Pots and Pans


Sonja playing with Grandma Wendy's pots and pans

Sonja is getting bigger everyday... still not crawling yet, but she loves to stand up and walk around holding onto mom and dads fingers. She is also very fond of pat-a-cake and even learned to clap daddy's hands during the song... such a smart little peanut.

Life is going gangbusters here. I going into week 5 in my 12 week pre-marathon training program and it's good. My only real complaint, other than some minor soreness is having to get up at 4:30am so I can get to the gym to work out prior to being at work.

We went and saw the play Our Town last week. Two of our very good friends were in it. They both did a wonderful job. Of course I had extremely low expectation, not being a huge fan of theater or churches or small intimate groups of strangers (the play was put on at a Unitarian Church notoriously small - seated maybe 40 people) thankfully, my low expectations were washed away. The play was great. The acting done very well and the story was brilliant... I was glad I went. We finished up the evening with an after play party at our friends house where we enjoyed wine, pizza and home brew. I also had the opportunity to work out some stress on the X-box 36o and enjoyed playing Saints Row.

So life is good. The days get longer and warmer all the time. Really looking forward to Summer!

Spam Haiku

Oh persistent spam,
Subject: Canoodling breasts
Fw: Increase your income

Alektorophobia Haiku

Feathers, but no flight
Alektorophobia
Pecking and scratching

Albuminurophobia Haiku


The body's filter - broken
Albuminurophobic
Ahhhh! Kidney disease

Sonja's Nicknames

Here is an incomplete list of nicknames Sonja has picked up so far:

1. Peanut
2. Peanut butter
3. Sweetness
4. Cutie-pie
5. Sonja begonia
6. Sonja Lasgana
7. Nonee
8. The peanutinator
9. Poop monster
10. The S-bomb (thanks to breed 'em weep for this one)

And thanks to Jenn all the one's I forgot:

11. Sweet Tater
12. Lucille
13. Pumpkin
13.5 Pumpkin head
14. Punk/Punkie
15. Sweet Sonja Sue
16. Honey
17. Typhoid Sonja
18. Sonja Lou Who
19. Cupcake Buns

The Police Ticket Prices are a Crime


I have been a police fan since the early 80's. In fact, they were one of the first cassette tapes I owned. I remember the Christmas well - I received a silver Sears brand boom box complete with cassette deck and 4 cassette tapes; The Fixx's Reach the Beach, Bruce Springstein's Born in the USA, The Cars self titled album and finally The Police and Synchronicity.

I loved Synchronicity. I remember spending hours in my various middle school classes scrawling The Police on my folder. When that got old I recall having to learn how to spell my first big word S-y-n-c-h-r-o-n-i-c-i-t-y. I was so proud.

Sadly, this was to be the farewell album for The Police. And I, like many in my generation, did not have the opportunity to see them in concert. Sure I rented the Police VHS concert videos and imagined what it would have been like to go. And yes, I did go to a couple Sting concerts but that was yuppie jazz compared to the raw energy power of the original trio of Stewart, Andy, and Sting.

So when I heard that The Police had set a date to appear in Minnesota for their reunion tour. I was all over it. I happened to already be a member of Best Buy's Reward Zone program which gave me the opportunity to purchase tickets a whole 4 days earlier than the general public. I was stoked.

Jenn and I talked it over and decided that of the 3 price ranges offered for tickets, we were comfortable with the mid-range ones.

At precisely 10 am on 2-28 I excitedly logged onto www.ticketmaster.com/thepolice and put in my super secret rewardzone code and search for the best available $90 tickets. Minutes later, at 10:02 am, I received a response from ticketmaster that there were no seats available in the price range I was interested in. Odd, I thought to myself. I can hardly believe that all of the Best Buy mid-dollar amount seats would have sold out in 2 minutes. So I repeated the process to no avail.

"No seats available" it read on my screen

Again I tried but again met with only despair and the message "No seats available"

I began to panic. I switched my selection criteria to see if any seats were available at any price... And tada! Two seats pop-up on my screen. My heart raced, I could hear the blood rushing through my veins. "I am going to see The Police!" I felt like that little kid back in middle school, daydreaming of being in not just any rock band but THE rock band.

I took a closer look at my screen. The two-seats available were not the cheap seats...Just the opposite they were the Ultra crazy way-out-of-our-price-range variety seats. But still reeling from my momentary endorphine rush I called Jenn to get the okay from the wife before jumping off the deep-end and spending more on two concert tickets than I ever have. She balked at first, but I could tell in her voice that she was experiencing the same "Police fever" as myself. Quickly we were both in free fall off of the cliffs of insanity. "Okay, let's do it." She replied.

Minutes later, I had the confirmation that my credit card would require a second mortage to pay off the balance. The hysteria was now tempered somewhat. Yes, I was going to see the one band I thought I would never get to see. Yes, I was still excited, but at what cost? I assumed for the price we will be personally escorted back-stage and get to party with the band...after reading the fine print, however, I soon realized that this was not the case. Just a regular old seat stage right. Still I don't regret my impulse buy. I just wish I could have seen them play in the 80's when good concert tickets were just a little bit more expensive than going out to eat. C'est la vie.