This is a good video I found that discusses ways to exploit normally socially inappropriate behaviors to appear transparent, to find out what the fans really think of you and your body of work, and to finally get out of the world where stars asses are kissed every day.

http://kelsey.todhdsocial.com/blog.php?user=bigrobby&blogentry_id=617

It sounds like an odd question, and it seems like I may be looking for an ego boost or an ‘atta-boy’, but I’m honest-to-God serious about this. I will be asking this question in other places but I’m dying to know what you may think. Is any of this normal?

Here are the facts about Novalee, born July 2007

• She can use an iPhone.
  When I say ‘use the iPhone’, I mean she will unlock it, scroll through all the app pages to search for YouTube or the Dora Chrystal Kingdom game, or any other app I have that she likes. She will watch a video, click ‘back’ and select a new video or watch the same one – over and over and over and over.. She will play games, tilting this way and that for the motion controls, or dragging her fingers around to land planes.
  
  
• She knows the alphabet
  Is this common for a 2 year old? She can recite the alphabet, A-Z in words or song. She can spell her own name (Novalee), she can say her last name (Page-Auger), she can pick out many letters when you write them.
  
  
• She can count to 20 in English and 12 in Spanish
  
  
• She puts together puzzles – by herself – with 30+ pieces, designed for 5 year olds.
  
  
• She can recognize written words.
  This is actually what prompted me to write this. She can see a list of movies (text only) and we can ask her to pick “Finding Nemo” or “Backyardigans” for example. We tested this theory in several ways, and it seems to be true. Tonight she was using her iPod (yes, she has her own iPod) and stated that she was going to watch the Backyardigans. The stopped the movie she was on, scrolled through the TEXTUAL LIST of movies, selected “Backyardigans  – mvrip” and badabing.
  
  
• She can use a computer
  This really amazes me. Once we get her to NickJr.com or kids.pbs.org we can leave her alone for hours if we wanted to. She will select whichever show she wants to fool around with – the Backyardigans, Dora, Diego – whatever suits her fancy. And she doesn’t just click around – she plays the games. She listens to the instructions and plays the games. For example, there’s  a game where the instructor tells her to find the had with the train on it. She looked through all the hats, found the one with the train on it, dragged and dropped it onto the head of Tyrone, and shouts “I DID IT”!… She’s almost always right. She can recognize a button whether it’s an image or a standard button, she can recognize back and forward buttons.
  
  
• She can use YouTube.com
  She can’t type, but she can actually browse the site, watch related videos, and get this – if she likes a video she gives it 5 stars. Often on my computer which is liked to Facebook so all my friends think I watch Dora and Sesame Street all afternoon. “Big Robby gave 5 stars to “Elmo Sings About Dinner”.
  
  
• Her vocabulary is HUGE.
  There’s very few things she can’t say. If she doesn’t know the word, you can ask her to say it and within a moments she’s using it regularly. She says full sentences most of the time, she is very clear with her words, she can express her emotions verbally (though most often accompanied by a physical outburst). She tells you a mostly complete detailed account of her daily activities when asked, often even if you don’t.
  
  
• She speaks in Spanish
  She literally uses Spanish in everyday life. For example – “Espera, Mama, Espera”.

I am not lying, exaggerating, embellishing or in any way bending the truth. If this is abnormal, I will get video of it all and share it. Is this normal for a 2 year old child?

I keep having a need for this, and I thought some of you may as well. Enjoy!

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BigRobby, I remember when you were just a fledgling blog on a free theme from WordPress.org.

I remember your silly posts with no point or direction, your poorly written content and over-use of images to make up for lack of words. You’re one year old now, and I see that not much has changed. Sure, your theme is nicer and you have more stuff, but really, there’s nothing to read here.

In honor of this Sunday’s football games, I wanted to add this gem that I snagged off LiveLeak. Thanks to 3v1ld34d.

Happy Football Sunday!

As many of you know, I have moved my home to Kennebunk, splitting a duplex with Erin’s parents. Jack, Erin’s father, is a big fan of cooking. Luckily he’s really good at it, and even luckier – I live next door. For the last month Jack has been feeding us dinner almost every night. Tonight I was so blown away by the food that I decided I have to tell someone else about it. Lucky you!

So here’s the first entry in the “Dinner With Jack” series. I am sure there will be many.

“Bad Ass Pork Chops & Kick Ass Sauce”

Edible ecstasy that would tempt pigs to eat their kin, this plate smells how I imagine an angel smells – that is to say of garlic and butter and meat. Here’s how he made it. Recipe by Jack Donovan

Your chef will require:

• 1 Can Cream of mushroom soup
• 1 Pint Sour Cream
• Salt
• Pepper
• Paprika
• Parsley
• Onion Powder
• 8 fat, juicy pork chops
• 1 large onion
• Butter

The Kick Ass Sauce

1. Chop up your onion into big chunks
2. Brown onions in butter in a saucepan (or tin can).
3. Bust open a can of cream of mushroom soup. Pour it into the onion saucepan.
4. Ditto with the sour cream
5. Put pan to flame till it boils.

The Bad Ass Pork Chops

You Shalt Do The Following With Your Meat

1. Go to your oven. Preheat that bad boy to 350.
2. Season pork chops (both sides!) with copious amounts of the ab0ve listed spices. Season to taste…
3. Lightly (olive) oil a casserole pan or whatever you have big enough to hold all that stuff.
4. Pour the ‘Kick Ass Sauce’ over the meat.
5. Shove into the oven and forget about it for 2 hours. Yeah, I said 2 hours. BE PATIENT. The meat will and MUST fall off the bone. If it doesn’t, throw it all away and start from scratch.

We would love to hear about this feast should you prepare it for yourself. Eat well and be merry.

Holiday season with the family, extended family, old friends and new friends in an old house, in a quaint New England town.

How much better does it get than that? This Christmas season was a 5 day non-stop festival with some of the worlds greatest people. A great set of circumstances led us all to collect Sunday, with 3 clans descending on a single home. With Erin and I moving in the same house (duplex) with her rents, this season had an awesome sense of family unity. We welcomed very interesting combinations of friends and family with great success!

This was the roast prepared at my mothers house on Brown Street. Jack took this photo. I think Jack has an unhealthy obsession with meat of any kind. I catch him speaking softly to it.

Erin & her mother Deb… Deb looks deceptively nonplussed in this photo, but don’t be fooled. She was ‘the hostess with the mostest’ this weekend shuffling 2 homes and 3 dozen people.

Amber and her new baby, Noah. I love this photo. Noah is only 5 weeks old, and is the most freaking cute baby you will ever see. Good work guys.

My mother with the monkey. Mom was chef extraordinaire  with a 900 lb who-beast, a pile of potatoes that resembled Mount Agamenticus in size and tasted like butter and garlic, the two most magical flavors in the world.

Life is good. My wife, myself and Novalee. We really do love living in Kennebunk! We are having another child soon, and we can’t possibly express how exciting that prospect is. 2 down, 2 to go…

Jack (Bumpah) enjoying his time with Novalee. Jack was the chef extraordinaire on Sunday with piles and piles of meat on bread and every salad with meat that exists – crab, ham, chicken, the list goes on. Argh… Ill brb, im hungry….

Deb being entertained by a goofball. Novalee is a constant source of entertainment, and I think it’s because she knows it.

Both my queen and my princess were very happy this holiday season.

My queen, looking regal in purple and those strawberry and golden locks.

Novalee had these adorable little gloves that went with that awesome dress… she kept taking them off and asking us to put them back on again.

This was Christmas morning, Novalee has opened all her gifts and shes checking out her new dollhouse.

Novalee is obsessed with puzzles and she got plenty of them. I wonder what her career will be…

Jack and Deb and Maureen lined up watching the monkey tear open 500 gifts.

We were watching the Christmas parade. It felt a lot like Thanksgiving actually…

Now that Christmas is over, our lives will again return to normal.

Families will return to their everyday routines, and many of us will not see each other until next year.  While it sounds sad, we can all look forward to another week like this one in the not-to0-distant future.

With love from our family to yours – Merry Christmas all, And a Happy New Year!

I have some awesome photos from Christmas this year, and I fully intend on displaying them in the next day or so.

While we wait for said post, what do you think of the re-design of BigRobby.com?

Twas the night before Christmas
On great food, engorged
I lost a button
It shot cross the floor

My Marlboros packed
A match set to light
When I looked to my left
And beheld such a sight

Santa was cruising
Rudolph at the helm
Headed straight to my window
like a bat out of hell

Suddenly jerking
the reigns drawn back tight
His sleigh thundered upward
missing me by a spite

wind from the sleigh blew
blustering briskly
And I caught a strong whiff
of single-malt whiskey

I leaned out the window
shouting things crass
flipping Santa the bird
as he drunkenly passed

“Merry Christmas to you, too!”
he exclaimed, as he drove out of sight
Drunk on egg-nog – and high as a kite.

Off in the distance
I heard a great crash
Toys and reindeer parts
scattered enmasse

I hung my head low
As I understood
For children all over
This couldn’t be good

Fast forward 3 years
30 days in jail
Mrs. Santa Clause had
to come up with the bail

A thousand dollar fine
and community service
Now Santa’s back driving
His reindeer are nervous

Tonight I’ll pray Santa
is Dry as bone.
In hopes he wont crash

again

into the side of my home…

It’s a valid question, I think. If you’ve seen American Beauty, you’ll remember the famous scene where the weird kid rambles on about the beauty of a floating bag over a cold concrete sidewalk in autumn. As ridiculous as it sounds, he did have an interesting line.

“Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in”

Every now and then I get a sense of that kind of perfection – that kind of beauty that impacts the soul and could almost drive you wild  at the inability to physically touch it. The utter intangibility of beauty itself is what makes it so appealing, a strong emotional experience if you’re prone to that sort of sensitivity.

But how often would you relate that level of emotion to “cute”?

Novalee was sitting on the bed watching the iPod sans audio. The headphones I have are giant and floppy and made for my giant head, not her tiny one.

“I’m going to get speakers, I’ll be right back”

“Ok Daddy”, She replied.

I stepped into the office to untangle my speakers. It was taking too long – it  takes Novalee about 2 seconds to get into trouble. So I peeked in the bedroom.

Novalee was sitting there, engrossed in “The Tale of Despereaux”. She tried to get the headphones on her head, but got it way wrong.  The one ear that was covered the speaker faced outward, her little neck cocked to catch any noise from the speaker on her other shoulder…

With all the strength and voice and pride that sweet, blessed little child could muster, she shouted “I DID IT!”…

So I about lost it – that feeling somewhere between tears of sadness and joy, knowing how lucky I am to have that one moment in time, but devastated at the realization that it will be gone in a few seconds,  no more than a memory.

Either way, I feel lucky that I live a life filled with special moments like that.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

I love dogs. I always have. There’s rarely a time in my life that I don’t have a faithful companion, and today I have 3.

To call these animals ‘faithful’ companions may be a stretch.

Their rap sheet is cause for euthanization, were it not for a reservoir of  patience on my wife’s part, this dog lover may have turned, well… something else entirely.

And Erin’s patience too, it seems, is in limited supply. Our new home is covered in invisible bulls-eyes as this game of chase-the-piss leads us on a figure 8 loop from front door to last door upstairs on the left . Like 2 automated hoses, my two male dogs mark each and every jutting corner and object at ball-height without discrimination.

Craps As Big As A Loaf Of Bread

I woke up this morning to find that my over-sized rat, Preston, had decided that my head was his property. Yes, he pissed on my pillow. The day was off to a great start. I go downstairs to find a pile of poop that defies all logic in size, stench and terror. I swear it moved when I picked it up. I swear.  The culprit in this disaster? Tiva, my truly trusty companion of 9 years.

Help Me, Please

I figured when I got my dogs nuts snipped, I wouldn’t have to deal with this. But no matter how many times we take them out, they insist on playing firefighter with everything, and it’s getting annoying and unsanitary. So, I need the answer to 2 questions.

1)  How to I stop this reign of testicle terror

2) Does anyone want a dog or two? or three?

Trust me, it was a lot more fun that you’d think.

My wonderful mother snagged some floor seats to” Sesame Street Live’s” show of “Elmo’s Green Thumb” at the Cumberland County Civic Center. It was actually pretty cool – very bright, not too loud, and apparently mesmerizing, if Novalee’s face was any indication.

Here’s some photos of our fun evening…

Alright allright, I don’t really think my 2 year old is the devil, but it made for a catchy title, and it applies – really!

We are currently in the middle of a move into a new (rental) home. This place is gloriously devoid of carpet of any kind. We are not carpet people. Anyone who has been to our home realizes that when they see the horrible collection of chips, soda, juice, water, mac n cheese, mashed in fruit, assorted pet stains… all showing crystal clear on a BROWN carpet. I mean, how disgusting is your carpet  if you can see the grime and it’s a brown carpet…

So when this little devil  (notice the red light? THAT WAS NOT PLANNED!) decided to eat a donut like it was fighting back, leaving a mess to rival any mess I could make…

…I was at least comforted by the fact that one hungry dog and a quick sweep would clean it up…

Then she spit it out on her sleeve, dumped the milk on the floor to be ‘funny’, the dog pissed all over the floor and I broke a pottery candle holder while I grabbed a rag to clean up piss and donut and milk.

Argh.

We all went to Kennebunk’s annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Lot’s of good photos!

Read The Article On My Other Blog »

Where you been Big Robby?

Sorry guys, I’ve been working on a new venture with my brother, Travis. I’ve been doing lots of blogging, but not on this website. I think it’s time I separate the business from the personal.

Travis and I have launched ‘The Brothers Page’, (http://brotherspage.com)  a design firm focusing on WordPress blog & website design for small and medium sized businesses, right here in seacoast New Hampshire and Maine. So if you know anyone looking for a new site, let us know! We’re damn good!

This just in… the final person in the world to play Halo has succeeded in beating the game.

And get this – she beat the final run in the Warthog on her second go. It wasn’t pretty, but she did it. Erin has found Halo to be a highly fun and addicting game despite several years of completely ignoring it. She’s watched me drive over an hour each way to stand in line for 5 hours to buy the game at midnight on the eve of it’s release. She’s watched me spend hundreds of hoursover the last 8 years playing team death-match online. But until now, she has found no interest in any game in the series.

When I say ‘until now’, I mean she’s gone off the deep end. This was illustrated by the excessively late bedtime of 4:50 am Sunday morning. Or me catching her replacing Halo 2 with Halo 1 and playing it on legendary.

Dear Bungee, you’ve created a monster. A tardy one, but a monster no less.

Does it get any cuter than that? She finally fit into this costume and when we saw her, dressed as a little pig, we knew it was meant to be. That’s Novalee with my mother above, outside on an oddly warm Halloween afternoon. We were preparing to go trick or treating around the Grove Street block in Kennebunk, Maine (where I hail from – werd).

After stopping in for photos and oogling time at the rents, Erin and I carried her from door to door, alternating between us carrying her or her walking on her own. There were several occasions when she was so freaked out by some gimmick the houses had on their lawns that she came running back screaming. But she would insist that we carry her to get the candy. Nothing would distract her from her ultimate goal.

We went a good hour or more around the expanse of land they call a ‘block’, bouncing from festive house to festive house… Who am I kidding – you know what happens on Halloween. What normally happens on Halloween, happened. I just got to do it with a piglet and my awesome wife. Good times. For more photos you can see them on Facebook. Be my friend.

This is the first of many iPhone stories, if things keep going like they have this week.

I’ve had a lot of cell phones, but waited to get the iPhone until just last week. I shouldn’t have.  I can think of a thousand times it could have helped, saved me money or otherwise made my life easier. I’m sure this is a common sentiment among the converted.

My First ‘Saved By My iPhone’ Story

This first story shows just how the iPhone can make things easier. I was at Hannaford, the local supermarket. I went through the self-checkout aisle, which is ALWAYS causing a problem for me. I can’t get it right, but I persist on trying to get through. It’s like a challenge, a secret game I play with a mechanical opponent.

This night was going smoothly (I was winning) until I swiped my new credit card. I entered my PIN correctly. A big message pops up on the screen saying I need to contact the President of the USA and to stay where I am until SWAT arrives. The keypad, however,  said my transaction was approved, a.k.a. money changed hands.

Along comes the oldest person working (I’d say 15), popping her bubble gum and looking unimpressed. Her painted nails whipped through some mysterious 16 digit code like she’d been typing them since birth. I watched her press the ‘Cancel  Transaction’ button. Then she started swiping all the items through again.

I was sure as hell not getting charged for this twice, so I piped up about how the pad had shown the transaction went through. She mumbled something about there being no receipt paper to print, to prove my ’story’. Since our little teeny bopper was playing larry law with my ice cream and pumpkin pie, I thought I would whip out my iPhone to show her my paypal balance.

My credit card is a Paypal card, linked directly to my PayPal account. The second I use the card, PayPal updates my history and emails me. So I was able to go to paypal.com and show this high-schooler that I wasn’t full of shit. She finally bought my story and let me go.

How would that have played out WITHOUT an iPhone?

• I would have had to pay twice or
• They would have had to do an audit on the machine at the end of the shift or
• Some other lame-ass thing.

I got out of  this situation because of the awesome browser on the iPhone, the speed of connection (we are lucky enough to have 3GS here, even though AT&T has almost no coverage), and the indifference of the child in charge of the checkout.

I love my iPhone.

Of course I know smoking is bad for me, but I never thought about the effect SEEING smoking would have on my child.

Last night, my little devil made me sit back and think about it being time to, at the very least, move my smoking in the closet.

I was smoking out back and I turned to see what mischeif my little monkey was into, and there she was standing with a cigarette in cradled betwixt her index and middle finger like a little Marlboro man. To make matter worse she feigned a smokers cough or two.

When I tried to take the smoke away from her she ran at full speed screaming “MY SIG-WET” down the hallway. I finally caught up to her – she shoved the butt into her mouth and bit it with her teeth as hard as she could.  Then, grinning at me,  she laughed and laughed while I tried with all my might to extract the cigarette from her mouth. After several exasperating and amusing moments, I finally was able to pry it from her. I revelled in my success for an instant, during which she shoved a hidden, second cigarette in her mouth.

When I finally had wrestled that cigarette from her I found myself wanting to discipline her, but in a quandary for a real reason. She sees me smoke, so she emulates it. My fault. I am a naturally stubborn person who hates authority so she has that in her blood. My fault. She thought she was being funny, and she was had it not been a cigarette, but she didn’t know that. Not her fault.

So I’m still thinking about how I should have handled that… Any thoughts?

I got this $20 bill from an ATM at a local old-school convenience store. It first caught my eye because you just don’t see this style bill anymore. Somehow, this bill has managed to escape destruction for 32 years, one year longer than I’ve been alive.

This thing has probably spent hundreds and hundreds of hours in the ass pocket of some dude or in the perfumy tampon filled chaos that is a womans purse. In the 80’s this bill was rolled up to do lines on the back of a toilet at some seedy club with a Poison cover band blaring through the walls. Yet here it is, still in one piece, waiting to be spent.

I wanted to add a personal signature to my blog posts and decided this was the easiest way for someone like me to get my hand drawings and writings into digital format.

I’m sure that many people are asking “Why not use a scanner” – I don’t like scanners. Unless they have sped up in the last few years, it would be faster for me to chisel this photo into stone, send it off to be printed a few thousand times and send it to you at home.

I had to make a website last night, and I thought I would record it to show the process I use. This is taken over several hours at 1 frame per second sped up to 12x normal speed.

This is what I do all day long.

I’m back with the final portion of the wedding fun. To my readers who are bored to tears by this stuff, I beg you to tough it out. This gets me points with the family. I need points. I save them.

The Ceremony

Because of the rain, the crowd gathered inside for the ceremony. We decided to get married in the living room in front of the picture window looking out on the water. I waited impatiently with the Notary, Sheila Banks (who kicked ass on making the ceremony brief and perfect!) as Erin waited in the Kitchen. Then, a most irritating thing happened. The iPod wouldn’t play the song Erin wanted to walk down the aisle to.

After about 3 minutes, someone (my genius mother of course) said ‘forget the music, we’ll all just hum the wedding march”.

And, like in some silly musical where a crowd breaks out in song…

…my beautiful bride was walking arm in arm with her father as the whole crowd sang in full force “DA DUM DA DUM… DA DUM DA DUM”..

It was the definition of awesome.

Erin read me her vows….

I read her mine… That was pretty intense – looking into Erin’s eyes at that moment, just before we got married. I felt like a giddy little schoolgirl.

It’s official. Erin is now one of us.. assimilated.

Here we are, the first photo with us as a ‘legal’ family. Life is great.

Thanks for listening. If you want to see all 200+ awesome photos of the wedding, the hours before and the reception after, including the awesome best man toast by my brother Travis -  click here to see it on Facebook – or click here to see it on Picasa!

And what a phenomenal day it was. We rented an amazing house in Cape Porpoise, Maine for Saturday through Monday. We knew it would be a perfect place to have the wedding, but we had no idea just how perfect the wedding would be. Here’s the weekend in photos and words. Thanks to everyone for making this day the best day we could ask for.

The Location

This house is supposedly haunted… I wouldn’t doubt it. No less than 3 people flatly refused to sleep in this home because of it’s reputation for supernatural sightings.

These are real whale ribs and vertebrae. The story behind the whale’s arrival at this home is actually very interesting. About 100 years ago, the owner of the property was the victim of a practical joke that would make PETA and Greenpeace shudder.

The owners friend thought it would be funny to slaughter a Right whale and drag it’s rotting, stinking carcass to the front door. This was apparently source of amusement back in the early 1900’s… so amusing that the owner decided to keep the carcass, bleach it and keep the bones as decorations and have a drink with the perpetrator. I’ll have to remember this one for April fools day 2010.

While the tide is out you can walk to the islands across the inlet. And under that staircase is the devils den filled with thousands of scratching, clawing crabs. Cool but very creepy.

We couldn’t have possibly asked for a better spot to have a wedding ceremony and reception. This picture says it all.

This is the dining room before the wedding. Little did it know it would be filled with damn good food and damn good people.

This was the honemoon suite, if you will. Hard to tell but each and every one of those windows had a view of the ocean. Actually, it’s all you could see. When you were laying in bed in the morning it looked like you could have been in a floating house, coasting down the Atlantic.

The Night Before

On Saturday we had some prep work to do, including food and tents and other crap. All the things that no one wants to do. Luckily I have the best friends on the planet and they did it all for me. All I had to do was hang out with my old friend Matt, brother Travis and his wife Dian, the rents, the in-laws and the bride-to-be.

Matt Weyand, one of my oldest and greatest friends, put a few brewskies into him, leading to an amusing evening. With a giant refrigerator full of food for the wedding, it proved too tempting for a victim of the ‘Budweiser Munchies’. At 2 am I caught Matt moving slowly towards the 30 lb roast beef in the fridge  – 10″ butcher knife in hand. We compromised on a sandwich made of dinner rolls and the ass-end of the roast to protect the beef from further desecration.

Travis and Dian kicked it that evening. Dian was experiencing the coldest weather she’s felt in a long time, being raised in Indonesia and spending the last year or more in Hawaii with Travis.

Erin and I enjoyed our last evening as a hot single couple by talking about how excited we were to get married the next day. We should have been doing body shots off strippers, but that’s not how we roll.

I got the groovy ‘Groom’ hat from Erin’s aunt Donna and I sported it whilst I goofed around with Novalee. “Daddy A Married, cut-a-cake, eat it, mawwied, mumma dress bootiful, daddy hansum” – Exact words repeated by Novalee. Smart cookie.

Novalee and Sarah, the Maid of Honor’s daughter enjoyed each other’s company as always. It’s so freaking cute to watch these two interact.

The Wedding Day – Preparation.

Erin spent the entire day – until 6pm – getting ready for this wedding. Seeing these photos now makes me feel special – as should any groom, blissfully unaware of the terrible things brides have to do to prepare themselves for this momentous occasion. I got my clothes in 2 hours, including driving time. She, on the other hand, took 3 visits or more to get this dress, which cost as much as the house we rented.

Erin primped and preened for the afternoon while I socialized and did fun stuff like get the music playing and greeting people. I told her I would marry her in an alleyway and she could wear a potato sack for a dress, but she wouldn’t have anything less. Nor does she deserve anything less.

We were blessed with a daughter that everyone loves, so getting friends to keep an eye on her was not an issue, but every now and then Novalee just had to see her mother. This is one of my favorite photos.

While I am usually adverse to having anyone gussy me up, or even gussying myself up, I couldn’t help but let my mother fix my shirt and collar. I felt like she was giving me away.

Coming Tomorrow – The Ceremony…

Blech. I hate being sick, but this is, like…. really. bad. timing. The next post will probably be just before or after the wedding on Sunday. Hope to see all of you there. I hope I’m there.

It’s true. I’ve been to over a dozen weddings and I detested the formality of all of them. Best case scenario, I found myself in a wool sweater and pleated fucking khakis in the middle of a Catholic wedding. I felt like I was doing squat thrusts in a plastic bag with all the standing, kneeling and sitting. Not to mention, I smelled like a mountain goat by the time the reception came.

Worst case scenario, I found myself the victim of a tight, stiff tuxedo that divided my ‘boys’ down the middle in some sick reverse cameltoe. I don’t know what was worse – my forcibly given speech under the bright spotlight, sweating and trying NOT to adjust my crotch in front of 100 people I didn’t know and a bride I despised, OR the forced dancing to start the party off. Fat man, little tux, “Love shack” by the B-52’s. That was loads of fun. Steven, if you’re reading this… Fuck you, your 12 month marriage and that damn tuxedo. Don’t ask me to be your best man ever again.

Fighting The Inevitable

After all these terrible experiences, I learned 2 simple things.

• Weddings suck
• Someday, I’ll have to have one

Thank god mine’s going to be fun.

And it’s in 2 weeks, 3 days, 17 hours, 35 minutes from now.

You are all keenly aware of my distrust and outright loathing of Bank Of America’s policies, practices and overall existence. So when I read an article titled “No thumbprint, no money, bank tells armless man“, I chuckled and thought to myself,  “I bet a million bucks this was BOA”. Since I had bet myself so much money I had to find out and I clicked the link. Sure as shit, there it was… “the Bank of America Corp branch in downtown Tampa, Florida”.

Read the full article here. It’s an interesting read.

If you do business with these douchebags, please stop.

Suffice it to say, Erin was beat. A long day with an independent 2 year old had taken it’s toll.

I was not blessed with vast sums of patience, so when I spend time with Novalee I like to focus on something. She finds it much harder to whine when she’s elbow deep in butter, sugar and the possibility of a sweet treat.

We went the easy route, using mix that required only butter, and egg, and some elbow grease. We were both OK with that.

Novalee wouldn’t allow me to help stir the eggs and butter. “NO! NO! NO!” whenever I tried to help, so I let her keep going.

She did a pretty good job, but I had to convince her to let me ’smell’ the batter and I snuck in a few whisks to finish it off.

She was trying so hard to roll balls with her hands, but she just wasn’t coordinated enough.  The dough kept sticking to her little paws, and she kept saying “Washa Hay-nds” “Washa Hay-nds”.

Finally we were ready to put them in the oven. Can you guess which one was hers?

I didn’t get a photo of her enjoying these treats – but it looked something like this…

My favorite part? Kickin it with the monkey. The cookies were pretty good too!

This Saturday was a fun family day at Hilton Park in Dover, New Hampshire. We took a crapload of photos. Here they are in slide-show format. You can view all these photos in the original gallery instead, should you so choose.

I’ve had a few people ask me how to get to to this special place , so here’s a link to the directions to Hilton Park. But keep it a secret. (Shhhh.)

Before I locked my ass in this chair and started a serious career, I lived a pretty exciting, action packed life. I’m surprised I’m alive after some of the stuff I did as a kid, but here I am. And I live in a bubble. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m very happy , but sometimes it’s all a little surreal. My work-at-home career takes me to my basement and in my own head. I work with dozens of virtual colleagues and talk with hundreds of virtual people without using my voice all day. My family life is a magical world of love and happiness with a perfect daughter and Erin – she’s the ideal wife and mother of my child  – I love her passionately, and she’s my best friend. We went to prom together. Hell, I even adore my in-laws. I drive a minivan, have a couple of dogs -  I feel as close to the perfect specimen of raw Americana as I can be without Norman Rockwell being somehow involved.

I needed that ol’ adrenaline kick and some bad-assery back in my life.

So I traded in my old car for a 4 Wheeler- just for fun, and I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.

I’ve owned motorcycles and fast cars, but nothing comes close to driving a 4 Wheeler. Here’s why.

Driving a 4 Wheeler Is A Bona-fide Therapeutic Smorgasbord

• Learn To Take Risks
  The level of risk is only limited to how aggressive you drive, but even a relatively conservative driver like me gets a whole lotta “holy crap!” moments in the course of a 5 hour tour of South Sanford. You get to chose the level of risk and take what you’re ready for in your own time. A steep hill? Sure. A big jump? Hell no. Well.. not yet anyway.

• Clear Your Head
  Scanning directly ahead of you at all times is required, and that is the only thing you’re thinking about.  “Root. Rock. Boulder. Lean left. Learn right. Slow down. Feet up. Giant puddle. Ouch!” Not work, not home, not life’s grand scheme and your part in it. Just trying to stay upright and alive.
  
  
• Tackle Fear
  There’s always room to push it, especially at  a beginner level. When I feel the need to get exhilarated, I just push the gas a little harder or head up a steeper hill than ever before.
  
  
• Decision Making
  Driving around on a 4 Wheeler requires constant vigilance. You’re surrounded by trees trying to gouge your eyes out, roots trying to pop your tire, mud trying to suck you in or boulders trying to tip you over. There’s sand trying to spill you, other drivers trying (not) to hit you, and your courage egging you on. Every half second your making a decision about the best way to go, either for fun or for the rush.
  
  
• Physical Exercise
  This is one thing I was pleasantly surprised about. There is nothing easy about whipping a big 650cc bike around tiny turns with my.. ahem.. large frame in the saddle. By the time a 4-5 hour ride is complete, I feel ready for bed and Ben-Gay. But it’s the good burn you get from lifting weights or manual labor. It’s been too long since I’ve felt that burn.
  
  
• Raw, Man-Ego Boosting Authority Over Everything In Your Path
  If you want to go there, it will. Trees, curbs, mud, hills, sand, water – it doesn’t matter. But hang on tight.

It’s an interesting way to obtain inner peace and the other benefits, but it works. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had, and it helps me be a better everything.

Today was a sad day. My friend, former colleague and overall wonderful man, Darryl Hoosier, passed away in a car accident.

Darryl was the kind of man to put everyone ahead of himself  – to support his employees before he got paid, to teach someone something, to take the time to share his wealth of knowledge and companionship to anyone who needed it. He was a loving husband, father and friend to everyone who knew him.

Darryl’s Last Tweet

“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. -Helen Keller”

He lived those words, with courage and dignity and honor. We lost a great man this week.

Darryl was close with God, and was welcomed into his loving embrace . The friends and family left behind have to wait until our own lives are complete before we see him again. Enjoy Heaven Darryl.

We will miss you, and will see you on the other side.

My camcorder is on the fritz. Something is making it take a photo automatically every time I turn it on. That has led to the following photos, which I dub ‘accidental phtography’.

This is Tony, finishing up a ride around the pit.

This is the handlebars of my 4Wheeler. I think P.K. took this accidental photo.

The backyard of my neighbors house.

The ramp up to the shop at the neighbors.

My tire.

This is probably the most interesting one. My camcorder was on the back of the 4 wheeler when P.K. took off with it. It fell about 500 yards down the trail and took this photo when it fell off.

It’s been an interesting ride the last couple months, trying to get some of the new “P.O.M. Sex Offender Locator” applications off the ground. I’ve been working with a company called Vision 20/20 to design and develop, with the help an amazing team, an iPhone, Facebook and BlackBerry application. These applications inform you of the exact locations of convicted and registered sex offenders in any area of the U.S.

The success of these applications has been tremendous, thanks to plain old word of mouth thanks to blogs and social media. Not one stitch of advertising was used to get that application to the top. That should be a lesson to all of us in the Internet business. If you have something good to offer, get it to the right places and you will succeed. As of today, the iPhone application resides at the #5 spot on the iPhone App Store, and the #1 spot in utilities.

Polarized Opinions Are Inevitable.

Of course this application draws polarized opinions. you can find out what people are saying at the following locations

• http://abcnews.go.com
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk
• http://www.techcrunch.com
• http://tech.blorge.com
• http://technologyexpert.blogspot.com
• http://episteme.arstechnica.com
• http://www.fark.com (via http://www.godbitesman.com/)

Where can I get the Sex Offender Locator Application for the iPhone, BlackBerry or Facebook?

iPhone Application
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=317435796&mt=8

Blackberry App
http://www.govision2020.com/getblackberry

Facebook App
http://apps.facebook.com/sexoffenders

What do you think about this application? How do you feel about sex offender registries? I’d love to hear your comments.

Today was a weird weather day. It reminded me of this dark passage (I’m sure I remember incorrectly) from Revelations about the last day on earth. Half the sky is night, half the sky is day, night birds fly rampant and God will roll in on the thunder clouds, trumpets blaring. Thunder rolled, finger lightning was licking its way across an orange and purple sky. The photos below are unedited. Friggin beautiful.

Anyone else in Maine see this?

Takin’ a few hours off work to go hammer through the trails of Sanford, Springvale, Acton and Lebanon. Here’s some video of neighbor Jay, buddy Brent and I at the Lebanon Pit in Lebanon Maine. Jay’s driving a 250 cc something and I’m driving a Bombardier DS650 Baja.

After several years of saying “I’m thinking about considering the possibility of maybe getting a dog”, my father finally did the unimaginable. He didn’t just get a dog, he got an 8 week old puppy. I thought that was pretty crazy. My father prefers to feed the wild animals. They don’t shit in the house, they don’t chew the furniture, and if they mark their territory its on the side of a tree, not a table. But, according to my old man, being a dog owner is much better than he thought it would be. He finds it rewarding and fun to have a goofy little puppy with floppy ears following him around the property while he does yard work or tagging along in the truck for rides.

Without further adieu, here’s Buddy – the half-Shepherd, half-Boxer puppy.

My current workload is kicking my ass, so I’ve been stressed out. Time to think positive.

Whenever I get stressed I try to look at only the positive aspects of my life. Tonight I thought I would reflect on fate and it’s amazing place in my life. I feel it in my existence every day – the balance that comes naturally in my world, however odd a path it takes to get there. Here’s one example of how fate affected my life.

• If I had taken a left hand turn instead of a right hand turn 12 years ago I would never have lost my license for drinking A SINGLE BEER at the age of 19.
• If I hadn’t lost my license, I would never have had to tag along with my friend ‘Jesse’ in his car instead.
• If I hadn’t tagged along with ‘Jesse’ I would never have met his girlfriend.
• If I hadn’t met his girlfriend I would never have tried to get to know her better.
• If I hadn’t been able to know her better, we never would have dated.
• If we hadn’t dated,  we could never have separated and grown individually for 2 years.
• If we hadn’t grown, we would have never realized what we were missing.
• If we hadn’t realized what we were missing, we would never have re-connected.
• If we didn’t re-connect, Erin would never have been ‘in the mood’
• If Erin wasn’t in the mood, at that very nanosecond in time, Novalee would never have been born.
• If Novalee was never born, I would never have been inspired to start this blog.
• If I hadn’t been inspired to start this blog, you wouldn’t be reading it.

So the question is – what would you be doing right now if I had taken a left instead of a right?

It was an awesome day today. We had the whole gang over for Novalee’s birthday party. It’s always a good time when we all get together. It’s a great opportunity for me to speak and think about nothing work related and enjoy a summer day. Here’s about 80 pictures from today. I also ♥ my camera. And I ♥ knowing how to make ♥’s.

My sweet little girl, I hope that someday you read this and know that in this dirty, dark little basement office of mine I am thinking of you asleep in your new bed.

I think of the day I was informed of your existence, driving at night through the Eastern Promenade with your beautiful mommy. It was bitter cold that night. We were driving, looking out the window at Portland harbour and the beautiful lights of the boats and moon reflecting off the water. When your mommy told me the news I was immediately thrilled, and very conscious of letting her know it. I remember several moments of looking into the future, wondering whether you would be a boy or a girl, blond or brown haired, a brilliant little child or, god help us, a 1 fingered monkey spawn. Erin put down a couple of dark chocolate bars that night, so I knew it was true. You were on your way.

I fast forward through all the anticipation the doctors visits, the reality of you coming so soon and pause one late Spring evening. Your mommy and I were laying in bed watching you move around in her belly. You looked like a little alien. We were told you would be a girl but we weren’t certain. But the thought had already taken hold and I was preparing to become the father of a beautiful little girl. I remember trying to touch you through your Mommy’s skin, wondering what treasure was under that barrier.

Fast forward to the evening you decided to join us. It was 3 am and your mommy was beginning to get uncomfortable. I was so scared that it was all happening… we had come so far! I shuffled your mommy out to my old beat up 87 Camaro and drove careful but quickly to the hospital. For 13 hours and 100 rides up and down the elevator for smoke breaks, we waited. And you were born. Healthy, completely happy and content to lay on your mothers bosom while we all ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhed’ about you.

Fast forward to now. I have 2 years of memories that fill my life with joy in the times you’re sleeping or with your grandparents.

I think about how you pick up a stick 3 times as tall as you and drag it around as a walking stick. I think about how you dump powder all over yourself and in the toilet, and giggle and run when you’re caught. I think about how you kick the soccer ball in the street so it rolls far away and you can watch daddy run after it. I think about how you can’t eat a thing without wearing it. Just like me.

I think about how your goofy hair sticks straight up in the morning, and you greet me with squinted eyes ‘Hi daddy!’. I think about how much you love everyone who loves you. I love how everyone is, in your words ‘A good guy’. Michael Scott? ‘eees a ga-good guy’. SpongeBob? ‘Eees a ga-good guy’. Uncle Brent? ‘eees a ga-good guy’.

I think about your wicked sense of humor and the mischievous things you do that make me so proud. I think about all these things and I just want to wake you up, throw on a Dora the Explorer episode and hang out with you.

My sweet little monkey, I love you and look forward to the years to come, good and bad. They’ll all be good for me. Enjoy your time alone with Mommy and Daddy. By this time next year you’ll have a little brother or sister. Happy birthday my baby girl. Sleep well. I love you with all my heart.

Score another one for the perverts in the ad industry. This one is just as funny as the ‘Trim That Thing’ commercial by Lady Schick.  Enjoy this visual double entendre by Ore Ida, demonstrating the.. ahem.. firmness of their french fries. Here’s the commercial in glorious HD.

Yeah, I did it. I admit that I saw the Elmo Live doll and fell in love. Well, I fell in love with the idea of my daughters reaction when she got it. This thing sits down on a chair, crosses it’s legs and tells a couple of stories. It says some funny things and had a bunch of buttons. But most of all, it was an over-the-top Elmo doll that I had to get for my girl.

Well, once I got the thing out of the box and into Novalee’s hands I realized I had made a mistake buying it. She seems to get weirded out by the silliest things. In this case, when Elmo crossed his leg, Novalee shrieked “Daddy Daddy NOOO Elmo leg boo boo!“. She freaked out and ran away. Daddy wasn’t a hero that day.

Upon closer inspection, I have decided that it’s really an odd creation. Here’s why.

1. Hugging Elmo Live is as charming as throwing a blanket over your toaster and squeezing it. It’s a bunch of clunky mechanics wrapped in an Elmo pelt.
2. The noises it makes are similar to the AT-AT Imperial Walkers in Star Wars. For you non-geeks, check yo’self.
3. Laying next to it in bed is wierd. When Elmo is on his side he will occasionally request to be stood up. Waking up at 3 am with Elmo nose-to-nose, asking you to help him up is, to say the least, a little disconcerting.
4. It’s $60 for f**ks sake. Nuff said.

We decided that we’d go to see ‘Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince’ this morning. Maybe it was my lack of sleep that caused me to walk away a little disappointed.

The trailers were weak – but I have to remind myself  ‘Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince’ is a ‘PG’ rated movie. Since they don’t play R rated previews in PG movies, we were force fed the same tween feel-good films that we see every day on Disney Channel. Eh.

What’s With The ‘PG Rating?’

Why in Little Whinging would you advance through a story like this and go backwards with the rating? For example, the first scene in the movie was a bridge destruction sequence in which the Death Eaters used their magic to torment the Muggle population. There were very clearly a lot of people on the bridge, until they cut to the final collapse footage and EVERY SINGLE PERSON made it off that bridge. You see it happen.

Who are they kidding? To make matters worse, they cut to Harry Potter reading a Daily Prophet article about the ‘mounting death toll’  from the very same bridge collapse. Kids see people dying every day on TV. What’s another couple hundred nameless people, especially if we’re trying to sync with the book like the rest of the film?

To avoid sounding like a whiny little squib, I will wrap up with these two points.

• If you’re going to sync with the book, do it right. Don’t drop the coolest fight sequence or the mauling of Bill Weasley by Fenrir Greyback, but leave in dive-bombing canaries. Wasn’t Marvolo Gaunt a part of this story as well? Where did he go?
• You could have done a hell of a lot more with the death of Dumbledore. I think the most poignant scene with them was the first 30 seconds of the movie – where Dumbledore puts his hand on Harry’s shoulder and helps him pull away from the hounding crowd of reporters.

Watch The Trailer

I will say this;  it was a visual-effects masterpiece. The nuances of the magic-filled castle are highlighted more than in any other movie. Dumbledore’s character got a makeover since his awful cast-change in the 3rd film – I really liked him and felt a sense of loss as he plummeted to his demise. The Quiddich match was the best yet, Fenrir was a bad-ass mo-fo, and there’s something terribly sexy about Bellatrix.

Apparently I may stand alone in my disappointment with this film, so it may have been the lack of sleep after all. I’ll have to catch it again this weekend.

For those of you who pay attention to this blog, you probably notice drastic changes in the way this site looks. Don’t ask me why, but this time I think the lighter look better suits my writing style. Maybe because my life feels happier than my all-black blog would imply, or maybe because I’m secretly a little fuzzy rabbit. Either way, I would love a little feedback from special people like you.

What’s Your Opinion On The Light & Froofy Design?

Sometimes the innuendo in commercials is too funny. I saw this commercial on E! during their top 100 pranks of all time. I considered that the commercial itself  was a prank until I saw the final 10 seconds. This is hilarious, props to the people who got this through.

If you have watched any of Larry David’s work, like Seinfeld, you know he’s got a cynical sense of humor.

Therefore, when my brother handed me all the seasons of Curb Your Enthusuasm along with a warning - “Good luck opening those, I think he intended those cases as a joke.”, I smiled. That’s something he would do to his faithful audience who paid $50 for the season on DVD – make it hard to open.

Little did I realize he would make it impossible to access the DVD’s. It’s an incomprehensible tab-pull system clearly meant to make an idiot of the person trying to open it. Case in point (no pun intended) – I handed the case to an unsuspecting Erin to see how long it would take her to open it. She’s highly intelligent and loves puzzles. After her giggle-fits between heated wrestling bouts with the case  – I asked her to yell downstairs when she figured it out. That was an hour ago.

So, very funny Larry David.You got me, you bastard.

My buddy dad-blogger, Ben O’Brien, has fallen victim to another asshole company with a history of scamming their customers.

Ben’s wife was told “Your subscriptions to 10 popular magazines will be ‘eight thirty seven”.  What a deal! Turns out ‘Eight thirty seven” meant $837.00.

Read more about the raping of Americans with this frustrating, but ultimately won, battle of consumer versus abusive business practices.

Continue to Ben O’brien’s blog story;

They Scammed my Wife, and I Beat ‘em at Their Own Game

I love children’s movies – They make a perfect escape from stressful reality

When Erin and I were selecting a film to watch, I was really excited to find out that ‘Flushed Away’ was on the list of options. The simple fact that Wifey and I could agree on the same movie was astounding, but the flick being an animated film made it all the more exciting.

I think its the part of me that likes to escape every day life – when I feel stressed I find I like to watch kids movies. They’re safer, require less emotional involvement and were entirely created by the vision of the child buried inside the director. This usually makes for a pleasant experience, especially when Pixar is involved.

When I think of a true escape movie, I think of “Bee Movie” by Dreamworks, with Jerry Seinfeld

This enjoyable movie is with Jerry Seinfeld as the main character – Barry Bee – a curious bee coming of age in a world that’s been planned out for him. The hive is a perfect example of futuristic indoor living created by a visionary of the 1950’s. It’s retro architecture, perfect roads, and overall harmony in the hive make it such an inviting prospect. There’s no mention of violence, or even a hint of it – no financial crisis – in fact one of the biggest problems is that the bees can’t work because of an overstock of honey. However, the bees haven’t taken a year off in over 10 million years or something, it’s not a terrifying prospect.

The movie itself gives off a warm orange glow when in the hive, and outside is a mixture of bright greens and blues of the grass and the sky in this perfect man made world. Sometimes I wish I could plug into that matrix and hang around with the bees for a week or so.

If your life is giving you stress, and you need a little break – I highly suggest going into a room all by yourself, get comfortable,  shut all the lights off and turn on ‘Bee Movie’. Within the first 10 minutes your worries will melt away. Don’t fret – they’ll be back. Enjoy the next hour and a half.

You can grab ‘Bee Movie’ here.

What movies do you watch to escape the everyday grind? If not movies, what makes your life easier to deal with?

It’s 11:36 PM on Saturday night, and I’m up against a self-placed deadline of 11:59 pm to get this blog post up. The interesting thing about the last sentence was how it inspired this topic.

I’m not a big fan of bosses. In fact, I hate them.

I’d rather work with someone than for them, even if the job is exactly the same.  This is why working at home works for me.  Here are some other reasons I would never consider an office job again.

• I can smoke in my office
• I don’t have to dress up. In fact, I don’t have to dress at all.
• I can be an absolute pig and no one complains.
• I can increase the length of the space from my brain to mouth.  Email gives me time to consider my responses carefully. Doesn’t always work…
• I have complete creative freedom in my office. I choose guns and fish tanks to decorate, something I don’t think would be allowed in an 9-5 cubicle.
• I get to watch TV all day long while I work. Basically I just watch The Office seasons 1-5 over and over again.
• My stinky dog chills with me.
• I can have friends stop by from time to time. Or all the time depending on the friend – CODY.

There’s a million more reasons, but that should be good enough for anyone to be convinced to quit their day job and work at home!

What happened to all the sharp edges?

When I was 10 years old, summers were the best. I was given pocket knives and axes, and I’d wander through the 10 acres of mountain-side we owned – over steep cliffs and through streams. I would ride my bike for 30 miles over the course of a day, getting lost and found. I would walk a few miles down by the river with a fishing pole and a sandwich, by myself.  I would tear through 5 miles of woods on a muddy rocky trail to get to little league practice. Nowadays everything is plastic, approved by this committee or that group, and boring as hell. Here’s some  stupid inventions that make parenting for the lazy even easier, encourages germ phobias, allows us to walk our kids like we walk our dogs and more!

5 Stupid Inventions For Overprotective Parents

These are in no particular order. They’re all just as stupid.

Leashes & Harnesses For Toddlers

How scary is it that it’s out of stock! – There’s just something wrong about this. My wife would disagree, but she can blog about it herself. Here’s a review from a woman named Karen from Maimi. She says – and I quote…

“The harness portion of this product is well made and easy to use. The strap however doesn’t work as well as the dog leash that I prefer to use with it. The clips do not attach or detach very easily.”

3-in-1 SuperYard By KidSafe

Doesn’t the boy look like a sheep? Is there something wrong with playing with your child. I’m sure we can all keep our kids out of the fire. Hmm?

The Gummi Grip Shopping Cart Handle

I would opt for a teething biscuit or a pacifier. Do parents actually bring these things with them when they shop?

Temporary Nut Allergy ID Tattoos

If your kid has nuts and your nuts, you’ll go nuts for this nutty no-nut tattoo. I think I would have my ass beat at school for wearing this.

My Old Favorite – The Bicycle Helmet

There’s nothing like looking like a penis while you ride your bike. Why anyone would wear one, especially an adult, is beyond me. Of course the same people also wear spandex that’s brighter than the sun. Whenever my mother would make me wear one, I would drive down the road, hide it, and keep going. I’d throw it on when I got back, and she never know. Something tells me she will now.

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