The Trap

Here’s some pictures of my daughter playing baseball…

Some may wonder why the name of my blog is The Trap. It comes from my call name / nick name, Trapper. Now you may wonder how I got this nick name.  It has been covered in a couple of  threads in the forums I frequent, but for those of you that aren't on those forums (all two of you), I will explain.

No, I am not a fur trader or varmint exterminator, nor am I a surgeon from a M*A*S*H unit in the Korean war.   You see, I am the General Manager at a Texas themed restaurant called the Lone Star Texas Grill.  When you are hired, as I was over six years ago, you are required to choose a call name form a list of "Texan" names.  With the help of my wife and my mom (hey, she did ok picking my real name) I chose Trapper.

So, I've had a terrible case of writers block lately.  I don't know why.  Maybe I just don't concentrate and I get caught up in other things.  I think it is important when working on the internet to schedule your time.  For instance, for one hour I will check out the posts on Motorcycle-Journal , then I'll go shoot the breeze with my buds at v7n forums , then I'll go read some of my favorite blogs.  After that I'll come here to my blog and check out my stats and realize that I must be boring since I don't get very many comments. (Apologies to those that do comment, I love you all) Then I'll watch my one hour of TV that turns in to two, then I'l go back to the motorcycle forum, then I'll go back to v7n…  WAIT I wanted to do those HTML tutorials! What?!? It's one o'clock in the morning?  Crap!  I got distracted again!  

So from now on I am going to try and make a schedule and stick to it.  Oh. I'll be right back, "House" is coming on.  I love that show…

Pete Seeger is a pioneer of folk and protest music from the 1950s and 60s.  The Boss has released a tribute to his music in his newest release, We Shall Overcome - The Seeger Sessions. 

With its Dixieland sound and upbeat tempos, don't let the jovial feel of this album fool you. The lyrics are filled with images of pain and protest, which champion the causes of the  oppressed.

In Springsteen's first album made up of songs he didn't write himself, he covers these traditional gems with his own blue collar style.  From the upbeat and fun Pay Me My Money Down, to the haunting Erie Canal, Bruce proves that he is an artistic singer and musician/arranger as well as one of the most prolific songwriters in history.

Hearing Springsteen's distinctive voice singing these songs is a pleasure and definitely worth a listen.  If you are a Born to Run fan or if you like the inspirational messages from the gospel standard Mary Don't You Weep, which has a Tom Waits or John Prine feel to it, you should give this album a try. 

The Chef and Co-Owner of the best restaurant in Shediac, New Brunswick and I decided this morning would be a good day to blow some of the cobwebs out of our bikes. We left his fine establishment and headed north along the coast. Riding through these curvy seaside roads, you can tell that the locals take pride in their properties. Not because there are pile of beautifully landscaped yards, which there are many, but these people embrace their Acadian heritage and create a theme that looks like they like to enjoy themselves. Who wouldn't, living a few yards from soft sandy beaches.

Crossing over wooden decked, single lane bridges and seeing the whitecaps crash and spray against the shore, kept us riding until our fingers were numb. We stopped in Bouctouche for a couple of pictures and to warm up.

On the return leg of the 150+ km loop, we took a smaller road in through the village of Saint Thomas. This road was simply awesome for around 30 kms. The left side of the road simple dropped off in to the Atlantic Ocean, separated by only a few yards of surf breaking boulders. These small Capes in South Eastern New Brunswick are incredible rides and I never get tired of them.

I've had a very trying week. My wife was scheduled to go to Toronto on Monday afternoon and our oldest daughter came down with a slight fever through the night on Sunday. To be safe, we took her to the doctor on Monday before my wife's flight. The doc said it was something viral that just had to run it's course.

"Don't worry, I can handle it." I said. And I was confident I could.

My plan was to go to Toronto for the weekend and spend a nice couple of days with Wanda to break up her two week training seminar and to get some "us" time, of which parents of young children are often deprived.
Tuesday morning Maria wakes up throwing up. I called someone to work for me and held the bathroom garbage can for her until mid afternoon. She felt a bit better that evening but I didn't want her to go back to school the next day, so I asked my mother to watch her on Wednesday. No problem.

I get home on Wednesday night and fed the girls Kraft Dinner and the remainder of the re-hydrating Gatorade and got them to bed. As I am tucking them in, it seems the youngest one, Georgia, is shivering. I cover her up and say to myself "Hmmmm, I wonder…" One hour later I was scraping mac & cheese and Gatorade out of her hair.

Thursday brings another missed day at work, to whom I am grateful for their understanding, as I kept Georgia home.

Now G (as we call her sometimes) was doing well for a while, then she would get worse and have a few dry heaves, and then she'd be good again. I figured I would keep her home again on Friday, as I would be home getting ready for my afternoon flight. She woke up feeling pretty good as I packed. Then, just before noon I hear one of those little kid moans that a parent knows is not good. Her temperature had spiked to 102. I make a decision to cancel my flight and call my mom and tell her I don't need her to watch the kids. Good thing, since the visit to the clinic revealed a throat infection.

Did I handle it? Yes, and I don't resent a second of it. Am I looking for people to say "too bad for me"? NO!

The reason I wrote this is to say how proud I am of my wife. I know how strong she is, but sometimes she's not so sure. She is up in Toronto, by herself, away from her babies for the longest time ever, getting periodical updates on their health and discomfort, all while training for a brand new career in a completely new industry.

I can tell it's hard on her but I am amazed at how well she is handling it. You see, Wanda is occasionally a 'glass is half empty' girl, on the other hand, I like to think I am a 'glass is half full' guy. I guess when you put us together, we make a full glass.

I love ya, babe. Can't wait til your home!

I have been busy with sick children this week and haven't had time to write, so today I will be posting a few pictures of The Maritimes, specifically New Brunswick. Enjoy.

Crooked Creek, Albert County

Again…

Bay of Fundy

Deer in a Meadow (look closely)

Parlee Beach, Shediac, NB. Warmest water north of the Carolinas.

A lot of us are active forum members and we know that there is politics and personalities on all forums. Makes you wonder how close the personalities are to the person in real life. So I’ve compiled a short list of characters I’ve encountered and have listed them below. Note: These are done tongue in cheek and any similarities between these and actual forum members I know is purely coincidental… yeah right . I hope to get some additional ideas in the comments on this one.
The Admin: aka- Sir Bansalot, His Holy Censorship…

• Can’t enjoy heated debates, because he might have to ban himself.
• Has to make hard judgement calls like whether $h!t is profanity or not.
• Has to pretend to want to respond to the same question for the 73rd time although he really doesn’t care if the newbie has a Homer Simpson avatar or a red X.

• Has a posse of moderators to do the dirty work for him, like move the avatar thread to the proper forum category so the newbie will never be able to find the answer anyway.

Moderators: aka - The Posse, Security Guards, Regulars that bitched too much.

• Helps new members post pics… only if she’s hot!
• Informs argumentative posters that it is against forum guidelines to disagree with moderators and they agreed to that on line 621 of the regulations in the registration process.
• Can bully a “Cliff Clavin” in to lurking with 14 keystrokes.
• Has “Welcome to the forum, glad to have you aboard” on a permenant clipboard ready for “copy, paste.”

Regulars: aka - forum junkies…

• Have jobs that no one really knows what they do, because they really do nothing. (how else would they have 85.6 daily posts?)
• Can find an emoticon of a one armed basket weaver doing the moon walk in 7 seconds flat.
• Has a spouse that thinks that php or vBulletin are project proposal software for work, (and YES everyone calls me BigDaddy756.)
• Knows how a forum should really be run.

New Members: newbies, n00bs…

• Posts the same lame joke the n00b that joined last week posted.
• types like a teenager in a chatroom (U gize rok!!!!!!! This plase rulez!!!! U R prolly gonna ban me!!!)

• Never closes tags [quote You should really learn how to post[/quote “Wat ja meen?

Trolls:

• New members that like to stir up shit.
• asks questions then disagree with the answers.
• on a good forum, they get the cybershit kicked out of them within a day.
• Don’t get banned right away so the regular members can antagonize them into quitting.

Nostril Photographer:

• takes pics 9 times the size of computer monitor.

Leg Humpers:

• can “wolf whistle” with a keyboard.
• scares away 90% of all female members

Yawn! Is it over yet? John Stewart made Letterman look like Crystal. I really thought John could have been funnier and we all know that Hollywood is liberal, so pointing it out is not really funny, except for the one line when he said “This will be the first time, for some of you, that you will have voted for someone who will win.”

I didn’t see most of the movies that were heavily nominated so I don’t really have an opinion on the winners but I’m glad that “Crash” won best picture. I did enjoy this movie and I think Matt Dillon should have won for his performance in this movie, but, again, I didn’t see the others. George Clooney sure has come a long way from the Cosby spin off “Facts of Life”.

I was also pleased that Reese Witherspoon won for best actress. I just watched “Walk the Line” on Friday night and I thought she was great, and so pretty. One thing about “Walk The line” was since Joaquin Phoenix sang all the songs (as did Witherspoon) I couldn’t picture Johnny Cash singing. As soon as the credits rolled and a Cash song was played I could finally picture the Man in Black in my head.

Philip Seymore Hoffman has always been a favorite of mine since the first time I saw him in “Scent of A Woman” where he played a real ass of a school mate of Charlie played by Chris O’Donnel. He was also very funny in “What About Polly.”

Besides that, I definitely have to give props to Paul Haggis (Crash) for winning Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture. I am constantly impressed with the talent that comes out of Canada on a regular basis.

John Scott is giving more money away! In his most recent Blog entry, John is challenging Bloggers to link to and showcase the “little guy” Blogs. In “Clean Up on Aisle Three”

http://www.internet-marketing-blog.com/2006/03/01/clean-up-on-aisle-three/

John is encouraging to grow the Blogosphere by linking to newcomers Blogs or unknown blogs. Just make sure you don’t link to Technorati’s top 100.

John will list the Blogs participating and he will have a vote. The first prize is $3000. There will also be 70 consolation winners of $100 in swag or whores. Good luck to everyone and I hope to find some interesting Blogs over the next few months.