16

Here we go again, another birthday for one of the offspring. But it's not just any birthday. Today my son turns 16. 16-years-old. Damn, do I feel old. It really doesn't seem all that long ago that he was riding on my shoulders at Sea World, (made me think of that as we drove by the old Sea World today), starting preschool or even kindergarten for that matter. Moving on through grade school, then middle school and now the dreaded high school years. All zipping by way too fast. Now, he's at the magical time somewhere between boy and man trying to figure out his place on this hunk of rock.

Don't worry kid, many of us much older then you are still trying to figure that out too. Just know that your Mom and I love you and are proud to have a kid as great as you are.

But remember, like Homer always says, "When you're 18, you're out the door" ;-)

What happens when you get bored on vacation

You start shaving things. Let's hope I find more things to keep me occupied. My legs will be a real pain to do.

Coming Sunday to a living room near me....

Had to use the economic stimulus for something. Don't want to let the President down ya know. We played the 360 version at Best Buy tonight and loved it, so we decided to go ahead and pre-buy us a copy over at the game store. I don't know who is more excited. The kids or Denise and I. Anyways, it will be fun because it's something that we can all do together. I have a feeling we are going to fighting over the drums though. I was rockin' them to Detroit Rock City. But alas, I am no Peter Criss. Review will follow next week I am sure.

Okay, I'm pretty proud of myself

I have to say that I'm pretty proud of myself this evening. Since it was Molly's birthday today I took the day off of work to spend it with her. Unfortunately, Denise had to work all day so I wanted to make it as fun of a day as possible for her.
We started off by picking up her friend and along with Alex, we all enjoyed a good old fashion Taco Bell gastric experience. After that, it was off to Laser Quest. The first game was great because it was just the four of us in the arena. By the time we were ready to start the second game, the place had filled up with a bunch of folks and it made for an interesting time. We all stuck together and fought our way to holding two different towers by ourselves.
And to top off the day, I was able to make this majestic chocolate cake with creamy chocolate fudge frosting. Now all we have to do is wait for Denise to get home so we can dig into the thing! I hope it's soon. Molly is looking at the cake like a pit bull at a steak. This could get ugly.
Hurry home wife, we need you.

Nine Years and a lot of grey hair later...

Nine years and an hour or so ago, this picture was taken.

She was a wee moose. Born healthy and loved to be held and cuddled. I couldn't believe that Denise and I could be involved with making something so beautiful.





Now, she is growing into an independent, stubborn and bull-headed young lady. Hence, all the grey that you now see adorning the hair on my head and also the facial area.

I wouldn't have it any other way.


Happy Birthday, Squirt.
Your old man loves ya.

My son, the warrior

It's always been a dream of mine to have my son, Alex, enjoy one of my favorite hobbies. And today, that dream has come true.
Alex is a peaceful soul, plain and simple. The boy doesn't have a mean bone in his body nor has he ever wanted to do harm upon someone else. In the past I've tried to get him interested in going paintballing, but it was never something that really peaked his interest. I think it may have been the thought of chasing after someone and shooting at them with a paintgun knowing that it may hurt them. He's seen all my welts and black and blue marks over the years courtesy of Joel, Scott, Dan, Kevin..some more from Joel, and countless others. But when I told him we were going to have a game up at our friend Joel's farm, he decided that he was going to give it a try. He did, and he loved it.
So like a group of tribal elders, we took my eldest into the woods for his initiation into manhood. Outfitted with my trusty Piranha and some heavy weight "Alpine-flage", (this stuff is pretty thick so if he got hit, it wouldn't hurt as much.)
The setup was Alex and I against everyone else. Out gunned and out matched. But of course we, "The Elders", all talked about it before hand and the plan was to shoot around Alex giving him a chance to get use to how this whole thing works and to help build his confidence! Needless to say in the end we were victorious. He shot out the entire opposing team! The next game was a one on one between me and the boy with everyone else acting in an "advisory" capacity. His job was to hunt me down and take me out. I was armed with only a 12 shot semi-auto pistol and had hoped that we could stretch this out a little bit. I dug into some cover and waited for Alex to come out into a clearing. I was going to fire one or two shots off to his side in hopes that he would duck for cover and I could move to another position and keep the game alive for a little bit. But the amazing thing is, HE DIDN'T BACK DOWN! Next thing I know, I'm shot twice. Once in my gut and once in my backside. The kids a natural!
In the end, I could tell that he felt pretty good about today exploits. One of his first comments about the day was that he was planning on telling a girl he knows all about how he shot out his Dad at paintball. Yes dear reader, he understands things better now. But he still gets tired of me saying, "Pain is temporary, glory last forever and chicks dig scars."
I love that kid.

Say hello to Patrick

Nephew #4 was born last night at 19:59.

8lbs., 14 oz., 21" long.

Welcome to the world, Patrick!

Trixie VS Evil Corporate America

In preparation for tonights Battlestar Galactica season premier watch party at the house, my wonderful wife Denise, (AKA Trixie), went to the Wal Mart to stock up on a few things. You see, going to Wal Mart here in redneck-Americana land can either be a peaceful event or downright torture.
This time it was the latter for our heroine. Here is how it all played out in her latest blog entry entitled: "From now on, I will no longer go anywhere without make-up ever again. EVER!"

Autism has a new voice

I was catching up on my Twitters from over the weekend and noticed one that was posted by Chris Miller about an Autistic girl that uses her computer to communicate with her family. That just blew my mind because there has been many times that I know Alex is trying really hard to say how he feels inside about something but can't always get it out. Up until a couple of years ago I would often look at him and could almost see two people. The Alex I see on the surface and then the one hidden deep down below attempting to be heard, screaming to get out like in some strange sci-fi flick. He's gotten much better over the years, usually giving me a "smart aleck" response when we are talking, but I've learned thats how he communicates. Anyways, it was just really great to see another child finding their voice in the prison of Autism, even if its with the help of a computer.
Click here to read about and watch the ABC News video.

Now that's what I'm talkin about!

Okay. I have had not just a good day, but a great frakin' day! First, we got to sleep in! Of course, anything past 6 AM is sleeping in. After getting to watch a little bit of cartoons, we decided that we were going to have a family "no one is sick, injured or otherwise out of commission so we are getting out of the house" fun day. Took the kids out to lunch, went bowling, did some shopping and otherwise just got out of the house and had us some fun. It was the kind of day we've been waiting on around here. Just get out and play! The kids had a great time as well as us. And after all that we made it back home just in time to catch the Budweiser Shootout. The first official NASCAR event of the year. Wow! What a race! Dale Earnhardt Jr won the race just nudging past Tony Stewart. Jr. really benefited from his Hendrick team watching his back. And if tonight is an indication of next weeks running of the Daytona 500, we're in for one hell of a race.
So, with the day drawing to a close and a thunderstorm with snow falling firing up along the massive cold front moving through the area, I think I'll call it a day.
(Seriously. Thunder, lighting, snow and it's suppose to be 18 degrees tomorrow. Weird)

I am the old man

Okay. I'm 38 fraking years old. Being 15 and having my parents driving me and a date to a school dance does not seem all that long ago. Yet, now I am the one driving my 15 year old son and his date to a school dance. But there I was tonight, taking them to the dance and then waiting in the parking lot of the school at 10:30 waiting for the dance to end so I could take them home. Okay, it probably doesn't help listening to Sirius 8, "The Big 80's" almost exclusively on the satellite radio, (when I'm not listening to Howard or Bubba), so at least a part of me can still live in my teenage years of the 80's. It just doesn't seem all that long ago!
But I guess it is. I am now the "old man" doing the chauffeur duty. But this was the silver lining to an otherwise crummy week of food poisoning, emergency rooms and rescheduled early flights home from destinations far away. This was Alex's first date and I think they had fun.

My little trooper

Well, I'm back home from Orlando and glad to see that my little darlin is doing okay. She's pretty sore and eating food...very slowly. Everything has to be chopped up into little piece and eaten with the back teeth only. So far, so good.

A personal note from the Donaldson Family. To everyone out there that either came up to me at Lotusphere or had sent me an email to say that Molly was in their thoughts and prayers, thank you. Words cannot express just what that means to us. Been a crazy week, but it's good to know a lot of folks got our back.

Thank you.

And that's my que...

This week two of my biggest fears with regards to business travel hit back to back. Me getting sick on the road and something happening to my family while I'm on the road. If you've been following the old "House O' Blog" this week looking for a plethora of Lotusphere information you know that we've been sidetracked by the food poisoning saga. Now the other shoe dropped.
Today at school, Molly was knocked down and fell into a bookcase hitting it with her front teeth causing the bone that those teeth are attached to to break. I got the phone call from Denise that started with "Before I say anything else, I want you to know that everyone is okay..." Never a good way to start a conversation. She was telling me that Molly had to go in for oral surgery to put in a brace and wire it up so that bone would reattach. She made it through the surgery like a trooper, but as of a little while ago she is in a lot of pain and just plain miserable.
So, I'm on a plane home a day earlier. Flights out at noon tomorrow, so I won't be hitting any sessions tomorrow. Not much I can do there, except be there. But that is all that really matters.

Adios Lotusphere. Let's try this again next year.

So Number 1 Son has his first date!

It appears that my son Alex has asked a girl to the winter homecoming dance and she said yes! When I asked Alex about it and if he was excited he looked at me with his crooked smile and said "Zang!". With thumbs up and all. I busted a gut laughing.

You see, one of his Christmas gifts was the Wayne's World two pack of movies. He has pretty much been watching them non-stop since and loves them. He'll quote such things as "No Stairway! Denied", and the like. It's always funny when your kids start using pop culture references from your own years gone by. It's even funnier that the first Wayne's World film came out there year Alex was born. I know, I made you feel old now, didn't I? When you have a teenager in the house, there are many times you start to feel old.

I love that kid.

Oh well, back to packing for Lotusphere.

The corruption of my wife is now complete!

She's started her own blog!

Need suggestions

Okay, using Canton, OH as a center-point, I need ideas on where to go for a long weekend with the family. Must be under 4.5 hour drive. Ideas?

Book 7 Party

The waiting is over and at the stroke of midnight this morning, the new and final Harry Potter book was released to the world. As we had done two years ago, the whole crew decided to meet up in Hudson, OH for the last Harry Potter Extravaganza. According to one media outlets estimate, there were over 12,000 people who had flocked to the small Western Reserve community. It was fun, but kinda stunk because you couldn't do anything really besides walk around and people watch. The lines to get into the stores to do any of the activities were way long, and the crowds were not always happy about it either. The bulk of the event was held off of Main Street at the First and Main area of downtown. Trying to get through the Main Street crowd was just insanity. In the end though, the kids had a blast, I got to see an old friend that I hadn't seen since last time and Denise was able to get the book at a Wal-Mart that stayed open late just to sell it. I have to admit, I stole the book on the way home and read the last part of it to find out what happens. My lips are sealed!

What a weekend.

Trees and sky
Originally uploaded by Macian.

After all the fun and hard work of getting ready for Molly's First Communion and party, this weekend was much needed relaxation. Friday night, Denise and I had a chance to go out and just do nothing really. Grabbed a sandwich at the coffee shop, stopped by her bosses house to pick up some paperwork and then headed home. Yesterday was free comic book day! Always something fun to do with that! Then today we went a bought a new camera bag. It's actually a back pack camera bag with enough room for my camera, lens, camcorder and even my laptop. This bag will come in handy when we head out to Boston for the Admin2007 training. Denise has her heart set on heading up to Salem, which I think can be accomplished by using the trains.
Here's a cool shopping tip, if you're at Best Buy and see something that you want to buy but it has stains on it, say something. The camera bag had what looked like marker marks on it, and they knocked 30% off.
Well, that's it for now. Off to enjoy one last cigar for the weekend, and prepare for more fun in the exciting world of Domino Administration!

Molly's First Communion

IMG_1173
Originally uploaded by Macian.

What a fantastic day! Today, Molly had made her First Communion in the Church, and what a day it turned out to be. Luckily after all of the rain and weird weather, it all turned out nice, sunny and warm! Everyone that came to her party afterwards really seemed to enjoy themselves. Be sure to check out the pics on Flickr!

Thanks to all of those that were able to show up!

April 25th

Then:
And Now:

Time passes by too quickly but with every day that does, my love for her grows. She is my partner and best friend in all aspects.
Happy Anniversary babe.