Let's try this again. I hate my HP digital camera, printer and now their stupid photo site! I am trying a different site. I hope this works.

I seem to be having a tough time getting the picture link to work. I will try to fix it later tonight.

I have been a little slow to post lately...sorry! I do have much to report but I had a little yard work accident today and smacked my hand with a hammer not once but several times. Seems that it is a little painful to type at the moment so to keep you entertained until the swelling goes down, take a look at these pictures from the Easter holiday.

I had to take Dauber to the vet today to see why his ear smelled like dog butt. Apparently, he has a yeast infection in his ear and he has scratched at it so much (his ear, not his butt) that he has some very impressive open sores. Now I have to clean his ears twice a day and treat him with an antibiotic cream. Dauber by the way doesn’t like anyone putting anything into his ear so I have to tackle and sit on him in order to clean up his grotesque ears. How does anyone, dog included, get a yeast infection in his ear? It is really quite disgusting.

This weekend, Lisa and Bev took Shawn to an Easter egg hunt at the church down the street from us. The church likes to suck up to all the neighbors because of the traffic problems that it causes being in a residential area. Lisa said that Shawn had a blast...he found several eggs filled with candy that Mommy will enjoy eating if she hasn’t eaten it already. Speaking of eating, Lisa and I ate at a Mexican restaurant called El Reparo Friday night...it was really good. Lisa had Chimichangas and I had enough food to feed a small family. My platter had a chalupa, guacamole salad, chile relleno, beef taco, tamale, enchilada, rice and refried beans. My dinner came out on 4 plates (it seemed like they just kept bringing more). It was all very good...maybe the best that I have had in Toledo and the service was really quick (probably less than 10 minutes from order to serve) and my meal was a meager $8.95!!! The wait staff doesn't speak English very well...matter of fact, I’m not sure they spoke English at all. The best part about this place is the fact that they serve MAMOTH MARGARITAS.....The monster, as they call it, is only 46 ounces ($9.25).

I have discovered a new hot sauce that I may like even more than I like Cholula. Believe it or not it is made by Tabasco and it is their new Chipotle smoked sauce. I am not a big Tabasco fan because I think that their sauces have too much vinegar but this new sauce it really good. The sauce is hot but not overpowering and it is thicker than the traditional Tabasco...try it if you can find it.

Finally, we went out for our first ice cream run of the year. Shawn had a blast and I had a Carbolite™ . Carbolite is a low carbohydrate alternative to ice cream and it really isn’t as bad as you imagine. The flavor that they had tonight was chocolate-raspberry-cappuccino. It actually tasted like raspberry with a slight chocolate aftertaste.

We are planning on going to our first Mud Hens game of the year on Easter. There is an Easter egg hunt before the game and I think that the weather is supposed to be decent this weekend. Since the new stadium opened last year, many new restaurants and bars have opened...the downtown area is really starting to make a turnaround. The latest fine establishment to open is Frickers. I have heard that you can actually watch the game from some of the tables at Frickers, I will have to check that our soon.

Adios Amigos!!

Opening Day was not very enjoyable this year. I didn’t even have a beer at the game which is not normal behavior but I guess when game time temperature is 34° you do what you have to do to stay warm. And if freezing my tail-end off wasn’t enough, we lost the game to the White Sox in extra innings (yes,I stayed the entire game). It looks like it may not be a good year to be an Indians fan….if they win 70 games, I would be surprised. One nice surprise was the Indians are trying to fill the stadium up in April and May, so they are giving tickets away to anyone who turns in their opening day ticket stub. You just mail your stub in and let them know what game you would like to see and they mail you another ticket free!!! Pretty cool, but they really should give all tickets away to see that team.

Before the game, we ate at a Irish Pub called Flannerys the food was really good. I had Irish stew which has excellent, very thick and was served with a large scoop of Colcannan on top. Colcannan is basically mashed potatoes with garlic and scallions and I think it also had some cabbage mixed with it. There were some interesting menu items that I would like to try the next time I am in Cleveland.

The door to door salesman is not dead!!! We had two salesmen come to our front door this evening. One selling carpet cleaners and the other one was soliciting quote opportunities for vinyl siding and windows. Lisa basically slammed the door in the face of the steam cleaner salesman and I also shut the door on the other one. I think that I might need the equivalent of the tele-zapper for the door to door salesman (maybe a M-16 or an UZI). Just when you finally thought the end was coming for the telemarketing idiots, the door to door guy is re-born.

Short weeks cause all kinds of trouble at work for me. I am behind gathering information that I need for a report that I have to have for a regional managers meeting on Friday in Fort Wayne. It might be a long day tomorrow.

Shawn has a new hobby. He took a liking for beating Dauber with toys. Tonight, he tried to bash Dauber with one of his cars in the face....lucky that Shawn’s coordination isn’t well developed yet. The other way Shawn likes to hurt the dog is by jumping off the couch right on Dauber while he is sleeping or hanging out minding his own business. Lucky Dauber is so laid back.

Usually I would end this post with some stupid ethnic phrase but I can’t think of one that is all that fun so......Joe Mama wears combat boots to bed.

Why do I feel like I am packing to go to a Browns game instead of an Indians game? Maybe its because we are supposed to get 2-5 inches of snow before the end of the day Monday. I have been looking all over town for a hooded sweatshirt with a zip-up front to wear under my coat for the game tomorrow, finally found one at MC sporting goods. You can’t believe how difficult it is to find a sweatshirt in April.

Dauber got into the trash again today, that is a nasty habit that he learned from his cousin Goliath. Lisa caught him in the family room with a corn cob in his mouth. Needless to say, Lisa gave him one hell of a beating and he retreated to the bedroom.

Shawn is into Thomas the Tank Engine (animated-like toy train that has videos etc.), Lisa found out that they have a life-sized Thomas that tours the U.S. every summer that you can take rides on him. Thomas is gong to be in Lost Peninsula, OH this summer during Memorial day weekend and guess who gets to go and spend the day with Thomas? If you guessed Lisa, Shawn and I....you are correct. We had to make reservations for tickets and I also made reservations to stay at the Embassy Suites in Independence Ohio. We will probably hang out with my parents and then go hang out with Thomas and the other 10,000 other pre-school children in attendance.

One last thing before I continue to pack for opening day in the snow....Lisa has fallen in love with these characters that you can buy from the gumball machines at the grocery stores. These loveable little characters are called “homies”. They are tiny figurines that are of typical stereotypical mexicanos...I can’t get out of a store without dropping a dollar for these things. I think that I will have to set up a village with graffiti on the building and use these things as the “towns people” or ghetto people!!! You can see why Lisa loves these things so much here.

Finally in keeping with the ethnic tradition that I have started I leave you with this......I be keepin it real in the 419....word up homies......

Okay, so I can't type so well!!! Sometimes I do need a light to tell me when to get in the can but it really has nothing to do with my car's tire pressure. I guess I will have to type these updates in word and spell check them from now on. At least Brad got a laugh out of my typos. Shawn, Lisa and I took about a mile walk through Swan Creek (the park Brad, not a walk in the creek). I just finished the budget at work today...that was an experience after I printed the reports out, it turned out to be about 200 pages long. I really learned a lot about excel in the process. Since the series of mergers and acquisitions took place in my company last September, we have gone from a company that was totally run on cash to a company that uses bank financing. In order to show the bank the information it requires, we had to develop a budget that drives a cash flow report and a balance sheet to develop the financial ratio information the bank needs to see and to check ourselves to make sure we are meeting bank covenants. Pretty strange having a budget...we never had a rigid published budget before. My next big project is working on getting ISO certified in at least one of our locations. I have a funny feeling ISO will take a while. Word to your mother...see ya on the flip-side.........

Not too much to report lately. They got me for $500 for four tires, an alignment and oil change. I guess I am also losing a ball joint as well. I got in the can on Monday and the low tire light went on...I didn't even know that I had a low tire light. I thought that I sprung a flat but only needed to reset the monitor (this of course caused some chice words to come out of my moouth as I was driving down the road to work). Lisa,Shawn, Bev, Ted and I went to a new pizza joint last night called Capers Pizza Bar. They have a really nice bar but no liquor permits yet (pretty strange). The pizza was really good (we have been looking for a mom and pop joint for a while) We had a white pizza which just had a little garlic/olive oil and four cheeses and a traditional sausage and Mushroom Pizza. The white pizza was great!!! We also saw 8-mile over the weekend and it was better than I thought it would be. Gotta get to work. Word out........