Those Wacky Swede's

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,

CS

JESUS NOOOOOOO!

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

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!

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,

CS

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

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!!!!!!!

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.

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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,

CS

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

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

Later,

CS

Standing Tall. Well Sort Of.

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!!!!!!!!!!!

Slow News Day

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

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!

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

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!

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?

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

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

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

Uhhhhhh

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

Calling off

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

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