A New Toy

I just got back from a 3 week vacation with the kids in America. I am so happy the kids finally got to meet my family and vice-versa. While I was there, a family member gave me an old iPod which had been sitting in the lost and found for well over a year. She said it doesn’t work, but maybe the kids could play with it or something. After borrowing a charger and leaving it overnight I saw what she meant with “not working”. The display came on but said the device was locked and i should try again in 27 million minutes.
After doing a bit of reading I was able to reset the device and from there all it took was a new set of iOS software to get it working again. Now I have a very nice souvenir from the trip which I can also use to update my blog. Maybe this will provide the necessary motivation to actually start writing again.
Either way, here is the first test.

The results are in.

A glorious day for Capitalism … a sad day for Progression.

Well, the results of election 2010 are pretty much in and it looks like America has again chosen to fight bad Capitalism with more Capitalism. I am sure the “top 20%” are doing cartwheels on their private golf courses today. Probably a great deal of “less fortunate” Americans are still sleeping off their hangovers from the celebrations also. Enjoy the fun, you deserve it.

I have decided not to get upset with my fellow countrymen this time around. Sorry guys n gals but no sympathy from me next year when you are handing over the keys to your house, filing for bankruptcy after the medical bills got too high or whatever the case may be. This time I say “You get what you deserve!”  That also goes for all the Dems and Libs … you had the chance to make “change” and kept backing off every time you got slapped on the fingers. Grow some f’n balls, will ya!

I do have a small favor or actually two to ask, however. I don’t care much what you do with your money and your guns and your dead babies and all those other issues that seem to be so important to Americans around election time, but I do care about the loss of life, freedoms and privacy. Please don’t start any more wars or pass another Patriot Act! That’s it, I’m not selfish … all I’m asking is something that is good for you and doesn’t even really affect me. Keep your kids safe and hold on to the little bit of freedom you still have.

Now I am gonna go have coffee with a friend while enjoying the knowledge that my local currency is going to profit immensely over the next 2 years due to the newly elected political and economic standstill back home. I might even revel in my good fortune, knowing that I won’t be shot, mugged or find my house broken into due to a high crime rate caused by extreme poverty. Personally I may also happily reflect on the fact that all my families healthcare bills, no matter how high they might be, are fully covered without any questions. All these benefits are really nice, but they can’t compare to how well I’ll sleep tonight knowing that I will never be homeless nor starving,  regardless of what may come. I would wish the same things for all my fellow Americans, but I wouldn’t want to impose what is important to me on those who don’t have the same desires.

Have a great celebration! (but don’t mix alcohols and stay away from your car afterwards)

Cheers

At least I’m not bored!

I know Ive been getting lazy lately. It seems like I am hardly ever home. And then when I do get a short chance to do something other than sleep at home, I tend to work on projects for others rather than my own stuff. Oh well, at least I’m not bored! =)

Not invited to my daughters “einschulung” (first day of school) =(

Great! Yesterday the Godfather of my daughter called me and asked when everyone was meeting for my daughters “first day of school” ceremonies. I told him “I was told a couple of weeks ago by her mother that they are not doing that at her school, sorry.” After a short discussion about how EVERY school does that for EVERY child that begins the first grade, he said he would call her mom. Five minutes later he calle back and said they are meeting in front of the school at 8am. REAL NICE!
Turns out the ex replaced me again with her parents. I guess she thought that no father would be interested in landmark events of their child (sarcasm). Anyway … I asked my daughter about it on the phone later in the evening when she called (like the kids do every night) to tell me about her day and say goodnight. She in turn asked mommy, who suddenly remembered that there was something and told her what time along with the added remark that HER PARENTS were invited to go instead of me.
Normally when she does this (way too often) I just show up anyway and the kids are delighted to see me, but unfortunately I have an MRI scheduled for 9am this morning. I told her I would try to change it and would see her there. I called this morning but cannot change the appointment (next available appt is in 3 weeks) so I tried to call my daughter to give her the bad news and wish her a wonderful day regardless.
Of course nobody answeres the phone. Not at her house nor her mothers cell phone. Her cell is not turned off like usual when she pulls this so I assume she is expecting a call (probably from her parents), but obviously not from me because she won’t pick up nor will she call back.
It never stops amazing me how she can constantly pull this crap along with her outrages and aggrssion, yet Child Services protects her like she is the Holy Grail or something.
I am very sorry sweetheart for the disappointment you will be feeling in a few minutes when you realize Daddy is not going to show up.
I finally got through to her Godfather who passed the phone on to her. I apologized to her for not being able to be there and she said “That’s ok daddy! We will talk tonight and I will tell you how it was.” She is such a sweetheart. I hope that somebody helps her mom before my daughter gets her childhood ruined also. But then she has always “fit into the family” (Her moms family that is) alot better than my son ever has. He has seen just as little acceptance as I have over the years so maybe there is still hope.

Joe’s Grunge Collection 2010 Edition

As can easily be seen (and hopefully understood) by my recent blog posts, I have been somewhat less enthusiastic about life over the last couple of weeks (months?) due to the many problems facing my children and myself. Not to say that things are really bad … no, not at all … they have been much worse. I guess I am just getting tired as the years roll on and I realize that the chance for my friends and family back home to get a chance to spend time with my children while growing up simply isn’t likely to happen. The ex promised we were to work out a trip during a coming vacation for them by the end of last month, but every attempt at even striking up a conversation in that direction has been received with hostility. Child Services has left the problem in the hands of my sons therapist (who actually is already doing much more than anyone else before her), which pretty much kills all hope that their new case manager will be any better than their old. It is the end of 2010 which means it has been almost exactly 20 years since the end of the  Gulf War, which caused all these problems, and my own government still has done nothing at all for me.

Still, I have to put on a smiley face for the kids because they have enough problems without knowing how difficult my life is. One thing that helps to distract me is learning new processes and methods on the pc (I guess somewhere in the back of my head I still hope that someone who truly believes in my abilities will come along and offer me a job I can actually do with my disabilities.). My latest project was / is working with a new script that renders flash books which I picked up for free at http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/. Thanks GAOTD for giving me something to look forward to each day the kids are not here.

Here is my first attempt to get something presentable out of the software. It is a book filled with pictures of me naturally, because everyone knows how much I like to look at myself (grins) that I have created in a “Grunge” look. Most of the pictures themselves were made a couple of weeks ago. I used the script to bind them in a neat looking “flash book” which can be opened, pages turned, etc… by using your mouse as a hand (duh!). I hope you enjoy. =)

Click on the picture above to go to the project.

No Longer “Lost”

I just finished watching all six seasons of “Lost”. It took me almost 3 weeks to get through them all, even though the kids were gone for the first 2 weeks. It did help that I have been stuck at home for much of that time due to medical and financial difficulties, but I ended up watching some parts of past episodes over again to really understand what was going on at times. It is a fascinating idea for a story, but IMHO not very good for TV where there are such long time periods between episodes. Also if you miss one or two episodes, you can easily get “Lost” yourself. I had previously caught a few episodes as it ran on German TV over here, but because I started somewhere in the middle of the second season, I didn’t like it at all. You really have to watch the whole thing from beginning to end in order to have a clue what is going on. Here is a link to where I watched them for those who might be interested.

http://tv-video.net/video/lost/

Now I am not a big fan of  TV and even less so a fan of drama (I get plenty of it in my own life!), but I really enjoyed this one. I especially liked Jorge Garcia’s charachter Hugo “Hurley” Reyes who is constantly visited by the “ghosts” of his dead friends. I also enjoyed how much thought the writers obviously put into pretty much everything James “Sawyer” Ford says throughout. His constant insults, nicknames and snide remarks pay tribute to 100 years of television and movies.

Watching the show made me wish I had my own ghosts to guide me in the right direction as well as a “Jacob” that can make the necessary “good things” happen. The show certainly helped inspire me to write this next little poem.

This evening in 8 verses

As most of you know, I use writing to help me deal with daily life. Whether it be positive or negative events, I find writing about it to be very therapeutic. I wrote this poem about the events of the previous post to help me diagnose it in a positive and productive way rather than just sitting here and reliving it all night long.

happiness

peaceful rejoice

one table we sit reunited

social

exchange of good will

bonded by hope kids delighted

deceit

honorless words

a child is purposely slighted

threat

tensions increase

once more all integrity spited

hostile

dignity lost

progress once praised is now blighted

fear

a cowards tool

once more rebellion incited

trust

never regained

effort reconcile unrequited

sorrow

helpless disgust

a family forever divided

2010©Joe

Called the police to protect my kids

This evening, the battle to protect my kids crossed a new boundary. One that has pretty much been inevitable for a long time, but still makes me proud nonetheless.

It all started this evening as I was over visiting the kids. I had taken them out to play at the playground next to their house. It was a surprise visit, which she definitely wasn’t thrilled about, but I have been teaching the kids to ride roller blades and thought we could get a few hours of practice in. I got there about 6pm and we spent about an hour outside before she called us up for dinner. Everything was fine, I helped her with some telephone problems, helped fix my daughters bike and got up several times during dinner to get things from the kitchen so that she could sit there and eat peacefully. Everything was going relatively well considering. Somewhere during the course of the meal my son asked again about his Karate lessons. The ex had promised me and the kids that if they didn’t want to do any of the many activities she sent them off to every evening to get them out of the house, they could quit. Swimming has always been a big issue because neither of them like it and both have been taking lessons for most of their lives. After confronting her with her promise over and over she came up with new reasons or stipulations that needed to be fulfilled before she would let them stop. The current one being that I had to find something else for them to do during that time (god forbid they just spend those two hours at home being children) so my son and I decided to try Karate lessons (since my son has lots of energy from the speed they give him for ADHS and my little brother is a hall of famer in Martial Arts I thought it would be a good choice and my son loves the idea. Also what kid couldn’t do with a little extra discipline?) So I gathered up info and she took him to a trial hour. Of course he loved it and wanted to stop swimming now. The course starts next week and he was excited because it would finally mean he gets to do something HE wants instead of swimming. He said “Hooray, no more swimming!” to which she said “No, you are still going to take swimming lessons!”. He asked about Karate and she said “but you have only been to one place … we need to check out several places before you sign up somewhere” (which, of course, means he will miss this block and have to wait until the next set of classes start at the beginning of next year).

Anyway, after listening to the two of them argue, well actually only my son was arguing as the ex just kept saying he should be quiet, I told her again that she had promised and it was not right to keep lying to the kids like that. That of course caused her to start on me. Well, I am NOT one of her children and I will not be told to shut up by her ever again (I’ve spent too many years letting her drown out my opinions or hush me by being so aggressive that I give up to protect the children). I confronted her with the facts … it’s been over a year since she promised they could quit … both of them have long since completed their swim certificates … the children only have 2 or 3 hours after school each day and it is not right to send them away during that time every evening  just so she doesnt have to deal with them … and, of course, it is not right to lie, especially to the children who look up to her as an example.

Needless to say, she was anything but impressed with the facts. She just told me I should be quiet and eat, as if I have no business being included in a discussion about “her” children (* sidenote at the bottom). I told her again that she had promised them and it is not right to let them do everything on their side of the deal, then back out of the deal when it came her turn to give (which has been a problem between her and myself since we first got together). Eventually I did get frustrated and said “Stop being an ass about it”. At this point I have to say she was surely  surprised because I rarely use any kind of swear words in front of my kids, but after years of them hearing her call me an ***hole, loser, piece of **** and pretty much every other name in the book, I don’t guess they even noticed it at first. (I mean we are talking about the person who taught my then 3 year old son to say “Just shut up and f***in drive”, which he repeated over and over as his only English words during the 2 weeks we spent with my mother).

Whether or not they had noticed it before will probably never be known, but they certainly did notice it when she started screaming about me using that kind of language. That and because I accused her of lying (which is like accusing a dog of walking on four legs), she started her little routine again. She stood up, started screaming at me to  “get out of my house”  (lol, like she has ever paid the rent herself  for a single month). Of course both kids started crying right away because they know what is coming. I just sat there and continued eating, asking her to calm down, but she had other plans. She started threatening me with calling the police which got both kids crying hysterically (thanks alot Omi for making my children scared to death of the people who are supposed to protect them). After she screamed at me for about 5 minutes I got up and tried to console the children, which was pretty much impossible because she wouldnt stop screaming so I told her that was a great idea. “Please do call the police! I will stay right here and wait for them. I am sure they would be very interested in what the kids have to tell them about what is going on right here.”.  Of course she didn’t want that to happen so she turned her attention towards my son who was poised ready to hit her in order to protect me. I went into the hallway and grabbed the second phone to call the police myself. She tried to grab it out of my hands so I went into the bathroom and shut the door, but she reached down and yanked the cord out of the wall. She picked up my jacket and backpack and threw them into the hall as I tried telling the kids that they don’t have anything to be afraid of. By now both kids are freaking out.

I told them I am going to leave now so that their mom can settle down and started making my way to the door. My son started getting his shoes and coat and said “I am going with daddy!” which was very sweet, but really put her in a rage. She yanked him by the arm back into the house, held him against the wall with her knee, anything she could to keep him from leaving, but he kept getting around her into the hall. By then I am also starting to worry about the safety of my children so I went to the neighbor across the hall and knocked on the door. Nobody answered, but my son got around her and grabbed my arm from behind holding on for dear life. She yanked him so hard she just about pulled MY arm out of it’s socket (it still hurts like hell so I can only imagine how his feels). I started yelling “Help” in the hallway and “someone please call the police!”, but other than neighbors opening their doors and closing them again, nobody did anything at all. Although he fought like a lion, my son is only 9 years old so she was able to get him back into the apartment and tried to slam the door shut, but I put my foot in it, yelling for help. She kept slamming my foot in the door, but I wasn’t about to move it and let her do whatever her rage told her to do to my children (which btw I cannot recommend as it also hurt like hell and I am sure my foot will be swollen tomorrow, but right now I really don’t care.)

Then she did something that only confirmed my suspicion that she has lost all bearing on reality. Because she kept slamming the door as hard as she could on my foot and I was holding it down onto the floor as hard as I could to keep her from pushing it out, it pulled the carpet loose which started bunching up in the doorway. So then her rage became about me destroying her carpet … no concern for the kids, the neighbors listening to me screaming for help in “her” apartment, or the fact that I called her a liar … just that I was tearing up her carpet with the foot she was smashing in the doorway.

Anyway, I eventually had to get my foot out before it broke and she slammed the door shut. I started knocking on all the neighbors doors who had previously stuck their heads out for the show to ask someone to call the police, but suddenly nobody was home anymore. Talk about human compassion … these people all know my children and hear her screaming regularly at them, but noone had the courage to open up and find out what was going on. Nobody even called the police to let THEM find out what was up. I am only happy my children were not being murdered at the time. What a bunch of cowards!!!!

Anyway, I went up the stairs to the next floor and started knocking on doors. Eventually a person came out on the other end of the hallway. Turned out to be the only friend the ex has in the building (of course) who came out of her apartment and said she had called the police. She also made it clear that she didnt call the police for me, but for the ex. “No problem … As long as they come” I told her. I sat there and waited  (get this) over 30 freakin minutes for the police to finally arrive. It takes 5 minutes in heavy traffic to get from the main police station to the ex’s house, but they don’t show up for half an hour.

I met them at the street and told them what was going on. I told them about the entire situation as best I could (I admit it wasn’t easy because I was very worried about the kids and just wanted them to go check and make sure they are ok rather than ask me a hundred questions first. One of the questions was “Do you think your wife is or has hurt the kids?” to which I said “I certainly hope not, the fight wasn’t with them, but she and her father have struck the children in the past, the last time known to me being 2 weeks ago. I don’t think she will hurt them intentionally, but she has a hard time controlling herself when she gets angry.”  Then the policeman who was questioning me said “So we are not going to go up there and find two dead children?” and all I could think about was “why the hell are you asking me this, just go up there and friggin check already!!!!”

They finally finished with their questions and went upstairs. After about 10 minutes they came back down with the ex and my heart dropped to my knees. When I saw her between two cops I thought they DID find my kids dead and are taking her out in handcuffs. In a matter of a few seconds every single thing I have ever done to protect her and her stupid teaching career over the years came flashing into my head as guilt towards my children.

Luckily she didn’t have handcuffs on, as a matter of fact, she was grinning from ear to ear. The officer said “Your children are ok and we thought we would bring her down to also tell you this herself.” She was smiling and acting all friendly as if nothing at all had happened.

At this point I have to admit I was somehow impressed (sick, I know). My ex is good at a few things but certainly not great at anything … except manipulating people. She walked out and said “The kids are fine, you didn’t have to worry about them. There was no reason to get all excited. I will bring them over tomorrow morning as usual. Do you have everything? Are you sure you didn’t leave anything upstairs?” Grinning like she genuinely cared whether she had thrown ALL of my stuff out into the hall or not.

Speechless, I just turned to the officer and asked him if he actually saw that my children were ok to which he said yes. Then I listened to his closing statements about “It seems to me that this is just another small confrontation between separated parents. I don’t think there is any reason for concern.” and then I politely said goodbye.

So there it is … after all the times I should have called the police and didn’t for whatever reasons (many of which can be found in various posts, some private, some not, in this blog), this time I actually did. I know she will act like none of this happened tomorrow. She will surely not mention it, smile when she drops off the kids and when she gets home she will call her father to work on the next steps in secrecy. I know they are coming, but I am not scared of her anymore. Actually I am pretty sure she realized this evening that her days of keeping me at bay by threatening me or even my children are quickly coming to an end.

Some comedy relief – Bill Hicks

Bill Hicks was every bit as much a great thinker as he was a great comedian. He spent a good deal of his productive years experimenting with drugs and alcohol which he often discussed in his shows. Coining such phrases as “Not all drugs are good…some are great!” and “[I quit using drugs because] once you’ve been taken aboard a UFO, it’s kind of hard to top that”.

Like Sam Kinison, his life ended only a few short years after he decided to clean up his life, leaving the drugs and alcohol behind. Although Hicks died at the age of 32, his career spanning little more than a decade, in 2006 Comedy Central named him “The Most Important Comedian of the 20th Century” and he is in the top ten of many of the most important “Greatest Comedians of All Time” lists. Although often censored, his no-holds-barred discussions of personal issues, religion, politics, philosophy and society in general have inspired some of the worlds greatest young thinkers, storytellers and comedians. This will surely continue to be the case for generations to come.

(Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find some of my favorite jokes at YouTube or Google so this collection of embedded videos is far from complete as a “Best Of” Bill Hicks material, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.)

Contains adult language and subjects!

R.I.P. Bill Hicks

Some comedy relief – Rodney Dangerfield

Definitely one of the funniest guys I have ever seen or heard in my life and a true favorite of mine since the early 80’s. He says he gets no respect, but I am willing to bet he is one of the most widely respected joke-tellers ever to walk a stage. I listened to his LP “No Respect” so many times that I could recite most of the jokes in my sleep. His jokes are original, timeless and absolutely hilarious.

Ladies and Gentleman … Mr. Rodney Dangerfield.

Contains adult language and subjects!

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Now I am usually not a big fan of impersonators, but this guy deserves a bump. Some of you TV junkies might have seen him on The Next Best Thing. His name is Erv Dahl and he does IMHO an amazing R.D. impression. (btw. If you live in the Chicagoland area you can hire him for Weddings, Birthdays, etc… over gigmasters.com)

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R.I.P. Rodney Dangerfield