Rare...

It seems as though people are never satisfied with just one kid. They want two. Then three. When does it ever end? After Aya and I got married people would ask us when we were going to have kids. I suppose it is the natural progression in life, but who says we have to follow it? It actually was a little touchy because people would ask when we were going to have kid and we where trying for a year. Luckily we had JT and everything was okay.

Well, then the questions about baby number 2 came along. Of course people chime in with their two cents about why we need two. The truth is we don't need two. JT is just fine being the only child. ** I ** am fine with just one child. In fact, I got so angry about it that 2-3 months ago I told Aya that I never want to hear the subject brought up or discussed with me again.

However, the topic wormed it's way into our conversation again and this time I was beyond furious. Aya and I argued for a few days about the pro's and con's of having another kid...and nope, Aya is not pregnant.

We still have not decided anything, but I have to say that Aya has been doing a great job around the house lately. Normally I never say anything nice about Aya but lately she had been spending more time with JT. Picking up after herself and JT. I have more free time lately and I am a little uncertain of what to do with this new found time.

In fact, JT hasn't been DAD anymore. Dad has just been the mean guy giving all the time-outs lately, but all JT wants now is 'OM.

Cousins...

My cousin Melissa was in town from Boston last week, so it gave JT and Aiden a chance to meet up and play again. Aiden is about 6 months older than JT. The last time they saw each other JT couldn't keep up. Now JT can keep up...he just can't communicate as well as Aiden.

JT always wanted to go where Aiden went. Aiden was away from the family on a 'timeout' and JT wanted to wait next to him.

Aiden wanted his timeout to be alone and JT kept coming closer and closer to Aiden until Aiden told JT to get away.

Too bad there aren't more relatives in So. Cal that JT can play with. He has a lot of cousins his age in Hawaii. Aiden used to be here in So. Cal. Now JT is all alone....and spoiled rotten!

Is this cheap?

I suppose it has been about 3 weeks now where I said that I was going to cut back and curb the amount of my frivilious spending. Um, that lasted two weeks. Last week, I went out and bought a game...after it went on sale for $37 bucks.

I ordered the game online at Circuit City and when it came time to checkout it said the game was only available for in store pick up. Luckily it was at the Circuit City that is 1/2 mile from my house. Circuit City has a 24 minute pickup guarantee or else I get a $24 dollar gift card.

I get to Circuit City. Wait in line. Give them my pickup ticket, only to hear them say the game is no longer in stock. Actually they try to push last years edition on me and I said, "un-uh, wrong game." They said I can pick it up Wednesday. I said, where is my $24 gift card? The clerk tells me I can get it Wednesday when I get the game. I said, "NO, I want it now. It is part of your guarantee."

I suppose the line of 15 people behind didn't appreciate the extra time to fill out my gift certificate but the was no way I was leaving without what was owed to me. So on Wednesday I look online and the game is still out of stock. I still proceed to Circuit City and wait in line AGAIN. Yup the game is not in stock. WTF? I am not eligible for another gift card either so I cancelled the order!

I got home and the game was NOW available for shipping, it was on sale AND I had a $24 gift card with free shipping for my $37 dollar game.

Here is where Sophia thinks I am being cheap. After I make my order I email corporate Circuit City to explain how shady and crappy it is that I am forced to order something online for store pick up when I really wanted it shipped (for free on items over $24 bucks) and now I had to go TWICE to the store. I was really just expressing my concern over the poor service and semi fradulent online inventory tracking. I wasn't looking for anything in return....but then I got a response a day later from Circuit City apologizing for my inconvience. To make it up they are sending me ANOTHER $24 gift card in the mail!

Cha-ching! That means $48 bucks in gift cards. A $37 dollar game. By my math...and I suck at math so stick with me...that means I am now UP $11 dollars during my anti-spending two months!

So, 3 weeks down. ZERO dollars spent on frivilious items. $11 dollars in reserve at Circuit City (which will go towards two old school DVD's). I love internet shopping.

Oh, so is that being cheap? I thought it was just being shopping saavy. By the way Sophia, you are still driving me and the two other bozos I eat with to Mafia pizza on Friday! Warm up the monorail!! Your leader has spoken!!

Cell Phones...

Okay, I admit it...I hardly know how to use a cell phone. I didn't get one until Aya was pregnant. Even then work forced me to get a cell phone more than anything. I just have a basic phone and I check VM. No texting, no blue tooth and no frills. I use it for emergency use only.

Aya on the other hand has a handy-dandy crackberry with a blue tooth headset. When we go out she is always checking email, looking at the web, taking calls, etc. Every day she drives in to work and listens to VM from the east coast.

You would think someone like that always has the phone on in high alert status.

On Friday, I called Aya to remind her to bring home the stroller from my parents house. Here is our conversation:

Miles:
Miles: Hey, it's me, don't forget to bring home the stroller. Bye.

15 minutes goes by and my phone rings.

Miles: Hello
Aya: Did you call me?
Miles: Um did you check your VM?
Aya: Yeah, did you call me?
Miles: What do you think? You have caller ID? You have my VM message.
Aya: Yeah so what did you want?
Miles: WHAT?
Miles: I left you a message and you said you listened to it.
Aya: I didn't listen to it.
Miles: Then why are you calling me?
Miles: Listen to the VM before you call me.
Aya: Okay
Miles: Bye.

Is that so difficult? I could understand if I call and hang up and you see a missed called message. But if you see missed call AND VM...then maybe you should listen the VM before you call the person back.

I still don't know why or who people talk to all the time. I can't stand talking on the phone. I would much rather speak in person or not at all (unless you don't live local).

LA Zoo...

When Aya, JT and I went to the zoo last year and saw how much JT enjoyed the zoo, we signed up to be LA Zoo members. This past weekend they opened the zoo early for members to watch the animals get fed and they had trainer talks.

More than anything it was just nice being at the zoo with less people. The animals were pretty active. I am guessing they all get fed in the morning so they were either walking around waiting to eat or being fed.

After the zoo, we headed over to Traveltown to ride the train and look at real trains.

It is my right...

Yo, Yo, Yo...check it out!! After years and years of resisting because I did not want to double my chances of jury duty, I finally did it. I registered to vote:

I got my drivers license renewal in the mail and it came with a voter registration card. Interesting. I had always been too lazy to sign up. You know you go to the market or the mall and you have people soliciting you to vote. I always thought it was a scam.

I figured no excuses this time. Honestly, I never wanted to vote. The election never comes down to 100-99, or 99-99 with my vote being the tie-breaker. Never interested me at all before. I live my life in my own little world, work my job, pay my taxes and mind my own business.

Now with JT, I feel like I can't just "go along for the ride" anymore. If anything I have to at least do my part and express my opinion with a vote. Man, this being a parent thing sucks. I signed up to vote (doubling my chances for jury duty). I missed out on a vendor sponsored (which means FREE) happy hour to watch JT tonight because he is sick. What is happening to me?? Boo.

----

Speaking of watching JT while he was sick. I have a little story. Aya put JT to sleep tonight, as she usually does. I offered because tonight is a big television night for Aya. Greys, CSI and ER. Aya said no and said she will watch JT.

I was downstairs and I heard someone running around upstairs. Hmm. I heard it again. Funny thing is I only heard one set of footsteps. I never heard another set. I come upstairs to check and it is JT running back and forth from his room into our room.

JT kind of laughs and goes to his room. I follow him and he points to Aya sleeping and laughs and runs back to our room. I put JT to sleep in our bed and about an hour later Aya strolls into the bedroom asking what happen?! Nice. Outwitted by a 22 month old kid.

22 months old...

JT is now 22 months old. How fast time seems to be flying by. I think I say that every month!

JT still isn't speaking a whole lot but he is at least trying to say more words now. He goes to the library once a week for story time. He just started taking exercise classes at the park as well. JT is also starting to pee in the toilet. Not on a regular basis but every night after he takes a bath he tries to take a squirt after this bath. So far about 75% of the time he goes.

On the downside, he still does not sleep thru the night and was up every 90 minutes yesterday. Since some people (Jen & Jeff) did not get an invite for my bbq last weekend, I just wanted to forewarn everyone...NO BIRTHDAY PARTY for JT this year. We are boycotting bdays again this year. Perhaps next year....maybe....ba-humbug! At least he gets Christmas!

End of summer BBQ

I suppose with the rare September rain storm that pretty marks the end of summer. No better way to end the summer than with a bbq!

Are you ready for some football??

Happy Friday everyone!! I just wanted to share an uplifting story to start off the weekend. A few weeks ago just before football season started, Aya, JT and I headed down to Long Beach to celebrate her cousin's 16th birthday.

Let's do a little math, I have been married for 8 years, dated for 2 years, so that would mean that I met Daniel when he was 6-7 years old. Daniel has always been a really nice and polite kid. The best part is that he likes sports and video games so I always have someone to hang out with at Aya's family functions.

We used to actually 'play' basketball and I would dominate. Now at 16, he is several inches taller than me so we won't be playing bball anytime soon. We do still play video games!! Being it was his 16th bday and I was coming over, Daniel went out and bought Madden 2007 before I came over.

We ate lunch and then we went upstairs for 30 minutes of smash mouth football. Let me spare you the details, but age and wisdom won out over youth and inexperience. *AHEM* Drull roll, puh-leeze.....I still got it!! Check, check, check it O-U-T!

I was the Bengals. Daniel was the Titans. Final score 42 - 22! Yes, some gamers may say that the game was not fair because I had the slightly better team, but I picked first so Daniel could have matched teams but he loves Vince Young. I gotta say video game Vince is way better than real life. The QB sneaks were killing me!

Little did Daniel know, that just a few weeks earlier, I got back into playing NCAA football and the controls are almost identical so I was ready for the easy kill. How much do I rock??? An old geezer going heads up with a teenager and I win. I truly am the greatest! I amaze myself at how I just get better and better.

More work...

First thing in the morning, my boss ran over to my cube and told me she needed to talk to me right away. I was a little nervous because I had just hit SEND for a job posting I saw and I thought she was calling me in to talk about me sending my resume. YIKES.

Turns out, it is the yearly review and bonus time at UMG. I guess reviews go from October to September. It was news to me...and better yet I got a raise. The raise isn't as much as I am used to as I usually get anywhere between 10% and 20%. However, I didn't think I would get anything at UMG so to get a raise was a nice surprise. I got the full increase and then some for only 9 months of work.

Perfect segway into my penny pinching count. I have spent ZERO dollars in the past two weeks on non-essentials. I think I have only bought lunch (a few times) and gas. Ugh, I totally forgot. Stupid valet parkers jacked my change! Grrr. I was tempted to call the valet company to complain. I am 99.9% sure they took my change because the night before I was at El Pollo Loco and I needed some change to pay. The line was long and I happened to notice the change in the astray was full and I had lots of quarters. I was thinking I should empty that out and start over.

I valet parked my car at the mall when we went to Santa Anita and when I got back I checked my ashray and my change was only half full...I was missing all the quarters. Yes, I know...who valets at the mall, right? Aya's company gave us money to either use the valet or keep the money. Since we were late we just decided to valet. Grr. I should make Aya reimburse me since it was her company function. Good thing I got a raise or else I would be MINUS money this week.

Product Meetings...

When I first started my job, my boss told me that one of the job perks is being invited to the weekly Products meetings. I know that doesn't sound that great, but remember I work in music, so by product that means I get to see music videos and/or artists.

At first I thought it was kind of lame. It starts at 9:00 am (which isn't bad since I start at 7:00) but they crank the volume on all the video's they play. Normally not a bad thing, but then I realized they do not always play music I like. Basically they play one video from each genre, country, top 40, rock, spanish, rap and alternative. To this day, I hate...H-A-T-E listening to spanish music.

We also get artists to come in and sing live in the conference room. The singers aren't 'popular' as they are bands coming in are usually just starting out. As corny as it sounds, it is pretty cool listening to live music usually backed with just an acoustic guitar. After the performance we usually get free cds, pictures and autographs.

Because of these product meetings I find myself listening to a lot more genres of music. Case in point, the music on my slide show from Monterey is Colbie Caillat. Several people emailed me to find out who that artist was on my slide show. She is a UMG artist and she was our top free itune download a month or so ago.

Of course this doesn't mean that I don't listen to my all time favorite...RAP. 9/11 was a big date for us because 50 Cent or Fiddy went against another UMG artist in Kayne West. BET and the radios were hyping the battle on who would sell more. I was excited as well and tried to listen to both albums early but I couldn't get a copy until 9/10. I suppose it didn't really matter because since I manage all the 'data' I already knew based on projections and shipments that Kayne was going to win.

I guess it isn't so bad when you can spend Friday mornings watching music videos!

A fungus among us...

I learned this weekend that you should *NOT* let a toddler stick there grubby finger in your eye. I was trying to get JT to take a nap so I was 'fake' sleeping. JT stuck his finger above my eye lid and tried to raise it to see my eye. JT's finger kind of slipped and poked me.

I didn't think anything of it besides getting poked in the eye but a few minutes later my eye started to itch and bother me. I started rubbing my eye and then it started to hurt and ended up looking like this:

The picture does not do my eye justice on how bad it looked. Luckily I had this medicine that I got from Jeffs office....7 years ago! I had an eye infection and the doctor gave me 5-6 packets of medicine. After the 3rd or 4th packet my eye cleared up so I decided not to use the rest and I saved it for future emergencies!! Good thing I didn't listen to Jeff and use all the medicine!

Who would have thought a toddler's grubby little germie invested finger could give me eye irritation!

D & B

I am back!! I was a little lazy last week to post updates. Sometimes I just have 'ZERO' going in my life and there is just nothing to write to about.

This past week Aya had her company event at Dave and Busters. It was my first time going to Dave and Busters. I love playing video games but Dave and Busters never interested me at all. As you can see I must be losing my touch as Aya beat me in a hunting game!


I have to say I was rather unimpressed by Dave & Busters. It was sort of likes a sport bar with bar food, drinks and video games. I would say it is like an adult Chucky Cheese. The other thing that got me was the kiddie games. Aya and I got 2 video cards worth $40 of video game credits. Unfortunately, we got there late and had to go to another party so we weren't going to use all our video game money so we decided to play 'kiddie' games where we can win 'tickets' and then redeem the tickets for prizes.

Aya and I thought we were doing great as we got close to 400 tickets. We happily entered the prize booth and lo and behold...400 tickets gets you squat! I was rather upset. Not because we couldn't get a good prize for JT, but because Aya and I spent about $35 (not our money, but that isn't the point) and all we got was a lame stuffed animal.

I kid you not, Dave and Busters is like Vegas for kids!! I was thinking if I came with JT and he burned through the video credit card and ** I HAD ** to pay for this stuffed animal I would be super upset! Thus, I am not boycotting Dave & Busters. Actually, the other reason is there is no Dave & Busters on the westside.

Awesome...

JT still doesn't talk but he says a few words. When he wants to get our attention he just makes annoying whining noises. It is super irritating and I refuse to answer unless he says, "Dad."

With Aya being away that only leaves me to entertain JT. I think JT realized that I don't answer when he whines. Unfortunately that means until I answer all I hear is, "Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad."

Even if I say, "Yes, Jack. I get, ""Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad."

Ugh. It is a toss up between what is worse the the whining or the constant "dad".

Thrify...

What makes it difficult when Aya and I look for a new house is the financial freedom. Right now, I can buy whatever I want and spend whatever without looking or caring at the price tag. After we decided NOT to buy the one house that we liked in the early summer, I have been a spending free.

Aya and I have been pretty busy this summer, Hawaii, Las Vegas and Monterey. I guess after Aya pointed out that my 3 baseball jersey are as much as a week of her suits I decided to stop spending money until November. Oh yeah, and the tennis ball machine.

I am now going to be like Jenny on Weight Watchers, except I won't be on weight watchers, I will just be 'el cheapo' for the next two months but putting a self imposed no spending on myself watch! I can still go and eat and happy hour, but no toys, gadgets or frivolous purchases...like the indoor remote control helicopter I bought (which sucked by the way and I ended up throwing it away).

I also recruited my little buddy to help me wash cars too!

Actually Aya is travelling the next few days so there will be the usual gratuitous pictures of JT so Aya can see him on her blackberry.