weekend.

Looks like we may be staying in for the weekend. We were planning on going to Wichita but I don't know if we'd make it. 400 highway is snowpacked/ice according to KDOT. Will check again tomorrow but it's not looking good.

That means that I may get to watch Marseille take on Montpellier Hérault SC. Miranda will be pumped about that. She'd probably prefer to take on the snow and ice.

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funny

Why couldn't I have a cubicle like this at work? Very snazzy.

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house.

So we went to church last night. Pastor Albert was gone to Illinois for some flight training or something. So Joe (David) Davolt stood in for him. Afterwards Miranda and I both agreed that he was talking about us. He was preaching from Isaiah 30 from two verses:

• [15]... in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.
• [18] And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.

It was all about waiting. He kept saying... "wait". Then he said something like "It isn't complicated; it's difficult". Anyway... I think we took it slightly out of context but it's good advice for us at this time. We are having a difficult time waiting for our own house. I'm not the most patient guy in the world anyway. After a year and a half of waiting, I'm tired. Guess I'll wait some more.

Supposed to get more snow today/tonight. Ready to move to Lafayette again. We are supposed to get 4-9 inches currently. They changed it though. The last time I looked it was 6-10 inches. So it's getting better. However Lafayette has a high today of 69 with a low tonight of 58. Mon coeur fait mal (My heart hurts).

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last night.

Frustrating night last night. Went to Braums and took forever to get waited on. Two sets of people cut in line in front of me. Can't read the sign that says "EXIT" apparently.

Got the lap steel out for Patrick. I am going to try to teach him some stuff but I don't read music. I may leave that for Miranda. I got some picks and shaped them for him. The trick will be spending the necessary time to teach him.

I've switched over to the Ian Knot for tying my shoelaces.

Supposed to get a lot of snow tomorrow afternoon/Friday morning. They are saying 6 to 10 inches. We were planning on going to Wichita this weekend and hope we will still be able to. Hopefully it won't ice over.

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rap.

The first ever rap song I've listened to all the way through. It's Hayek vs Keynesian economic theories.

You dig?
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email.

So our realtor here in Independence is no longer. They closed the local ReMax. So I'm looking around to find someone else to work with. I found one and clicked "Contact Us". They had an email address. So I emailed them. Nothing. I bet they don't ever check email. Guess I'll keep looking.

The main question I have is that I don't know when we should actually get involved in looking. It will take awhile to close on a house but we don't want to start too soon. It would be helpful if I had a realtor to ask questions.

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one of those days.

It's going to be one of those days.

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sick.

Miranda got sick tonight. She went to the doctor and he gave her some medicine and she had an allergic reaction to it. It's 8:49 and I'm the only one still up. Everyone else is in bed.

Today has been a frustrating day.

nc

shoelaces.

I found a quick knot for tying shoelaces. It bills itself as the "World's Fastest Shoelace Knot". It's probably correct. It's impressive (as impressive as a shoelace knot can be.... which really isn't that impressive but hey... it's shoelaces!).

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funny.

Of all the talents in life, why couldn't I have had this one. Hand ninja!

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weekend.

The weekend is here.

I ran to Vinita last night. Got the virtual machine installed and the software is chugging along. So Mom was pretty happy about that.

Tonight is the PFF chili supper at IBS. I may end up staying home though. I been on the road so much that I'm not much in a mood for more stuff to do.

Going back to Vinita tomorrow. I think Miranda and the children are going as well. They sit out at the house during the day.

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Vinita

Going to Vinita tonight. Taking the children. Miranda will have a night by herself. I bet she goes crazy. I do have the best lady in the world though. From my postings, you've probably gathered that I'm a bit of a problem to live with. She handles it magnificently. I'm a lucky guy.

I think I've pretty much got everything setup here if it will transfer over to Mom's computer. It won't work first time though. It never does. It should in theory.

Long day today. I'm learning some new stuff at work and my brain is fried. 1 hour and 15 more minutes.

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tough day.

Went to Monett today. Miranda's at church and I'm about to fall asleep. I've been up since 4:00 this morning.

Tomorrow night I'm driving to Vinita to work on Mom's computer. The bank still doesn't have the software fixed, so I'm going to hook up a virtual machine so that she can run it. Attempt it that way. That's the night that Miranda has to work late so it would appear that the children are going with me.

Missed my Marseille game today. They won.

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family.

It's been pretty quiet lately. The weather has turned a bit for the better.

Miranda has decided that we need a date night. So we may be hitting someone up to babysit for us.

101 days until April 30th (our house being sold). 172 days until July 10th (our cruise). I haven't been very excited about the cruise because the next big thing I'm looking forward to is the house selling. Party at our house when it's gone.

On our cruise, we are going on a 130' schooner ride. Miranda is real susceptible to sea sickness so I'm a bit worried about her. We are going with Holland America.

Odd to think that this summer we will have been married 10 years. "No retreat, no surrender", to quote our wedding vows.

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MLK

Happy Martin Luther King Day. Miranda gets the day off. She is taking the children to day care though because she has some errands to run. I don't get the day off however.

For those of you who clicked that link, you noticed that you didn't get MLK but instead Martin Luther. That's because I think it was silly for MLK's parents to name give him the exact name of a 15th/16th century theologian. I'm just glad my parents didn't name me Guillaume Budé Allen. The obvious choice for naming children is 21th century hockey players, but that goes without saying.

Went to Vinita this weekend and worked a bit in the tax office. Had to call up some wanker at Republic Bank because their software doesn't work. As soon as he started in, I knew that he didn't have a clue. Not one. So he proceeded to argue with me about how her software was installed. Anyway... to make a long story short, he was wrong. Apparently their software doesn't work on 64-bit Vista. They are working on the issue.

Friday night is some going on at the school. I forget the initials but apparently it's a chili supper of some kind.

nc (Guillaume Budé Allen)

updates.

Went to IHC last night. The preacher was in it for the long haul.

I haven't given an update on my dad for awhile. The quadruple bypass basically didn't work at all. So they put him on medicine to try to strengthen the heart. That didn't work either. Apparently his heart is as good as it is going to get. The next step is to install a defibrillator. Not sure when that is going to happen.

Taking the vehicle in to get the tires rotated this morning.

I think we are staying home tonight.

That is pretty much all that is happening in our life.

nc

IHC.

We went to the IHC convention last night in Independence. I got slightly confused. The preacher was preaching about Abraham going "home" to a place that God had meant for him, and then he started quoting the song "Going Home". It goes "Going home. I'm going home. There's nothing to hold me here. I've had a glimpse of that heavenly land. etc...". Anyway... I got confused because I thought he was talking about Lafayette Louisiana. Ha! I mentioned this to Miranda and she to shut up. Actually she didn't but she should have. She just shook her head.

Anyway... IHC is all of this week and we may try to go all week.

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economics

Everything isn't wonderful in Europe. France would rank #48 out of the States.

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marriage

How much you wanna bet that this marriage ends in a nasty divorce.


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bad day.

Miranda didn't have a very good birthday yesterday and is pretty bummed about that. She's down in the dumps. On the bright side, Mom sent her flowers and that was very nice. Thank you Mom.

For her birthday, Miranda is buying a Longaburger basket.

We went and ate at Pizza Hut last night. She decided against LJS. So we had pizza. Plus we had Hershey's Dunkers from Pizza Hut. Those are awesome. Nellie ate two big pieces all by herself. She was still eating pizza when Patrick and I were digging into the dessert. She didn't have any dessert. She preferred the pizza.

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funny.

This has some language (actually a lot of one word) but it's very funny. It's about Mexico wanting to build a border wall to keep out American (bad word)s. My favorite line was 63% of Americans think that Speedy Gonzalez is the President of Mexico.

If you aren't easily offended by language, it's hilarious.

nc

weekend

Nice weekend. Tulsa was nice and Joe's Crab Shack was great. I had snow crab, Dad had crawdads, Mom had steak (I think), and Miranda had chicken. Afterwards we went to the Promenade mall. It was alright. We did find Nellie a $85 coat for about $20.

Sunday was church. I am always impressed when Albert and Della Schaper sing. She has one of the most powerful and beautiful singing voices that I've heard. Miranda is another favorite of mine (obviously).

After church we went to Paul and Jane's to visit. It had been awhile since we saw them. Fun was had by all.

Now we have to get back to the grind. It still seems like we are on vacation because Miranda and the children didn't have school for the last couple of days last week. Hopefully it will start warming up. It appears that it may but we may be in for a mini ice age. I guess it's time to start creating a lot of CO2 to try to create global warming! Better break out the CFC's that were banned.

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Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to Miranda! Hope her day goes well. The place that she picked to eat out... "Long John Silver's". This is funny because she doesn't like seafood but she does like LJS. I love it as well.

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pour moi!

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games.

Patrick loves playing Uno. I keep telling him that it isn't Uno, it's Un (French). It isn't working though.

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Friday.

No school again today. Patrick was up and at 'em early because he ended up falling asleep on the couch at 7:00 last night. He got up and wanted some cereal. 2 hours later, he is now eating some waffles. Breakfast is the meal at our house.

My boss emailed me and told me I could have the next two days off for my birthday (Saturday and Sunday). He's a corker.

I'm ready for the weekend. It will be nice to get away for a day (or at least part of a day). Not sure what else we are going to do in Tulsa. Probably hit a bookstore. We might go to the Promenade Mall. We went to Woodland Hills Mall a few weeks ago and it was literally almost all clothing stores. Clothes aren't really my thing. Miranda made me go buy some jeans that actually fit me awhile back. I like shoes though.

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today.

School has been called off today. I think because of the cold. There is currently a wind chill of -10. I felt pretty cold until I looked up Rouleau Saskatchewan where it is currently -33 with a wind chill if -49. That's right. You know how 49 degrees would feel warm right now? Now take that number and go that far past 0. That's cold. Why Rouleau? That's where Corner Gas is filmed.

Tentatively scheduled to go watch Wichita Thunder play at their new arena on January 30th. We try to watch a hockey game at least once a year. Miranda, on January 22, Wichita is playing Tulsa at the BOK Center. Hint hint hint!

I've been running into problems with my urban rivals game. It's apparently based in France and a huge section of the people can't speak English. My French has been getting a workout. Unfortunately the phrases I need to use do not include houses, boys, girls, etc... which is the extent of my knowledge. Luckily the computer translator works adequately.

nc

bday.

So it's coming up on the nuclearcowboy's birthday (35). Miranda has acquiesced to eating at Joe's Crab Shack in Tulsa. Assuming it will ever decide to quit snowing. We've had snow on the ground since the 24th and supposed to be getting more this evening. Very odd for this part of the country.

It's been quiet lately. Mostly playing Uno and Chutes And Ladders with Patrick. He loves his new games that he got for Christmas. I've been playing Urban Rivals a bit but not a lot. I got most of it out of my system during my week off.

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boat.

I've really been in the mood lately to buy a sailboat. However I'm going to stick with a remote controlled version for right now. I've been kicking over several different types to buy. The one I'm leaning towards now is a souped up one. It's not a kiddy toy. However they aren't coming out with any more until spring. I guess I won't be able to use it until then anyway.

Last night at the restaurant, the children were crazy hyper. We finally had to get them in trouble to make them calm down. Patrick started to get going again and Miranda said, "Don't start!". Pretty soon he started again and Nellie said "Don't start, Patrick!"

My 401K is creeping back. It was a 201K but it's grown up to a 275K (I'm not talking about $275,000 either! I wish!). Unfortunately I'm still a long ways from kicking back and retiring. Guess I better start playing the lottery. I have a theory about the lottery. You know they pick the balls with numbers painted on them? My theory goes that balls with numbers that use more paint should be heavier and sink to the bottom to kicked out first. So 88 should be heavier than 11. My numbers would be 88, 68, 98, 99, 89, 69. That's just my theory though. I can't decide whether 6 would be heavier than 9. Or they may be exactly the same. Looks like the last numbers were 3, 7, 23, 27, 42, 37, so my theory isn't that accurate.

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A new year.

Everything was back to normal today. Everyone was at school and work.

We somehow managed to get out of our driveway. Hopefully we can tomorrow as well.

We went to Chinese Chef tonight. I had my Crab Rangoon fix. Now we are just going to sit around for the rest of the evening.

As a final note... I hate snow.

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vacation.

Vacation is almost over. We had snow again last night and so it appears that we are unable to leave the house again. We had some more snow. 3 snows in 2 weeks.

Patrick and Nellie are in there watching Caillou in German.

On the 1st, we were going out to eat but I wanted to run by the barber to see if they were open. When we pulled up, I saw that they weren't open and said so. We heard a small voice in the back triumphantly saying, "YES!!!". It was Patrick. He hates to get his hair cut.

Tomorrow we are all back to the grind (unless school is closed).

nc