Chuck Suede Media Geek

Big Changes Coming Soon

2010-09-01T00:08:00.002-07:00

There is going to be be a big update and big changes coming soon to the Media Geek. Stay tuned.

There once was a blogger named Chuck, and it seemed like he just did'nt give a ....Whoa stop right there!

2009-11-24T17:19:00.002-08:00

Okay, It's been almost a year since I posted a blog post and I blame Facebook. It has made me lazy in my blogging. Facebook and Twitter, they are evil but I will continue to use them so you should expect my next blog post in 2013.

The biggest news this year is the arrival of Mr. Harrison Michael. He joined us two weeks early on Sept. 2nd 2009. Here's my little buddy.

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His big sister loves to put stickers on his head. And speaking of that big sister the lovely Ella turned 4 just over one month ago and had her first big girl birthday party.

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She even had real life little friends there this year. Not just Daddy, Mommy, Uncle Jon and Auntie Jane. It was quite the scene. Did I mention I was the only adult male there and was in charge of wrangling toddlers while the mommies chatted? I want a medal.

Of course it was just Halloween so we had to make our yearly trek out to Greenbluff so Elliott could go to the pumpkin patch for her birthday.

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She loved it as always.

For this year Elliott wanted to be a Fairy Princess so Morgan made her a costume again.

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Ella, insisted she was not a "Fairy Princess" but a "Butterfly Princess" after the costume was finished.

Harrison wore Ella's first Halloween costume and was our new little pumpkin.

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That's my smiley boy.

Well that's it for now, I 'll talk to you guys again in two years.

Now for the Geeky Goodness my favorite web video from this summer. "The Ballad of G.I Joe" Yo Joe!

Later,
CS

The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Olivia Wilde

2009-01-18T14:10:00.002-08:00

I hope everybody had a great holiday season. I certainly know that Elliott did.

Well I've been kind of lazy in the blogging department lately so I've decided to throw up a few videos to show you guys what we've been up to lately.

And for this post's geeky goodness, I leave you with the classic trailer for the cinematic masterpiece, "Night of the Lepus". Giant killer bunny rabbits, awesome! I actually watched this movie like 25 years ago on USA's Nightflight or some other cable show like that. Please to enjoy.

Later,
CS

"SNOW-MAGEDDON" or "SNOW-POKALYPSE II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO"

2008-12-21T17:26:00.013-08:00

Well it wasn't just us this time, Portland, Seattle and a lot of places in the Pac NW got hit too. You may remember at the start of 2008 Spokane got hit pretty hard and we dubbed it "Snow-pokalypse" around the newsroom. What's funny is we actually started referring to that event by that name on air when this latest storm hit. We even started asking viewers what we should call this new storm, one person suggested "SnObama".

The snow really started coming down Wednesday and didn't stop until Thursday night. Here's a picture of my grill in the backyard Friday morning.

I was able to get to work on Wednesday no problem, but got stuck coming home at midnight about 50 feet from the driveway. A co-worker and two neighbors who were outside helped me get the car unstuck. I had chains on but I still got stuck. The car stayed in the garage until Saturday. Here's what the road looked like before they plowed.

I got a ride in on Thursday morning and was told to take a news 4x4 rig home Thursday night. So driving in on Friday morning was no problem. It snowed again today, it's snowing now actually and is supposed to snow all week. I'm working dayside this week so getting to work will be interesting. Here's what the back yard looked like tonight.

I was helping out by shooting last week so I was running around shooting car slide offs, stuck semi's and setting up live shots.

Elliott loved it it was her own winter wonderland. She had a blast playing in the snow and making snow angels.

Now for media geek stuff. The trailer for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" came out this week, and it looks like it's going to kick butt. I think it's actually going to be better than any of the X-Men movies. Please to enjoy. Click here to see the trailer.

Later,
CS

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2008-12-07T18:12:00.005-08:00

We bought or Christmas tree today. It's the first one that we've had since before Elliott was born. Elliott watched as Morgan hung the lights.

Elliott really liked hanging the ornaments on the tree. She did a pretty good job too.

Well here's the final product. I think it turned out pretty good.

We all had a lot of fun and it was neat to christen our new home for the holidays by putting up our decorations. I love my girls.

Before I go I'll leave you with some more media geeky goodness again from those fellers over at funnyordie.com. This one actually has a message. Jack Black and a bunch of other famous people got together to speak out, in musical form, about the passing of Proposition 8 in California. Unfortunately it was conceived about 6 weeks too late. Please to enjoy.

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Later,
CS

History, Dragons & Turning 3

2008-11-05T15:38:00.014-08:00

Well that's pretty cool huh?

Yep It's about time we got some historical moments that didn't just suck. It seems like the majority of them in my lifetime, with the exception of the Berlin wall coming down, have been terrible moments in history. For example Watergate, the death of Elvis, the eruption of Mount St. Helen's, the death of John Lennon, Chernobyl, Iran/Contra, Libya, Desert Storm (twice), 9-11 and HAVING THE WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE PAST EIGHT YEARS!

Listening to President Elect Obama speak in Chicago last night gave me hope for this country and for my daughter's future. Now I just hope he can fix relations with Russia which Bush just launched into the crapper.

I should have been at the station last night working on election coverage but I missed out. I've been sick since Sunday and the Doc said I was contagious so I was forbidden to come into work. My boss didn't want me infecting the whole news room and getting everybody sick while we are in sweeps. So I stayed home and watched election coverage with Morgan and Elliott.

I know I said in my last post that it wasn't going to be long until I put up a new post, I lied. Sorry but I've been obsessed with taking inventory of my comic books with this new software that I got called Collectorz.com Comic Collectors 4.2

I have 3,332 comics. I'm a huge geek.

Elliott wanted to be a dragon for Halloween so Morgan made her this costume

It turned out really good huh?

Elliott really liked it and got tons of complements when she was out trick or treating. This was the first year that we took her and she couldn't wait. She was talking about it for weeks before Halloween rolled around.

Elliott's 3rd Birthday was on the 12th and we took her to the pumpkin patch because she loved it so much last year. She actually got on a pony and went for a ride, no way she would have done that last year. Heck she wouldn't even get on the carousel horse this summer.

After the pony ride Ella went over to the pumpkin patch and picked out her pumpkins. she had just as much fun as last year.

After the pumpkin patch we came back home and Jon and Jane came over for cake and to open presents, just like they have for all of her birthdays.

This was the first year that Elliott got a full sized cake, she just got cupcakes for her first two birthdays. This was also the first birthday that she sat in a regular sized chair at the table and not her high chair.

Morgan's sister Katy got Elliott these Oregon State Beavers pajamas. She loved them, as soon as Jon and Jane left, (Jon's a Ducks fan) she stripped off her clothes and put then on. She thought the beaver was a raccoon at first.

As I recently posted, we just bought a house about two months ago, and we're slowly but surely getting settled in so I decided to post some more pictures.

Here's our living room. I really like the big picture window and the hardwood floors, Elliott likes me to slide her around on the floor when she doesn't have her shoes on.

Here's Elliott's room, she loves it. It was already painted pink when we moved in.

She's got quite the Cat in the Hat/Dr. Seuss theme going on.

I love that we have both a deck and a patio. Also the back yard is pretty big.

I'll post some more later.

I'll leave you all with some Geeky Goodness. Do you ever wish those pesky 80's music videos would have just sung about all the crazy stuff that was actually going on in the video itself? No? Well neither have I, but somebody did and they re-dubbed a literal translation over the Tears for Fears video "Head over heals". Please to enjoy.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Later,
CS

Yesterday started out so nice

2008-10-12T17:18:00.008-07:00

Saturday we ran our regular weekly errands and did our shopping for the week. After we were done at Costco we noticed that they were giving hay rides at the place next to the Costco gas pumps. It was the Grand Opening of their new facility. Morgan remembered that they were having a petting zoo so we stopped by. Elliott really like that petting zoo. She feed a lama, pet a duck and brushed a pony.

Last year at this time she wouldn't have even had attempted to pet a pony. She would just wave an say "bye bye, bye bye". She even wanted to go in the pen with the draft horses that were like 8 feet tall. She's gotten really brave around farm animals now.

When we got home I was unloading the groceries in the garage and Morgan was getting Elliott some crackers with peanut butter on them for a snack. Elliott was in the living room by herself with the baby gates up when Morgan heard a thud, then Ella started crying. When Morgan got to the living room Elliott was running towards her just bawling. I came into the living room and saw there was blood, lots of blood. Elliott fell (we have no idea onto what, and she won't tell us) and busted her chin open. Morgan got the bleeding to stop and we all got in the car and went to the hospital just to be safe. As it turns out she needed stitches. Elliott's never really been hurt before. Not really, she's had scrapes and bruises and cuts, but nothing ever hospital worthy.

The people at the hospital were great and got her right into a room minutes after we walked through the door. Elliott was not happy. When they were washing of her chin with the saline solution and putting on the topical numbing medicine she cried and cried and then started saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sooo sorry mommy", my heart felt like it was going to break. Here's a picture of after they cleaned her up.

You can make out the blood stains on Morgan and Elliott's shirts.

When it came time to actually give her stitches I was banished from the room by Morgan because she knew it was going to be hell for me to see Elliott like that. Kids that age don't understand, "now hold still while I stitch your chin back together.", so they have to be held down by several people while some one sticks a needle in them then starts sewing them up with another needle and a thread. It's terrifying for a toddler. I could hear everything down the hall, no matter how muffled and my heart was breaking all over again. Finally after what seemed like forever they were down and Elliott had 4 stitches.

Thank God it wasn't anything more serious. I barley got through a minor cut on her chin getting patched up. I couldn't imagine if anything really bad happened. Actually I can and it wouldn't be good....I'd loose it.

Well today was Elliott's birthday and it went much better than yesterday. My little girl is now 3-years-old, I can't believe it. I'll post birthday pictures when I get them transferred over to the computer.

Later (but not much)
CS

Home Sweet Home

2008-09-07T20:16:00.006-07:00

Well I said that I should have an announcement to make this week and here it is, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! That's right I'm now a homeowner, complete with property taxes and mortgage payments.

We really like it. It has a huge backyard for Elliott to play in.

've got a lot of unpacking to do so I'm just going to leave you a flyer right now with the deets on the house. I've been moving for three days and every part of my body hurts and I'm exhausted.

Later,
CS

Lil' Dark Knight

2008-09-01T08:00:00.005-07:00

Happy Labor Day everybody. Quick update on the little boy who got hit (run over) by the car in front of our place. He's going to be Okay. I talked to his mom and he's got 6 broken ribs and had a lacerated kidney, but she said he's doing really well and is going to alright.

Well here it is labor day and I'm just getting ready to start my work day (I'm the only one here. Yay to me and here's to working on a holiday.) I should have some pretty exciting news either tomorrow or Wednesday, so stay posted.

I found this video while surfing around a few weeks ago. It's a shot by shot remake of the Dark Knight Trailer using little kid actors, aw so precious.

Take care polar bear,
CS

Tonight I almost had a heart attack

2008-08-21T20:56:00.004-07:00

Well not really but it's the most scared that I've ever been while doing my job. I've mentioned in previous posts that part of my job is to listen to the scanners to monitor for accidents, fires, and police activity. Well tonight just after the 6 o'clock news the scanners started going nuts by chirping out digital tones. That means a fire response and the more tones means the more urgent the call. After the tones the dispatcher came on and started deploying several fire trucks and an ambulance to my street right in front of my house for a report of an "auto pedestrian, child hit by a vehicle". My head snapped towards the the scanners and I stopped dead in my tracks. I reached for my cell phone and it started to ring, the caller ID showed it was Morgan. I started to panic as I flipped open the phone.

Me: "Are you Okay?!! Is Elliott Okay?!! Was it her?!!"

Morgan: (voice shaking) "We're fine! It wasn't her, it was the little boy across the street."

He was riding his big wheel across the street when he got hit by a car. He wasn't wearing a helmet and took a bumper to the head and was knocked to the ground. He was floating in and out of consciousness after it happened and when they took him to the hospital. I called dispatch later and they told me that he was conscious and crying when he arrived at the hospital, so hopefully he's going to be okay. I have to imagine that the woman who hit him wasn't going that fast because it's a residential street and she had a kid in the car with her. Plus it looked like she just turned onto the street when it happened.

Morgan made the 911 call, so that was her call that I heard the dispatcher reporting, and she immediately called me because she knew there was an excellent chance that I would hear it on the scanner and freak out. Which I did. It is one of my greatest fears that I'm going to be up here and hear something happen to Morgan or Elliott. I try not to think about it or it would drive me nuts. Morgan said that she gave Elliott an extra big hug from me tonight before she put her to bed.

I'm glad it looks like the little boy will be Okay. I'll keep you updated when I find out his condition.

I'm still coming down from all of the adrenaline.

Later,
CS

Vacation round up #5: Last one. The Best Damn Sandwich in The World

2008-08-16T15:06:00.009-07:00

Back in the year 2000 I was living on Kearney street in between NW 22nd and 21st. In the spring of that year a sandwich shop opened up next door and it's still there today, It's called Tribute's. It was originally called Richie B's but the name changed in 2001 (before 911, it's kinda of a long story and I'm not going to get into it), but it still has the same owner and all the same recipes.

I was one of the first, if not the very first customer the day the placed opened, I'd been walking by the coming soon sign in the window for months. My first order was a Philly Cheese Stake sandwich and it was love at first bite. I took the sandwich home to eat it and after I was finished I immediately walked back downstairs from my apartment and ordered another one. I thanked them over and over for opening up their shop in my neighborhood. I got pretty fat that year I lived in Portland, because I was eating there three or 4 times a week.

Tribute's Philly Cheese Stake is quite simply the best damn sandwich in the world. It is indeed a taste sensation stuffed with mushrooms and peppers. It also has this optional spicy sauce that just gives it a little kick and is delicious. If you have never had the pleasure of eating one of these scrumptious sandwiches get on a plane right now and get to Portland and eat one. You won't be sorry.

All the food at tributes is good. They've got a delicious sausage with peppers and onions sandwich and an eggplant (that's right I said eggplant) sandwich that just melts in your mouth, loaded with mozzarella cheese and homemade marinara sauce. They also added pizza by the slice, hot dogs and salads to there menu over the years, but since I don't get back to Portland very often I only order the Philly. If anyone I know is going to Portland, they must bring me back a Philly. I don't care if it's out of the way or inconvenient, I need my damned sandwich!

This is the owner Judy, she's there behind the counter just about every day, and is just about the nicest person you'll ever meet. She always recognizes me when I come through the door no matter how long it's been. I guess she should I practically lived at that place for over a year. Did I mention I got really fat around then? She's also always really delighted to see Morgan and Ella when we walk in, but then that pretty much goes without saying, most people are delighted to see those two lovely ladies.

Well I just want to say, thank you Judy. Thank you for opening Tribute's and introducing me to my favorite sandwich in the world, and thank you for making this vacation and all my other trips to Portland a culinary delight. Please don't ever close. But if you do give me the recipe. I promise not to sell it or open up my own restaurant. I'll just sit around and make Philly's all the time and get fat again.

Well that's it for the vacation posts. I'm going to be messing around with some of the blogger features for the site, so if you see something weird on site it's just me playing around and it may or may not stay. It all just depends on how I think it looks.

Later,
CS

Vacation round up #4: The Coast and Waterfalls

2008-08-10T16:26:00.005-07:00

We managed to get over to the Oregon Coast when we were on vacation. We went to Rockaway Beach and it was Elliott's first time ever seeing the ocean.

The day we got there the weather was perfect. It was just about the most perfect day I've ever seen on the Oregon Coast, and I lived on the coast for 4 years all through out high school. It was around 70 degrees, the sky was crystal blue and there was no wind at all.

Elliott loved it She splashed around forever in a little creek that runs into the Ocean. The water in the creek was much warmer than out in the surf.

She also got a kick out of making sand castles. She started right at it when we arrived and then continued when we got her bathing suit on her.

As is customary in any trip to the beach Elliott had to be buried in the sand. She really liked that.

She even tried to bury Morgan. She was covering her feet and right after I snapped this pic she dumped a shovel full of sand right on Morgan's crotch. In case you think Morgan's got some kinda crazy head gear going on there let me clue you in, she's wearing Elliott's little hoodie.

The day we left it was pretty standard Oregon Coast weather, kind of cold, cloudy, a little drizzly and a bit windy. Here's Elliott about to take her last walk on the beach when Morgan mentioned something about a cookie and she stopped dead in her tracks, turned around and said "Oh! Cookie!".

When we were sitting on the beach a helicopter flew by. Elliott threw her arms up in the air and said, "Oh! A helicopter! I catch it daddy" and started running down the beach after it.

When we left for Portland we stopped in Tillamook and visited the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We toured the Factory, got some free samples and then got some ice cream. Elliott was very impressed with all the cheese when she watched them packaging it up on the plant floor.

Then we went to the Blue Heron French Cheese Company. They have goats that you can feed, so we got Elliott a bag of goat food and watched the good times roll. She had a blast and couldn't stop laughing when they got next to her and took the food out of her hand.

Don't worry, I didn't try to give beer to any of the goats. Not even this one, even though he looks like he could use one.

When we left Portland for Spokane we stopped by Multnomah Falls to show Elliott the waterfall.

Morgan said I was weirding people out when I was pointing up to the falls and telling Elliott about a truck sized boulder that crashed down injuring a bunch of people on the bridge including a wedding party. What can I say, I full of all kinds of useless knowledge.

Well that's it for vacation pix this edition. As for media stuff, Our news department is broadcasting entirely in High Definition now, so that's pretty cool. And am I the only one who just doesn't care about the Olympics? I must have been Inoculated for Olympic Fever.

Later,
CS

Vacation round up #3: The Cohus

2008-08-04T13:37:00.007-07:00

My uncle Tandy and my aunt Diane have always been like an additional set of parents to me. Even before I went to live with my grandparents when I was 13, they were always a huge part of my life. We always went on trips together and spent holidays together. Their daughters Brandy and Heather were always more like sisters to me than cousins. I was always hanging out over at there house. Heck, Diane and Tandy were first on the scene to help when I broke my leg when I was 12. At first they didn't believe that I broke my leg in two places and was in excruciating pain. They thought I was faking, but eventually they finally believed that I required immediate medical attention and called for an ambulance.

Here's a pic of the Cohu Clan circa 1993 at my grandparents house in Otis Oregon.

Left to right that's Heather, Christian (he starts his second year of high school this year. Yikes!), Diane and Tandy.

I haven't seen them since just after Elliott was born, they live just outside Sheridan Oregon, which is about halfway between Portland and the coast. When we were on vacation we drove over to Sheridan for a visit.

I guess they told me that they moved from McMinnville Oregon and bought a farm out near Sheridan about 4 years ago, but I must have blocked it out or just not believed them or something. I mean we've never been farm people, not since my grandpa was a little boy anyway. Well sure enough they bought a 20 acre farm and are raising cows. I think they're dairy cows, for some reason I didn't ask. They both still have their full time gigs, my uncle works in construction an my aunt does the books for a dairy I think. Their place is really cool and Elliott loved it.

She really liked getting to see the little orphaned calf named Annie that Tandy fed milk to out of a bucket that had a nipple attached to it.

Tandy even let Elliott get a little ride from Annie. Very little she pretty much just sat on her for about 2 seconds before Annie was like "I'm out of here" and took off to rejoin the other cows. That's Heather's son next to Annie too. I can't tell from this angle and with the hat over his face if it's Devon or Braden. The boys were ultra nice to Elliott. They didn't mind her following them around, they even watched Sponge Bob (her new favorite) with her.

Tandy grilled up some burgers just like old times and we all had lunch. Elliott was a big fan of the cookies as per usual.

Here I am with Uncle Tandy.

And Aunt Diane.

And Cousin Heather. My cousin Brandy lives in Grandview Washington, where we grew up, so she wasn't there.

Tandy (well everyone really) was impressed with Elliott. It's funny Tandy had two daughters and no sons, and they both had two sons each and no daughters. So I really had to watch Elliott around Heather so she didn't run off with her and keep her.

Well it was great to see them all again, I hope it's not another 2 and half years until we all get together again.

Well I can't think of any Media stuff to post about right now. Maybe I'll have something tomorrow when I post about our vacation time that we spent on the beach.

Later,

Vacation round up #2: Brewfest

2008-08-03T16:02:00.004-07:00

Last Friday Morgan's sister Katie took us to the 21st Annual Oregon Brewers Festival while grandma and grandpa Bird babysat for little Elliott. It takes place right along the riverfront and is huge. It must have really boomed in recent years because I remember walking by it back in 2000 when it was taking place at Pioneer Square and I really wasn't that impressed. But now it's crazy, there must have been at least 6000 people there.

Morgan and I partook in plenty of fine beverages laden with hoppy goodness. Then there were some that weren't so fine, like the one that tasted like chai tea. Whatever brew master that came up with that crap needs to give his license to be a man back, the girls really liked it so there ya go.

The Brewfest stopped serving at 9pm (so you don't have 6000 people drinking until 2am in the heart of downtown Portland) so we went to a bar down the way with Katie, her husband, and a couple of her friends. We went to this place called The Rock Bottom Brewery and all I have to say is, not my scene, not my scene, not my scene. The place is a chain restaurant and it's like Applebees had sex with T.G.I Fridays and this was their alcoholic bastard love child. I tend to like my bars looking like bars, a little on the divey side preferably, by no means a dump, just a place that actually looks like a bar, not a family style restaurant. We walked in and the place was packed and there was this band playing, we'll I guess you could say they were playing. They looked like a bunch of pretty boy models out of a Gap ad and they were completely butchering the Doors song Love Me Two Times. I'd later come to find out (about 10 minutes ago) that the chai beer at the beerfest was a concoction made by this brewery, had I known that at the time I might never have even walked through the door.

We got a booth but it barley fit the 6 of us and Morgan and I both had a friend coming to join us. So Morgan and I decided to leave and head over to one of our favorite Portland haunts, a pool hall called The Rialto. Our friends Virgina and Marshal joined us there for drinks.

It was great to see Marshal. I haven't seen him in years. We used to work together at the first television station that I worked at in Medford and we were roommates when he first moved to Portland back in 2001.

Marshal sometimes makes short films with Alden, another former co-worker from my Medford days. You can check them out on the NealHam website.

We all just hung out talking and catching up for a while and at the end of the night Morgan and I hopped a cab back to her folks' place. It's much easier to get a cab in Portland than it is in Spokane. So we had a really fun time, except for that God awful band and that God awful Chai tea beer.

Later,
CS

Vacation round up #1: Sam Klemke

2008-08-01T17:39:00.009-07:00

Here it is Friday and I'm on my last official day of vacation, back to the old grind on Monday. We did so much stuff on vacation that I'm going to break it down over a few blog posts.

Last Friday Morgan's mom wanted to take Elliott to the Washington County Fair in Hillsboro so she could see the animals. I didn't really feel like going because I try to stay away from Carnies, I usually end up in some kind of a verbal tête à tête with them when they try and get me to play knock down the milk bottles or throw rings in their rigged games, but I went anyway. I'm glad I did, because as we were about to leave I glanced over my shoulder and saw some caricatures hanging in a booth, I knew who the artist was before I even saw him sitting there eating his lunch, Sam Klemke.

I've Known Sam for about 11 years but through every fault of my own I've lost touch over the years. Sam's a great guy he's a cartoonist, caricaturist, movie and comic buff, Renaissance man, Filmmaker and Bon Vivant. I met Sam in Medford at the Rogue Valley Mall of all places. We started talking and quickly struck up a friendship and mutual admiration. Sam and I can always geek out talking about comics, music, movies and life in general. I came back later and showed him a picture of my dad (who passed when I was 10) and he did a great drawing of me fishing with my dad who had little angel wings, I gave it to my grandmother and she loved it.

I walked up to Sam at the fair and he was completely shocked to see me. I introduced him to Morgan, her mom and Elliott.

He insisted on doing a caricature of Elliott. She wasn't too cooperative but he was able to do a great drawing.

I'm just glad Morgan or her mom didn't ask him "So how long have you been doing this?", inside joke. He also gave me a copy of his book, it's a collection of autobiographical comics that he's been drawing through out the years. It's called "Party of 1" and is available at his website, I've linked it in my "Chuck's Peeps" category. You can also check out a short movie that he made over on YouTube, also very autobiographical. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miD0HUUM-ek

So that was cool seeing Sam again. I'm so bad about keeping in touch with people. We're going to get to see him in a few weeks because he's going to be working at the Pig Out At The Park. So if you're in Spokane stop by and see Sam and get your caricature done, you won't be sorry.

Later,
CS

Vacation all I've ever wanted

2008-07-25T17:45:00.004-07:00

Ahhh vacation. I haven't really had a vacation since I started working in Spokane a year and 4 months ago. But here I am lounging on a deck in Portland not having to worry about news, live shots or deadlines.

Ahhh life is Sweet. I'll blog some more later, for now I'm just going to relax and take it easy.

Oh and BTW "The Dark Knight" was phenomenal. Everybody in that movie kicked butt. I have to say that the late Heath Ledger is rightly deserving of all the kudos for potraying one of the most fascinating and most creepy movie villains ever. I'm not pandering or anything when I say this but they should just give him the Oscar now.

Later,
CS

What day is it

2008-07-11T06:43:00.006-07:00

I just got home from work. It's 6:44 a.m. and I went in at 2:30 p.m. yesterday. No lunch. They ordered pizza but I didn't get any. I'm home now scared to go to sleep because when Elliot wakes up I'm scared that I will be dead to the world and won't hear her. Morgan had to go to work as soon as I got here. They wanted me to stay until 7:00 but I got out at 6:15 because I told them Morgan had to be at work at 7:00 a.m. I'm really tired and kind of loopy.

Yesterday the day started out with a huge home improvement and lumber building going up in flames around 1:00 p.m. so that's what I walked in on. Then these sweeping winds hit the area knocking down power lines and trees and fires started popping up all over. The biggest one was in Spokane Valley. We went on the air at 5:00 p.m. and went off at Midnight. I sat the news desk for the rest of the night.

They wanted me to be back at 2:30 p.m. but Morgan's not going to be home until 1:30 so I convinced them to let me come in later at 6:30 so I can get at least a little sleep.

I figured I'd blog a little to try and stay awake.

The other day Morgan made Ella a dress with one of her favorite characters from Yo Gabba Gabba on it. Her new little dress sports the Image of Foofa.

She loves it.

We both enjoy watching Yo Gabba Gabba together. Here's one of our favorite songs from the show.

Later,
CS

Back in Blog

2008-07-04T16:34:00.011-07:00

Hello Everybody. Happy 4th of July!

I know it's been months. I'm a bad blogger. I guess ever since it freakin' snowed in April and May I just really haven't felt like blogging. Morgan got after me today to post something and I've been thinking about doing an update lately because Ella is just getting so big and so vocal. It's crazy, she'll now have full on conversations with me and everything. I can't always understand what she's saying but it's a full on conversation none the less. And she loves music and she's singing all the time, I'll try to post some video of that. She's always walking around singing the themes from Sesame Street and Dragon Tales. She also likes to sing along with the Weezer's Pork and Beans when she's watching the video or even if she just hears the song on the radio. It's funny to hear this little voice in the back seat start to sing out "Ima doooo things Iwanna doooo" it's really very cute.

Work is well, I'm still interviewing celebrities from time to time. I'm going to take a vacation at the end of this month. The whole family is going to head over to Portland and the Oregon coast. Morgan and I are going to take a trip down to Southern Oregon probably while Ella stays with Grandma and Grandpa.

Well here's what everyone wants to see anyway pictures of little Elliot. First up the yearly summer progressing picture of her in the blue stripped chair.

Year One

Year Two

This Year July 4th 2008

Today we all went down to river front park. Ella and I road on the carousel. She was very excited about riding a horse...in theory. When I put her on a horse she tensed up and got really panicky, "No Daddy, No Daddy, No ride the horse." So we just sat on one of the fancy benches instead. She really liked that. Maybe she'll get on a horse next time because of all the fun she had on the bench.

I snapped this one of Morgan and Ella looking cute by the Spokane Falls.

Here are some other pictures of things we've been up to this summer.

Ella got really fascinated with dandelions this summer.

Ella has become very expressive with her facial expressions. She can usually get me to crack up with just a look or the raise of an eyebrow.

Here she is looking contemplative.

And here she is looking a little confounded.

I always tell her she has to wear a helmet before she rides a bike. Unfortunately her definition of a helmet is open to interpretation.

In May we went to Portland for Morgan's sister Katie's wedding and Elliott was the flower girl. She did a really good job, no flower girl meltdowns or anything. And for two-years-old she took her flower tossing very seriously. She didn't know the significance of what she was doing but she appeared to be very methodical about how she dropped the petals.

Ella was a big hit with everyone at the wedding.

Especially with Grandpa Bird.

Okay well that's it I'm going to Jet, I'll try and keep in touch. But before I go I'll throw in some Media Geek goodness. I haven't' seen a single movie this summer in the theatre but the Dark Night opens in IMAX in week and a half and I will be there.

Also let me introduce you to one of my newest favorite bands, Boss Hoss. They're a German cowboy cover band. They cover just about every genre of music. Here's the video of their cover of Hey Ya by Outkast. Please to enjoy.

Later,
CS

IT FREAKIN' SNOWED AGAIN TODAY!

2008-04-19T16:52:00.007-07:00

This is just getting ridiculous, it's the middle of Frackin' April. It didn't snow a lot, but still, enough is enough, bring on spring already. Here's a couple of pictures from 2 weeks ago when it snowed.

Now here's a picture I took last Saturday when we thought that Spring had finally sprung.

See how nice it is. It was a great day. We hung out at riverfront park and there were tons of people there.

Now look at this weeks craptastic forecast.

THAT'S A BUNCH OF BULLCRAP! I want nice weather already. Stupid climate change. Well it could always be worse. We could be living in Toledo Ohio.

Even though spring has been cold and Snowy we've still been keeping busy finding things to do and ways to have fun. For Easter we took Elliott to the valley for her first ever Easter Egg hunt.

She Made out like a bandit, she got 13 eggs.

Also we took Elliott to see one of her heroes. Dora the Explorer and her monkey Boots made an appearance at the car show at the fairgrounds, so we decided to take Ella down there to see her.

Elliott was very excited, so much so that getting her to leave was nearly impossible. I seem to remember some screeching and flopping down on the floor. I should have put her in the stroller. Ah, hindsight.

Well that's it for now, everyone please think warm weather thoughts for us.

Later,

CS

Here's Another One

2008-04-09T23:12:00.008-07:00

Yep they still have me doing this entertainment thing. Here's my interview with Tony Shalhoub about 'Monk'. I don't think I was quite as nervous as the Jay Leno interview, but I still can't break the habit of saying "uh" and "um". I stumbled a little when I was thanking him because my mind kept wanting to thank "Adrian Monk" so I had to regain my grasp on reality and come to terms that I was really talking to Tony Shalhoub.

This was pretty fun for me I'm a huge fan of Monk. Tony Shaloub's performance of the title character is absolutely perfect, both tragic and Hilarious. You as a viewer really feel for Monk and the people around him, and still you can't help but laugh at how he reacts to the situations that he finds himself in and his surroundings, like when he has to solve a murder in a junk yard or when he shook hands with a leper. The ensemble cast works perfect together, all of the supporting characters are beautifully performed by terrific actors.

I have to admit I was a late comer to the series. I didn't start watching until halfway through the third season when Traylor Howard joined the show playing Mr. Monk's new assistant (I've kind of had a crush on her since '96 when she was on Boston Common). Even though I was a Johny come lately to the wonder that is Monk, I was hooked from the first episode that I watched. Recently the show has been picked up for a seventh season and I'm happy that I get to keep watching the continued adventures of my favorite detective.

Later,
CS

The Big Story

2008-03-27T22:50:00.006-07:00

Who would have thought that the biggest story that I've worked on this year would have started out by us killing the story because we discovered it wasn't true.

Last week I was shown this video at work that was on YouTube where a Rick Astley impersonator interrupted a women's basketball game at Eastern Washington. I noticed that the guy that made the video was from EWU, so I e-mailed him via his myspace page and asked him if he'd do an interview about the Prank. He said sure and we set it up for Thursday afternoon.

I got a call from my reporter Anthony and he said he thought the senior film student might not be telling us the entire truth about the video. The student told him that the prank happened during a timeout in the middle of the game and it interrupted game play. Anthony talked to campus security and they couldn't remember the event ever taking place.

I tracked down the down the women's basketball coach and called her at home. She told me that nothing like I described ever happened at that game between them and Montana State. While Anthony was out working on another story for a different show, the student dropped off a high res copy of the video. I watched it closer than I had before and could tell that there was some creative editing done there.

Anthony and I went to our news director and we told him our concerns. He said kill the story, and we did.

Then Monday morning the New York Times came out and this happened.

So now the story we killed becomes the story of how a young filmmaker pranked the New York Times.

The story has gone national and had all the blogs and some news sites buzzing today. The New York Times even printed a retraction today.

This business is weird.

Later,
CS

Video

2008-03-09T18:11:00.001-07:00

Here's the video for that interview I did with Jay Leno. I think I sound like a tool. Like a nervous tool.

Later,
CS

Yep. Still the entertainment reporter

2008-03-02T17:44:00.004-08:00

And still ugly.

Jay Leno looks good though, doncha think?

I was pretty nervous to meet him I mean he's Jay Freakin' Leno, but he was really nice and cool as you can see. It was just surreal. Here I am interviewing Jay Leno, a man who has interviewed everybody. I think I blanked out for part of the interview thinking about it.

Thanks Jay it was great meeting you.

Later,

Ugliest Reporter EVER!

2008-02-19T02:24:00.004-08:00

Soooo.....I'm now in charge of entertainment reporting. I get my own little web page on the company's site and I get to report on local and national entertainment. I've always maintained that I have a face for radio (hell I was a deejay for a classic rock station in my younger days) so I don't get the rational behind throwing my mug out there.

So much for staying behind the scenes,

Later,

SNOW-POKALYPSE!

2008-02-02T17:30:00.000-08:00

The Snow started falling last Saturday and didn't stop until around 4 p.m. on Sunday, then it started right back up again on Sunday night. It was SNOW-POKALYPSE!

I got called to come into work at 10 a.m. on Sunday because it was all hands on deck. I told Jonny 5 when he called that there was no way I was even going to be able to get my car out of my driveway to come to work without getting it stuck on my street. He said "Oh the roads aren't that bad you'll be able to make it. Just come down Monroe it'll be fine". After I hung up there were a lot of words uttered that shouldn't have been said around Elliott. Not because I had to go to work, I'm always fine with that, but because I knew I was either going to get stuck or wreck my car on the way there. Morgan wasn't happy either, "Call him back and tell him that someone needs to come and pick you up". I just grumbled (that's what I do...it's kinda my thing) and went outside to shovel the side walk and drive way. I shoveled about 5 feet of sidewalk when my phone rang, "How about if we send someone to get you in one of the stations 4x4 vehicles". This was great news because I knew the car wasn't going anywhere. You see we live on what's called Spokane's "South Hill" it's about 2500 feet up the hill where we live and the hill is pretty steep no matter where you try to drive up or down. Plus there was the matter of not being able to even drive the car on the side street in front of the house because of all the snow.

Morgan and Elliott came outside while I was shovelling.

Morgan and I traded off the shoveling duties. No I didn't make her or anything, she likes to do it. We got all the way to the driveway when the landlord showed up with the snow-blower. We let him take over.

It was 11:30 before I got picked up. Jonny 5 came in a station vehicle himself to get me because everybody was out shooting. We got 3 blocks from my house when he said, "Yeah you never would have made it into work if you had driven your car". I could have told him that, in fact come to think of it I did tell him that. As we were driving to the station, at about 10 mph, we saw car after car stuck in the snow trying to get out of their driveways and on unplowed side streets. I did a phoner over the air with the station about how the conditions were on the drive in. We stayed on the air nonstop with coverage until 7 p.m.

When I got to the station my desk was being used as a set for one of the reporters so I had to sit at one of the producer's desks. The news desk was already manned when I came in so I was just information gathering for the first little bit that I was there. Finding out about power outages, answering phones (they were ringing off the hook, something that would continue all week.), find out what events were canceled in town and what ones were still going on.

We started to hear unconfirmed reports that a jet had slid off the runway at the airport. So we sent a crew out there. Turns out it was a Southwest Airlines Jet (one of the big ones) and it did a 180 immediately after it touched down on the runway. I would have crapped my pants and had a massive heart attack if I was on that plane. Fortunately the plane was fine and no one was injured. I got a call from a woman who said that her father was on the plane, so I got his cell phone number from her and called him. His son who was sitting next to him went on the air, doing a phoner, describing what happened.

We already had a camera and reporter at the airport shooting the plane on the runway, but we wanted someone in the terminal to talk to the passengers as they got bussed of the jet. I went lenslinging down there with a reporter. We shot an interview with two women that were on the the plane and terrified. I ran the tape over to the live truck that was shooting the jet, feed it back and my reporter fronted the story live with the plane as the backdrop. He stayed with the live truck and the other reporter and photog and I went back to the station.
I don't usually don't shave on Sundays so that's why I'm looking a little scruffy.

When I got back the chief photog said, "Yeah, here's the deal. We don't have enough photogs, so you're going to have to shoot a live shot". I was back out the door with another reporter, going to the plow yard for the 5 and 6 pm news. What's different about Toledo and here is that the photogs run the live microwave trucks here. In Toledo it was a whole union thing, and an engineer had to run the live rig, it was a big pain in the ass. I don't do a lot of live shots here, I can count on one hand how many times I've shot something here and got it on live, and as you can imagine the trucks kind of are complex, not like just operating a DVD player or anything. Fortunately the 5 and 6 hit went off with out a hitch. I even got on a third time before we went off at 7pm. We got sent to a carport at an apartment complex that fell down and crushed a bunch of cars.
I was able to drive there shoot it and drive to a place where I could get a live shot and do another hit.

I ended up staying til midnight working the desk and got a ride home from a photog.

Monday I tried to drive to work and promptly got stuck in the street in the snow. School was cancelled so the little toe headed kid across the street who's about 5 or 6 was watching as I tried to get the car out. He decided to put his two cents in, "You should'a bought a twuck". I took a breath a answered back to him, "Yeah, well you shouldn't talk to strangers." he didn't say anything else after that. Fortunately a good samaritan towed me out and I bought some chains the next day. I had to use the chains until they plowed my street Thursday night.

The snow was so deep that day it came up to Elliot's waist. and she wasn't even all the way in the snow.

Morgan took a picture of this Icicle in the back yard. She really liked it, the thing was huge. The neighbor kid (different kid) knocked it down on Friday. She had words with him about it. She said he "killed her joy".

In all we had 23 inches of snow fall this week. It was supposed to snow today, but we only got a little. I'm glad, I'm over the snow. I thought we got a lot in Toledo. This is how high the snow is piled up next to my drive way.

I had to get after the same neighbor kid that broke Morgan's favorite icicle for climbing on the snow pile and knocking all the snow back in the driveway. I'm planning on yelling at little kids to get out of my yard while shaking a cane when I'm old.

Back to the Superbowl

Later,

CS

She told me that she loves me!

2008-01-31T21:09:00.000-08:00

It's the one thing that she's heard millions of times since her birth. Morgan and I say it to her dozens of times every day. She can spout out phrases like "I fell down" or "It's cold brrrr" or "That's silly" but she has never repeated the words back to us that we most want to hear.

Today my little Elliott Anne looked me right in the eye and said "I love you". Not once but at least a half of dozen times. I'm on top of the world and can't be any happier.

The feeling is mutual.

Later,

CS

Hello 2008

2008-01-01T16:08:00.000-08:00

Well that's it 2007 is over. Not a bad little year, there were some highs...and some lows...but there were some more highs too. All in all I'd say it went pretty well and just helped lay the groundwork for good things to come.

Christmas was great. We did the 6 hour car trip to Portland the Saturday before. Ella was not happy with that. We had great weather for the trip though, we got out of Spokane just before heavy snow hit so that was good.

We stayed with Morgan's parents and Ella was delighted, we even got her to say "Hi Grandma" in the car right before we got to the house. I don't think she ever actually said it to Morgan's mom though. Aw well, ya can't win 'em all.

My phone died on me with all my phone numbers in it the day before Christmas so that kinda sucked. I put my sim card in my old phone when I got back and it seems to work okay. Except I did lose all the numbers that I had saved to the phone and not the sim card

On Christmas Eve Morgan's cousin and family came over for the traditional "Bird Christmas Eve Party". Morgan's cousin has five kids ages 11, 7, 5, 3 and 10 months.

I have decided that Elliott will now be an only child, I hope she's happy with that. Now I just have to convince Morgan, should be easy.

Ella was pretty intimidated by all the activity. She's usually pretty much on all the time, non-stop, go go, but she was pretty timid with all those older kids running around. She finally just asked to go to bed around 7:30 p.m. "Night night? Night night song? Teeth....teeth brush". Morgan's cousin was very impressed, "How did you ever her get her to ask to go to bed on her own". My daughters brilliant, and I think she's left handed which is weird because Morgan and I are both righties.

She did start to feel more comfortable towards bed time especially when the two girls that were older than her let her watch Dora The Explorer with them on their mom's iPod.

On Christmas Day Little Elliott Anne made out like a Bandit. We'd like to say thank you to cousin Brandy for the way to extravagant doll house. She's finally got a little girl she can spoil. Thanks Brand, she loves it. And also thanks to Aunt Diane for Ponies. There are other people to thank but those are the only two that I know for sure read my blog.

The drive back the next day was fine also. We had rain all the time we were in Portland (it did snow for a bit on Christmas day but it didn't stick) but when we got back to Spokane it was pretty much a winter wonderland. Unfortunately we haven't been able to enjoy it because all three of us have been sick as dogs since the day after we got back. We all have the Coughing and the Sneezing and running a little fever. Morgan and I have got the body aches and the chills too. I'm guessing Ella also has those, she just can't tell me.

It really sucks being sick. I have to catch a flight out tomorrow morning for Jonny 5's wedding in Vegas on Friday. Being sick in Vegas should be fun.

All well wish me luck and Happy New Year everybody.

Later

CS

The depressing part about my job

2007-12-13T02:23:00.000-08:00

SUNCREST, Wash. - That's how I write a web story. Every little web entry I type starts with a town and an AP (Associated Press) style of state abbreviation. Tonight I was sitting at my desk and I heard a call come across on the scanner...."House Fire". I knew it was bad when I heard it. I knew the fire was bad and when the fire crews got on the scene and said what they saw over the scanner, I knew it was very bad. But none of that is reportable. I refuse to report scanner traffic. I have a code and a duty to my viewing public not to report anything unless it has been confirmed. Unlike other media agencies in this market who shall remain nameless. I don't care if I get scooped as long as my credibility remains intact.

I told my morning producers before I left that I felt in my gut that this fire was a fatality. I told them not to report on that until it was confirmed because it was just my gut. But I knew someone died in this fire. Listening to the scanner and talking to the Sheriff's Dispatch, who told me when I asked if anyone was inside that house, "I can't discuss that with you." I knew at that moment that someone was dead.

We were the first ones to report that there was a fatality from the fire. All because of my tenacious desk skills. But that doesn't' make me happy. I got the scoop, and I was correct, but somebody's father, or brother, or son died. It just makes me a very sad that MY GUT...can tell me when someone is dead when I'm miles away from said incident. That's not a skill that I ever hoped to hone. But I honed it, and I'm very good at it.

I found a niche and something I'm good at. I'm a good journalist. It just hurts a lot sometimes that I'm a little too good at my job. I've seen dead bodies in the field and I've sent others to get the story on dead bodies and the bad things that people do to each other. I just wish that the badness in people and the world would just stop. Because I don't want the badness to hurt anyone I know ever again.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
CS

P.S. On the plus side I pitched really good Christmas light story and it was our 10pm lead.

I love turkey day

2007-11-24T16:00:00.000-08:00

I had Thursday off so I was able to spend it with Morgan and Ella for Thanksgiving. I got up early and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving parade with my daughter. I watched it with her last year, but this year she really seemed to enjoy it. Here's a picture of her all dressed up for the holiday.

After the parade we watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special. Then we went for a walk around the block. We've been looking to buy a home, so we've been going to a lot of open houses lately. Every other house we would walk by on our little walk Ella would try to pull me to the front door saying "ouse, ouse, ouse". She really likes going to the Open houses on the weekends, sometimes it's very difficult to get her to leave.

When we got back home we watched videos on the computer and Ella danced. I've got the only Two-year-old who digs ELO. Her favorite lately is the penguin waiter scene from the movie Mary Poppins. She's never even seen the movie, I just stumbled across the clip on YouTube one day and she loves it.

After that she was pretty tuckered out and was asking to take a nap. She went down right before the thanksgiving meal was ready, so Morgan and I had to eat without her. She got her portion later though.

Morgan made a very delicious Thanksgiving meal. I'm still working on the leftovers. I made myself a turkey quesadilla when I got home from work last night.

Hope everyone had a great holiday.

Later,
CS

Fall in Spokane

2007-11-04T14:22:00.000-08:00

It's fall in Spokane and all is right in the world. We no longer live in Toledo, Morgan and I are both very happy, Elliott is a happy healthy 2-year-old with endless amounts of energy and the McRib has returned to McDonald's. Life is good.

Here are some pictures of what has been transpiring this fall.

It's still warm enough for Elliott to do one of her favorite things, go to the park. She's pretty much fearless and will try anything. Here she is tackling the rock climbing wall.

Here she is posing for Morgan. She looks so sweet and contemplative sitting there amongst all those leaves in her little poncho. After this shot was taken she began to eat a stick. Stick's are a good source of fiber.

Here's another shot of her among the leaves. She's wearing a little thermal apple dress that Morgan made for her. Morgan's selling custom made dresses just like it over at her Etsy shop. She also made this really cool little baseball shirt with a robot embroidered on it. Morgan's really gotten into hand embroidery this fall and has been making a bunch of really cool things.

Last week we went to the John Finch Arboretum just west of downtown Spokane. Remember when I said she was fearless? Elliott decided she was going to just start climbing the biggest freakin' rock in the place. Okay, I over exaggerate, it wasn't the biggest. But still it was pretty darn big and when she got to the top (with me right there behind her the whole time) she just tried to walk right off the side.

She also tried to get into this stream many times. I let her put her hand in it. She would immediately pull it out because the water was too cold and then she would wait 2 seconds and put her hand right back in again.

A few weeks ago we went out to a pumpkin patch. Elliott loved it, she absolutely loves pumpkins. Who knew? She just ran around from one pumpkin to the next, patting them like she was patting someone on the head. She would get so excited and over stimulated that after running around she would just start jumping in one spot up and down with a huge smile on her face squealing with delight. She did that about 5 times. It was not a pretty sight when it was time to go. She did not want to leave that pumpkin patch. She still pats the three pumpkins we have outside the front door whenever we leave or come home. She gets very excited to see them and says "Pum Pum! Pum Pum!" She's pretty silly.

Halloween was Wednesday and Morgan made Ella this little pirate costume. She made the shirt, jacket, hat and skirt the day before, all for under 5 bucks. My wife is very talented, God I love her.

Here's the little silly posing. The reason she's making that face is because she's saying "Cheeeese" for the camera.

I leave you guys with a video. Elliott loves to dance. She'll run to the computer and go "Dee Dee" making the sign language sign for dance. Lately she really likes to dance to "Grace Kelly" by Mika. Here she is getting down. The song has a little bit of an intro so its about 30 seconds in before she starts getting down. Please don't think I'm too bad of a parent for letting her jump on the bed. Oh yeah the camera work is shaky because I'm jumping around too. Enjoy.

Later,
CS

Dog Nutz

2007-10-27T16:23:00.000-07:00

So we were going to the mall last week and we saw this personalized license plate reading "DOGNUTZ". I'm fairly sure that the message the owner of the car was trying to convey was that their family is crazy about dogs. Yeeeahhhh.......that's just not the image that comes to mind when I read DOGNUTZ.

Or maybe I'm way off base here maybe they wanted people to see their plate and immediately think of canine testicles. Who knows, maybe DOGBALLS was already picked by another driver. At least they had a "worst president ever" sticker on their rear window.

Later,

2 years goes by too fast

2007-10-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

Friday was Elliott's birthday. It's amazing to me how much she's grown. She's recognizing numbers and letters now, and is making great improvements with communicating verbally. I'm so sad, my little baby is now a toddler. She's growing up way too fast.

Here she is on the day she was born.

And here she is last year on her first birthday.

Now here she is at this years birthday party.

I told her to quit growing but she continues to defy me. Curses!

Before I go, as a bonus here's a video of her demonstrating her coloring and animal impression skills.

Well That's It for now, Later

Get to bloggin' you lazy bastard!

2007-10-07T16:26:00.000-07:00

Hello....Hello.....is anyone still there? Geez, springs over, summer came and went and now it's fall. The whole time I didn't blog about any of the stuff we saw or did. We'll lets see if I can get back up on the horse.

We went to Grandview, WA because my grandma Covert had a heart attack on Thursday. It was pretty scary. Here's a picture of her and Grandpa with Morgan and Elliott that I took when we went to see them this summer.

She seems to be feeling much better, and they released her from the hospital last night. I just hope she takes it easy.

Some sad news though, my brother and sisters' grandma Nichols had a heart attack and passed away. It's been a bad weekend. My sister Kimi said that she had not been feeling well for awhile. I hope my siblings are doing okay, I always thought their dad's parents were really nice people.

On a lighter note

While I was in Grandview Morgan and Elliott got to meet my cousin Brandy for the first time. Elliott was uber cute and Brandy was thoroughly impressed (even if she did scoop up some dirt and eat it). I haven't seen Brandy for about 5 years, and I got chastised for not keeping up with my blog. So I decided I better start posting again. Sorry cuz.

We are all still really enjoying ourselves in Spokane. We had a great summer and did a lot of cool things. Elliott is talking up a storm. We're still working on complete sentences but she can piece 3 or 4 words together every once in a while.

One thing that she really loves is going to the grocery store. I don't know if you all have kids out there, but most grocery store cashiers now give kids stickers when you're at the check out stand. Elliott loves getting stickers at the store. She starts asking for them as soon as we get in line. We can't drive by Fred Meyer's with out hearing a little voice in the backseat going, "Steek, Steek, Steek".

Lately she just takes them off the paper and puts one on each cheek. Today the cashier at Freddy's gave her four instead of the usual two.

That's my silly little sticker covered girl. I can't believe that she's going to be two-years-old on Friday. Everyone is invited over for punch and pie!

That's it for now. I'll try to be more vigilant in keeping up with the blog.

Later,

I Lied To Lois Lane

2007-05-28T22:21:00.000-07:00

So I never have been to a comic book convention before. I have made it a point not to go to one ever. I love comic books but I generally don't like hanging out with other people (there are exceptions) who also like comic books. The ones that go to the conventions usually take geekdom to a whole new level. But this Saturday I broke that rule and went to the debut of the Spokane Comicon. I wasn't going to go, but a producer at the station told me that the actress that played Lois Lane in Superman the Movie was going to be there. I'm not going to mention her name because I'm scared she'll do a Google search for herself and if she stumbles across this post she'll sue me for talking about her.

When I heard that this actress was going to be at the Comicon I thought that this was something I couldn't pass up. I mean how hilarious would it be for me to get my picture taken with her. Well we got there, and I introduced myself to her, when I told her my name she said "Oh that's fun". Morgan, Ella and I walked around the Comicon for a little while, it was pretty small. Ella was not happy she wanted down from her pack. I came across the table of the guy who's doing the comic book sequel to Clash of The Titans, called Wrath of The Titans, and he said "Oh I have baby books". So I bought Ella her first comic, one with extra thick baby book pages. It's called ABCs, for Superheros and it's even personally autographed for her. After that she was much happier.

Anyway Mar....uh...the actress walked back to her table and so I walked up and asked for her autograph and if we could take a picture. She looked at me and said "Now you know that's 20 dollars." I was taken a back a bit.

CS: "Oh...no I'm sorry I didn't realize, I'm sorry. So for us to snap a picture of you with our camera that's 20 dollars?"

LL: "Yes for 20 dollars you get an autograph, one of these photos I have here and you can take a picture, it's a whole package thing."

CS: "Oh, I see. I'll have to go hit an ATM I didn't bring that much money with me."

I lied, I had no intention of coming back and paying her 20 bucks. We went to Sonic and had burgers instead. The whole thing just left me feeling really sad for her. I pretty sure if before he died I got the chance to meet Christopher Reeve, he wouldn't have charged me 20 bucks to take a photo with him. Sad just Sad. So that was my first and last Comicon. But I did get to lie to Lois Lane.....sweet.

Later,
CS

The Force is Strong with her.

2007-05-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

Ella met her first Storm trooper yesterday. We went to downtown Spokane and he was hanging out in front of comic book shop.

I've always said that the force is strong with Ella, and it's gotta be true. Just look at the way she got that imperial bastich to kneel down to her. She's got midi-chlorians a plenty. I'm going to start plotting to use her to take over the galaxy now.

Later,
CS

Ella's Thirsty

2007-05-06T18:43:00.000-07:00

So we went to Costco last week and got a big box of the Costco version of Gatorade type of sports drinks. Ella decided she was low on electrolytes and went to the closet to get all of them.

It's a week later and even though I've put them in the basement, she still seeks them out. And forget trying to drink one around her. Unless I give her a bottle for herself she steals mine and takes it to the fireplace and pretends to drink it.

Later,
CS

The Reason I Finally Snapped

2007-04-26T00:59:00.000-07:00

When they ask "What was it? What was it that made him finally snap?" Oh and they will ask dear friends, they'll ask "Why did he do it? Why did he go down south to La La Wood and do that terrible thing to those nice show biz types? We always knew he was a ticking time bomb, just ready to go at any minute...but what could have finally set him off?"

Well my brothers and sisters you tell them that it was this.

The King, ELVIS AARON PRESLEY SINGING A FREAKIN DUET WITH CELINE FREAKIN DION. It's like somebody said, "How can we insult every sensibility that Chuck Suede has. How can we shat on him down to his very core? Oh wait...we can take his hero...The King and make him preform on live television for millions to see, with the recording artist (and I'm using the word "artist" ironically) that he loathes more than anything else in this world".

WHO SIGNED OFF ON THIS?

I have no hope for the future. It was crushed tonight. If the whole show wasn't' for charity I would be calling for an all out boycott on American Idol....Oh wait a minute on second thought...I am calling for an all out boycott on American Idol....who's with me?

I will try not to do harm to anyone that has any family that cares about them....But I'm not makin' any promises! I reckon they knew what they were getting themselves into when they made this monstrous decision. And you gotta reap what you sow. Now reap it!

Later,

P.S. I wonder if they let you blog in prison?

The Landlord

2007-04-21T18:39:00.000-07:00

Even though I think that this video is funny as hell, I would never teach Elliott to say these words.
You do that and it's "B!#ch, B!#ch, B!#ch!" Coming out of her mouth in the grocery store for the next two years, with everyone looking at you ready to call child services.

Still funnier than hell though.

Later,
CS

We Made It!

2007-04-07T21:33:00.001-07:00

Well we made it. We are finally here in Spokane and all settled in. I got here a week ago and Morgan flew out with Ella a week before that to find us a place to live. She got us a great place on the south hill with 3 bedrooms and a finished basement. Plus we are only paying $650 a month so that rocks.

The journey here was a quite the adventure. First we lost a loved one about a week before Morgan left. I am said to say that the Dancing Hamster is no more.

I'll miss the little guy.

Elliott would help out by repeatedly packing herself into a box several times a day.

I don't know why she thought that we were going to ship her as freight.

I hired a couple of college guys who work down at the Rocket Inn as bartenders to pack up the truck. I'm an old man now and my back likes to go out at the most unfortunate times. They did the job for 50 bucks to split between the both of them and 32 cans of Natural Light.

The truck was the first big hurdle. When we picked it up I thought it was a little small, only 16 feet. 2 years ago I drove a 26 footer when I moved us to Toledo. When they started loading the truck I thought we were going to be okay, but as we got about half full I knew we were in trouble. I had to figure out what was going to be left behind and it really sucked. For the rest of Saturday, Sunday and the first part of Monday (the day I was supposed to leave at 9 in the morning) I was packing and re-packing the truck all while trying to clean the apartment and get it all pretty for the landlord. A lot of stuff got set out on the curb for the taking and for trash. The couch went really quick. Just a couple of hours. Same thing with Elliott's old baby stuff and the vacuum cleaner. The good thing about Toledo, is that no matter how much garbage you curb, they will take it.

Right before I was getting ready to leave I saw garbage starting to fly out of next door neighbors' garbage can. Trash would just fly up in the air and then hit the ground like in a cartoon or a cheesy horror flick with little creatures. Then after about a minute out jumped the biggest fattest squirrel I've ever seen holding half a loaf of bread. Here he is with a chunk of bread sitting on the fence.

Funny, I always thought it was raccoons getting into the neighbors trash and trowing it everywhere.

I finally got on the road at about 1pm on Monday. I took off down Interstate 80 wearing my "driving long distances in a truck" cowboy hat and my Smokey and the Bandit t-shirt.

When I stopped in Indiana to get gas, I ran into trouble. Morgan had given me my credit card (that I never use and that has a zero balance) for lodging and gas. Well it was rejected. Turns out I had the old card, the one that expired in 2005. Like I said I never use it, I have no idea were the current card is. Well I knew I was in trouble without that card. I'd given Morgan all the money in my bank account so it was empty, I had enough cash for a few days but not for the whole trip so I was not happy. Thanks to my buddy Tim from the station in Toledo everything worked out. Morgan mailed him a check and he put it in my bank account.

At least I know I wasn't the only one having a really bad day at the gas station that day.

I walked up to the guy putting the caution tape on the pump and said "Hey...uh....sombody scratched this thing". He just stared at me.

So after the gas dilemma I spent the first night in Rockford Illinois. Day two, I crashed in Mitchell South Dakota. Day three is when things went to hell.

The day started out simple enough. I hit the road early and was making great time. I even planned to make a couple of stops because Morgan told me that we probably wouldn't be able to move into our new place until Friday afternoon.

South Dakota is pretty much nothing but Billboards for attractions along Interstate 90. And they all start about 200 miles away or more from said attraction. So I had been seeing a lot of billboards telling me that I absolutely had to stop at Wall South Dakota and go to Wall Drug. They have a statue of Dinosaur at their Exit.

I wasn't particularly blown away. It just looked like a little western town that had paved roads and electricity.

The chapel for weary travelers was kind of cool though.

As I got closer to the South Dakota/Wyoming border it started to rain. When I crossed over to Wyoming I hit a few snow flurries. Then about 40 miles in the snow started to come pouring down. I shifted into a lower gear and just white knuckled the steering wheel because I was in the freakin' mountains. Lots of steep winding roads.

I was planning on trying to get to Billings Montana that night, but I decided to turn off and get a hotel room in Gillette South Dakota and just stay for the night. When I got to the exit for the motels in Gillette there were signs with flashing lights before the exit telling everyone that the freeway was closed because of snow (they have like railroad arms that come down and block the road so people can't get through) and everyone needed to get off the freeway at that exit. I later found out they closed the road about 2 hours before I got there. So every hotel room in Gillette was taken.

After I freaked out and screamed at the top of my lungs for like an hour, I got back on the freeway and started heading East. I had Morgan look up a hotel in Sundance Wyoming on the Internet, I had remembered passing one there earlier. Sundance was about 61 miles from Gillette and I was now driving in blizzard conditions on the freeway.

Yep that white sea in front of me is the interstate. I was now driving about 5mph.

Morgan called and booked the hotel for me. Good thing too because it filled up fast, with truckers and old timers on vacation going or coming back from seeing their kids.

Sundance Wyoming, population 1,180. Where the Sundance Kid got his name. I was stuck in that hotel for 3 days. Just me and the cat and hundreds of Truckers and Seniors. I watched a lot of TV.

To add another Item of suckiness to my stay was the fact that the hotel was like 2 miles out of town, and the only thing close to it was a BP gas station with a little mini mart. So since I had no way to get to town since my truck was blocked in by Semis, I ate Hot Pockets for 3 days. Also you can only by beer in grocery stores and bars in Wyoming so I couldn't even get a freakin' beer while I was stuck there.

They opened the road back up on Saturday and I drove all day to get to Spokane. I missed Ella and Morgan so much. It was driving me nuts having to hear her voice on the phone while I was stuck in that hotel room.

Well I'm here now and I really like Spokane, and so does Morgan.

We went to the park earlier this week and went up on the Radio Flyer that's there.

Here's what it looks like from a distance.

The handles a slide.

I started work on Wednesday the 4th and I really like the new station. It's huge and I have so many resources at my disposal. Plus it's not a union shop so I can actually touch all the equipment now if I want or need to .

Well, I better get back to my girls.

Later Gators,

CS

Kiss Toledo Goodbye

2007-03-06T17:21:00.000-08:00

We're Moving To Spokane!

Theodore Geisel!

2007-03-02T19:22:00.000-08:00

Ella would like to wish The Cat in the Hat a Happy 50th birthday!

Thanks for everything Dr. Seuss!

Later,

Couch Potato

2007-02-20T22:29:00.000-08:00

Here's my little baby totally enthralled in something called "Go, Diego! Go!" (BTW they changed IMDB and I'm very upset. I hate the new layout.). I just don't get it. Give me "The Electric Company" any day.

Doesn't' she look big? She looks like a 3 year old. Who'd guess she's only just over a year? I shall weep now. I keep telling her to stop growing, but she defies me at every turn. Silly little defiant baby.

Later,

Poopie Baby...Not Really

2007-02-20T21:53:00.000-08:00

I forgot to post this with the last entry. Ella was walking around in her little cute mobster track suit. She says "Baby" a couple of times, and then she gave me the sign language sign for "Poopie". She was fibbin' though. She just had a wet diaper. Silly baby.

Later,
CS

Fugetaboudit!

2007-02-19T22:20:00.000-08:00

Elliott has decided to go into the protection racket. Here she is ready to go out with Paulie and Bobby on a collection run. She'll break your kneecaps, so don't mess with her, capiche?

Actually her great grandma and grandpa gave her this little running suit, but I watch way to much HBO.

I'm not sure if I'm Italian or not, (who knows I have no Idea what my heritage is. I know I have some Jewish and some Cherokee in there somewhere), but one thing I do know is that Ella loves her spaghetti.

Magnaccia, magnaccia, little one.

She actually seems to celebrate the pasta goodness.

One last pic before I go. Here is my darling sporting a sweet mullet and looking like a hippie chick, with a cute little pink dress over a pair of dungarees.

Too cute!

Later,

Snow Days

2007-02-09T13:56:00.000-08:00

Well we knew that the 40 degree temps weren't going to last, but we did get all the way to the end of January. But classic Ohio winter smacked back with a vengeance last week and is still striking as we speak. It was a little warmer today and yesterday. How sad is it when your saying "Thank God we got back up to 17, it's so much warmer now. I was freezing".

Elliott went outside and got to play in the snow for the first time. Here she is bundled up in her little pink snow suit.

Morgan took the pictures when I was at work, so I didn't get to see her in the snow first hand. Morgan told me she would not walk in the snow. She would just reach down and touch the powder then laugh.

Later,

Reaching For The Stars

2007-02-04T13:29:00.000-08:00

We'll little miss Elliott Anne has decided to freak out her Daddy more and give him something new to worry about. Check this picture out of her in the rocking chair.

Pretty Cute huh? There's just one problem. SHE GOT UP THERE ALL BY HERSELF! Ella has decided that she likes to climb. She already discovered that she could get up on the coffee table last week, that was freaky enough. But now with her conquering the moving rocking chair I'm pretty much a nervous wreck.

I was playing with her a little while ago and she walked around the little green tunnel we got for her. Since I was down on the ground I couldn't see her when she walked around the tunnel. Next thing I know Morgan yells "Ella No!" I jumped up off the floor to see this.

That's right she climbed up on some boxes that we packed up and sat in the corner.

We have now moved them to a room where she does not have free reign.

All this to worry about tacked onto the fact that she likes to put bags over her head and walk around the livingroom. Silly Baby.

I swear I'm going to build her a suit made out of bubble wrap. I was kidding about it before, but it seems she leaves me no recourse.

Later,
CS

Ah Crap! Get a Sense of Humor and Watch Some TV Wouldja!

2007-01-31T20:13:00.000-08:00

You know this whole thing could have been avoided if more people would watch one of the greatest shows ever 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force' But now because of a bunch of panicky jackholes one of my favorite TV shows is probably going to get canceled. If you don't know what I'm talking about Check This Story Out.

I mean com'on you yahoos....who wouldn't now that's Err the Mooninite? "Silence nerd! Prepare for a moon spanking. Now you drop those sweatpants right now!"

And the whole campaign ran for two weeks in half a dozen major metropolitan city's before this without any incident. Damn wussy Boston yutzes...I thought youse guys was suppose'd to be tough over around Southie.

Now they'll probably pull the movie. Freakin' D-bags.

One funny thing about it, Sheppard Smith on FOX said early on when they didn't know who left the magnets, that the whole thing obviously must have been the work of pot head college students (I'm paraphrasing but I challenge him to deny that's what he meant. He used the words Pot Smoking and College Students when talking about who could be behind it.) Schmuck. Guess he's never heard of Viral Marketing.

later,

Ah Jeez!

2007-01-29T22:24:00.000-08:00

Elliott loves her Sesame Street. C'mon who doesn't'? My only question here is, why are Oscar, Elmo, The Count, Kermit and Ernie all in the Bathtub together? (not that there is anything wrong with that.) And why is there an owl and a cow looking at them through a window? I mean c'mon man.....really?!?!

Later,

Reflection

2007-01-21T16:01:00.000-08:00

Well here it is. The first post of the new year. I realize the month is almost over but I've been a little busy. With the arrival of the new year I have to stop and reflect upon what was the most significant event of my life during the year 2006.

2005 is a no brainer, the most significant event of that year was becoming a father when my lovely little Ella was born on Oct. 12th of that year.

I love that little girl so much and it's just been incredible watching her grow up and start to develop her own little personality.

But as for what was my most significant event of 2006, what one particular accomplishment that meant the most to me last year. Well, I'd have to say that it was giving that beer to that goat....that was awesome! Eating that pig brain sandwich was a close second though.

Before I jet I'm gonna throw some pics of Ella your way. Morgan went and got some portrait photo's taken of my little girl. She was way cute, as you can see for yourself.

For Christmas we got here this little tunnel. She really loves it. She'll just take off and hide in it when I start chasing her when we're playing, just laughing her head off the entire time.

Well I'm gonna motor.

later,

CS

WTF????

2006-12-28T22:24:00.000-08:00

I mean come on....WTF??? Are those dogs real? What's with the creepy Popeye Japanese chick?

BTW had a great Christmas....But WTF???? Seriously?

Later,

A really freaked out CS

P.S.
Poodles are hell's minions....along with wiener dogs...those things are just freaky.

Made It!

2006-12-22T10:45:00.000-08:00

Well I went to the airport in Detroit yesterday for my flight out to Portland. When I got up to the counter Brian Erickson, the man behind the United counter said, "Your flight's for tomorrow". My face and spirits sunk. The woman on the phone the day before told me that my flight was for Thursday.

Brian said "Let me see what I can do", and was somehow able to get me a non-stop flight to Portland on Northwest Airlines. Seems some guy in first class was unable to go because of work and I got his seat. Sweet! Jonny 5 chastised me for not taking advantage of the free booze and just having the sodie pop, but my flight was like at 9am. As I was walking away from the counter to run to the plane a reporter for the local Detroit NBC station interviewed me about how the Blizzard in Denver affected my travel plans for Christmas. They used a SOT from me on their noon show, and someone at work told me that the VO of me made the national NBC News Channel feeds. Funny.

The flight was OK but I probably shouldn't have watched that DVD of Mission Impossible 3 on the flight though. Like I've said before I'm not to particularly found of flying and every time there was an intense scene and we'd hit some turbulence or drop a little in altitude I'd panic a little.

When I got to Portland Morgan and Ella where waiting for me by the gate. Then we were interviewed by KATU, the Portland ABC affiliate. That story turned out to be a full on package of how we had a "Family Holiday Miracle" with me actually getting a flight out before Christmas and all. Heh...again funny. It's weird to be on the other side of the camera.

Well, I'm just glad I'm here. Let's hope that the trip back is just uneventful.

Later,
CS

Ohh, on a side note. Gus Van Sant was arrested for DUII while I'm in Portland. Sweet!

Stupid Snow!

2006-12-20T08:24:00.000-08:00

Last year snow was the bane of my existence. I even ended up getting in a little accident. No biggie just me involved, but it could have been a lot worse really fast. This year we've been lucky, no snow yet (Knock Wood), but today Snow in another state screwed up my itinerary.

I got a call this morning at about 6am. A recorded voice saying that my flight out of Detroit had been canceled. Back track for a sec, Morgan and Elliott already flew out to Portland on Saturday. So I got on the phone and began the painstaking task of actually trying to speak with a living human. When I would finally get to the point where the little recorded voice, who I wanted to kill, would say "All right let me transfer you to an agent" the call would disconnect. This happened about 12 times, maybe more.

Finally at around 11am it rang through after the voice told me it was transferring me. I was immediately placed on hold. I was able to shower, shave, do the dishes and finish packing while I was on hold. After being on hold for 39 minutes and 33 seconds I was finally able to talk to a person. It seems that Denver will be hit with a pretty bad blizzard today so they are going to be canceling all flights in and out. Denver just happens to be where I change flights. The next flight they could book me on was from Detroit to Chicago then to Portland tomorrow.

I'm really pissed off. Even though I hate to fly, I couldn't wait to get back to Portland and see Morgan and Ella.

I'm going to post this video of Elliott to cheer myself up.

A couple of weeks ago Ella wouldn't let me put her down. She wouldn't get upset if I tried or anything she just wouldn't let go and kept her little legs clamped around my waist. She usually likes to watch me play Guitar Hero on PS2, so I decided to play it to see if she would get down and sit on the floor and watch me play, like she usually does.

Nope, she just kept holding on and watched me play.

I played three songs before I got tired and had to quit playing.

I also snapped this pic of her last weekend. She was rolling around on the couch acting cute so I had to grab the camera.

The other day she picked up her pajamas and slipped one arm in a sleeve by herself. Then she decided to put the rest of the pajamas on top of her head and walk around like that.

That's my silly little baby!

Hopefully I'll see her in Portland tomorrow.

Later,

CS

Down In the 'Nati

2006-11-27T17:07:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I made my way down to Cincinnati for my third overnight trip down there ( I didn't blog about the second trip because too many laws were broken that weekend and quite frankly I don't remember most of what happened).

The weekend promised to be a wild one. Hortor was throwing my buddy Jonny 5 a going away party. Jon took a job in Washington and will be leaving this week. So Jon, his fiance Jane, and KFC (our buddy from work) and I headed down to the Queen city for one hell of a send off bash. Morgan and Ella went to visit her best friend Angela that weekend, so as not to bring the baby along for all of the drunken debauchery.

Horton recently got a new place up on Mt. Adams with his brother, 'Little Hort' who just moved to the 'Nati. It's right across the street from Crowley's, which incidentally is where Hortor used to live right next door too a couple of years ago. Hortor's new bedroom has a view of his old apartment.

Little Hort, Hortor, Jonny and myself went to the radio station to do Hortor's Saturday night show. It was a blast. This was the second time I had done the show, and it was just as fun as the first time if not more fun.

Little Hort co-hosts the show with Hortor and Jon and I were the guests. The listeners were told that the show had accidentally been double booked and that Jon was a representative from the Butterball Hot line and he was there to talk about preparing your Thanksgiving bird.

I was an impressionist that had been on the "David Letterman Show" the week before during Impressionist Week, and I was performing across the river in Kentucky later that night. Every time Jon would try to tell them how to prepare the turkey I would jump in as Gilbert Gottfried, Norm McDonald, Christopher Walkin, or Sean Connery. The Show was pre-taped so there were a lot of takes, due too hysterical fits of laughter. Speaking of which, at the halfway point we were treated to Hortor's WD Dance, where Hortor actually sprays WD 40 on himself in order to loosen his joints allowing him to bust a move. Please to enjoy.

After we taped the show we all went over to Jimmy's House to watch the big Ohio State/Michigan game. There was much beer and Jimmy made a hell of a brisket. The Hortor Bros. brought a crock pot half full of chili that they cooked up. Why only half full, because the night before Steve decided to test out the chili to make sure it was okay and ended up putting about half of it away. I didn't get any.

After Ohio won, we went back to Hortor's for the going away party. The radio show was on the air by this time and when we were in the middle of conversations we'd stop and run to the stereo, and say "Listen to this part it's really funny". Jimmy called us "narcissistic boners".

Here's a shot of Jon, Jimmy and Jane hanging out near the Keg.

Hortor had this Spatula that was crafted in Hell in his Kitchen, It's good for omelets.

Hortor gave me that hat that I'm wearing. Minutes after we arrived he said, "This hat is now yours, and you have to wear it to the party tonight. That's the new rule. Every time you come to the 'Nati, you get a new hat."

Last time I was there he gave me a Cincinnati Reds baseball cap. I love that hat.

The Hortor Bros. have the largest collection of Aviator Sunglasses that I've ever seen. These boys really love "Top Gun".

Speaking of Aviators. Jimmy gave me a demonstration of what he sounds like when he's giving in cabin flight announcement as he's cruising through the friendly sky's.

Hortor also invited Pop/R&B singer Josh Hoge and his guitarist Steve Miller to the party. Nice guys, I bugged them for a while talking about the different kind of bands that I like, The Gimmie Gimmies and Ween for instance.

Funny thing, after the party had been going for a while one of the guests who came later came up to Hortor and said. "I was listening to your radio show tonight. How did you get that guy from David Letterman? He was funny." Ha!

After much jubilation, everyone went over to the Wine Bar, I went in for about a minute but decided to go back to Hortor's and crash, I was pretty wiped and I'm old. I was asleep on the hide-a-bed upstairs when at about 4 or 5 AM I heard music coming from down stairs.

I went downstairs and The Hortors were down there with two guests from the party, one of them had a guitar and was cranking out all kinds of Music. At this point Jon, Jane and KFC were all crashed out upstairs. I sat down and grabbed a beer and rallied for about another hour.

For some reason Little Hort started handing out the rest of the plastic drink cups.

The Next thing I knew the room turned into a sea of green plastic and uncontrollable laughter as cups flew everywhere. The guy with the guitar ran out of the room clutching it the whole time screaming something about "three thousand dollars".
After that I was done and went back upstairs and hit the sack.
All in all a another great trip down to the 'Nati.

On the way back I was finally able to take a picture of "Big Butter Jesus" as we passed by it.

JESUS!

Later,

CS

Happy "Creepy" Turkey Day!

2006-11-22T20:20:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting at the news desk typing away at my computer. I got up to go do something and when I turned around I saw what seemed to be an infant stuffed inside a roasted turkey on one of the television monitors behind me.

I instantly did a double take I wasn't sure what I was looking at. Then the shot changed and the camera revealed several babies dressed as cooked food items. All laid out on serving platters.

Notice the empty Caesar Salad costume off to the side. That baby smartly went into hysterics and saved himself from having to go onto national television dressed as lettuce and croutons.

As I continued to watch on horrified, I realized I was watching "Martha Stewart Living" and that for some reason the guest thought that this was a" good Idea" and decided to share her gift of dressing up babies as scruptous food stuffs. It was like a page out of Hansel and Gretal.

It seems that she got the Idea when she dressed as Martha for Halloween last year, and decided to get her baby in on the act by dressing him up as a perfectly cooked "Butterball". I just think it's messed up man.

By far the most disturbing was this little Suri Cruise look alike who was passed out (oh god I hope the little nipper was passed out) inside an apple pie with a serving knife on top of it. The little peanuts' lifeless little body really creeped me out.

Anyway Sweet dreams.

Later,

She's Walking!!!!!

2006-11-17T19:43:00.000-08:00

She's Walking, She's Walking, She's Walking, She's Walking!!!!!!

Nuff said?

Later

CS

Ella's First B-Day Party

2006-11-12T17:55:00.000-08:00

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Last Month was Ella's Birthday. I've finally gotten around to editing her birthday party video and posting it.

I hate the was my voice sounds on the video, plus I do this weird thing where I laugh and then suck the air back in, passing through my cheeks so it makes a stupid noise. I hate it when I hear myself make that noise.

We've also have hit another milestone in the last couple of weeks, ELLA HAS STARTED TO WALK! Just a couple of steps at a time, but she has made it about 4 feet a couple of times. I haven't been able to get any pics or video of her doing it yet, but I will keep trying.

Later,
CS

Happy Hallowen!

2006-10-31T22:33:00.000-08:00

Here are some choice shots of my little gremlin as a punk rock girl. Check out the Faux Hawk!

And them Sesame Street shoes is vintage brotha' how about that? Her Mommy wore them back in the day. They even have Little Bird on them (I think he's dead now, no one has seen him in about fifteen years).

Later,

Chuck

Happy Birthday

2006-10-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

I can't believe my little baby girl is one year old today. To think last year at this time I was holding her in my arms for the very fist time. Thinking back I think I was wearing the same orange fleece that I wore all day today, weird. There's nothing else like her in this whole world. I love her and her Mommy so very much. I'm the luckiest guy ever.

Later,
CS

Mmmmmmm Braaaaiiiinnnnsss

2006-10-08T18:46:00.000-07:00

Last Week we went to Evansville Indiana for Morgan's Grandmother's 80th birthday. While we were there I feasted on a brain sandwich. That's right a sandwich that was 100% fried pig's brain's.

Now why on earth would any sane person want to scarf down a sandwich consisting of a hamburger bun, 6 bread and butter pickle slices and a humongous swine brain? Well (a) I'm not sane, anyone who knows me could tell you that, and secondly it all started with a T.V. show.

Morgan and I were watching Alton Brown's show this summer 'Feasting On Asphalt' on the Food Network. In the show Alton Drives all over the country on a motorcycle looking for the best "road food" places.

In the second episode he went to the Hill Top Inn in Evansville for the soul purpose of dining on a Brain Sandwich. After watching the show, I knew I had to have one, even though he didn't seem to enjoy it all that much. I just wanted to eat one just so that I could say that I ate brains.

The thing was monstrous. It didn't even fit on the little Wonder Bread bun that it was served on. It didn't taste awful or anything. In fact it kinda tasted like chicken liver, and I love chicken liver. It was very rich though so it was a little hard to scarf down. Ella didn't like it. That's right I fed some to Ella, now when she's a teenager and she does something that ticks me off I can tell her I fed her brains as a baby. She spit it out though. Morgan and her sister kept fighting back gags and just kept shaking their heads.

Would I eat another one? Sure like I said it wasn't bad. Plus the way I look at it, when the Zombies start walking the earth, I'm in the clear because they'll be able to sense that I have eaten brains and will think that I'm one of their own.

Later,

Fun In The Midwest

2006-10-08T18:33:00.000-07:00

Also, while we were visiting the Hoosier state, we were able to have a little family birthday party for my sweet little girl. She'll be 1 year old on the 12 (sniff sniff). Here she is opening a kitty cat quilt that grandma made for her.

It was a very nice family get together Morgan's parents, and grandparents were there along with her sister aunt Katy.

One day while Morgan was out shopping Ella and I went to downtown Evansville and had some ice cream. She really liked that and was the hit of the parlor. There were two little 3 year old twin girls that were just fascinated with her. That's my girl, she's a superstar.

When we left the shop I was pushing her along in her stroller and when we turned a corner we ran smack dab into the middle of a press conference with all the local news stations covering it. That's the kinda thing that would only happen to me, I can't even take a vacation with out just stumbling upon news.

Later,

CS

Crikey!

2006-09-04T11:59:00.000-07:00

It's sad when anyone dies (except Hitler or Ted Bundy). I find it especially sad when a father of young children passes away, having lost my own father when I was ten. I feel bad for Steve Irwin and his family. I liked the guy even though he was a freakin' nut job. I would watch his show and scream at the T.V. "What the hell are you doing you manic? Are you hopped up on pep pills or something? That's a Freakin' Cobra!" Hell I even watched his Movie and really enjoyed it.

I remember the first time I saw the Crocodile Hunter, it was around 1996 and it was on a clip show of TV bloopers. The clip was from an Australian Kids show and Steve was the guest. He was standing there with some weird looking purple muppet thing and a full grown lady dressed as the Tooth Fairy. Mr. Irwin had a python (God I hate Freakin' snakes, which made watching him all the more maddening.) draped around his neck and was explaining to the muppet and the Fairy that the python was not "scared of me righat nowa (the following and preceding misspellings are meant to represent an Australian accent), so he's not gonna biate me.", then I watched as the Snakes head went inside Steve's shirt near his collar and its body started to tense up and twist. Then he explained "Alrighat, he's biting me righat nowa and it reaaaly hurts." At that point both the muppet and the fairy's jaws dropped and they both started backing away slowly (much like the Kool-Aid Man did after breaking through the Courthouse wall in the first episode of The Family Guy). The look on the muppet's face is priceless. I will always remember that clip as the first and only time I have actually seen human emotion on the the face of a muppet. And that emotion my friends was that of Pure Fear.

But when it comes to the Death of the Crocodile Hunter I feel much the same as I did when my hero Hunter S. Thompson took his own life, saddened by the news but not the least bit shocked. I mean c'mon man, he's been dancing on the Razor's edge for years. It's a miracle he's lasted this long. The one thing that did shock me was that he died by being stung by a Sting Ray. Morgan and I swam with them on our honeymoon and they are normally docile creatures, like puppy dogs. They don't usually sting unless you step square on their back. And that usually makes them slash that barb in your leg. So it just leaves me scratching my head a bit as to how it got him in the chest.

Well at least the man died doing what he loved, how many people can say that? Well none....because they're all dead.

Rest in Peace Crocodile Hunter.

Later,
CS

Haben Sie Gehort Das Deutsche Band ?

2006-09-04T11:57:00.000-07:00

Mit a bang, Mit a boom, Mit a bing-bang bing-bang boom!

Last week we went to the German Fest in Oregon. No not home. The next city over to the East of Toledo is named Oregon. Only everyone out here pronounces it (Or-ah-gone). It's really freakin' annoying.

They festival was by far the best one that we've been to all summer. But the weirdest thing was the Living Hummel Look Alike Contest.

Little kids would dress up as Hummel Figurines and then they would go on stage and hold the pose of that sculpture for a minute.

The place was packed and everyone was really into it, I almost got mowed down by a stage mom when her daughter forgot a prop.

I have to admit, it really was quite amazing to see a two year old sit completely still and silent for a full minute.

Every kid had a little back story. The Announcer would come on the PA system and say things like, ''This is Lilly. She has one older brother and one younger sister. She likes taking care of her puppy Frodo and Bratz Dolls. She is Hummel Figurine number 275, 'Sweeping and Wishing'. This Hummel was original sculpted in 1940 by Hans Marken. It was only made available to Deluxe Hummel Collectors."

The whole thing was very "Stepford" and a little creepy, but they seemed to enjoy it and we made it out alive, so it's all good.

later,
CS

Top Thrill Scared To Death!

2006-09-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we went to Cedar Point in Sandusky. Cedar point is constantly being named the best amusement park for roller coasters in the world. They Boast a lot of record breakers

Now I love roller coasters, but I have to admit even I was a little intimidated by the heights and speeds of some of these monsters.

Even my old favorites of the Stand Up and Hanging coaster varieties where no match for what I was about to experience. Their Stand up coaster, the Mantis, made me loose my voice on the initial drop, it was that intense.

Never have I wanted to back out of riding a coaster. That is until I met the Top Thrill Dragster.
The Dragster is not so much a roller coaster as it is a force of nature. The ride goes from 0 to 120mph in under 4 seconds ( it actually fells more like half a second). You are then shot straight up 90 degrees hitting a corkscrew just as you are about to slowly crest 420 feet in the air. Then as you crest (Oh yeah there was a warning sign that sometimes the coaster doesn't make it over the hump and you roll back down backwards to the starting position. If that happened to me I would probably have a heart attack, I don't do backwards coasters.) you are sent straight down towards the earth again reaching 120mph. The whole ride lasts about 17 seconds.
One of the worst parts was of waiting an hour to go on the ride is watching the thing take off over and over, it really messes with your head.

I felt like backing out several times, especially the closer we got to the front of the line. Even as I was getting into the car I could envision myself jumping up and saying "That's it. No way! I'm out!" The fact that my hands were shaking so hard I barely got my seat belt buckled, and I was envisioning not being able to get it latched before take off and seeing myself tumbling 420 feet didn't help maters either.

The take off is what it must feel like to be a bullet flying out of a .357, it's so intense. After that it's all gravy. Once you start to go straight up it's a blast. Then going straight down your so pumped with adrenaline your just screaming "Yeah alright." I only peed a little bit.

Did I mention it's the fastest and tallest roller coaster in the world?

On Wednesday of that week I sent a reporter to Cedar Point. He did a report on a 78 year old man, with a Pacemaker, who was riding it at least 2 times a day throughout the month of August. You can watch the report HERE.

I don't see how he can do it. I think I would have trouble getting back on it even one more time. Did I mention that even though I love roller coasters, I hate heights? Ironic isn't it.

Later,

CS

Yipes! Oddities in Ohio

2006-09-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

And now for a page from "Ohio's Still Freakin' Weird"

Okay I know that's a Michigan plate, but we saw it on the way to Cedar Point, And Michigan is pretty freakin' weird too. I wonder why this guy just doesn't put a billboard on the side of his truck that says "Hey Cops! I probably got a Glock in here. Is it registered? Probably, but you're going to have to pull me over to find out for sure, and so I can bitch to you about my second amendment rights being violated while you're checking it out. Then I'll go home and blog all about it on the NRA boards. Did I mention I'm a veteran? Is this anyway to treat a Veteran?"

On the Way Back from Cedar point Morgan and I stopped by the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant to pose for some pics. This is about a half an hour from our home. Did I mention that Ella has started to grow a third Arm out of here back? So her college is paid for right there, so that's good.

When we stopped to to take the Pics we were in the Parking lot of a little store, a drive-thru store. I mean you literally have the option to park and then walk inside or drive through the middle of the store to do your shopping.

It seems like it could be mildly convenient, maybe on some level, but in the end I'm guessing it's just a big hassle for the driver and the clerk "No not those chips the ones next to them. No up one. No over the other way now to your left. Oh and a two dollar lottery scratcher too."

Later,

Those Wacky Swede's

2006-09-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago we took a trip up to Canton MI to visit this regions only Ikea. If you've never been I highly recommend it you won't forget the experience.

We left early in the morning because it's just about an hour drive and we were going up on weekend. Good thing we did too, the place was packed. I somehow managed to find one of the last parking spots at the very far end of the parking lot. When we left at the end of our shopping experience, we had three cars jockeying for our space. It was like sharks circling. I just wanted to get my family out of there before the mini van soccer moms started to rumble. They'll cut you man.

Inside is nuts. There are so many people you can hardly move, even though the place is like 5 Costcos put together.

The first thing we did was ate (that's right they have a restaurant inside too, and the food is fantastic). I had the roast beef with potato salad. It was delicious and the portions were huge, and get this the whole thing cost 2.99. I hear breakfast is a big hit because you get scrambled eggs, 2 bacon strips or pork sausage and home fries for only 99 cents.

Then we went exploring, the place is huge. It's like a Maze once you enter, and they run everyone through it like rats. Elliot and I had to stop and rest on the fine display furniture.

We tried to see if she would take a nap in a huge mound of Sheepskin rugs, but she was too exited

We got out of there with a bevy of items including a new computer desk for under 40 bucks (which is what we went up there for in the first place) and Ella got this crazy thingy like you see in the doctor's office to play with.

You know these things right? They're usually tucked back in the corner in the little "Children's play area" with broken fisher price knockoffs from 20 years ago and books with no covers with crayon writing all over the insides. There's also usually a little plastic table with two little chairs. You know what I'm talking about....right? Anyway Ella loves the Thing.

We were not able to get through the whole store because Ella was getting tired. So after spending about two hours in there we had to make a B-line for the desks and get the heck out of there. There was a White Castle across the street so we were able to grab some Slyders for the ride home.....Sweet!

Later,

JESUS NOOOOOOO!

2006-08-09T19:36:00.000-07:00

ELLA FELL DOWN AND GOT HURT!

I was at work and Morgan called me. She said that Ella fell down and got hurt. This is the first time that she has ever been hurt. She was standing up over at the book shelf and Morgan was just 3 feet away. She's really good about sitting herself down on her bottom, but this time she fell over and scrapped her head on one of her baby books. She cried. She really Cried! And now she has a red little raspberry scrape in the middle of her precious little forehead.

SEE!

And on top of that we still can't get that comb out of her mouth.

The stupid doctor didn't realize the severity of the situation as I screamed at him to put a tourniquet on my precious little darling's mellon while I was clutching her in the ER. And I had to kidney punch that damn nurse who kept telling me to "Calm down sir it's just a scrape".

Well she's home now and I put a plaster cast around her itty bitty little noggin' myself. Long story short. I'm not going to work anymore.

Later,
CS

The Hefty Felons

2006-08-09T17:52:00.000-07:00

Toledo has a lot of weird stuff going down just about everyday. Take this gem for example. Rob found this when he went on cop rounds this morning. The police report details about how one of our good citizens was walking through a KFC parking lot after purchasing a gallon of milk. While taking his stroll he was set upon by a Portly Quintet of young females who beat him up. According to the victim they made off with his cell phone and the gallon of dairy goodness that he had just purchased.

One of my favorite sites is The Smoking Gun. I submitted the police report to their editor. You see you really have to read the second page of the report that details the events that transpired in those early morning hours. The officer who wrote it had one hell of a sense of humor. Well the editor was so pleased with my submission that it was made the front page and was today's "Featured Document"

As for our poor friend. I guess the old adage is wrong.....Milk does not do the body good.

Later Skater,
CS

The Hits Just Keep On Coming!

2006-07-30T15:48:00.000-07:00

We had another Milestone today. We've been trying to get Ella to wave hello or goodbye for a while now. And today (exactly one week after she started crawling) she did it. She seems to be pretty good at it and she thinks it's hilarious, as you will see in the video below. She's a little sleepy in this one. We just got back from the store and she was ready for a nap.

(Update) As I was sitting here writing this post Morgan brought Ella in the room after she changed her. When she brought her over to me I said "Hello" and waved to her, Ella waved back. I did this a couple of times and then I just said "Hello" and didn't wave to her, But she waved back anyway, she figured out on her own to wave when we say "Hello". It wasn't a fluke, I tried it 4 or 5 more times with the same result. Genius Baby!

Off the Subject

The ScFi Channel has started airing a new reality show called "Who Wants To Be A Superhero?". I know the concept sets the program up for all kinds of mocking and criticism, but the show is really a riot. Morgan even liked it, and said she would watch it with me anytime. Think "Big Brother" meets "Fear Factor" in Spandex with capes. The winner gets their character made into a comic book and they get to star as their character in their own SciFi Channel movie, not too shabby. I'm rooting for Major Victory, he's a crack up.

The show's site even has this nifty little Hero Machine where you can make your own Super Hero. Here's the one I did.

It's Kind of an updated version of a character that I created in High School called Disc-Man. He could make discs out of energy fields, as small as a CD or as large as A football field. Then he could use a kind of tactical telekinesis to control them to use as weapons or shields.

I know, I know....what do you want from me........I'm a Geek.

Later,

Here She Comes! Here Comes Speed Racer....

2006-07-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's right. This weekend Ella decided that she would become mobile. No more mere rolling and scooching across the carpet. Now she's a little crawling machine. Watch out cat! We spent most of the weekend getting started on baby proofing the apartment. Soon we will have fences and gates up everywhere to keep the little one from crawling into the fireplace or putting Cheerios in the VCR.

Here's a video Morgan shot of my little rugrat in action.

Also This weekend we went to the Butterfly House in Whitehouse Ohio, and I'm please to report that Ella did not eat or squish any Butterflies.

I had never been before and it was truly amazing. You steep through the doors and there were butterflies everywhere. Melanie Wingo would have gone into an instant panic attack, that would have probably would have required the assistance of the paramedics and a psychotherapist.

It was good to see that they reopened the place with no problems this year. Last year right before they opened they had a bit of a mishap with a pesticide and lost most of the butterflies. We sent a crew there and the video was pretty horrific. All of these little winged bastadches lying on the ground twitching and going into seizures. It was like something out an insect snuff film.

Earlier in the week we had a little family portrait day. It was Morgan's Dad's Birthday and we went over to the University and my buddy Patrick took some great shots of the three of us.

Ella also received some cute new clothes from here Aunt Louise this week and had a little fashion show out on the sun deck. Please to enjoy.

SUPERSTAR!

That's it for me.

Later Babies,
CS

SHE DID IT!!!!!!!

2006-07-08T18:14:00.000-07:00

That's right she stood up all on her on. Morgan and I were eating diner and Ella was on the floor playing with her toys. We watched her scoot over to the coffee table and she started to lift herself up. When she got all the way up it didn't hit me what had happened I just went "Oh!" because she was reaching for my cell phone and I didn't want her to put it in her mouth.

Then Morgan said "She did it!" and I grabbed the camera and started shooting. She stood up for a few minutes before she started to slide sideways. I slipped my hand under her left side as she did and helped her to sit down. I'm freaking out about the first time she falls. I'm thinking of wrapping her and the house in bubble wrap.

Here are some more shots of her standing up.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Polish Festival

We went to the Polish Festival on Lagrange street today. Morgan had a couple of Perogies and I had a Kielbasa with Kraut on it. We also got the colossal onion rings.

The Plate had 6 rings on it, and the damn things were huge. The two in the picture above aren't even the biggest ones out of the batch. Mammoth Onion rings are just about as big as an eight and a half month old's head.

See.

I ate two and Morgan had two. We couldn't finish the last two so we gave them to two little boys (I asked his mom's permission first). Little boys are like garbage disposals they can just eat and eat and never get full. So they were better equipped than us to tackle the last two deep fried hoops.

Later,

Happy First 4th.......What?

2006-07-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

Ella just wanted everyone to know she's enjoying her first 4th of July.

Later,

Standing Tall. Well Sort Of.

2006-07-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

I Thought Ella might pull herself up into a standing position today. She's really been working on it. She can stand if your holding on to her but she's got the jelly legs.

Instead of pulling herself up she just started trying to eat the high chair and made a bunch of noises.

Later,
CS

SHE SAID DA DA!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-06-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

Slow News Day

2006-06-20T05:03:00.000-07:00

Friday was a slow news day (well it seemed like it at first, then I totally dropped the ball on something and am still kicking myself about it, but I don't want to talk about that), so what do you do on a slow news day? Use your natural resources. And by that I mean pimp out your wife and baby for a story about breastfeeding.

You can watch it here.

Later,
CS

Chicago...Finally

2006-05-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

Well it's over a month after the fact but here are those pictures from Chicago.

Here's me cruising around on the L train and a couple of me with the skyline behind. In that third picture you can see the building that Elizabeth Shue was hanging off the side of in "Adventures in Babysitting".

Standing Taaaaalllll! Ella and I infront of that river that Lary and Balki take a boat down in the opening of "Perfect Strangers".

The Sears Tower. Did I go up there? Hell's No! I got a thing about heights.

After Ella and I took these pictures we ran into that Municipal Building behind us and paid $5,000.00 in back taxes on an orphanage, so the little tykes would not be kicked out into the Chicago cold. Wait that was the Blues Brothers. Come to think of it we didn't even go in that building.

China town seemed a little shifty. Shop keepers kept inquiring about purchasing Ella.

We were there for a Baby shower and Ella got to hang out with a couple of other babies. That's Mitch and his son Miles. I first met Mitch way back in '93 when I started college. Who would have thought that 13 years later we would be two proud dad's introducing our children to each other in Chicago Illinois.

Here's Ella, Loki (Yes the Norse God of Mischief), and Miles sitting on the couch.

Babies tend to topple.

That's it for now. I'm going to the Natti this weekend so I should have many exploits to blog about when I return.

Outta here,
CS

GET A LIFE!

2006-05-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

So let us talk a little about the person who wants to take me down and mess up my life. What Power do you really think that you have? How strong do you think you actually are? (Oh yeah…. by the way. This person is the reason why I haven’t posted about Chicago yet. That and sweeps. But the pictures are great I promise.)

Confused? Sorry, I should back track a little.

On Sunday while in the middle of a major telethon, that I am very proud to be a part of, The Z-Man asks me, “Do you remember that post on your blog that you wrote about me?”. Well of course I did, I always remember writing about my friends: SIDE NOTE (That’s right Jack hole! Z-Man already knew about the post…. in fact when I snapped the picture of him eating Brussels sprouts I told him that pic was going right on the blog.) He went on to say “Well somebody printed it out and sent it to my home via U.S. mail.”
Z-man was pissed. He couldn’t believe that someone would do that. At first he thought someone was “messing” with him, until I pointed out that I was obviously the target. For some reason this person, who is keeping an eye on Toledo thought that Z would be upset that I wrote about fearing for his health and the fact that he was eating a food stuff that was stinky. My guess is that they thought Z would be so upset that he would take action. What kind of action, I can only guess, maybe they thought it would give Z ammunition to go after me, have me reprimanded, or even fired. Well thanks for the effort, much love to you too.

I have written about a person that I work with, someone who is good natured and who I consider a friend, and “Bob Woodward” here is going to try and use that to attack me. Am I really that important to you? Is your life so small and miniscule that you have to stalk me and Z through my blog, that mainly consist of pictures of my wife and child and me in front of signs with snappy little captions? That is very sad dude. This isn’t any kind of Myspace scandal here Scoop McGee.

I asked Z if he would like to say anything to the person that sent him the post and his response to this person is “Go *censored* yourself.” Well Mr. “Stolssel” looks like your little plan was a bust.

The sucky thing is that this was done by someone that we obviously both know, someone who has looked me right in the face and has now decided to jam a knife in my back. And after recent hits on my website in the last few weeks from a local IP address I have a pretty good Idea who it was. Hey if you have something that you want to say to me, why don’t you grow a sack and come talk to me in person instead of doing all the sneaky crap.

Anyway that’s what I have to say, I just had to vent. Any comments from my friends and family?

CS
Over and out.

Mandy

2006-04-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

I promise I'll post about Chicago soon, but right now I just have to say that I love my little sisters. My kid sister Mandy (the one on the left) posted a very nice thing about me on Myspace.com It actually made me a little bit misty. Here it is....

Number 1 of my top 8

21 questions about the first person on your top 8
1) Name Ch*******er Re***s..Yes that is his real name
2) Age?Almost 32!
3) Where did you meet?We met Feb 25th 1980 the day I was born!
4) What do you like best about this person?He has the same f-ed up twisted sense of humor I do
5) How old were you when you met?Probably a couple hours old
6) Is this person your best friend?He's my big brother and I only have one of those!
7) Where does this person live?Toledo Ohio....home of Katie Holmes
8) Would you take a bullet for them?Heck yes! However; if he was behind me it might hit him anyway,I'm pretty little
9) When is the last time you saw them?A couple years ago at his wedding
10) When is the last time you talked to this person?Yesterday Via Myspace
11) Are you related?Yes... big brother
12) Would you do anything for this person?Within reason, no circus shit
13) Would you consider their house your home away from home?No Ohio is not exactly a hop skip and a jump away from Seattle
15) Are they your bf/gf?Yuck NOOOOOO!
16) Do you have nicknames for each other?Asswipe for him, He usually calls me kid or brain child..long story
17) What does this person look like?Tall, wild eyed, of course good looking he's related to me..Hello?He looks more like his Dad all the time :)
18) Do u have pics of this person on ur myspace?Yes one of him with 30seconds to Mars! I love Jared Leto! Oh and you too bro!
19) How many days do you see this person a month?zero :
(20) Do you think they would repost these questions?Since I'm not his ..1 I don't care...blasted wife!
21) If u Had a chance to see him/her right now would u see them?Yes! I'd give him the biggest hug and the sock him in the bread basket for feeding a goat beer!

Love You too Kid,
CS

P.S. I Gave Beer To A Goat, Yeah!

Aw C'mon Man!

2006-04-18T19:19:00.001-07:00

We Just got back from Chicago and I will be posting about that....But first thing's first.

In what weird Bizzaro parallel universe is it politically correct to use that as a name for a coffee shop?

CS

Update: I was sent this with the subject line "Happy Now Reaves?"

DETROIT (AP) - A small but growing Michigan-based coffeehouse
chain is changing its name amid concern that its moniker also is a
disparaging term for Hispanics.
Beaner's Coffee informed franchisees and employees yesterday at
its 77 Michigan stores and eight other states that it would become
Biggby Coffee on Jan. 31st.
Beaner's chief executive Bob Fish says the East Lansing-based
company never intended to have a name that could be perceived as
derogatory.
He says the new name will allow the company, founded in 1995, to
rename itself without rebranding. Beaner's logo is a big black 'B'
with an orange background.

Yep I'm happy.
CS

Do I Even Have To Say It?

2006-04-09T16:15:00.000-07:00

Is That Like Hamm's or Rainier or Schlitz? Maybe it's just referring to that generic white label "Beer" beer that I used to see in Safeway when I was a kid.

In Addition To The Booby

2006-03-30T19:30:00.000-08:00

Ella has now moved up to Semi Solid foods. So far It's the bananas or "Nanners" as Morgan refers to them.

She really seems to like them. However it has now made the pooh stinky, so changing the diaper is no longer so cute. Morgan says that because the pooh was stinky, that's how she knew Ella was ready for solid food. I'm not buying it, I say it was the bananas.

Now that Ella has started eating fruit we've started giving her grapefruits that are bigger than her head.......Citrus is good for baby's.....Really.

Ella also has a new toy. And she really likes it. Here she is in her best Kris Kross impersonation.

One piece of bad news however. Somehow, when I wasn't' looking my daughter turned into a hippy (insert Cartman quote here). Sigh....Oh well, it happens.

Later Gators,
CS

Work Fridge: Chapter Two

2006-03-25T18:54:00.000-08:00

I couldn't stand it anymore. I caved. And to think I only spent three hours cleaning it.

Uhhhhhh

2006-03-21T17:51:00.000-08:00

Yeah.....Toledo's still FREAKIN' WEIRD!

Calling off

2006-03-20T10:26:00.000-08:00

One thing that about Ohio that took some getting used to was the term “Called Off”. The first time I heard someone us it I had no idea what they were talking about. You see in Ohio an employee doesn’t “call in sick” or “can’t come to work because of their grandma died” or “can’t find a baby sitter so they are not going to be able to come to work today”, they simply “Call Off’. The explanation usually follows but the first thing you always here is, “Sam Called Off.”
“Oh crap! Why?”
“He’s got the scurvy, and he picked up rickets from cats.”
“Bastard!”

Anyway, I had to call off today because I’ve felt like crap all weekend. I just really hope the baby doesn’t get what I got. At first I thought it was Strep Throat, but now I’m pretty sure it’s just a crazy sore throat. I’m usually a pretty healthy guy but since I’ve moved to Ohio I’ve had all kinds of medical problems. The weirdest thing is not only do I have carpal tunnel in my right hand, but it turns out that I have tarsal tunnel in my right foot, which sucks big time because my big toe is completely numb. So I’ll have to get cortisone injected in my ankle and if that doesn’t work I’ll have to have surgery. I hate getting old.

Since I’m stuck at home I just got done watching the second episode of 'The Sopranos' of the season. Morgan surprised me on Saturday when I got back from the dentist and had ordered HBO. I was just going to wait until the season came out on DVD and watch it then, but the cable company was running a special of 6 months for $6.99 a month, so Morgan just had them hook it up so I could watch my show. I had successfully gone the full week without learning anything that happened in the season premier and was jazzed to watch the show after Morgan went to bed, (The “On Demand” feature is a wonderful thing). In the meantime Morgan and I decided to watch one of our favorite programs that we had recorded from the night before 'The Soup'. I pressed play on the DVR and *BANG*! right off the bat they show the big shocker from the season premier I was only hours away from watching. I was so pissed, I couldn’t watch the rest of the show. And it did kind of make watching the show later anticlimactic, but it was still pretty good.

Speaking of TV, a cool thing that I discovered this weekend is AOL’s In2TV, were you can re-watch entire episodes of old television shows on demand on your computer. Some of the titles include 'Perfect Strangers', 'Head of the Class' and 'The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.'. The only real annoying thing is that to keep the streaming fast and the buffering time low, they break the shows up in roughly 7 minute clips. So sometimes the player will stop in the middle of a scene, and take a couple of seconds to load the next clip before continuing on with the rest of the episode. But it’s really not that big of a deal.

Well time for some pictures of Ella.

See ya,
CS

Work Fridge

2006-03-12T14:22:00.000-08:00

One of the most disgusting things that I've ever seen in my life is the refrigerator in the break room at the station, and unfortunately I have to use it almost every day. I mean, come on man! That thing is worse than the communal refrigerator that we had in the Suzanne Holmes Dorm back in college. This thing looks like a damn Oompa Loompa threw up in it or something. There has been a big glob of ranch dressing (oh God I hope that's ranch dressing) just lying next to the lettuce crisper since before I started working there. There's also this big soda pop spill on one of the glass shelves that's been there so long that the liquid has solidified, it's like a hard rock candy film that is permanently stuck to the shelf. The main problem is that no one wants to clean the damn thing because it's such a mess. Last week I was getting something out of the freezer and someone had left their Coke Zero in there to chill and had forgotten about it. It exploded all over the freezer. I'm surprised no one heard it blow up; it must have sounded like a pipe bomb. Did I clean it up, Damn right I Did Not! That thing's a mess.

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Ella Went To The Zoo,

Today We took Ella to the Zoo for the first time ever. She was very wide eyed and laughed quite a bit. Morgan commented that she thought Ella was enjoying watching the other children as much as looking at the animals. After watching all of those little whipper snappers today, I can't wait until I can take her when she's older and can really enjoy the animals. Oh wait a sec, I can wait, she's growing up so fast already. I can't believe that in just a month she's going to be half a year old.

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Toledo's Still Weird,

The lady they made get in this costume at Arby's to promote a new chicken sandwich was not happy.

See ya,
CS

The Music Post

2006-02-28T21:54:00.000-08:00

Okay, I said I was going to post about music and I've finally gotten around to it after much prompting. I've always been somewhat eclectic when it comes to music. Front row center has always been The King and The Beatles. They are in my blood and always have been. I'm not quite sure where the affinity for Elvis came from. The nearest I can gather is that I became self aware at the age of three, that is the year that he died and I remember seeing all of the coverage on television. After that it was just something about the sound of his music and overall coolness that just stuck with me. Funny thing though, when I was very young I couldn't differentiate between time so I thought that the 'Brady Bunch' was still on the air and that Elvis was still alive and making music.

*side note* Along the same topic, I was a huge 'Little Rascals' fan when I was a kid. They used to play the uncut (a topic for another day) episodes on TBS all of the time when I was a kid. When I was 7 years old my mom told me that Alfalfa had died (why she thought this was a good idea to tell a 7 year old I have no idea....Thanks Mom!). I was stunned, when I asked how she said it was from old age. I asked her if it was some potion or something that made him age rapidly and she said no he was just 90 years old and he just died of old age. It took me years to figure out what she was talking about. And in the last few years I've become even more confused since recently learning that he didn't actually live past his Thirties when he was shot and killed over $50. Again....Thanks Mom! *end of side note*

I remember having the Beatles 'Sgt. Peppers' album and listing to it all the time when I was little. I think that was my first taste of the Fab four. I also remember really liking the 'Yellow Submarine' song. When I was four I saw the movie 'Help!' on T.V., I was very disturbed and frightened by the scene where Paul gets accidently injected with a serum that shrinks him and the other Beatles think that they have stepped on him. Watching that scene as an adult, it just doesn't contain the same kind of fright value. But what really solidified my love and admiration for the Beatles was inheriting my father's vinyl collection after he passed when I was ten years old. I practically wore out his copy of 'Abbey Road' by listening to it more than a thousand times.

My other musical favorites and read like a hodge-podge of the musical industry and are all over the map, they include ELO, The Mighty Mighty Bostones, Faith No More, The Steve Miller Band, The Cars, Sponge, Fastball, Tom Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Reel Big Fish, They Might Be Giants, Wilson Picket, The Blues Brothers, Billy Idol, Billy Joel, The Doors, Mr. Bungle, The Offspring, The Reverend Horton Heat, The Royal Crown Revue, Black Sabbath, The Cherry Poppin Daddies, The Voodoo Glow Skulls, Bobby Darrin, Harry Connick Jr., The Who, Everclear, The Monkees, Neil Diamond, Beck, Roy Orbison, The Foo Fighters, The Hippos, The Hollies, Kiss, Cowboy Mouth, Me First and The Gimme Gimmes, The Beastie Boys, Zebrahead, Green Day, The Ramones, eels, Weezer and Ween just to name a few.

The reason that I wanted to do a post about music is because I wanted to throw out props to a couple of my friends. I've always wanted to be in a band, but I'm just an Okay singer. And I don't have the discipline to ever become truly great on any instrument. I played the drums for about 5 years and I was alright, but that's all really...just alright. But a couple of my buds are still living the dream.

First up is Cooney. I've known the crazy bastard for over 12 years now and I know that I've saved his life on just about as many occasions that he's put mine in jeopardy. Cooney's been a phenomenal bass & guitar player since I've known him, and he just kept getting better. Cooney's been in a ton of bands since college, my favorite was probably 'Twelfth House', for the most part they have all been rock bands. His current endeavor is a somewhat different sound, but one that I believe is equally cool. It's called 'Wayward Sway', and they have kind of an Old Timey, Celtic slash bluegrass kind of feel. Check out their website they have plenty of songs posted for you to give a listen to.
Next is Ramiz. I miss hanging out with this guy. Without question any social gathering that was attended by the both of us would inevitably end in a "Walkin Off". The sounds of "I need more cowbell baby", could be heard up and down the Rouge Valley. I've only ever seen Ramiz perform live once, but it was a trip, he really blew the crowd away. His group is called 'Subliminal Twinkeez', an I'm not usually one for Rap or Hip Hop, but I really dig there stuff. Again check out there site, they have a full album posted there for you to enjoy.

Well that's it for the music post. I'll Keep Cooney and Ramiz the Manchild's links on my site in the "Chucks Peeps" column on the right, so please check them out and let them know what you think of their stuff.

CS
Signing off.

P.S. A quick algebra problem, see if you can figure it out. (tl+jm)=q (squared). Oh wait, that's just wrong, I'm sorry I forgot the mass of tl is far too great for that to be correct. Revision, (tl+jm)= q (cubed), there......that's better.

OOOOHHH YEAH!!!!!!!!

2006-02-21T22:20:00.000-08:00

My next post was going to be about music. That has changed. We just had some major news break here in Toledo. I've been working like a dog all day. And the one thing that I feel most proud of is, not only did I "Punk" the other stations. I also "Punked" all three of the other networks.

I'm the only guy that got all three of the reported bad guys mug shots for air. So not only were we the only station in our market to have them, but because I supplied them to our Network, It was the only one to have them for the "Network Nightly News".....ahhhh.......little victories are the sweetest. Oh wait that was a big victory........Penut Butter Jelly time!

I'm over and out,
CS

ELLA ROLLED OVER!!!!

2006-02-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

Morgan put her down on a blanket to take a picture of her new little outfit and she rolled over. And Morgan caught the whole thing on camera. Check it out.

Morgan Even managed to get her to roll over for a second time while she was recording her on video, HERE.

Since I was at work, Ella even managed to roll over twice for me when I got home. All in all a very successful day.

CS,
Over and out

Bye Bye Doc

2006-02-13T20:05:00.000-08:00

Tony Jones 1984-2006

Friday on General Hospital, Dr. Tony Jones (Brad Maule) was struck down by a mutant strain of influenza. Tony has been a pretty solid guy. Except for that time in the mid '90s when he shacked up with his stepdaughter after cheating on his wife with her, and then stealing a baby and kidnapping an HIV positive woman, thus keeping her away from her medication cocktail that keeps her from dying. But after that was all straightened out he was back to the same old lovable Tony. He's been seen less and less in recent years, only showing up for medical emergencies. So inevitably he drew the Sweeps short straw and was killed off for dramatic effect and ratings. So long Tony, You'll Be missed.

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Ella got a Bumbo!

Over and out

Ad-a-palazzo

2006-02-07T18:17:00.000-08:00

Okay It's time. Forget the Super Bowl ads (although that girl totally getting schooled in that touch football game was damn funny). It's time for my two all time favorite commercials. First up we have the tender tale of troubled grandfather who can't connect with or love anyone except for his dear Scotch, in "Bye Bye, Grandpa Loves You".

Next we have my second favorite of all time. Turn down the lights and brace yourself, hold on tight to a loved one and be prepared to be mildly shocked, and most definitely amused at the sheer terror of "Your Life Could Be On The Line aka Call CPS".

Please to enjoy.
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Ella Likes The Bath Time, Ella Likes The Bath Time!

Here are the adorable little pics

Did I mention she's Huggable?

That's it for now. In the next edition of Chuck Suede Media Geek, I'll tell you all about how I was snubbed by Davy Jones at the Toledo Auto Show (whatever, OOOOOHHHH we got an auto show too, LOOK AT US...PLEASE SOMEBODY...LOOK AT US!) and how one of my childhood heros fell before my eyes. No wonder I always liked Micky the best.....Stoopid Monkee.

I'm gone,
CS

I GAVE A BEER TO A GOAT. YEAH!!

2006-01-30T10:17:00.000-08:00

Actually it was two goats. And my sister Mandy is very upset about the whole ordeal. It seems she had two goats "Larry and Balki", when she was younger and they were killed by a dingo. I don't know what a dingo was doing running around killing goats in Central Washington, but she swears it's true.

When I went to Memphis last week, I went to Silky O'Sullivan's home of the world famous Silly Goats. And that's where I GAVE A BEER TO A GOAT. YEAH!! Just look at those thirsty little critters.

My kid sis (kid, ha ha) also got very upset when I sent her a pic from my phone of this little guy standing up above the bar.

I got a really nasty text message back from her about it. I tried to assure her that the goat lived a very happy life and died of natural causes. Then she got REALLY mad and wrote back something about alcoholism and liver disease not being natural.

Another cool thing about Silky's, aside from GIVING BEER TO GOATS, YEAH!! Is the dreaded bucket.

We aren't really sure what's in the bucket, but it seems to be some kind of mix of beer, rum, wine, soda, and other various hard liquors. It taste kind of like a McGriddle in the respect that after the first sip your not sure if it taste good or bad. Then you take another and it might be okay. By the third sip you're pretty sure that it isn't good at all. Then on the next pull you convince yourself that it's not as bad as you thought. When you get to the fifth sip you grab your head and know that you have consumed something awful. Unlike the griddle however you will continue on plowing ahead because by the time you get to your sixth sip you just don't care what it tastes like anymore because of the shear volume of alcohol that you've just ingested.

Here are a couple of pics of me walking down Beal St.

Standing in front of a Guitar Elvis Owned at Rum Boogie's.

Drinking a beer out of a mason jar, just like great grandpa used too, at B.B. King's Blues Club. That's his guitar Lucille hanging on the wall behind me.

Me next too a lovely mosaic portrait of my hero.

Well that was Memphis. I actually did get quite a bit of work done while I was there, no matter what you might think of the pictures. And oh yeah I GAVE BEER TO GOATS. YEAH!!
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The Baby Went On A Trip

While I was in Memphis, Morgan took Ella down too Evansville Indiana to see her proud great grandparents for the first time.

Morgan Said that Ella was big hit with Doris and Howard.

Morgan's cousin Robyn also seemed to enjoy meeting Ella for the first time. And apparently the feeling was mutual.

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More Videos

I've posted another video. I made this a few years ago, and updated an ending last year. It's called An American Family. Please to Enjoy.

I'm gone,
CS

Dumb Criminals

2006-01-25T16:18:00.000-08:00

I just got back from Memphis, but instead of writing about that I'm going to write about what I was going to Post last week, but could never get around to it.

Meet Rodney McKean. The Fall Guy here lead Hancock County sheriffs on a High speed chase last week. At times reaching speeds up to 101 mph in residential zones, you can read all about The Bandit's adventure HERE.

The best part is the mugshot here. When the authorities arrested Hooper, he was wearing this shirt. How classic is that? I've been waiting for a good mugshot to send to The Smoking Gun, and now I finally got one.
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Factory Fire

So on Friday I'm sitting the desk and I hear I fire break out down the street. All of my crews were out of town or on the other side of Toledo, so I just monitored the scanners to see how bad it was going to get. Well after the crews arrived on the scene I heard one of the firemen say, "We got barrels of oil in here, we could be looking at an explosion". That was the point were I jumped up and grabbed a camera. I was the first one there, and I just jumped out and ran right up to the smoky building with the camera rolling, until police made me move to a "safe distance" from the fire. I ended up being out there for a few hours, but It felt good being a lens slinger again. Plus I was the only photog to get a shot of the front of the building collapsing.

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Video Mania

I've started posting videos to the web. My first attempt is a video from the night Ella First Laughed.

The Second is my short Slasher flick that I shot in 2004, "The Night Terror Had Its way". I'm going to be adding a "Video" column to the side bar of the site, just bellow the "Chucks Peeps" column. I plan on uploading all kinds of neat stuff.

Later,

Mini Man Burgers

2006-01-08T17:52:00.000-08:00

So someone recently asked me if Morgan hated Ohio as much as I do. Now I don’t want you all to get me wrong, I don’t hate Ohio. I’ve met some really nice people and had some good times since I’ve been out here. There has been the occasional person that I’ve run across, that I wouldn’t care if they took an icicle to the eyeball, but all in all everyone is pretty much okay. Except for the ones that are like a Chupacabra on crack. Toledo has a great zoo (so Morgan tells me, I haven’t been yet.) , and we managed to find a very good butcher, something that we could never find in Ashland. Also Toledo has the best pancake house I’ve ever eaten at, Uncle John’s. And you want barbecue? Fugedaboutit….we got the Rib Off baby! I think I just get to homesick sometimes and then I really get acerbic in my blog posts. No, I don’t hate Ohio……but Morgan does. She hates it A LOT. She hates it as much as Whitney hates rehab and as much as Federline hates washing his hair and not smoking. But we do what is best for our family and we both know this will help us in the long run. Hell, with the station being sold who knows, we might have to relocate sooner than anticipated.

One thing that I do love about Toledo…..White Castle, you just don't get that goodness in the Northwest. The first thing I did after my 2600 mile drive was unhitch the car from the U-Haul and make a B line for those tasty little mini burgers. It’s not really located in the greatest of neighborhoods (for some reason Toledo’s only got one) in fact it was robbed at gunpoint just hours after I was there. I know, I know, I’ve heard the urban legends about how those tasty little “sliders” will play rugby with your intestinal track. But I can honestly say I’ve never had a bad experience. Only flavorful bliss. I mean, come on, Chicken Rings….are you kidding me?!

Morgan also enjoys the White Castle, but I think it’s mainly because of her deep seeded love of The Beastie Boys “License To Ill" Album. Morgan has also taken to watching The Food Network especially a show called Good Eats. She gets mad at me because I think the host is smarmy, but I do owe him for one thing, Mini Man Burgers. It was like having White Castle…”Home Style”. I could get used to that. Just check out these mouth watering picks.

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Oh and here is my Christmas Present for Ella. She truly is my little princess. Oh and by the way she laughed for the first time last night. I caught it on video and will be posting a clip soon.

CS over and out

Happy New Year

2006-01-02T09:21:00.000-08:00

Yep it's the new year, and it's about time that I posted something. I've just been in kinda been in a funk ever since I got back from Portland. I rang in the new year by running out of the house at 11:50pm, and videotaping the scene of a shooting. We only had one photographer this weekend and he was about an hour away, and when you have an 11 year old girl shot in the stomach, you have to figure out a way to get someone out there, even if you have to go yourself and miss ringing in the new year with your wife and baby.

I had a great time back in Portland though. We got to see family and some old friends, and we went to a few of my favorite spots. Like Tributes, the best place to get sandwiches in Portland, maybe even the entire Northwest. I used to live in the apartment building next door to it, and have the distinguished honor of being the first customer to walk through the doors and order a Philly Cheese Steak on the day it opened back in 2000 under the name Richie B's. I had three that day, which could explain why I weighed 215 lbs. When I left Portland. The restaurant changed its name to tributes in August of 2001, but Judy, the same woman who opened the restaurant with Ritchie still owns the place and still works the counter, so all of the food has remained the same, with new additions to the menu coming all of the time. If you are ever on NW 23rd in Portland I highly recommend you stop in for a bite. We also stopped by the Blue Moon Tavern to visit with our friend Virginia who was working there. I also used to spend a lot of time at that place when I lived in NW Portland.

Here are some picks from our trip.

Baby Elliott got to meet Grandpa Bird and Aunt Katie for the first time.

On Christmas Eve we put this little red dress on her. Pretty cute.

I got to introduce Elliott to My Aunt Diane and Uncle Tandy, and my cousin Heather and here family.

Morgan and I were even able to go out, just the two of us, a couple of times. We met up with some friends at the Rialto downtown.

Here's Morgan with Angela, LK and Virginia.

Here I am giving Kal some husbandly advice and chastising him for not keeping up with his blogging.

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Random bits,

Morgan decided she would try her hand at photo manipulation. As you can see she has big plans for our little Ella. I hope they don't include wearing a man's suit though.

My sister Mandy (Garth) Sent this to me last month, but I just got it last night. By the description in the subject line of the e-mail I'm assuming this was from some Halloween night costume party and they took first place. I don't know who the other girl is. I think she might be that girl who played Sabrina the Teenage Witch's best friend in the first two seasons and who played Big Red in Bring it on.

Well that's it for me.

CS Over and out

'Tis the Season

2005-12-19T14:22:00.000-08:00

Are you freakin' kidding me.....Are you freakin' kidding me.....How freakin' cute is that picture? She didn't even cry or anything. God, she's the best in the biz.....the baby biz......she's bonafied.

I usually don't care for Christmas time, but this year I'm actually looking forward to it. I have my own little family, and we're all going to Portland to visit with the Fam. I can't wait for that. I miss Oregon so much. It was Ten degrees today....that sucks. I might not come back

CS out

All Clear

2005-12-10T13:39:00.000-08:00

Yes we have no riots, we have no riots today! The Nazis had their rally and only about 50 of them showed up (instead of the 200 that they were claiming would be here). There were about 50 protestors and no riots. About a dozen people were arrested for crossing into areas that were restricted.

Good times,
CR

Don't Be Hatin'

2005-12-10T07:44:00.000-08:00

You Know I just look down at this little face and It's hard for me to believe that there is so much hate in the world.

I will shortly going into work because the neo-nazis have returned to Toledo. They will be rallying at the Government building downtown. A lot of people are pissed off about this and plan to be down there as well. The authorities have blocked off the area were they are going to rally with fences and metal detectors, but the last time a riot broke out it was in areas where the nazis weren't even at. I hope this thing just blows over without incident, but I got a feeling that this might be worse than last time, I hope I'm wrong.

Stay tuned,
CS

The Z-Man

2005-12-07T10:03:00.000-08:00

Let me introduce you all to the Z-man. Z sits next to me three days a week and calls me at least 20 times on Saturday and Sunday when he sits the news desk by himself. Here you can see Z eating out of a rather large Pyrex bowl that is filled with brussel sprouts. Z now has to stop eating fast food and drinking beer because his blood sugar 2 weeks ago was at 460. For those of you who don't know....That's a wee bit high.....I am truly marveled each day that he is alive.....he is not a healthy man. Man those brussel sprouts smelled to high heaven, like the inside of a fake leg, or a Bassett hound that drank a case of PBR and got real bad beer farts. I kept Gagging and had to leave the building. When I came back from lunch he still had half a bowl left and the whole newsroom smelled like the inside of Montley Crue's tour bus.

Oh yeah....the weather sucks here and it just keeps getting worse. It was 5 degrees yesterday. FIVE DEGREES!!!!! That is what you call ridiculously cold. When it gets that cold only one thing can cheer me up.....Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

Anyway here's what you've all been waiting for. Pictures of Ella in all her cuteness. She is getting so big, her pudgy little arms and legs are like Vienna sausages. I call her my little Jumbo Shrimp.

Moving Day

2005-11-29T13:27:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the new home of Chuck Suede Media Geek. I'll probably be tweaking the site's design a little, so the look will change but the location should remain the same. One of biggest changes is that I don't have a guestbook. I'm not sure if I'll create one or not, it could take me some time if I do. So for now anyone who wants to leave a message will have to use the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post in order to post a comment.

I've been meaning to post about LLR's video that he made. It's freakin' Hilarious. He made an almost shot for shot remake of the "My Humps" using only Toy robots. Click here to check it out.

We've been running a commercial a lot lately on our channel that I'm in love with. It's by this security company called CPS that sponsors our Fugitive Of The Week. It starts off with this light airy song over the company's logo.

Your life could be on the LLLIIINNNNEEEE.
Call C-P-S.

Then you quickly see a persons shadow casting across the outside of a house. Dissolve then to the inside of the house to revel the all American waspy family, Mom, daughter(13) and son (6) making air popped popcorn and laughing. Then dissolve back out side to reveal a 1920's cat burglar dressed like a long shoreman holding a flash light and deactivating the home security system. All the while the singer's syrupy B.J. Thomas inspired tune plays on.

Someone could be in your house right now.
Protect your home and the ones you love.
You're life could be on the line,
But we could save you today.

Back inside the house and the family is now watching Batman Forever with there backs to the front door. As the door starts to open, the family somehow instinctively knows that the cat burglar is coming inside behind them as the door gets about an inch open, so they jump up in terror and start to huddle together in the middle of the room. Then slow dissolve to the father, arriving home, standing in the open door frame looking around the room in horror. He puts his hands over his face and begins to weep. The cat burglar has obviously slaughtered his entire family. The music builds to a crescendo and then fades out.

Your live could be on the line to night.
Call C-P-S.

I'm not making this up! It's Freakin' brilliant, plus the whole thing is in super slow motion which only adds to the absurdity. By far it is the best commercial about a family being slaughtered by a cat burglar while watching Batman Forever, EVER!!! It's got to be my favorite commercial of all time next to "Bye Bye....Grandpa loves you". I'll have to ask LLR about webhosting for video so I can get it on the site. I have a copy if anyone wants a dub, I had the guys in Master Control make it for me.

Okay enough of that. Time for Photos of my favorite baby girl.

"Heeeeyyyy, What the heck's going on over there?"

CS

Yep, Still here

2005-11-25T19:20:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a happy Turkey Day. I haven't posted anything in a while, Partly because I've been so busy with Sweeps and Partly because I have been busy setting up a new website. Xanga is okay but it can be very limiting, so I'm setting up a new Blogger Site. I'll let everyone know what the new address is when I fully make the switch.
Ella's first Thanksgiving was good, if cold.....It was 11 freakin' degrees today, and the crazy thing is, it's supposed to get up to 64 on Monday. I hate the Midwest. But I digress.
I'll try to post more before I get the new site up. In the mean time here are two of my favorite pictures of Elliott. God, She's just the cutest.

CS

Happy Halloween

2005-10-31T12:38:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween Everyone. I could Post about my Hair Pulling out experience at the Toledo Mayoral Debate On Saturday, instead I'm just gonna post a bunch of pictures of Ella.

Grandma Bird Came for a visit last week

CS over and out