Tomorrow is going to be one of the worst, and best, days of the year.

Good: Parm finally goes in for his springtime haircut! He should lose a good 3 lbs and look like a giratte (giraffe/rat hybrid).

Bad: I asked PetSmart for the “earliest time possible” so it wouldn’t interfere with work. I mean, it’s friggin’ PetSmart, they open at like 9am weekdays.

So the chick on the other end of the phone says “ok, see you at 7:30!” Oh Work Me. Apparently those bastards open the grooming department of the store super early.
______________________________________________________
Believe it or not, we actually DO sometimes dodge bullets at Lamz.

With our showcase (recital) theme of “We Be Lamzin’” we scoured the internets for bob marley themed reggae stuff to be our logo. Brandifer found this badassed boombox thing, and I was all set to sign off and send it to the printers (we of course removed the text after snaking it), only there was one small problem… see if you can spot it:

.
.
.
.
Yes, if you look close enough, those are marijuana leaves making up some of the white border.

oops.

guess the theme and slogan could’ve been “cuz I got high.” next year.

Some of us are reality tv junkies…. and then there are those that take the reality addiction to a whole ‘nother level.

another Mom email (my emphasis added)!

After eating supper, Isabel and I went out to check on our bird family (nest in the Topsy Turvy) and arrived just in time to watch them take their first flight and leave their nest. Mom & Dad bird were in the woods giving instructions. One landed in the back of Dad’s truck and couldn’t get out. It bumped its head a few times and another flew straight into the garage door. Two others had no problem. I’m not sure if I missed one or not as there were five eggs. We haven’t looked in the nest yet to see if there is a dead one in there. Dad had to catch the one from his truck and try to take it around to find the rest of the family. Two of them were climbing the cherry tree in the side flower bed and Mom was teaching them to look for food. Perfect timing on my part to go out there and look for them. Isabel was very interested. She made a goofy sound when the one took off. She probably thought “there goes dinner”. We don’t know for sure what kind of bird it was. Dad thought it was a nuthatcher but after watching the mother bird fly in and out, it didn’t quite look like one. It could have been some kind of wren. My babies are now gone, have to find something else to watch.

Mom

Suffering through a cold (when the weather turns nice of course), so bare with me.

Brandon came. Brandon went. There are a SLEW of legal reasons why I can’t go into more details about his visit… but can we leave it as a good time had by all? If you wanna see pics of the workshop (and horrible pics of me), you can check out the Lamz site.

Not only is Brandon the coolest (and shorter than me, surprise!!), but he did manage to bring LA to us. For example, “ewwwww” means something is good.

and the word “Work” is like the word “smurf” (if you recall back to the days when those little blue guys would say everything was smurftastic, or you better get smurfin’, or those two were caught smurfing in the back seat, etc). You can use it for anything. It can be an adjective, a noun, a verb.

But anyways, I have literally 3 pictures from the night out:

Group shot of us at.... oh right, can't mention it. One of these things is not like the other...

mmmmmmmm me n' rachel. apparently i look like the sex in this photo (or so i am told), hence me putting it up here.

now, thanks to not getting in until 5am (hey don’t look at me, I was asleep in bed… you can blame Brandifer!), he missed his 8:50am flight. Apparently you can’t just stuff cab money in his pocket and say “get a wakeup call.”

So after I hear about all of this at 10am, I went and picked him up and brought him back to my place. I let him crash in the guest bedroom, and we then spent the afternoon hanging out at my place. How surreall to just have some guy from SYTYCD chillin’ at your place:

Hi, I'm Brandon. Okayyyyy.

and yes, that’s how he talks. all cute and innocent like (but far far from lol). Brandee and I have decided to adopt him.

Work!

So let’s see, I get to go from working 65 hours a week between two jobs, to 70-80 now on just one job. sounds like fun for all. earnings season is upon us. or me.

I submit to you two examples of why the age of 33 starts the gradual decline into senility (yeah that’s the right spelling, i looked it up).

ex. 1)

My Fraudstripe cable modem stopped being all blinky. Not a huge deal, as I use FIOS these days and keep it only as a backup. It would come back soon enough. Or so I thought.

After about a week of no blinks, I figured I’d lodge a complaint. I went through all the pre-call motions: unplugged the modem, reset the router, rebooted the computer a few times. no dice.

after sitting on hold for 15 minutes, and being told there was a problem in my area on the prerecorded message, I was preparing my speech for getting a credit… they didn’t know I only use it as an occasionaly unlocked hotspot. But a week’s worth of no internet had to be worth something.

I finally get a lady, who kindly listens to my complaint. After I told her all the crap I’d done to get it working again so she wouldn’t walk me through the stupid shit like “ok sir are you sure it’s plugged in” she says:

“ok. so, you might feel a bit silly. I mean, don’t feel silly. Your modem is, ummmm, on standby. There’s a button on the top you need to hit.”

and sure enough, I got to be THAT GUY. The very guy that is the reason for them asking you those incredibly stupid questions like “is there electricity in your house” at the start of your call.

ex 2)

Being spring, I’m on my usual kick of trying to get my grass as green as possible, until I give up when summer comes and the sun bakes it brown.

To my surprise, I started having all these brown spots show up. I mean, we’re talking like two dozen. Most of them perfectly round. Like crop circles. Save for one huge area in the shape of the letter U.

I’m pretty dumbfounded. After some intense watering, as well as on the lookout for tiny martians or Mel Gibson landing in my yard, I gave up. Until the neighbor wandered over. After some casual chit chat, he asked what the hell I had done.

“All I’ve done is put down some crab grass stuff, and then I walked around spraying just some regular ol’ Roundup for the random weeds.”

And then it dawned on me.

Wrong Roundup. I look over at the jug. It’s got a blue top. blue top =’s bad. As in, Weed AND GRASS Killer Roundup. fack me. I killed the weeds allright, and everything else around them.

I got to spend an afternoon digging up all the spots and flipping them over to replant seed. Although it was tempting to spray an FCK around the U.

_____________________________________________________

It’s Brandon weekend! I get to pick him up at the airport at like 8ish or somethin’ tomorrow night. He’s staying in town til I fly him back Sunday morning. Lots of pictures coming of me trying to act entirely too cool with the SYTYCD celeb.

No Myst this time around as he’s only 20. Although I hear rumors of a bonfire at Brandee’s. forecast calls for rain

- allright so I take back my yawn rating on the iPad. I probably shouldn’t judge something based on 3 minutes of playing with it and the contents of the box. While it is still nothing more than a big itouch/phone, it’s a badass big itouch/phone. My eyes are all dried out and i had to pry myself from it yesterday. apps apps and more apps. I even downloaded some $15 racing game where you turn the pad like a wheel to drive.

as for the second one I had, well, I traded it for some car washes, so my neighbor is pretty happy. Much like how i got everyone to get the droid, I’m just gonna let him teach me all the really cool stuff it can do. For now, I just play tunes on it, check the weather… and drive.

- insert witty “hoppy” easter comment i seem to post annually. Apparently 33 is the magic number for the age when you hit the candy jackpot. my mother gave me an entire bucket full of candy today. we’re talking a dozen cadbury eggs and the like. so not only am i going to get fat(ter?) but I’m gonna be wired a lot, then crash, then wired, then crash.

- And what would jasoncam be without yet another baby announcement. The Orkin man and I stopped by to see the newest W last Thursday.

Behold, I give you James “Donovan” W:

Ever the early adopter, I got both (yes, both) iPads this morning via UPS.  Pretty impressive given they were in BangBalls, China or whatever yesterday given the tracking provided by the brown truck service.

the ever important box pic.

this is all you get. literally. the pad, a charger, a couple stickers, and a whole lotta air.

pic of a very thin iPad posing with my hand.

Parm surfing Jasoncam!

The hardest part about it was downloading the newest iTunes, version 9.19273401728170 or whatever.  That alone took a good half hour.

But once it was up and running, my suspicions held true.  It’s nothing more than a glorified giganta-iTouch/phone.

It is pretty wicked fast… but that whole “dream to type on” comment from Steve Jobs is bullshit.  You end up hitting the enter button or the letter A more often than not if you try to type like a real keyboard, so it’s best to use the hunt-and-peck method.

Thankfully I also ordered the keyboard dock that should be coming Monday or Tuesday.

Now the question is, what to do with the 2nd one that’s still sitting in its box.

So my one word or less Jasoncam review is:  Yawn.

I ordered some magazine holder thingys since my bathroom is beginning to look like an episode of horders from all the Consumer Reports laying around.

Amazon shipped to me this massive box....

...which contained this box....

...that held the tiny little magazine boxes.

_______________________________________________________

*  Remember the chipmunk post, where I saved one (twice!) in my window well?

yesterday morning the dog went out and immediately ran over to the well, which of course means something is stuck, again.  This time there was a tiny little field mouse.

in case you were wondering, mice are dumber than chipmunks.  I tried in vain to fling it out with a broom but it would just slide off and fall back in.  I probably brain damaged the damned thing.  So I had to get dirty and climb in, and corner it with a (red party!) cup.

After putting the dog inside, I released it back into the yard, maybe 8 feet from the well.  You know where this is going.

About an hour later I take the dog back out, and of course, the stupid mouse is chilling in the yard.  Just hanging out near where I left him.  The dog doesn’t notice it yet, so I tried to herd it through the fence, to no avail.  By this time, Parm knows something is up, and skips over to see what his crazy dad is doing.  I managed to drive the mouse to safety, below the HVAC unit.

I took a few steps back, and of course, guess what happens next.  The mouse made its way over to the window well, contemplated his next move, and then just kinda… fell… into the hole again.  It didn’t jump, it just sorta kept walking like it thought the ground continued.  Sadly I didn’t have my video camera with me, otherwise you would’ve heard “(mouse nears the edge) Oh come on. Don’t do it. (mouse falls)  Really?  Really?!  You have to be kidding me.”

I put parm back inside, climbed back in with my newfound skill of mouse roping, and secured it in the party cup.  This time I walked it over to the fence, and flung it a good 15 feet onto the other side into the grass.

It bounced.

* So here is how my last few weeks have gone. Work the “real” job from 8am til 4:30, 5ish, go to Lamz. Get home from Lamz 10pm to 11pm… watch whatever the most important show is that night. go to bed. get up, repeat. This has included Saturdays.

Thankfully next week is our spring break at the stu-stu-studio, so I get to catch up on all the wonderful house stuff.

* We put out our summer schedule yesterday, and you know if it’s making this blog, somethin’ happened.

One class is listed as the following:

4:30pm JAZZ/CONT LAMPAK Instructor: Brittany

well wouldn’t u know it, one of the kids is staring at the schedule, and announces in the lobby for all to hear:

“WHAT’S A CUNT? CUNT CLASS? WHAT IS THAT?”

oh lordy. granted, she was saying CONT, but it’s pronounced the same. I about lost it, and made eye contact with one of the dad’s who was present.

“uhhh, sweetie… ummm, that’s for “contemporary.” jazz & contemporary class. we just shortened it to fit it on the schedule. And by the way, never ever ever say “cont” again. It’s a bad word. worse than the F word.”

She of course had no idea, and was embarassed. We didn’t tell her what a cunt was, but I’m sure she ran home and asked her mom.

she probably should’ve asked her dad.

I’m just glad it wasn’t a combo class, like a cont/funk class. now that would’ve led to some awkward explainin’.

* In need of a good personal trainer? well don’t look here. Last week eric says to me “hey just a headsup, I can’t do Wednesday next week, cool?”

sure np I said (and yes I probably said the letters NP just to be urban and relevant).

Monday I confirmed. “you can’t do wed right? so we’re on for friday?”

yes indeed he replied.

So of course today, 11am, the dog goes nuts. And there he is, standing at my door. I open it, he sees the look on my face, and says “ohhh, did you say you couldn’t do today?”

dumbass.

* You’ll have to pardon the non-posting for 2 weeks. The first week my host and the internets apparently hated on jasoncam, and if you even tried to load the .tv extension, u were screwed. the .com part loaded, although after a minute, and then it came up all funky.

but all that is fixed for the moment. fingers crossed.

* I’m still recovering from this weekend. If this were 10 years ago, this would lead to a story about some weekend bender. But alas, I am old… and my kids at Lamz had (a poorly laid out wrt performance times) competition all weekend at Goucher. check out my craptastic schedule:

I had to leave work right at 8pm on Friday to get up there for a routine… then get up early to be there by 9am Saturday. Awards Saturday were in the afternoon for the routines that morning. Then Sunday, not only did I lose the hour (that I’m sure everyone is bitching about), but I had to get up at 6ish to be there and ready by 8am. Awards for those routines were at 1, and then I came home to get some work done. On top of all that, I had to drive back up for one girl with a solo at 7:30 that night, with awards well after 10pm.

I haven’t driven that much in years. My car was like what the hell dude?!

* Speakin’ of good ol’ Lamz. I signed Brandon from SYTYCD to come to the studio April 24th.

Sadly he’s just a baby at 20 years old So no night out on the town ala tWitch. Although I am hearing rumblings of a house party. Problem is, said house in question is likely mine. Sorry in advance neighbors!

* Go Glass Blower Girl! You are the only reason I even watch Garbage Idol any more.

* We are on babywatch in these parts. Mrs. W. about to burst again. Jasoncam W. was my suggestion for a name this time around. Deaf ears….

* and FYI, donating to rabbit charities pays off in spades

Remember the killing of the rabbit?

well turns out that shit did come back on me. fourfold.

I haven’t had a such a shitty week of trading in like 1 1/2 years. I don’t think I did one thing right last week. Every trade I put on bit me in the ass… and of course one thing I shorted (bet would go down), gets a takeover bid tonight and is gapping up 12 points tomorrow. fun fun.

I am attempting to rectify this karma.

no lie, I spent friday morning finding, and donating to, rabbit charities. Not only did I throw some money the SPCA’s way, but I also donated to something called the House Rabbit Society, complete with rabbit.org website. Let’s hope after I close out the remainder of last week’s trades that it’s over. for good.

* my mom has a habit of dropping off the most random things to me. Sometimes she goes overboard, like today, when she dropped off like 8 boxes of pizza rolls and 7 celeste pizzas… just because I like them (and apparently will be eating nothing but them for the next 2 weeks).

but last week took the cake. These are the four very unrelated things she delivered to me last Thursday (keep in mind the date, february 25th, it’s important):

1) one loaf of wheat bread
2) a package of baby wipes (for parm)
3) one breakfast sandwich
4) a yard stick.

sandwich posing with the yardstick...

wth?! it gets better. look closely at the sell by date on that egg & sausage REFRIGERATED sandwich. March 14th!!!

What unholy sandwich, with an egg on it no less, can be kept for almost 3 weeks (and no telling when it was actually made)???

I’m asking for it if i eat that thing. i believe we will for sure be calling that a colon-cleansing day.