Somedays, I miss blogging for the sake of it.  I mean, I do it now, but there was a time that I had one blog for ALL the people that knew me, where I had to watch my mouth (and my step), one for all the funny people that DIDN’T know me (in real life) and one that NOBODY read (shhh, it’s a secret!).

On those days, it didn’t matter what I felt like writing, I could just write whatever I wanted.  I could post pictures of my cute kids on the one, I could write something about farts and sex on the other and I could write about my wife’s shithead siblings on the other.

Now there’s just this one, and the expanding freedom I’m feeling with it only comes from the fact that nobody reads it.  Which makes me sad, of sorts.  And happy, of sorts.

I do wonder what people think when they stop by, like folks from the ToyNerd forums, or SwordNerds, or WritingNerds, or IT Nerds (why do I only know nerds?!), but then I remember that most of them probably already have a fairly skewed picture of me anyway.  Writing about toys, or books, or spiritual things like clouds, or angry things like Jo’s fuckhead family all off in Melbourne this weekend further cutting her out of their lives, none of it means that anybody will like me any more, or any less.

They may a bit more… informed, but it’s not like it’s anything I wouldn’t tell them were they to ask.  But really, nobody does.

Sometimes, I like to just flex the writing muscle a bit, but then I look at the clock and realise it’s 4:43 PM and I started writing at 4:23 PM.  It took probably 2-3 minutes to write this, and 17-18 to push the toddler on his swing, deal with a naughty 10-yo (the slightly autistic one), help the 5-yo blow up a flat soccer ball and shake out a tarp full of redbacks so that the kids can more freely wander this, our tiny and shitty front yard.

Maybe I oughta switch to being a photographer instead of a writer.  Then I could just walk around with my camera around my neck and I wouldn’t have to stop taking photos while keeping the tot from eating yet another one of my wrenches.

Today is Wednesday.  That’s really only notable in that we all thought it was Thursday, because Thursday is Bin Day and our bins are proudly out front of our house, patiently waiting to be emptied.  Georgia dutifully emptied all the bins into them last night, the nappy bucket and a few assorted plastic food containers that were partially forgotten in the back of the fridge.  None of us thought to check the day.

It always amuses me that the recycling bin only gets picked up every other week, and the regular rubbish gets it every week.  This is amusing only if you look at our bins on pickup day, as the recycling is overflowing and the rubbish bin is half full.  A 2-to-1 ratio isn’t bad.  Go Hippies!

Boo and I are back at the little playground and it’s another beautiful sunny day.  This time, the sun only has to fight with a few clouds, but the warmth is a mixture of sun-baking dry and did rain/gonna rain humidity.  The ‘bowl’ of the park is filled again and I fight the urge Every Single Time to chuck some fish in it and wait for them to get big enough to catch.  The fact that it’ll drain in a few days stops me, as does the idea of the egrets, ducks, and other assorted aviations around that would happily gobble my guppies.

Drew is happily stomping around in his slippershoes with a couple of slugtrails going down his upper lip.  He’s had a fever and a rotten mood intermittently all week.  Plus, he’s shat himself rather thoroughly the past two mornings, necessitating a bath on both.  Not this morning, but I’m keeping my eye on him.  He’s just climbed off me and while he was laughing I saw yet another huge bump in his gums.  When this kid teeths, he means it.  I actually have a hard time
imagining the relief I’ll feel when he’s done with all this.  Uffda.

I’ve found an app for the ABC News feeds.  I can watch video or listen online, which I’m doing now off whomever’s connection this is I’m hijacking.  Bless those that don’t secure their wireless.

After climbing on me intermittently during our half hour here, it occurs to me that he’s teething and I’m teething too.  Transitioning to something new in life, something permanent and necessary, something that’s going to bring good things and make a lot of things much easier, something that could even be called necessary for survival, is never easy.  It’s just like teething.  You get peripheral issues like explosive shats and a fever, sometimes just a badmother of a mood, but it’s almost always painful in some way.

No matter the shit you go through though, something good will come of it in the end.  I’m intensely curious to see what that will be.

Kids’re all in high spirits this morning, and I never quite know when or why this will happen.  But I’ll take it.  I’ll take it, and let’s see what I can do with it.

While the older two have to go to their court-appointed visitation (that they hate) every fortnight (because they had better lawyers) at his parents (because he can’t look after them on his own) we occasionally partake in as much of a non-kiddifying as we can, and Jade gets to go to Nanny & Poppy’s by herself.

They love it because she’s possessing of a magical energy that seems to infuse everybody’s life that she touches, and she loves it because, “They let me do what I want Daddy, whatever I want to do!”

Thankfully, they were lucky enough to get in on some more Jade Art, and we were lucky enough to get some of it home with her.  Enjoy.

This is a little monster girl who spreads love.  Even though she’s a monster, she’s still pretty, and she fills the air with love.

Yes, yes she does.  When I think, “Little Monster Girl” I certainly think about the air filling with love, instead of terrified shrieks and the sound of feet running away.

Jade with a little baby rabbit.  You’ll notice it’s a baby since it’s wearing a nappy.  That blob is all the love between the two of them.  It’s filled with made-up words, but really they’re just there because the love is so big.

I don’t have the heart to explain to her how you wouldn’t need a nappy for a little baby rabbit.  Mostly because that’d just lead into questions about her brother’s own continence and his tendency to produce quite rabbit-like results when we use a certain brand of formula.  She’d possibly tie that together with that time that we were out at the shops and I’d forgotten the nappy bag, and had just dumped the nappy’s contents in the toilet, wiped at the tiny smudge that was in there and then stuck it back on his little butt.

She doesn’t need to know about that one just yet.

This is a Bad King and a Bad Queen.  They’re sitting around thinking about badness and the heart that is in their life says, “Sad Luv”.  The queen’s wearing a beautiful dress, but on it is a decoration of a puppy in a cage.

That, I must confess, is one badass bitch.  I’ve seen “Miss Bitchy” on people’s bumper stickers before, but I can only imagine the amount of weeing I’d do down my leg if I came across a mean-ass Queen with a gorgeous hand-embroidered gown with a puppy in prison emblazoned on it.  “Sad Luv”?  Beautifully more poetic than “Don’t F*ck With Me”, fo’ sho’.

This is… all the love.  All the love that you see and feel around you.  It’s simple really.

For as frightening as the last one was, this one makes up for it.  It’s all the love.  Simple really.

One helluva love too.  Couple of ’em.  They’re friggin’ HUGE.

This is mum changing Drew’s poopy nappy.  It stinks and is filling the air.  Jade is holding her nose because of the stink.

This one had me giggling like an idiot.  Oh sure, there’s still an incredible eye for detail, like the picture of the baby in a nappy on the side of the thing because it’s one of those giant plastic koala change tables that they have in the mall (like the one where I found Drew’s rabbit poo), but this one has all the subtleties that make me think she’s bound to be a cartoonist.  Notice that while mum and Drew are wearing the hallmark Cheesy Smile that runs rampant in children’ drawings, Jade’s mouth is saying far more than words.  Look at that expression.  Nose-plugged.  Standing there putting up with it.  She is non-plussed and there’s no question about it.

This is Georgia and Jade in their room.  Georgia is changing Fruit Stripe Zebra’s nappy (stuffed toy named after the gum) and there’s a guinea pig on the desk in a cage and we got him from the pet store.  Georgia is on the floor like that because she’s fed up.  There’s still love in the air though, and on the right is the girls’ lovely bunk beds and Jade is near the bed doing lovely magic tricks and putting bubbles on the wall.

This one is terribly sweet, with a guinea pig that she clearly is wanting terribly and a beautiful representation of their room.  It has the trademark Love filling the air (sensing a trend here) and there’s that baby rabbit again (in a nappy, that’s how we know he’s a baby).  My favourite bit though, without question, is the fact that Georgia is changing a stuffed toy’s nappy next to a giant butterfly and neither of them are having a very good time.  They’re both clearly fed-up.  It’s evident and it’s awesome.

——–

That’s it, for now.  And once again please recognise that if I were to put up every picture, I’d have time for little else, even changing a rabbit’s nappy.

A long overdue photo/video roundup from the last few months or so.

My Boo’s 1st birthday party.  Well, party insofar as we all sat around eating food, drinking things and eating cake before the Booster unwrapped his Granbo Gift.

“Holy Toys of Awesome Batman!  This time the toy is actually BETTER than the box!  For now…”

“Toldjoo.  AWESOME.  Sanks Granbo!”

Putting him back in his chair, after some mild eatingtons, even for a birthday cake, wasn’t particularly appreciated.  This… is your 1-year old turning one.  A smile would frickin’ kill him, I’m sure.  ONE smile son?

Ah well.  Jadey is apparently trying to make up for the lack of smile by putting 3 into hers.  George throws in her usual modelesque 1000-watt smile and my biggest boy is his usual, calm-cool-collected and handsome self.

WHOA, there we go!  Happy First Bithday my beautiful Baby Boy Boo.

My girls helping me with dinner.  For as much work as she is trying to get her to bathe properly, not disrobe and throw clothes everywhere, and sweep up properly when spilling Cheerios everywhere, Georgia is developing some real skills in the kitchen.  We’re not talking Masterchef Junior or anything, but by the time she’s a teenager I reckon she’ll be quite proficient with food.  And then I retire.  Heh.

I’m pretty sure Jade’s just in it for the hat, but I suppose she’s also developing a real culinary skillset.  She can already list all the ingredients in pancakes which, at 5, is pretty impressive.

Coquettish.  Stylish.  Glamour hidden just beneath the surface.

And there it is.  You can’t keep that much awesome inside for too long.

My boy being random around the house.  This is a daily, nay hourly, occurrence.  I forget exactly what he was telling me, but clearly it began with him getting an idea.  I love that he’s so genuinely entertaining every single day.

School Assemblies are usually quite the affair.  The oldest’s class did this one and he got to do the major speaking parts because he’s an excellent, excellent public speaker.  Already.  At 11.  Friggin’ awesome.  Same assembly and his littlest sister got an Honour Certficate, which brought about more Camera Awesome for her, but I was too far away to get anything good of her brother with my phone.

Dorky, half-saying-something-to-dad, smile. One of my favourites. I’m fond of telling people that I’ve been caught mid-sentence enough times that, for the longest time, I thought I really didn’t photograph well. And by “didn’t photograph well” I mean, “I look like a retarded gorilla in mid-orgasm”. Thankfully, by the grace of all that’s holy, my child is still incredibly cute.

Sort of. She’s also mildly creepy, but I find her incredibly adorable still.

There we go, her listening face. Clearly the teacher can elicit some semblance of normalcy. Ah well, damn proud of her for being good at whatever they’re handing out certificates for this week. Their school doesn’t particularly take Honour Certs very seriously, particularly since my oldest got one because he hadn’t gotten one all term and he rock-paper-scissored for it, but she feels special and I reckon that’s the point.

I’m slowing rebuilding my G.I. Joe collection from childhood while also building upon my grown-up collection as well by winning cheap auctions in the US (cos the shit’s too spendy here) and getting them shipping to Granbo’s house. She then boxes it all up like a champion and sends it over in one hit. Granbo Boxes are similar to Christmas except that there’s far less stress and stupidly huge amounts of awesome involved. Me and Damon LOVE when we get a Granbo box in. His collection is still mostly my castoffs, but he helps me test out all of my new toys to break ’em in. Such a good lad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdUiVHTfiLo

This is the Boo at the shops. He simply cannot stop dancing. Ever. He’s the dancingest child I’ve ever been around. If there’s a beat, and frequently if there’s not, he’s dancing. It’s good, good fun. Here’s the link in case you can’t see the above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdUiVHTfiLo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF9PlUg6A0M

And here’s another video I made right here on this ASUS Transformer Awesometastic Tablet of Awesome. It’s a tablet, or slate, or iPad if you don’t care about branding, and it’s friggin’ awesome. Why is it so awesome? Because it comes with a docking platform that gives you a million hours of battery more and a KICKASS LITTLE KEYBOARD.

The only thing stopping me from loving on tablets and iPads and such was that I love keyboards. Well this one has that sorted! My birthday pressie, that I got early because of Father’s Day and because my wife is so fkn awesome that they should name ships and aircraft after her, and I love it more than any piece of tech I’ve ever owned or seen or played with that was somebody else’s. It’s transformed my life.*

*See what I did there? ASUS Transformer… SHOOSH, I’m funny.

That’s it for now, yay pictures and video! Now send me yours, I want to see what’s happening visually in your life.

I’m posting this picture of him to set the tone.  You see, this is more than just my baby.  He’s… I don’t know how else to say it, but he’s magical.

He’s wonderful and one of the best things that could ever happen to anybody.  He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s interactive and sweet.  He barely, if ever, cries.  No shit.  I’ve heard him cry about once that I can remember.  It’s not that things don’t bother him, they do, but he yells at them or about them and then me or mummy sort them out.  Why cry?  There’s simply no need.

He’s 6 months old now.  Well, nearly, and he’s got two little teeth in the front.  He’s eating solid foods every day now and its better at it every meal.

But you see, his grandparents know nothing of this.

There could be lots of reasons for that.  I’ll get there, don’t worry.

His grandparents live 12 blocks away.  In the same suburb.

They’re not invalids.  They’re not immobile.  They’re not being kept away from him.  They’ve got their own transportation and means.  Neither of them have highly communicable diseases, nor do they hate children.  You see, they’ve had my older 3 children over many times.

In fact, they’ve requested to have the older kids over this weekend.

******

Almost a year ago, my wife and her mother had a “falling out”.  The details are too detailed, so I won’t detail them here.  Suffice to say that there comes a point in a person’s life that they have just had a gutful and they’re not going to take any more, so they don’t.

They haven’t spoken since.

My father-in-law, who is really my wife’s step-father, has approached me at my kids’ school.  We both teach kids how to play chess, and he’s done his hapless farmboy dance before, telling me he doesn’t know what’s up with them crazy womenfolk but he sure misses his grandchildren.

And I do, actually, consider them his grandchildren.  He loves them and they love him, that’s been enough for me.

So, he approached me.  I said, “Well fucking DO something.  Make it clear that the children are a priority.”  So he did.  He asked if they could have them over, made it clear that they missed them.  That was enough.  I sent the older 3 children and they had a great time.

Then my youngest was born.  Things got… weird again.  Briefly.  The older kids’ visits to Nanny & Poppy’s got more frequent and we settled into a comfortable zone.  Wife put aside a lot of the bullshit that gets in the way and offered up an olive branch.  Through me, she asked them if they’d like to have the baby for a few hours.

Nothing heavy, nothing too difficult.  Just a few hours on a weekday so they could experience that beautiful boy.  So they could hear him laugh.  Smell his hair.  Watch the way he watches people’s faces and the way he shapes his mouth when he says, “booooo…”

I rang and said, “Awesome, let’s do it!  One stipulation, keep Teddy away from him.”

Teddy is their Labradoodle (and I can’t believe I’m even writing that word, it’s too goddam funny) and he comes from a difficult background.  To say he is uncouth is too kind.  He’s obnoxious as hell.  He’s a fairly big dog (think proper poodle-sized and Labrador) and he’s ill-mannered.  He jumps on people.  His claws scratch.  He’s hard to control.

I can’t even dream up an alternate universe where a request to keep the ill-mannered dog away from a (then) 4-month old baby while he visits for a few hours.  I didn’t ask for the dog to be tied up.  I didn’t ask for him to be locked away in a closet.  I just asked that they keep him away from my baby, my helpless baby.

And the message I got back was, “Well, I think we’ll leave it for now.”

They didn’t want him.

If it meant that they had to alter their dog-heavy lifestyle, then they weren’t interested.

Well, needless to say, shit blew up.  Wife got mad and texted her stepdad.  I sent emails that went unanswered.  We heard from other family folk that I was perceived as “aggressive”.

So, I wrote a succinct email.  Nothing aggressive, but still pointed.  I told them that they chose a dog… a F*CKING DOG (I didn’t say that part that way) over their beautiful baby grandson.

No reply.

A month passed.  Then a bit.

No reply.

Yesterday, a text asking to have the kids over.  The “older” kids, I assume.

I am drafting an email explaining the fuckery of all of this, but I’m having a hard time with where to go with all of this.  I have no desire to keep the older kids from enjoying their grandparents.  I never want to stand in the way of their relationship, but how do I reconcile people who have such obviously fucked-up values wanting to spend time around some of my kids, but not my baby?

I tell you what.  I look at that picture above, and I can’t think of a thing on this planet that I wouldn’t do to spend time with him if he was my grandchild.

Maybe that’s just me.

About 4 years ago, the gears of the Corporate Machine finally ground me down.  I’d had enough, and I said “f*ck this,  and f*ck you too” to not just my boss, but an entire way of life.

It just wasn’t for me.

I was terrified though.  I had 3 kids, a brand-new baby girl, and a lovely wife at home (in a bloody rental) and I just couldn’t run around quitting cushy office jobs like that.

I’ll never forget what she told me though.

I was as close to showing signs of anxiety as I ever get, flustered and floundering about, when she held my chin in her hands, focused her intense green eyes into mine, and said, “Hey.  No matter what happens… we’re not gonna starve.”

That moment forever changed me and how I approach my business.  Because it was at that moment, that my business was officially born.

I loved Web Analytics.  I love the idea that you can have numbers that show you what people are doing on your website.  I love that you can find out how many people from New Zealand went straight to your “Contact” page from your home page during the month of March.  I love that shit.

But nobody wants it.

Or rather, nobody knows enough about what it is to know how much they need it.

People know that they need SEO though.

Well, they’ve been told that they do, by an industry of used snake-oil salesmen.

People know enough to Google “SEO” and see what comes up, so that’s what I did.  It was what people were looking for and it was something I was good at.  I figured, “Meh, it’ll pay the bills.”

And it did.  Poorly, but still.  I also had other time to build some cool Keyword and Competition tools, ROI trackers and Link Analysers, Rank Checkers and AdWords Reporters.  I also went to the park with kids a LOT.  And played guitar a LOT.

Now, there’s just too much bullshit.  I’m tired of it, and I never really liked it in the first place.

SO… I’m shutting it down.  My company is going on a hiatus, a holiday, a Paid Parental Leave, so that I can focus primarily on my soon-to-be-here beautiful baby boy… and how to revamp my company.

I’ve also got some other projects I’m going to be spending some time on.  I’m going to:

• Finish building Page Buoy, a website for writers to connect with other writers and be able to polish their works-in-progress while they’re still in progress.
• Build Have a Good Website, a website that’s just that, all about helping you to have a good website.  Tips and Tricks, advice from pros, everything from where to put your logo to how many characters you should have in your meta titles.
• Revamp this website.  I’m going to move pictures and family cuteness to another, very similar, website, and I’m going to focus on my novels and writeryauthorness here.
• Revamp my business website. As well as finish building all of my neat Web Analytics Reports so that you can log in, sign up, and have them sent right to you every week (mostly for FREE).  I’m building this in PHP/MySQL, with the Google Analtyics API, using a Windows-based program to take thumbnail screenshots, that then generates a PDF, which gets emailed to you on a scheduled CRON job.  Uffda!  That even makes my head hurt.
• Revamp my offshoot, Jex Solutions website. This one was a FAIL as I tried to get people to sign up and use all of the neat SEO Tools that I’d built.  People did, but they’re not me, and didn’t know how to use them.  That’s alright though, because I learned more from that colossal failure than I would’ve by some partial success.
• Help my good friend Patrick Dub-T with DollarDonation, a website that lets you donate a dollar to all kinds of charitable organisations.  We’re all kinds of stoked over this one.
• Revise and publish my first novel.  It’s ready, it’s just been resting.
• Finish my second novel. I’m just about halfway through it now.  Wait… okay, now.
• Oh, and clean up and organise my house while helping gorgeous lovely Wifeage look after Little Boy Blue and our 3 other yardapes.

So there’s a fair bit on my plate.  I think I’ll play lots of guitar in there too.

And watch some footy.

And drink some beer.

Wish me luck.

Since the very first one I experienced, this day has always meant something special to me.

My first, 5 years ago, was the first time I’d ever actually sat and hung out with family and friends without it being an occasion centred around somebody or something stressful (birthdays, New Year’s, etc).  Low-key and as laid-back as you can get, there was beer, barbecue and Australian Flag Tattoos a-plenty.

It may sound silly, but getting to adorn myself with “Australia” stuff meant more to me than the family probably realised.  It wasn’t ceremonial, nor really terribly symbolic, but I had a T-shirt and a ballcap (I love my hats) and then a flag tattoo pasted on my cheek, and I couldn’t have felt more patriotic than if someone had draped a flag across my shoulders and started singing “We are Australian”.

I sat there at a table full of the native-born (and a pom, if I do remember) in a neighbourhood heavily peopled with castoffs and refugees mostly from Africa and East Asia, and have never felt more welcome in a culture that isn’t natively mine.  On a day like this it doesn’t actually matter where you’re from originally, today we are all just happy to be here and we’re celebrating that fact together.

Today, we are all Australian.

Four years ago, on this day, I had one of the most important experiences of my entire life.  I got to bring my little girl home for the first time.  She was 2 days old and wife, having had a C-section, was advised to stay a bit longer, but being a trouper and a bit crazy she checked herself out and off we went.  It was a blisteringly hot day, 43 degrees if I remember correctly (that’s about 109 for you ‘Mericans), and we were cruising in our battered old Falcon, the X-mobile, in the heat of the day.

Wife sat in the back to keep an eye on our sleepy little baby girl, who looked like she’d wilted in the heat.  The aircon had broken, naturally, and we had all the windows down while I drive home as fast (and safe) as I could.  I’ve never been a fan of air-conditioning in my life, but that day our house was cranking it and it was the most wonderful thing that we could’ve felt.  Later that night we whispered into the newborn’s ear that all the fireworks were all for her.  Welcome to Life, my little Jadeybug.

The year after that was a hallmark as well.  My first Australia Day as an actual Australian… permanent resident.

I’m always of the  mind that we’ll take what we can get, so I was still pleased as punch to be able to say, without question, “I am here for good, so there’s actually no getting rid of me now!”  My family, once again, made me feel incredibly welcome and, once again, I knew I was home.

The following year and my body had rebelled against me yet again, giving me that pain-among-pains for a man, kidney stones.  I got ’em lasered (complete with the “peeow!  peeow!” noises) and was recovering on the Australia Day holiday.  By now my modest business was now making a modest income and keeping the bills paid and I had dental floss hanging out of the end of my doodle, connecting my J-stent to the outside world.  It was hard to walk, pee or laugh, but I managed to do all of those with the help of my awesome wife and family.

That year, my new home really showed me how welcome I was with about $30,000 worth of medical expenses that didn’t cost me a single cent.  I’d said “my pee squeezers hurt” and Australia said, “here’s some drugs, sandwiches and a bed, use them all liberally, we’ll look after you and it won’t cost a thing.”  At that point, I was undeniably an Australian.

Last year came and I was officially allowed to apply for citizenship.  The US now allows for dual-citizenship and I was all for it.  I knew the names of Prime Ministers, Famous Explorers, Sports Stars and Rock Legends.  I knew all the words to the National Anthem (though what the hell does “girt by sea” even mean?!?) and I even knew what an “over” was in the cricket.  I had a vague understanding of how Parliament works and I LOVE meat pies, lamingtons, vegemite and beer.

On this day 2 years ago, I cranked up Triple J’s Hottest 100, hoisted a stubby of VB, shooed a fly away from my face, swore something unintelligably and announced to the family, “I filled out my Citizenship Application online this morning!” to which they all replied, “YAY!”, to which I followed with, “and it costs $260 that I don’t have!” and they all said “Who cares!  You’re still an Aussie!” to which I drank my beer and struggled with some dust that got in my eyes.  Damn dust.

This year my modest business is still making a modest income, and that extra cash still eludes me for the “official” application, but I’ve never felt more Australian.

This day, to me, means that I get one special day a year to very laid-back and casually show my appreciation for some of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received: A new family, a new home, and a new country to call my own.

I raise my family, I run my business, I pay my taxes, I volunteer, and I participate.  When other Australians hurt, I hurt and try to heal, and when they celebrate, I celebrate too.  No matter where I’ve gone nor what I’ve done, I’ve never, ever, felt anything but welcome here.

Happy Australia Day everyone.  I don’t know about you, but I am proud to call myself Australian.