Hello Everyone....
This is Christian Joseph in his first few minutes of life. His head and chest were both 14 1/1 inches. I could only imagine if my head was the same size as my chest.......Would i even be able to hold it up? No wonder he has no neck.

I am sorry for abandoning the blog for a little while. Comcast is very unreliable as is FPL if you hadn't heard. Between weak signals , power outages and oh yeah the birth of our son i did not leave any words of wisdom for my kin. I have since been getting little sleep and between ellexa and christian there has been little down time for the reflective moment i needed to blog. I will resume as best i can. What stood out in my mind This
a photo of me and the little man. That would be right before he left for the old circumcision experience, which i was a witness to. The doctor put him on this board with leg straps and he starts this process with these medievel tools. My son reacted in the best way he knew how, he shit all over everything. everything. I said Good Boy you learn quick. He did it again when they came to check the wound an hour later. The doctor looked at me and said you know.....your kids full o shit. I said no he just doesn't like you but you probably get that a lot. Below is Ellexa holding her little brother and

actually sitting still for 10 seconds. She is accepting it but does have bouts of sensitivity and insecurity. We try and pay more attention to her and spend time alone with her. So far so good.

The last couple of days I felt like I was getting the grippe -- that nasty flu that has been going around. Thanks to the snow, I didn't even have to leave the house. But today Da Chimpz had to go to school -- so I ventured out into the 10 degree air and took them. Stopped at the Giant Beagle on the way back and got a few things (parsley, yum). Feeling okay today, so it's back to work.

Tomorrow night I need to make meatballs for 50 Cub Scouts. Then I have to sleep in a shack in the middle of the woods. And by the following week I need to finish two Pinewood Derby race-cars. If I just make car-shaped meatballs in leave them on the back lawn, will that cover all my bases?

Wow. Florida really is chock-full of interesting people!

Been snowing pretty much all day here at Berea-Rose. Da Chimpz had a day off from school, which provided me with a little background noise for my daily routine -- they kept it under control, though.

Kicking around the living room is the DVD-folder that holds all the boys' movies -- stuff from way back, even the movies they watched as little guys. Torn out was one sleeve with a few oldies, including "Monster's Inc." For a goof I popped it into the player; the boys watched it for the first time in years. That disc used to play in what seemed like an endless loop; Alane and I memorized large chunks of dialog from mere exposure. Tonight they were glued to it, as if seeing it for the first time (more like "following along with the story" for the first time).

Right now Alane is telling them a bedtime story. They're getting pretty good at reading -- maybe they can start reading stories to us at night?

Alane brought the NY Post back this evening. Page 4 had this killer hed: "Pic Is Turban Warfare." I was howling -- the party stooges who write at the Pain Dealer only wish they could write heds like that!

Got a phone call earlier tonight from "Ohio for Hillary." What made me laugh is that the caller ID showed "(803) 667-4084 S Carolina Call." Another self-inflicted wound, I suppose. That gave me at least a bit of a laugh to go along with my frustration -- I had hoped to not have to deal with her again after leaving New York. And these days I can't hear mention of Hil without recalling Mark Steyn's recent description of her and the baggage she must carry: "Hillary is what the Clintons look like with their pants up." Heh.

Needless to say, I didn't stay on the line long enough to hear how she planned to spend my money. Nor did I listen earlier in the evening when (703) 637-9323 called with another political pitch -- something to do with a ridiculous Representative from a neighboring district (I know I should listen to these things and use them as blog material -- but ugh, it's so painful to listen to).

I guess I should expect more of the same in the next week and a half, as the Dems try to whoop up the proletariat. Hey, it's what they do.

In other news, I hear a certain former JAG may finally have some time on his hands to post messages to this otherwise languishing blog. I eagerly await his input.

I'm also trying to picture in my head the kind of bedtime stories Bazzukajoe will be providing to his newborn clone. I suspect something like this.

Oh, and that mention of Morris Day and the Time earlier this month attracted lots of traffic -- who knew people were still doing web-searched for that guy? And Bugs Buny. Lots of people in Turkey dig that Bugs Buny [sic].

Hey, here's a snapshot from a distant reality -- across the street from Carini, a few steps from Stan's. Red's was a pizzeria? How come we never got pizza there?

We've spent many hours shooting targets in Link's Crossbow Training on the Wii. It's somewhat addictive -- maybe as much as Monster Trucks.

The blog awaits photos of its newest member.

And speaking of Cinzano, there's this link, courtesy of Fark (and yes, it had a "Florida" tag).

Tired of the constant jokes about Florida's uncouth? Here's a tale of Ohio elegance. May their first child be a masculine child... with a square bun... steamed, not fried... arriving in a little white cardboard box.

This cat is a real jerk.

Come to think of it, Berea-Rose could use a few new area rugs. Some very tasty rugs, at that.

While John enjoyed the 5 degree weather from the safety of our house--I had to go into work. When it comes to snow in Cleveland, where you live makes all the difference in the world. Where we are we might have a 1/2 inch of snow, currently. Not even 30 minutes away the snowfall was about six inches. I drive into work insanely early at about 6:00 am and sometimes even earlier than that. This morning traffic was backing up at that time and going about thirty miles per hour. It was lovely. Tomorrow they are promising between 4 and 10 inches.

Last week I went to see Wicked with my mom. It was a great show. This week we get to see monster trucks--um, I'm sure it will be great too?

Yo, it is crazy cold out there today. Saturday was not bad -- in the 30s, mostly. But yesterday it went down to the teens. And today, we got 5 big degrees out there. School is closed, so Da Chimpz are downstairs drawing pictures and working the Wii.

As for me, I'm cranking up the heat and hoping to spend the entire day indoors.

The excitement in New York this morning had nothing to do with Stupor Tuesday and everything to do with the ticker-tape parade for the Giants. I put the Fox 5 news on at 6 a.m. and they were downtown where loony fans were already lined up waiting for the parade to start. They looked like they'd been beered up from the night before.

I stayed at a hotel called The Time on 49th Street last night. A very desperately hip place -- but not bad. I considered making a clever Morris Day comment to the well-dressed dude at The Time's reception desk, but Purple Rain was probably released before he was born. "Jerome, bring me my mirror!"

Had a room on the third floor, so I heard a lot of garbage trucks throughout the night (and a whole bunch of screaming coming from the parking lot adjacent to the Ambassador theater). Opened the room door this morning and found the New York Times, complimentary. Twenty-something years ago I used to read that paper cover to cover, but not so much any more. So as I ate my breakfast I flipped through the NYT for the first time in years. To call it a shell of its former self is almost too kind. I skimmed the agit-prop and settled on the crossword puzzle, only to find that it too has been dumbed-down over the years.

Eh, I guess entropy is a force of nature.

At lunchtime I ventured out to find NY Giants gear -- preferably with a snide NY-is-in-your-face message on it, as was Alane's request. But I couldn't find a street-vendor anywhere in mid-town (usually they're obstructing pedestrian traffic on every other corner -- maybe the police did a sweep; maybe they all headed downtown to catch the parade crowds). I made it all the way to Modell's by Grand Central. They had official gear -- and a mob of people fighting to get to the inventory. The cashier line was long -- I would've missed my afternoon meetings. So I kept moving.

Tonight's flight back was exceptional. Got the the airport early and was able to get onto an earlier flight -- that never happens! Back home in time to get da chimpz to bed and sit here now with some chips and beer before hitting the sack. I plan on sleeping well tonight, without the garbage trucks. Or the screaming.

Stayed up last night to watch the New Jersey team win -- exciting final few minutes. And not even a late night, compared to the midnight idiocy that Major League Baseball puts you through to see one if its big games. Maybe Mojo will wear his Giants coat to school today (but, being the contrarian he is, he'll probably refuse).

I heard from Bazzukajoe last night. He informs me that there's a new planet forming in our solar system, a head of Mastandrea-proportions, and it's almost ready to make its appearance. Yee-ha!

Wow, this week flew by. All week Frylock and I were this close to actually having a phone conversation, but one or the other of us was in the middle of something. Even Guido is hard to get on the phone these days -- last time I chatted with him I was hunkering down in the living room with Da Chimpz watching Cops on TV. Guido didn't think it was such a good idea to have them watch that. I told him I use the occasion for drilling home certain object lessons.

"Tell me, Mojo, how well is that guy lying right now?"

"Not well at all."

"Do you think that cop believes a word he's saying."

"No, he doesn't believe any of it."

I also like watching Cops because it gives me a chance to see how things are going in Florida. It reminds me of the stories Bazzukajoe tells about what he sees as he drives to work each day. Fark is also good for keeping up with the Sunshine State -- it has a distinct Florida label to mark the bizarre stories that emanate from that state.

Tonight, we're eating chicken pot pie for dinner. And, yes you know it, I have to say it out lous the way Ren did in Space Madness.