Excuse the noxious fumes...

yes, that was me that has polluted the air surrounding my desk. If you must know, last night, I made the ultra-bean room-clearing chili for me and the kids. Thankfully, they left for their mother's place, so I wont have to hear(or smell) their body's reaction to last night's concoction. Who says you can't get away with messing with your ex albeit minimully

Truthfully, I thought it turned out quite good and today's gas is testament. Is there something wrong with not minding the smell of your own farts? I have a bowl or two waiting for me at home, and every time I let one fly, I'm reminded that there's gold at the end of today's rainbow (nevermind that I live near San Francisco, that's just a coincidence...).

I never thought I'd ever enjoy cooking, but it's beginning to become something I could seriously expand on later. When my kids talk about my cooking, they measure it on par with their Mother's; quite a compliment. I imagine that they'll reflect on the cooking and maybe look forward to coming to visit (for dad's cooking), much like I do when I visit my Parents (cept my mother is the cook in the family).

Well, I've spent enough time trying to keep myself from doing work today. Just have to keep reminding myself that I only have 3 more work days left till I move to Sales. *fist pump*YES!

Enjoy the New Year!

The walls we build

I should've been a Mason with as easily as I create barriers around me. My lack of blog posts has reflected my inability to communicate my desire to isolate myself.

This is a self examining post which you can be sure will involve a generous helping of Whine and cheese...you have been forewarned.

So the deal is that I've been growing my facial hair out lately. Why, you ask? Well, the summarized version of that is that I'm doing it to keep people away. For those of you that have seen me, you know that I have very thin looking facial hair, so at present, to even call it facial hair would be a very generous statement. To make matters worse, most of my facial hair is blonde and light red to light brown. Here and there, there's splotches of black and dark brown. Pretty much, when they were handing out facial hair genes, I must've gotten in the 'Frankenstein' line.

It really looks bad, but I still keep it because I know no women in their right mind would even give me a 2nd glance. Yes, I'm an idiot for doing it, I'll do all the self-defeating abuse thankyouverymuch. Meanwhile, I stay 'safe' from meeting anyone I might like and honestly, I don't know what I'd do if I were ever approached by someone. The root of this behavior is because I have not been very successful with relationships and am scared to death that I'll find some way to fuck it up once again. It's just easier to be alone rather than take the chance of being hurt again. I'm not in the state to accept rejection at the moment. Obviously, I'll still have to suck it up one day and change my ways...whenever that day may be.

In a nutshell, I'm afraid to get back into the dating scene. Yeah...I have issues.

Happy to end the holidays

The xmas holiday is finally over after a nice weekend with my kids and their mother. My original plan was to spend the holiday with my Parents, but I had to cut things short and come home a few days before Xmas. It all worked out nicely and as painless as I could've hoped it would be.

I'm quite thankful that the New Year is here. It always feels like a fresh new start, a clean slate...you get the idea.

There's going to be some changes with my job soon, I hope them to be positive changes as well. For the last 8 years, I've worked in a Support role in the Telecommunications industry and I think the time for me to leave has finally come. As of the 7th of January, I'll be in the Sales Department, which I'm genuinely looking forward to. It's become increasingly difficult to stick it out here in Support knowing that in a few days, I'll say 'fuck you' to this dept and move onto greener pastures.

I think my boss sensed that I would be leaving soon. Our perpetual argument is getting to be very old and he's confided in me that it's probably best to get out while I still want to work for the same company. Besides, it's a pain in the ass being new to a company.

Anyway, let's hope the next 3 hours goes by quickly and as painless as possible.

Hope you all had a nice Holiday and an enjoyable New Year.

Domesticating Tobi

This weekend, the kids and I took part in a very entertaining activity known as 'cooking'. It involves sharp knives, slabs of sturdy wood, and copious amounts of organic substances. For those of you that are pyromaniacs, you'll be happy to know that I used fire too!

I'm not sure what prompted me to do this, maybe out of boredom, or it could be that I've been craving a hearty soup lately. Either way, it turned out to be quite a tasty meal (and left-overs).

Cut to the scene where the little girl and I are shoulder to shoulder reading through the cookbook...

She has been watching the Food Network lately, so her interest in cooking has made her the ideal cooking partner. I told her that we should keep it simple because I'm still a noob when it comes to preparing meals, so we hung out for at least an hour deciding what we should cook. Eventually I offered the choice between Chili Con Carne, or Vegetable Beef Soup.

Of course, if I had left it to both of them to choose, we would've starved before deciding which one we'd cook. By default, since little girl was taking an active role in looking through the cookbook (and I figured the boy wouldn't be interested in helping), I let her make the call.

Vegetable Beef Soup was her choice and a fantastic one it was.

So we made our way to the Grocery store where I spent most of my time fighting off attempts from my son to deviate from my modest shopping list. I'm not sure how many times I told him 'No', but it eventually took a dirty look (I learned from my Mother) to silence him. He finally settled for Popcorn over his favored Pretzels and Nacho cheese. It was either that, or a big fat bowl of nothing. He's a smart kid.

We got home virtually unscathed from the Grocery store and unpacked all the goodies before I started the cooking task.

I'll pause to add this one note about having faith in the instructions you read in a cookbook. Just reading the instructions (please don't tell the other guys I read them, I'll lose my 'guy' status if they find out I read instructions) isn't enough. Following them is another step that most take for granted. And of course, the execution is the most important part. Worst case scenario, you fuck it up and then you waste money on food that's inedible. Still...it's all a valuable learning lesson. Anyway, digression over.

I deviated from the cookbook only slightly, but for the most part, I kept it 'by the book'. Personally, and the little girl agreed with me, Lima beans really didn't sound all that appetizing along with the other ingredients we decided to include in the soup.

The first part was pretty simple; Heat water with the spices, seasonings, and the meat. Check!

Heated it for two hours while checking on it every 10-15 minutes to make sure the water didn't boil (instructions said to just 'simmer'). This also presented a good opportunity to let the kids help by letting them stir it and make sure it was going well.

After the meat was ready, I cut it into neat squares and piled it back into the pot. Meanwhile, the kids expertly chopped the remaining vegetables. It may seem like a small task, but I really do believe they get something out of it if not being able to say they 'helped' make a feast fit for a king. We added it all together in the pot and then let it simmer for another hour.

Once I gave the green light to try the soup, I served it up in bowls and we ate it with some French Bread~Double YUM!!! I don't think one of us talked while we gobbled down the feast.

Looking back, I think the hardest part of making the soup was having to wait for it to finish. Overall, it was a very nice ending to our weekend together. I'm really going to miss them once I leave for my vacation.

Anyway, hope you all had a nice weekend too! PEACE.

All I have so say...

Is FUCK out-sourced Technical Support!

*growl*

It's not that I feel they're inferior and incapable of understanding anything beyond their scripts~okay, I lied. I really do think they're inferior and incapable of understanding anything outside of their script.