Hi guys,
I spoke to Brian this morning. He said the hypnosis went well. He
said they are trying to hypnotize him to want healthy foods, and to not
desire cheeseburgers and carbs. He said he actually went grocery shopping
yesterday and bought.......dare I say it.........VEGETABLES!!!!! He hasn't
eaten any of them yet, but they're there. This could be a shock the next
time you look inside Brian's fridge. Thursday night should be interesting.
I may faint if he says, "Let's go to Souper Salad."
Benz and the wife are going to get another sonogram done today. Let's
hope the best for that. Have a good one.

Peety

So I am finally updating my blog! I have been busy at work with no internet access and also I have been busy as home. Let's see, I have been up to a lot. I never did get checked for diabetes or get my kidneys scanned. My COBRA medical insurance wasn't activated yet so I was not about to do anything without my insurance paying for it. So I cancelled those appointments. Thursday was guys night. We did watch the 100th episode of Smallville. I can't believe they got rid of the dad. If I remember correctly after Clark's dad dies is when he becomes Superman so we shall see. Friday I was supposed to jam, but didn't, so I watched the new movie "Bubble" on HDNet. It was made by a famous director and Mark Cuban(Dallas Mavericks owner). The idea behind this movie was to release it in theaters, on DVD and on TV at the exact same time. They had some news stories on it so I decided to watch it. It blew. The first hour of it was so boring. If I was in theaters I probably would've walked out. I fell asleep on the couch Friday night. Saturday I went back to Wichita Falls to see mom. I took Mr.T with me cause he wanted to surprise his parents. On Saturday night I went to the VFW black tie party with mom and Robbie. I saw something there...surprising...65 years olds line dancing to the electric slide...I did that in junior high school. It was the usual V crew(we always shorten VFW to V, ie. I am going to get drunk at the "V" tonight). It is weird how the VFW never changes, except for the yearly passing of some of the patrons. Everyone is down to earth cool old folks. Anyway, on Sunday I hung out with mom and looked at real old pictures of us that used to be our grandmothers. I can't believe I had such blond hair when I was a kid. I wonder what I would look like as a blond today?? I read one of mom's Christmas letters to my grandma. It said "Melinda had her first day of school at Gifted and Talented class. Brian was happy because he came home dirty." I could tell they all had high expectations of me ;-) I drove back on Sunday afternoon, talked with the girl I am dating, watched Family Guy and am now typing this right now. Yes, the rumors are true. Before they get inflated into too much I am going to my first hypnosis session tomorrow to lose wieght. I figure I have to do something I have never tried and I know I am susceptible to hypnosis. The place I am going to is called Dallas Hypnosis and it is near my work. I am going there for a lunch hour, a little late at 1:30 tomorrow. The way I see it, it is bound to work simply because I am skipping lunch to get hypnotized. When I was there for a consult they had relaxing music playing in the background. So I will also get to relax for an hour during the workday, another benefit. And no, I did not pay $5,000 as was rumored, more like one fifth that for a lifetime of sessions. Apparently they are going to implant the diet into my head. I guess I have to go in there with an open mind. The only thing I worry about is when they say ,"relax,relax,relax" I will wet myself. LOL. I'll let peetey take over from here for the rest of the week and catch you all on the flipside.

Thought of the Week
"We all get a little cuckoo sometimes, George. I used to be like you. Berating personnel until they cried, calling managers on the field during a game, threatening to move the team to New Jersey, just to upset people. Then I found a way to relax. I've got two words to say to you, George... Hot Tub!"
- George Steinbrenner, in "The Hot Tub"

Hi all,
Most of the readers of this blog are Smallville viewers, so I wanna talk
about last night's 100th episode. The show ended with Jonathan Kent going
to that big farm in the sky. After watching it, it occurred to me that
Jonathan had Anakin Skywalker syndrome. Let's compare the two characters.

Jonathan Kent sells his soul to Jorel at the end of season 2, so he can
have the power to bring the newly evil, Clark (poisoned by red kryptonite)
home from Metropolis. In the agreement with Jorel, Jonathan must agree to
"release" Clark to Jorel "when the time comes." Later in the season,
Jonathan has a heart attack because Jorel in angry that Jonathan didn't
keep up his end of the deal. Jonathan survives, but is constantly plagued
by heart problems until last night when he dies. Granted, Clark had a lot
to do with the outcome, but the pattern is set.

Anakin Skywalker sells his soul to the devil (Palpatine) to save the life
of Padme. He betrays the Jedi and everyone else to save her. Of course, in
the end, she dies anyway, and so does he, essentially.

It looks like Brian is going to WF this weekend to see his mom. I have to
work on Saturday, so there's nothing real exciting for me, yet. I'm not
sure what Turk and Benz are doing, so everyone be careful and have a good
one.
Peety

Hi everybody,
Last night wasn't overly interesting. I once again got sucked into to void
of American Idol. I hate the show, but love seeing the bad singers. Once
they get to the all good people, I'm outta there. One thing that holds true
for all shows is the misleading previews. They kept hyping up this big
fight between a girl that try'd out and Paula Abdul. The preview was a flat
out lie. There was no big fight. The judges said "No" and she
left....mouthing all the way out the door.....no big deal. After that I
watched Boston Legal. It was a weird episode, but still entertaining. That
was about it for me.
Benz said he and Vicki went for another sonogram yesterday. The news isn't
good, but not necessarily terrible, either. The doctor is concerned
because they don't think the baby has the right growth for it estimated
age. The bottom line is no one is sure what the status is at this point.
They are going back to the doctor next week to get more test done.
For all of us Smallville fans, there is news on the net that the WB and UPN
are going to merge into one big channel...which will ultimately mean that a
bunch of shows get cut. I don't think we have anything to worry about since
Smallville is the flagship WB show.
Have a good hump day,
Peety

Hey all,
I spoke to Brian this morning. In a week he is going to be doing hypnosis.
I'll let him tell for what reason, and how much he is paying for it.
Needless to say, it's very Brian....doing things the hardest way possible.
Benz and his wife are going to the doctor today for a sonogram of their new
child. Let's all pray/hope for the best there.
Have a good one.
Peety

Hi everyone,
I guess Brian chose not to do the weekend update, so I'll take a stab at
it. I spoke with Brian for a minute this morning. He said on Friday night,
he went to a church retreat. On Saturday, he had a date with a girl from
church...sounded like it went OK. On Sunday he fed the homeless and went to
church groups.
My weekend was OK. On Friday night, I watched Smallville from the previous
night. Unfortunately, Brian's TIVO crapped out on Thursday, so none of us
got to see it. It was a pretty good episode. For the rest of the evening, I
played on the computer and had a few bourbon and cokes. On Saturday, I did
a little work around the house, and we rented movies from Blockbuster.
Don't bother seeing Deuce Bigalo 2. Later Saturday night, it actually
started raining. We haven't had rain since Halloween, so I had to stop and
watch it for a while. On Sunday, the wife and daughter went to a birthday
party, so I had a little free time. I actually sat down and watched Episode
III. When I thought about it, I think that was the first time, since buying
it, that I've actually sat down and watched the whole thing at once. I even
noticed a few new things this time. How did it go for everyone else?
Peety

Hey Guys,
Peety here. Last night, the wife went out for her "girls night" since we
have "guys night" on Thursday. I got the kido fed, played with, cleaned up,
and down to bed by 7:30. Afterwards, I was cleaning up and turned on the
TV. American Idol was on. I don't like that show so I was going to change
the channel, but realized this must be one of the early shows, because they
were showing tryouts and few of the people could sing at all. I ended up
watching the whole thing and wondering why these people thought they could
sing. Some were OK, and the judges said they were good but not good enough.
Others were just bad, and should have known they wouldn't make the cut.
Watching this reminded me of a summer night in 2002. Brian and I were at a
pub close to my old apartment. They were having Karokee night. I went
outside the get away from the noise and have a smoke. A few minutes later,
the girl that was running the karokee came outside to take a break. Brian
and I talked to her for a while, and she said she was going that weekend to
try out for a new Fox show (American Idol.) I didn't think much about it
then, but when the show premiered, there she was. Her name was Nikki
Mcgibbon (spelling?). She actually made it to the 3rd runner up.
I spoke with Brian for a minute this morning. He said he's going to the
doctor this morning to have test done to see if he's diabetic. Let's hope
for the best. Have a good one.

Hey guys,
Peety here. I don't have much for today. Last night, I jumped on the wife's
new Elliptical machine to see what that was all about. I did it for 5-10
minutes and didn't think much about it. This morning was a whole new ball
game. I'm very sore all through my legs and am very conscious of each step.
What used to be a leisurely stroll down the stairs is now a pain in the
a$$, literally.
I spoke to Brian for a few minutes this morning. He had a bowling, double
date, last night. He said he was shocked at how expensive bowling is now. I
think he said it was $25.00 for he and Holly to bowl 2 games. The million
dollar man is worried about $25.
That's all I have today. Things are pretty busy at work so I'll get back to
it. Hopefully, I'll have something better for tomorrow. Everybody have a
good one.
Peety

It's been a while since I've updated. Since I am off today, MLK day, I figure I would let ya'll know about the happinings in the world of Brian. Last week saw a good week of work. We are rolling along and I am creating another new architecture for the IRS systems. It is cool in that I am given so much freedom to implement some cool technology. Like I am working on an architecture that uses parallel processing and hyper-threading to increase performance by 1000%. I have dreams of being the hero that saves the government billions of dollars. I am still without net access and probably will be so until March, so I will continue to post sporadically. On Friday I went on another date. It was a pretty cheap date, we went to a banquet at the church for Sunday school volunteers, she teaches the 2 year old class. They had some good food and did a cool star wars fan film and other skits. I find that teachers seem to love skits and plays and all sorts artsy stuff. Then we went to a jazz club in a downtown Dallas hotel and ended up in a techno club dancing till 1 in the morning. On Saturday I played Frisbee golf with Mr.T. It has been a while and my arm is still sore. On Saturday night it was "Cooking Club" with the people in my Sunday School class. It was also a "welcome to Texas" thing for one of the girls in our class. I busted out my guitar and played southern rock al la Sweet Home Alabama and Freebird. (I will never play country). Sunday I did the usual Sunday School, and homeless stuff. My date was there since she does the same stuff. Tonight we are going bowling with another couple. I get the feeling,,, anyway I shall say no more. I rented some movies at cinemanow last night and can say they all were bad. I got "Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy" which I fell asleep while watching, "Kicking and Screaming" with Will Farrel, which did have some funny parts and just got through with "Deuce Bigallo European Gigalo" which was just disgusting and not funny. Anyway, things have been going well for me so I have no complaints. Mom is feeling better but I hear Melindas family is all sick. I get checked for diabetes on Wednesday. I am crossing my fingers that it is not the case. Anyways, have a good week. Three cheers go to Peety for keeping up some posts.

Thought of the Week
"Why would I spend seven dollars to see a movie that I could watch at home?"
"Well, why go to a fine restaurant when you could just stick something in the microwave... Why go to the park and fly a kite when you could just pop a pill?"
- George and Kramer, in "The Gum"

Hi guys,
Apparently, everyone in busy this week. Brian is still netless at the IRS,
so I'll fill in. I don't have much to say for today, so I'll tell a little
story from last night. On the way home from work yesterday, the wife asked
if I would mind if her dad left his dog with us for a week, while he's away
on business. I wasn't real happy about it, but decided I wouldn't fight it,
and said OK. My main concern was for our 2 year old daughter. She hasn't
been around many dogs, especially big ones, so I didn't want her to be
frightened by this big dog. Anyway, Jessica's dad and the dog show up
around 7:00. One thing that must be understood is that this is a big dog. I
call him a werewolf because he's about the size of one. The dog was
naturally excited from being in a new place and around new people, so it
was doing some jumping and running around the house. I was about to tackle
this werewolf when it got close to my daughter, but when the dog approached
her, she pointed her little finger at the dog and said, "Puppy sit." I've
never seen a dog hit the floor so quickly. Then, little Elaina walked up
and started to pet the werewolf on the head. She's my little Yoda, and
she's got the Jedi mind trick down at the age of 2. I hope most of you guys
can make it over to Brian's for the usual Thursday night thing. See you
tonight.
Peety

It's been a while. I figured I'd update my blog again. Apparently they changed the rules to get security clearance so I have to go through the whole routine again. I'll probably get Internet Access by March. In this day and age it takes the government 6 weeks to do a background check. I might get a broadband cellphone just so I can do research. Anyways, this last week saw work and football. I enjoyed having Monday off and went on a date then. This weekend I saw "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" on Friday. It was good, but a little too unbelievable. Then I saw King Kong on Saturday with my date. It was good, just a little too long(3 hours). The weird thing is that they will probably win an Oscar for best editing. All 3 hour long movies seem to win that Oscar. I don't get it. I would think the best editing Oscar would go to the shortest movie. Like maybe one hour long. Now that is editing. Before the movie we ate at Macaroni Grill(Italian) and I made the mistake of getting chocolate cake for desert. I should know one thing by now, people with GERD should never mix pasta and chocolate. I was sitting very upright at the movies and had to fidget waiting for the food to digest. I wonder what my date thought. Anyways, we are probably going out again. We shall see. On Sunday we fed the homeless and this time we visited all 4 stops. We had enough for 400 sandwiches and we ran out of them by the end of the last stop. There are people living under bridges in cardboard boxes that say,"I've had this place for 2 years now." All they want is water, a basic human need. It is a big eye opener when you see what humans are capable of. Anyways, I am now a ministry leader in my class and am going to be doing a skit in the next couple of weeks for the entire singles department about helping the homeless. Our singles department has 400 people in it, so it is a big thing. I just hope I don't mess up. Anyways, work is going well. Mom is home, but I still worry cause last I heard she had a cold and I know mom has a tendency for pneumonia so she is in my prayers. In other news, I assembled a wooden filing cabinet in my house and finished it this weekend. It looks great. Now I just have to get the willpower to actually put things in the filing cabinet.

Thought of the Day
"My back is killing me."
"Of course, because of that wallet! You've got a filing cabinet under half of your ass."
"This is an organizer, a secretary, and a friend."
- George and Jerry, in "The Reverse Peephole"

Hi All,
Brian said somebody at the IRS messed up and he may not have internet
access for 6 weeks. I'll do my best to post when I can.
My first week into the new year isn't starting all that great. Before I
left for the Christmas break, I had several accounts at work that looked
like would be resolved (repo/payoff). As it turns out, all of them have
flaked out on me. To make a long story short, I;m not starting off the
month very well, and that sucks. Wish me luck.
On the lighter side of my problems, I've been watching an Ebay auction
(star wars of coarse) at work. I made a bid, but was soon outbid by another
geek. I was feeling a little sassy, so I drove up the price a little.
Before long, I had outbid him. There was 30 minutes left in the auction, so
I went to lunch, almost hoping to be outbid when I returned. I got back
from lunch and discovered I was the high bidder, so I went ahead an paid.
It's not that I didn't want the item. I was just hoping to drive the price
up on the other guy, a little. The point is, don't bid unless you're
willing to pay...which I did. Well, I rambling on, now. I hope to see you
guys tonight.
Peety

Hi all,
Brian is internet-less at the IRS. He said he should be able to do the blog
soon.
I was off work for Dec 23rd, and got back to work today. That was the
quickest week of my life. I guess part of the reason it went so quickly was
due to the fact that I fought stormtroopers all week long. I played
Battlefront II with almost every spare second I had. I had planned to get a
lot of stuff done around the house, but most of it didn't happen.
As for Christmas, I got most of what I wanted. My wife got me Smallville
Season 4, Dallas Season 3, Clone Wars Season 2, and this Ed
Sullivan/Beatles DVD. Did everyone else do well?
Brian said Linda is back at home, but on oxygen, so let's remember her in
out prayers/get well thoughts.
On Friday, I went to Just Brakes to get my brake pads and stuff replaced.
They advertise this for $99.88. My $99.88 brake job was more like $300.00.
I know nothing about brakes, so I didn't know whether to say "screw it" and
go somewhere else or let them do it. I ended up letting them do it, but
hope I didn't get robbed. The whole time I was there, I was thinking about
Brian's grinding rear brakes, wondering what it will cost him to get his
brakes fixed.
Well, I've got a week of catch-up work to do, so I'll leave it as is.
Everyone have a good one.
Peety

Happy New Years! I have a feeling this is going to be a good year. So I shall start by going back to 2005 so you might want to close your eyes. 2005 was generally a bad year personally and worldly so I am glad it is over. The world saw massive death and destruction in Katrina, the earthquake and the tsunami. So it was definitely bad in that sense. The world also saw the war continuing longer than expected and also saw terrorism continuing in other parts of the world. That is still going to go on in 2006, but I think things are going to get better, especially since I think democracy will spread. Personally this was a bad year. My grandmother died early this year. My grandfather died in the latter half of the year. My mother ended up the year in the hospital almost dying. That was bad. She is back at home now so that is good. My band broke up, then a new band broke up by the lead singer going to jail. Now I am band-less. At the beginning of the year I was bored to death at my job at the IRS. So I had to go on 20 job interviews in the summer and finally found a good place to go at Nokia. Then at Nokia I was glad to have had business in Prague. The job was just as boring as the IRS except I didn't have the cool coworkers I did at the IRS. I also expeirienced 4 out of 4 financials disasters. A small car wreck, dental root canals, a $6,000 medical procedure that determined I was fat, and my computer completely died so I had to get a new one. Those things and other small things always took what was left each month so I could never get ahead. Also, I turned 30 and had a small midlife crisis. You know one of those "what am I doing with my life" kind of things. I think the answer was "whatever I want". You can open your eyes now. The good news of 2005 was that I finally formed my own company and now am my own boss. My client is back at the IRS but this time I have a mandate and am actually implementing a new tax system. That happened at the end of 2005 and that is another reason why 2006 is going to be good. The Prague trip was fun and I learned a lot about the world and how to navigate it. Also, I don't like to talk about girlfriends online but just let me say that I predict a relationship will grow this year.

So I shall now tell you about my New Year's tradition and what conspired last night. I created a new tradition for New Years when I was 10 years old. I can't believe I have been doing it for 20 years now. So I shall continue with it forever and give it to my future kids to pass it on. The idea is to find a new penny. In this case a 2005 penny. Then I take aluminum foil to symbolize the year was valuable and worthy and wrap the penny in the foil. Then on 10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1 I run outside and throw it into the street, symbolizing of throwing everything that happened in the year away. So last night was New Year's eve. I went out and actually bought some new black pants(where were they at the funeral) and also got a cool silver tie. I was ready. The New Years dance was at the Hilton in Dallas. There were parties all over the place. We had about 140 single girls and 60 single guys at the dance. I then formulated a theory that guys don't like dances, which I believe to be true. I suppose if a girl was desperate enough she would take up football and video games. Anyways, there was this girl I like, let's call her Holly. Now I know she knew I liked her. I also have never told her this and it was kind of akward for me because I was acting like a boyfriend with her, like complementing on her dress and everything, but I never said anything. I was bound and determined to tell her that I liked her and as the evening went on I knew it would be at the chime of midnight. So we are dancing together and when the countdown is done we blow up our new years poppy things, I do my usual sideways hug and we both say happy new year. I then reach over to her to whisper in her ear "I really like you." but it seemed that she might of thought I was reaching over to kiss her, so for a split second I could've gotten a kiss. She then was a little shocked, probably that I did the side swipe, and I said ,"do you want to go out sometime?" She then said ,"What? Like now?" so now I am confused. But it all brought to mind that I had the penny wrapped in tin foil in my pocket so I said,"Sure, follow me." So I quickly make my way through the crowd with her following behind. I run outside and do a pitcher's throw of the tin foil penny into the street. By now she is like "WTF?" and I then tell her the story of the tradition. She then thought I was asking her out for the very next day and said she already had stuff to do. Actually we will be feeding the homeless together. So I said, "Want to come over and watch the Texas Tech game with me?" And thus, that is where it ends. I remember giving her a warning "I am a little timid." Anyways, we shall see. It was very weird, but as I look back it was still pretty cool. Happy New Years everyone!

Thought of The Day
"At 10:00 I plan on losing my inhibitions."
Me, at the dance.