Joel: I had to call him to get his info, I gotta 1099 him this year… can’t hide all that cash.

tesco: I’m sure he wasn’t too quick to answer knowing that call was coming…

Joel: Actually he answered right away, I was shocked:

IWDE: Dude, I can’t talk right now, I’m in the store and my (two year old) kid (daughter) is in the truck (running, unlocked in one of the worst neighborhoods), I’ll call you back in five minutes (after my kid is stolen along with my truck)

tesco: Nice excuse

Joel: Dude, he called back five minutes later! It wasn’t an excuse!

Now I’m no “Dad of the year” but for god’s sake, I would never leave my kid alone in my car even at the ages they are now, let alone at two. How hard is it to bring your kid in with you? I realize it’s no fun to have to cart around a bunch of kids and make a bunch of small stops. Joel has four of them and he still manages, I have two and granted, I can pretty much let them roam free in the WaWa now but there was a time that I had to monitor them. I remember when my oldest was three and I would have to stop, I would be carrying the youngest but I would tell the oldest that he could go to the candy isle as long as he kept talking to me as loud as he could. It was pretty funny actually, I don’t know how the other people in the store saw it, but I thought it was cute as hell – I would be at the coffee stand, holding the youngest, making coffee with one hand while the oldest was all, “Daddy, can I have gummy bears?” at the top of his lungs… I’d yell back, “Dude, no, they’ll tear out your tooth”… “aww, can I have, this, daddy?”… “buddy, I can’t see what this is…” “can I?”… “sure”… “are you still there, daddy?” “I said, sure!” “Daddy?”… “Yes, busta?”… “Can I have gummy bears?”… “only if you get me a bag too”

Hey, it worked and it made a few people laugh anyway. That’s always a good thing. Other mommys think that’s pretty hot.

where was I?

Oh yeah, at the risk of sounding like a gay ass “Daddy Blogger“, I love thinking back to that time, when my kids liked me. Back when my oldest would ask to go to the grocery store with me and I would say yes- because the most he would ask for would be a 99 cent Matchbox car. I remember once when he was around four, we were arguing about what cereal to get:

tesco: That’s nothing but sugar, dude. No. You can’t get it.

busta: But we need cereal, dad

tesco: I’m aware of that, just not that one

busta: but it says it’s good on the cover

tesco: wha’d I say?

busta: how about this?

tesco: are you serious? Let me pick it out.

busta: then it won’t be good

tesco: Dude, I always get good cereal, you don’t know what you’re talking about

busta: Mom always lets me pick

tesco: do I look like mom to you?

busta: Mom is pretty

tesco: …

tesco: why am I arguing with a three year old?

busta: I’m four, dad.

tesco: …

tesco: just pick a cereal.

Wait, what was I saying? I miss those days? Little always won the arguments!

Yesterday I couldn’t wait to get home. I didn’t sleep very well the night before and I was wiped out from from tossing ductwork around all day so when my friend called and asked if I could help him on a job this morning I wasn’t too stoked. He then mentioned that it would only take about four hours and it was worth $400. Yeah. I got up all bright and early this morning, made some coffee, had some smokes, around online for a bit, took a shower and headed off to meet this dude. By eight o’clock I was sitting at the Wa waiting. I called him and asked him where the job was because I was getting impatient. By the time I got to the job he was pulling in behind me. We parked, got out and bullshitted a bit about how easy the job will be while we finished our coffees.

He called the customer to let him know we were outside the condos and would be up soon. We gathered the tools we would need to remove the existing the heater, went to the door and hit the buzz-up. Dude buzzed us in and we walked up three flights of stairs to get to the condo we were working in. As we got to the third landing the door to the condo was opening -the customer, a seventy year old man was standing in the doorway pulling on his shorts! We both instantly turned around as the old dude finished covering up his gray haired giant old man balls – What. The. Dude, the last thing I ever wanted to see, especially at eight thirty in the morning is some nasty old man’s balls!

Thankfully the guy left to go to the diner ten minutes after we got in there, which was good because that was about as long as I could hold my laughter.

I’m gonna have to consider this another major downside!

It’s one of those days again. Probably one of those couple days.

Actually, I have a friend, who’s name I’m not gonna mention, who totally with me last night. I was finishing up a job around 4:30, cleaning up and bringing my tools out. Since I dumped the business it’s not really necessary to have my phone on me all the time so I leave it in the Jeep. So I come out with the first load of tools and noticed I missed a call from him- no big deal because I’m pretty much known for blowing people off and never returning phone calls, this dude is no exception… as a matter of fact, I avoid him like organized sports. I come back out again with the final load of tools and notice that he not only called three more times but he also texted me and left a voice mail. I figured there must be something really wrong so I checked the text: “Dude very important call me“. That’s not quite enough for me to worry so I checked my voicemail, four messages all basically the same as the text only getting a little more desperate each time. I call him right back –voicemail. This is the thing, I don’t answer my phone -I have a very special hate for the human race and my friends are no exception… so when I call, you know it must be important. I waited a good five seconds and called back –voicemail. Now I’m worried.

I thought back to the last time something like this happened: I’m not a million, if you call me at 11pm, that’s fully acceptable to me. If you call me at 2am? I’m gonna assume something is wrong. My wife and I were like pornstars lying in bed half asleep one early morning when the phone rang, I was all, “what the? it’s 2am!” I run downstairs and grab the phone just as it stopped ringing -I immediately call him back –voicemail. I waited a good five seconds and called back –voicemail. I come to find out after the whole next day past when he finally called back that he needed me to settle an argument he was having at the bar about what the cuts are in a t-bone steak.

Even considering that stupidness, I was still pretty concerned this time. I called back a few more times and left a text. Two hours later he calls me back: “Sorry dude, the baby puked on my phone so I switched the sim to my girl’s phone but her ringer doesn’t work.” See what I deal with? I tell him that I was worried and asked what happened. He proceeded to tell me that some ex-con that just got out came to the bar where his girl works telling her he’s looking for him because he nailed his girl Gigi 4 years ago. Gigi is apparently a bartender at Cheerleaders. I was all, “Dude, I gotta go.“

Like I said, a very special hate.

And by the way, while I’m at it, this tune fully rules.

can’t. stop. listening.

I never got into the whole flannel thing. Of course, I was 21 at the time and although I hadn’t “grown up” I was still about the clean look of the Rude Boys and the Skins – there was no way I was gonna be seen with a flannel tied around my waist looking like I hadn’t showered in months. I did, however, get into the Seattle sound pretty heavy. It was nice to hear bands using their guitars again and even more to hear it on job site radios. It was a good time for music back then and I jumped all over it. Between Grunge and Industrial I didn’t think music could get any better. What I didn’t expect was the two bands I loved the most from the Seattle scene, Nirvana and Alice in Chains to go to complete shit in a matter of a year and for Trent Reznor to leave Wax Trax and create the worst band in Industrial history, Nine Inch Nails. Grunge became Pop, Industrial became Goth, then Goth became Pop, not too sure what happened to the original Goth…, it’s no wonder that by the time the new millennium hit I wasn’t about to give any new bands a chance. If it wasn’t for Tool, Radiohead, Helmet and all phases of Drive Like Jehu the end of the nineties would’ve been a wash.

Sorry, I’m kind of all over the place with this. Funny how my head works… like being distracted by the fact that my wife and I both described our most loved encounter with each other last night; ends up we both described the same night. It’s almost like we were meant for each other -either that or we just don’t often have good things to do….

That smile.

I love that smile. It’s the warmest feeling ever.

The construction industry is full of people just like me. The trades are a great place for those of us who let all the important years slip by and if you end up good at what you do, you’re gonna end up making a lot of money. The mechanical trades have the most knowledgeable of all the trades. We not only need to know what we’re there to do, in my case, heating and cooling, we also need to know plumbing, signal/control wiring and electrical theory as well as all the building and structural standards. Needless to say, only the smart ones are truly gonna “make it” in this end of the business. I can tell just talking to a mechanic how serious he takes what he does -and if he’s talking like he’s there for the 40 hour paycheck, I lose all respect for him no matter what he knows. There are so many mechanics that run like that, makes me insane. So the few mechanics I do like, I have mega respect for.

Ok, got all that?

I was doing a commercial steam boiler replacement in town last week. I love jobs like that because it’s non stop heavy work, by the end of the day you really feel like you’ve accomplished something, ya know? Anyway, there’s a guy that helps us out every now and then. He’s been in the business about seven years or so and he works for a commercial service company. I used to work with him briefly at an oil company a little while back where I was helping him with understanding water and steam heating. Since then I’ve seen him here and there on side work when his company is slow. He was helping us on this boiler and I’m not sure why it took me more than half the day to notice that he was wearing an old school Social Distortion shirt. I was all, “Yo, you dig Social Distortion?” Ends up he and his wife grew up in the nineties Philly Punk scene. All the times I’ve worked with this dude and I never knew that. Our common friend was about Heavy Metal growing up so I always just kinda figured he was from that scene. We ended up talking for the next hour about the differences between the eighties and nineties Punk scenes and how the Skins went to shit in the nineties with all the Nazi bullshit. It was cool to hear someone from that scene agree with me that there hasn’t been a real Skin in Philly since 1986 and how the end of the nineties brought the entire Punk scene from a group of individuals to just another mall scene. It was good, I never talked to this dude about anything more than business up to this point. Cool how things work out.

I started my blog back in 2004 with the hopes of running into some old Punks from the scene I grew up in. I never thought to just look around me… where else would they be?

Operation Ivy – Knowledge

When this album came out, back in ‘89 we played it so much, I think the stylus cut right through it. To be 19 again.

oldest: Dad, our TV just went to a black screen with little letters on it and classical music started playing!

tesco: I know this sounds crazy, but isn’t it 10:00?

oldest: (unphased by my question) I checked every channel, it’s all the same…

tesco: What the hell are you talking about?

oldest: Dude, you have to see it! Come up!

I closed all my emails, cleared my history (just to be safe) and went upstairs with the boys. Sure enough, the kid was right. The screen had what appeared to be DOS commands on it while Mozart was playing through the speakers. I went through the channels and nothing changed. I switched to “video” and blue-screen came up.

tesco: well, I guess you’re gonna be sleeping to classical music

youngest: We better sleep downstairs

oldest: We can’t, it’s a school night -dad, what are you gonna do? We need TV to sleep!

tesco: Are you serious? (suddenly sounding very old) I never had a damn TV in my room and even if I did, it wouldn’t be on at night!

oldest: …

youngest: …

oldest: Can we use your TV?

tesco: What? Did you hear what I just said? I can’t believe this is an issue!

youngest: Dad, we need TV to sleep.

That’s when it dawned on me, they do need TV to sleep and it’s all our fault! They’ve had a TV in their room since they were babies simply because neither my wife, nor I did. Now I have to come up with something if I expect them to sleep! I quickly grabbed my DVD player from my room, hooked it up, grabbed a DVD from their collection and within a half hour, they were asleep.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because due to the immediate need for a TV in their room, they inherited ours and tesco got his LCD, HDTV in his room now.