56 posts tagged “keegan”

News:
OMG Spiderman was arrested!  I love how they're hauling him away in front of kids.

US Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce that  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be transferred from Guantanamo Bay to New York to stand trial.  Welp, this should be a fun news day then shouldn't it?  I can hear it now.  OMFG OBAMA SUPPORTS TERRORISTS!!!  He wants to bring them HERE!!! To let them roam free in your back yard!  Because you know, you good God fearing Americans who work in prisons cannot be trusted to keep them in prison.  You're gonna set them free soon as they get here.  Bunch of traitors.  To be honest, THEY were probably safer in Guantanamo.  But that's not how we're supposed to do things.  Commit a crime and  sooner or later you're supposed to face the justice system.  That's how I learned things.  Of course I learned in public schools.  Friggin socialists!  They probably taught me a lot of bullshit.  Blame my dad. He died young.  Didn't grow up and get rich and send me to a fancy rich private school, so I don't know any better.  Oh someone on Morning Joe already asked why NY?  Erm, where was the main 9/11 attack again?  Dumbasses.  You do usually prosecute where the crime happens.  Should we send them to Iowa courts instead? Not to mention NY courts are some of the biggest in the country.  They handle big cases.  They have big security. 

Books: 
Finished reading Rosemary and Rue: An October Daye Novel 4/5 stars.  I'm really generous with my stars, if it entertains me and I could read it again it's usually 5.  But I just couldn't do it.  Teetered between 4 and 5.  Something was just not 100% on this one.  I suspect the next in the series will make it to 5.  It's entertaining alright.  I think it was because a few of the characters that we should have better met, we didn't.  A few we didn't need to meet so well, we did.  Stuff like okay so you were basically totally healed with magic right?  But... in the next fight the wound was re-opened?  Wait didn't we make a huge deal over how big of a deal it was that they went to that person to heal you?  How potent that magic was?  Otherwise, I loved it. 

Now onto Grave Secret (Harper Connelly Mysteries, Book 4).  I decided on it next since it's a series I'm already well into.  Saving Fire and Graceling to read together.

Keegan:
He's so cute.  Back when he did the MS walk, I left him a thank you.  He must have just gotten around to logging into his MySpace.  I just got this message today - "YOUR WELCOME IT HURTS YOUR LEGS BUT YOUR WORTH IT BECAUSE YOUR A FAMILY MEMBER THATS WHY I DO IT EVERY YEAR."

So even though our b-day isn't until Thursday, I sent my sister an Amazon gift card early.  Let's face it Amazon rocks in that their shipping estimates are always for like 3 weeks away and then, at least here and when I lived in PDX both, I'd get stuff with a week.  So while I was thinking of it I thought nah, why wait.  Send it now.  She can shop and if lucky get stuff within days of our birthday.

Keeping with the tradition she sends me one back.  Brian laughs.  I told him I'm sure it doesn't count as re-gifting as I don't think that you can use gift cards to buy gift cards.  My first thought was she had to top me this year.  When I give mom a present for the last year or two she'll ask mom what we got her and if she can't top it (the computer) she curses us.  So the gift card she had sent me was bigger than the one I'd sent her.  Damn her!  Then I figured well fine, I'll let her win.   Silly girl.  She can't afford it, should be helping mom, etc.  And also it's from her, Keegan, and mom.  So okay.

But what amused me the most, was the attached note --  Happy B-day! Keegan is upset he can't deliver your spankings! So he is going to store up all your spankings from all the b-days he's missed and dish them out the next time he sees you

I told them that since Karina shares my birthday that he doesn't need to save them up!  He can just let her have mind and deliver them all to his mom for me ;)  I also told her to be glad that Brian didn't pick her present.  She works in a Halloween store.  There was a controversy about the store selling an "illegal alien mask". For the record, they did pull the mask off the shelves because it was offensive to Mexicans (picture below).  Personally I think it looks like a trucker or gas station employee and when mom posted it I was like wtf?  I didn't associate it with any race, didn't know what it was until she explained.  Brian thought since had to deal with the headache of protesters calling to ask if they sold it, we should order it online and send that to her.     He totally can't pick presents for chicks.  He is picking good presents for Keegan for Christmas though.  Not using my card yet, I told Brian to get me one too -- since we've already established he can't be trusted to order chick presents.

Alien mask

Today marks the day that most if not all kids go back to school, if they hadn't already started. 

In case you live in cave and hadn't heard, Obama is giving a back to school speech, the full text is available here.

Many parents plan to keep their kids home from school if their schools will be showing the speech -- because it's socialist brainwashing attempts to indoctrinate kids into some cult or something... I dunno.  Whatever. 

Me, I've got no kids, but those of you who know me know that I love my nephew as if he were my own even though he lives in another state.  He's 8.  I spent the first 3? 4? years playing an active role, living with him, helping take care of him.  I'm very proud of how he's turning out.  And I hope his school plays that message. 

Keegan's being forced to go to a new school this year.  As in brand new, just built fancy school with all new stuff.  There will also be much bigger classroom sizes.  Etc.  So some good, some bad about it.  In his last school, 2nd grade him was a superstar.  His teacher loved him so much he was put in charge of helping other kids.  He was reading a grade or two ahead of his own grade, etc.  He's going to have to adjust to being in that more crowded class and getting less attention.  To getting around in a new school that looks monstrous.  Giving him a little pep talk?  He's smart enough to handle it.  To tell him he's not a failure if he struggles somewhere along the way?  I'm okay with that because so far he's been the one people ask for help.   To tell him if he's gone through struggles, well everyone does so still fight on.  Cool, that boy has indeed faced struggles already even at age 8.  

But he's also the one who told me how he learned what Wicca was by reading the back of his mom's book when he saw it laying around and he figured he'd read it just because he could apparently -- back when he was 7.  I asked mom just last night if there's been any religion talk with Keegan -- yup he brought it up, asked her to explain it.  So she basically told him well there's lots of religions and basically for the most part they all believe in some higher being but how they practice their religions and what they call that higher being or how many they believe in even, etc is different.  He asked how that could be, she said it just is, people just believe different things.  So he asked about church.  His mom made plans to take him to one and at the last minute he decided eh, not so interested after all.  I think he can handle this speech, even if other kids can't.  He knows how to listen, ask questions,  knows what is interesting to him and what isn't.

If other kids can't handle it?  Don't have your kids miss a WHOLE day of school.  Unless they changed the school systems since I was a kid and it's possible, if you're THAT concerned about your kids being brainwashed *eye roll here* send them with a note saying they can't take part in the Obama stuff.  Don't make them miss everything.  Unless you want your kids to be complete idiots missing everything else for a few minute speech?  Schools have always let you opt out of special things like this while taking part in the rest of the day.  Maybe these parents are too dumb to know that and THEY need the motivational speech on getting an education instead.

I've called Obama out when I think he screwed up.  I think he's been dropping the ball on health care.  I think his vote in the Senate on FISA was so bad that Hillary would have beat him had that vote happened sooner.  But this?  Really?  Anti-Obama people have lost their flippin minds to get upset about this speech to the point they'll have their kids miss a WHOLE DAY of school.  Yeah that's a much better lesson than what he's saying in those few minutes.  On the bright side, if people stay this stupid -- pulling kids out of school all day over every little thing, maybe Keegan will end up the only kid in schools, he'll be brilliant and will get some good scholarships by the time he's ready for college.  He'll need them if he still ends up wanting to build robots for a living by then.

They're roasting in PDX.  My mom's twitter was explaining her plans for getting cool... So we were chatting via Twitter, but she had to call to tell me a funny Keegan story, which was unrelated and too long for Twitter.

They have a lot of stuff to get rid of.  Karina, while on the phone had called her a "hoarder".  They get off of the phone.  Keegan is quite upset and tells his mom that she's not to call his grandma a "whore".  Karina has to explain, "No, not a WHORE, I called her a HOARDER".  He doesn't know what a hoarder is, so Karina explained what she meant by that.  Well, with that cleared up, he was happy, so long as she doesn't call his grandma a WHORE, he's happy  HA.  Aww I love that kid.  I told mom, "At least he's defending your honor."

Now then, if it stays 100+ degrees out, mom may decide to run around town naked.  We'll see how Keegan feels then.

Home:
Got a lot done.  House looks a mess though because there are tons of empty tubs laying around and 4-5 tubs of stuff to give away to charity (was gonna do that this weekend, but have so much to do already that we're saving that for the weekend after).  This apartment will soon look like an actual apartment.   Only taking what 4, 5, 6 months?  With Brian's schedule and my Brain aliens, it takes awhile.   Still when we moved in we predicted that we'd be done about the time they tore these apartments down, so we're way ahead of schedule as that's what a year+ away still.

Meds:
Last night was shot #2 of Rebif.  I do feel a bit off shortly after taking it but nothing like when I was on Avonex.  This is of course a fraction of the regular dose so it's hard to tell if this is how I'll react to the full dose or not but so far it's tolerable.  Mostly I just feel a bit blech, then tired,  but it fades by the next day.  Fingers crossed that it stays this way including during week three when the dose goes up.

Family:
Talked to mom, Karina, and Keegan tonight.  From mom and Karina I got the usual love, etc.  From Keegan?  I found out that he was shooting Grandma with a toy gun.  So I tell him that's not very nice.  He informed me that it's okay it's just a toy.  I asked him what he'd do when Grandma took the gun from him and started shooting him instead, would that be nice?  He said she couldn't get it from him.  Oohhh really.  I told him that both Grandma and his mom were bigger and stronger than him and either of them could get that gun from him if they wanted to.  He informs me sure, if they gang up on him.  So I asked him was he gonna tell him that to their faces?  He said "Oh, I think they can hear me".  LOL.  When I talked to them?  His mom found it to be a challenge and grandma informed me she'd already taken that gun from him several times today.  HA!  Silly little boy talking big.   He was also upset he isn't allowed to jump off a certain stair of the pool until he's ten, I told him only a couple of years.  He told me yeah "1 year and 24 months"  Aww, cute, but his math is a little off.  And then I told him not to feel bad since he's probably almost the height of ten year olds and he told me "Yeah I'm closing in on that range".  He's adorable but I'm glad I missed seeing his idea of how to wear pajama bottoms, I hear it wasn't attractive.

We went to see Up in 3D for Brian's birthday (which was last weekend, but I felt crappy then, still do but felt today was as good as it gets without making him wait too long so went to the midnight showing).  In case you've not noticed by now my average movie rating is "It's okay"  with the occasional "it's crap" or "brilliant". Well I don't want to spoil Up for anyone so I'll just break down the general aspects of the movie, I think trailers give that much away probably -- Love story = Brilliant, Relationship with the kid = brilliant, balloons and the house = brilliant, Dogs = crap to okay.  Leave out the dogs or most of them and it's a brilliant movie.  With them in it or in it as much as they were?  It's okay.  Brian thinks they realized they had too short of a movie and/or wrote themselves into a corner so dogs it was.

He also asked me what Terminator Salvation had been on my three word movie scoring system.  "Okay" then a few minutes later "Oh, I have to adjust my rating, Okay except for that last scene or two, pure crap"  He agrees with my rating on both movies it seems.  We also both expect our next movie (Transformers) to probably be okay or crap.  But I expect my big summer movie (Harry Potter) to be Brilliant.  And of course, Brian's big movie is out later this year, I'm required to love it since he's spent four birthdays working on that one and as burnt out as he gets and as ready as he gets to leave it, he'd probably work on it forever if he had to.  Though he's also ready to go to his new job that he's never really started, heh.

In the last few days I've read Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3), The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening and The Struggle,  The Vampire Diaries: The Fury and Dark Reunion, and am now reading The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall.  I figured I'd read The Vampire Diaries since it's taking Smallville's spot on CW this fall.  Good so far except this last book is a bit, erm, not as good as the others.  Why do so many authors get x number of books into a series and just totally seem to go a little wacky?

My phone rang tonight and my sister's pic appeared on the caller ID, I thought I knew what she was calling about since we have had a few back and forth emails the last day or two.  Imagine my surprise when I answer the phone and hear Keegan say, first thing,  "You SUCK"  I asked him "what?"  and he repeated himself.  It seems that I'm a slacker.  I don't really use MySpace much except for apps and to talk to him and Karina.  So I never bother to use categories much.  I set them up once and forgot about them -- unless *I* add someone since they don't pop up when someone asks to be your friend, only when you add someone yourself does it ask do you want to add them to a category.  Well Keegan didn't have his MySpace yet when I set up my Family category and he added me, so ooopsie I never did go in and add him.  His mom and him were looking at my MySpace tonight and she teased him "Looks like Aunt Ramie doesn't think of you as Family" next thing she knew he'd taken her phone and called me.  I assure you that when a 8 year old tells you off, you fix your goof quickly. 

Keegan turned 8 this week.  We couldn't decide what to get him for his birthday.  At Christmas his present had been a laptop since his all of us got together and got him one big present instead of little ones.  He uses it a lot apparently.  Karina told us he's been working on a story that he keeps under lock and key basically, she thinks he's afraid she'll steal it ;)  He did send some of it to Brian to look at.  He's also into drawing.  During my last phone chat with the little guy he was pretty proud of all of his school stuff.  His drawing and writing and reading and stuff.  He figures he needs all of that for his still current future job plans (making robots).  So Brian wants to encourage him and decided well then a tablet for the laptop so he stays interested in it. 

Here's mom's email about Keegan's response to his present:

"BTW Keegan is already trying out his tablet. At first he says, umm what is this? So I explained what he can do with it and now he is all into it and ignoring his toys he got. I told him Uncle Brian thought he needed it to illustrate his screen play, he thinks uncle Brian is pretty clever to think of such a thing. LOL"

Brian is impressed with himself claiming that yet again he wins the presents. heh.

Keegan has come a long way since his first birthday and his first "computer".  Let's compare shall we, that vs the last clear pic I posted of him:

The Portland, OR MS walk was this weekend.  For those who sponsored my nephew, thank you.  My sister sent me some of the official pics.  I figured I'd share.  They actually ended up in some, though not very clearly, still here you go:

PDX MS Walk '09 Karina & Keegan in crowd

Can you find our super duo?  They're right up front and colourful.

PDX MS WALK '09 - Karina on the right

Karina is following the little unknown kid's lead and going to plug her ears, hence the odd pose.  She was right in the middle of shoving her fingers up towards her ears she said. 

Karina and Keegan - MS Walk '09

I guess he's too grown up to hold mom's hand now.  Look how tall he is, geez he really is growing up so fast :(

Portland MS Walk '09

Reminder:  Keegan's still only at 12% for his MS walk goal, we think $5 is the minimum, he's trying to raise $500.  Click here to go help the kid out.  And remember you're sending the money to the MS society, not him directly so no reason to worry of a little kid running off with your money.

We walked to Mother's Beach last night.  Very close.  Even I could handle the walk.  But I wasn't feeling well so we got to walk home fairly quickly.  We're gonna try to walk to Venice pier next weekend.  Brian's walked both of them already.  But now that he's walked the Mother's Beach walk twice he's decided the walk to Venice Pier is about twice as long, originally he thought it wasn't much longer.

Slowly getting unpacked what we can without the new furniture.  But am still worn out etc.  So just doing what we can around Brian's schedule and my health / move recovery time needed before I go full force into unpacking etc. 

In fact so tired etc that I can't remember what I was writing as I started this early today and forgot about it, oops.  Will attempt to catch up on reading posts soon, maybe but think I am too far behind to catch up so I hope you're all well and I'll try to start reading daily again so I don't fall behind again.