this and discuss context and all, but you can't get around it. A Christian shouldn't need to swear. Yes should mean yes and No should mean No. By that same standard, asking someone who is a Christian to swear on the bible to something is asking the go against the Word of the bible to do so. Asking a non-Christian to be bound by the bible is just dumb ('nother rant for 'nother day).

Anyway, it just seems stupid to be angry at someone who doesn't believe in the bible to swear an oath on said bible when the RED LETTERS in that same bible say, Don't Swear An Oath.

Elbow.
And.
Send.

*Hypocrisy Warning! This does not mean that I'm not a moron, an idiot or a jerk at times....when I am, I don't like me either.

All Good Things.....

Well, today it happened.
I never, in a million years thought it would, but it did.
I resigned my post as secretary, and Sunday School Superintendant from church.
Still can't believe it. I. Quit. Church.
For the first time in 20 years, I don't have a church that I belong to. That's a tricky thought to wrap my pea brain around.
Not permanently or anything silly like that...we just have to find a new home.

My wife and I met with the Pastor and his wife tonight for an hour and a half or so. It was nice. It's not because of them that we are leaving. They are two of the best people you'll ever meet. Our youngest son's middle name is after my Pastor. He's been a friend and mentor for a long time. His wife has been a gleaming example of a Christian woman for my daughter. I've never been ashamed to call them friends.
Pastor said that he thinks it's going to be tough to replace us...maybe or maybe not. One thing is for sure, it's going to be impossible for us to replace them.

I'm not sure where we go from here, but I know where we end up will be right, will be home.
I think it was Ben Franklin who once talked about the Truth. He said when you hear something that's right, just right, a bell kind of goes off in your head. That's the way home is. When you walk in the door, you know...this is home.
I've bought two houses...and both of them, when I walked in the door, I had that feeling. I'm praying that that's what happens with the right church for my family. When I walk in the door, it feels like home. It may take some time, but I believe it'll happen.

It's been a good run there...18 years at one church is a long time. All good things must come to an end...this wasn't the end that I had hoped for, but it's the end I got. Pray that a good thing starts too....

We are family....

Family takes care of family. I'm not sure where I heard that, or when, but for some reason I've taken it to heart. I believe it. It's part of who I am.
Ever since I was 15, I've had at least two, then three families.
Obviously my folks, sister and brother were and are my first family. Family was big, specially to my mom, when I was growing up. We would make the four hour drive every holiday and at least once during the summer all through my youth.

Eventually, I started dating this real hot chick (that's another post). Didn't take long before I was head over heals for her. She was just right...long legs, long blond hair and big...um...eyes (yeah, eyes). Perfect. Plus she was smart and funny and all that jazz (blah blah blah.....let's get back to the...um....eyes).

Anyway....I digress....one of the things that I loved/love most about her was her family. The way they had get togethers, and loved each other and took care of each other. I always felt a part...felt like her sisters where my sisters...her little brother was my little brother. I still feel that way.

Today we had our annual Christmas Party. Oh what fun. Granma was there, and an aunt and uncle were there...Nana and Pappa were there too.....but only one sister. No brother.
Don't get me wrong...Billie, John and the Girls rock so hard it's not funny, but I did miss the other two and their families. That's one of those funny things were when not everyone is there, it doesn't feel completely right. I'm glad everyone has grown up, and found great people to fall in love with and have gobs and gobs (9.4 to be exact) children, but it sucks that they have lives that don't revolve around the greater family anymore. Not that it was their fault that they couldn't come today...we planned the party a bit later than maybe we should have, but that we came behind the other things that they needed to go to.

Oh well. It was still fun, plus Mitch got to play some Magic with his Uncle John. I swear that kid would move in with them if he had his chance. He'd miss his mom and maybe his older brother, but he's pretty sure they would come and visit! :)

BTW...my third family, my church.

What just happened?

Morons....I detest morons. Friend morons are terrible...family morons are nearly intolerable.

My niece used to live with us. She had lived with my parents since she was a child, owing to the fact that my brother was a complete moron (long story).
A few years back, my mom had a rather sever stroke. Between that and the fact that time marches on and teenagers keep agering, it was getting more and more difficult for my Mom and niece to live under the same roof. So, it was either come live with us or put her into the system.
We chose ill.
She lived with us for almost exactly a year. Things started off nice enough, until, a week or so into her coming to stay, she informed me that she may be pregnant. Mind you we ASKED specifically if there was ANY CHANCE of this being the case prior to her moving in. She said no. This was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

As it turned out, she wasn't pregnant. However, the next year, we did our best to keep it that way.
As time went on, things settled down. Her grades improved a bit, she was getting along, but every once in a while she'd melt down and all was rotten again.
Near the end, it became more and more apparent that things weren't going to work out much longer. She was lying all the time, stealing, her grades were getting worse and she was making life in my house a hell.
The last straw came when, after much prodding, she told me she thought she might be pregnant again....hmmmm I'm detecting a pattern.

So, we talked it over with my parents and they were going to bring her back with them, with the stipulation that if she couldn't walk the straight and narrow, she'd be placed in some kind of wayward teen home.

During this time, she struck up a friendship with a family at church. A church mind you that she told me many times she hated...didn't like the fact that the women wore dresses and didn't cut their hair...didn't like any kind of moral boundries at all...bad bad church.
Anyway, just yesterday, we find out that she and this family have apparently been planning for some time for her to come live with them. So she went to her school and informed them that she would be dropping out on Friday and not to expect her back. Seriously? Seriously.

My folks are pretty upset...I'm livid...to the point of blowing up. Not because she's leaving...I couldn't really care less than I do...but all the ansilary things around her leaving. What it does to my folks. The way it happened. The fact that PEOPLE I GO TO CHURCH WITH WOULD DO THIS WITHOUT SO MUCH AS MENTIONING IT! (!@#$!@%^$^@@#$@#$!@!@#$#^!@#$!#!@#) Sorry.
This hurts...more than I can even say. More than I can believe.

My wife already told me she won't be going back to church. I can't say as I blame her. I know it's not the church's fault, and Lord knows my Pastor, who is a decent man, is not to blame for this...but how can we worship, sing, be nice, to people who do such a dastardly deed?
Christmas for Christ service is this Sunday. We have a nice service set up...lots of singing, puppets, my kids have solo parts in songs....and I'm thinking of not going. That's inconceivable to me (yes I do know what that word means)...I'm sure the kids and I will go, cause I wouldn't do that to our Choir Director, whom I adore, and to my Pastor, whom I love very much....but I do believe this will be our last week there......please pray.

Happy Birthday Twins

The coolest thing about being a parent is that you find out that you are capable of things that you wouldn't have know otherwise. Most prevelant among the things you realize you are (more) capable of is love.
The capacity to love grows exponentially when children are born. This is why the death of a child is so stunningly acute to a parent. The gap that is left behind by that death can only be salved by the Spirt of God.

That said, I'm constantly amazed at how much I love my children. Adoration is such a good word, because it conveys soooo much. I adore them and they are adorable. It's a good match.

Today is their birthday, and they are, , 12 years old. This means that in 365 days, I will be the proud papa of teenagers! Shoot me now!

Happy Birthday M&M....you two rock!

Today is the day.
If you've not heard, today is the day that the general salaried employees and their supervisors who have the pleasure of working at FoMoCo find out about the next steps in their future. Talk about harshing your buzz!
We all get to go in with our bosses boss (manager) and get read to. She (my manager) has a script that she is NOT to deviate from in the slightest, instructing me that I need to make the best descision possible for my family and my future. You can read that as: Take the Money and Run....Please!
I've got a couple of problems.
1. I love working here. Almost 7 years ago, I lost my first job...had twins and a bun in the oven and the place where I worked closed. Fun. However, I also had (and continue to have) bunches of people who love and pray for my family. The Lord worked everything out (as he usually does, even if I screw it up) to where I could finish my degree, feed the kids and keep the house, and when that was all set, he gave me a good job that became a doorway to where I'm at now. It's been great. I don't wanna leave!
2. Even if I wanted to, it wouldn't make sense...I don't have enough time in here to make it worthwhile to take the voluntary package. So, as I told my boss, they can have my badge when they pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

So long story longer, I get to listen to my manager tell me that if I can, I should leave. If I can't there may be a chance I get asked to leave. And if neither of that happens all is well and good, the company will make billions of dollars and we can all live happily ever after....NOT!

The Wonders of the Web

Whatever did we do before the internet? I'm planning a little poker party at my house next month am using eVite to send the invitations out. It'll manage my invitees as well as their responses....allow them to ask questions and for me to follow up. What a cool tool.

Also, I spent a couple of hours on YouTube on Saturday, just going thru old John Denver clips. I grew up listening to country music (because of my parents) and he was on of the Family Favoites. I saw a special on him on PBS this weekend and waxed nostalgic, so dialed up the old intertubes and found hundreds of clips on JD.

In addition, the wife and I did a bunch of Christmas shopping last night from the comfort of my bed. Bought the kids Nintendo games, some audio equipment for my in-laws and a Guitar Hero II for my sister (so she can give to her boys!!!).

Gotta love the net....I guess I'm just white and nerdy!

Christmas Lists

One of the fun things about Christmas time is the kids making up their Christmas lists. For as long as there has been a Santa Clause there have been kids making their lists, and checking them 400 times. My kids have been making their lists since October. It's cute.
However, what I don't like, is making them myself.
My mother in law insists on getting lists from all the adult kids. It drives me nuts. It feels like begging!
My opinion on adults exchanging gifts is that you get someone something YOU think they would like. You pay attention, think, check around with other people to see what they think and then you make a decision. But NOOOOOoooo. This is too time consuming. To hard to do. Just write up a list and hand it over and they'll do the rest from there. Blah blah blah.
The really frustrating thing about it is that I think that I'm very easy to figure out.
I like: Poker stuff (movies about poker, books about poker, periphenaliea), Golf, Bowling, Reading, Movies, Tools, I play guitar, collect Mustang (model cars) and am a computer/tech nerd. The tricky thing would be finding something that I WOULDN'T want for Christmas (Paisley Ties....yuck).
Oh, well, you know what the old folks say....C'est la vie.
Now, where is my Word file of last years Christmas list......

Stress Headache

Ever since I was young, I've gotten headaches. Not the normal, "aspirin will take care of it" kind of headaches...I get those too...but the kind of headache that makes you feel like you're going to throw up. The kind that hurts so bad that I give myself black eyes from pushing a cool rag too hard onto my face. No fun.
The thing is, they are fairly predictable. Looking back, it's not stress that induces these things, but it's the release of stress.
After a big project is done at work or a big family issue gets resolved...something like that.
I've got one of those headaches today.
Yesterday was a big, fat, hairy stressful day.
1) Big Project rolled out at work. I work in a web based application that is used globally at Ford Motor Company. Yesterday we rolled out a new security model that we've been working on all year. I hate roll out days!
2) I got turned down for a new position inside Ford. I've been in the same job for about 5 years and it's time to move on. There was a job opening for a real sic job that I had hoped for, but there were tons of applicants. I found out yesterday I didn't get the job.
3) Performance Review time. At FoMoCo we do performance reviews at the end of the year. These help determine pay increases and helps with promotions. I had one of the best PR's that I've ever had, and had stressed about getting through it.
4) Church. We are very involved in our church. I'm a board member, the Sunday School Superintendant and a Sunday School teacher. Have been for 15 years. Yesterday I had to tell the other board members that my family may be leaving for another church pretty soon. My kids are growing up, and our current church doesn't have any kind of youth ministry or many other kids their age to befriend. This has been the case for a long time, but it's coming to be a problem with the twins hitting 12 years old this month. My wife didn't think I'd tell them, cause she knew how much I was dredding this. I love my church..but my family has to come before the church and I feel this is best for my family. Still hated having the discussion.

All these things had their conclusions yesterday....and today BANG! Screeming, pounding, headache.

Thank God for Vicadin!