I'm about to go to bed. Elena is quiet...she's been asleep for about two hours now. Emily has Rohan at the E.R. His breathing became short tonight and he complained about his chest hurting. He's been coughing so much the last couple of days and regular cough syrup just isn't helping at all. They've been there for almost three hours now, and she just called saying that they've been put in a room in same day surgery to await a doctor, since the E.R. is too full. Poor Rohan...I hate seeing my little boy have to go through this.

We enjoyed a nice Super Bowl Sunday at our friends' house in Belleville. Thanks again for having us Doug and Jess!!!

My Dad is recovering from having a torn retina re-attached. He's not being too patient with the healing process. I think after you reach the age of 60, patience is all but gone. The poor man needs a vacation from health problems...and so does my Mom for that matter, but wow, is that another story.

Have I been absent for a while or what?!?!?! :)

Maybe I'll start blogging again. I haven't really been online much, or around the computer much for that matter. Life has been really different for the last five months or so, but it's starting to return back to normal...the normal that preceeded Elena's birth, I guess. It feels nice, really. No big opinions to spout out right now, or nothing monumental to say ---I just thought I'd throw some sort of post up, put out the signal that I'm still here.

I'm going to bed now...hoping that I hear from Emily soon...

Staring at the months. Wow, have they really gone by that fast? Let's see if I can give a brief synopsis on what's going on in my life.

My daughter, Elena, is now two months old. She's finally taking to me, as she's a mommy's girl. Since she was born, she would freak out when she realized that it was evil Daddy holding her, but she's starting to chill out. She looks like Emily, so that's awesome. It's a first for one of her children.

My dad had back surgery in September, and we took care of him for a week or so, until he was able to get along by himself. He's going to have a re-reconstructive surgery to his intestinal plumbing on Nov.1, so the adventure isn't over yet. Hopefully in the months following this upcoming surgery, he'll regain his physical strength. He's gone from around 190 pounds to around 140. He looks much too weak and old for being 60.

Since my dad has been down, we haven't been working together, so I had to get another job. I now work for some friends of ours at their fireplace and lighting studio. I work on the sales floor and out in the field doing installs. I'm learning a lot in an area of building that I have no experience in. Namely dealing with different gas pipe installation configurations, installing gas logs and fireplaces, mantels and cabinets, etc., etc., etc. The hours are different than what I was used to and are a little longer also. My work day was always 7 to 3:30. Now I don't go in until 8:30, and usually get home before 6. Although some nights run late, as I didn't get home tonight until 8. So, it's not so cool as far as family time is concerned, but it's not long term. I'm sure my dad and I will be back working together some time after the new year.

Heavy Wishing hasn't been playing at all recently. I think that it's killing us. Our schedules have been so crazy, we just haven't been able to hook up. Also, we lost our long-time rehearsal space, so that's the main factor in why we haven't gotten together. We have a show coming up on Nov.6 (I think), so now all efforts on are just preparing for that, no matter what. We have some new material that we started working on at the beginning of the summer, but now it seems so far gone, we'll really have to bust ass getting it all together in time for the show.

In other Derek music news, my old band Cruces will be reuniting for a show this coming Saturday night in Carbondale at the Hangar 9 with another band that we played with in the 90's, the Waxdolls. We had a rehearsal last night ---the first time that we've played together in over 2 years. It was very surreal. Honestly, it was as if the band had never broken up. Sure, we were rusty here and there, and I think that the guys were kind of hard on themselves for mistakes that I really didn't hear. That's to be expected though, but from where I was standing, I thought it sounded great. If we sound as good or better than Sunday night, we'll be in good shape. Dave from TDOHW took a lot of pics of our practice that'll I'll be posting on the Crucesrock.com site soon.

Rohan snuck off at Emily's salon today with some shears and cut a huge chunk out of his bangs. The only way Emily could fix it was to give him a buzz cut with a number 4 guard. When I got home from work and saw him I almost cried. My dear little boy has no hair left! I had spoken to her earlier in the evening, and she said that he didn't want to eat dinner. He told her that he wasn't hungry. When she asked him why he replied,"My belly hurts, 'cause you balded me." Only Rohan...God love him.

Maybe I'll write more soon, maybe not. Life is crazy these days. At least I found this small bit of time to write.

Good night.

Wow.  Sure, Iraq was better off with Sadaam.  Whatever. What a bunch of evil bastards he and and his sons were.

It doesn't really matter to me what we spend at "sit-down" restaurants.  All in all, the cost is all relative to what you're getting.  However, if I try and extend that rational to fast food, I really don't expect to pay that much, especially at a burger joint.
 
Take for instance, today we went to Dairy Queen.  I left the house with $23 for food and ice cream, thinking that surely that was enough.  Wow, was I wrong.  Here's what we ordered:

• Me: Mushroom and Swiss double burger, Large onion rings, small drink
• My Wife: Chili-n-Cheese Dog, Reg. Fries, small drink
• Both kids: Chicken Strip Kids' Meals.

This came out to almost $19!!!  Come on.  The price of soft-drinks is getting so crazy, we always choose small drinks.  Well, I guess they caught on, because they charge the hell out of those now.  The worst is Hardee's...but lest I digress.  This left me with just a little over $4 for ice cream.  The kids each got a "token" in their kids' meals for either a small cone, an ice cream sandwich, a dilly bar, or $.39 off a blizzard.  Well, of course our kids wouldn't opt for the entirely free route with each of them wanting a blizzard.  Rohan was putting up a good fight, not wanting to eat his chicken, so I got Allie's blizzard long before he was ready for his.  Good thing I went up to the counter only wanting one.  Even with the token, the total came to $2.46.  That left me with a little over a buck and half for Rohan.  SOOOO....I had to go home and grab some more money and come back, because an almost four-year-old would not have grasped the hopelessness of my situation, and would have been way less than agreeable about the whole thing.  Needless to say, the whole thing sucked rocks.  To think: that if Emily and I had wanted any "Royal Treats" (I'll say they're for royalty) and maybe large drinks, we would have spent almost $30.  For Dairy Queen...I don't think so.

Received some really generous gifts from some friends of ours in a band called Basic just for helping them out with a website. This really wasn't necessary, and I just wanted everyone to know what cool people Leah and Reid are. If you read this, thanks guys. It was really nice of you to do that.

In other news: IT WAS STILL HOT TODAY. This is all because I said to my Dad this past week that it had been a pretty mild summer thus far. Today, the heat index rose to 110 degrees. By 10am my fingers and palms were wrinkled like raisins, like when you're a little kid and your mom says that you've played in the tub too long. Again, we quit by two in the afternoon.

It was so damn hot today. We quit around 2:30, because it we had had enough. I wasn't quite keeping up with my fluids...I was just busy. Around 2:00 a headache started to set in and my neck started to ache, so it was definitely time to call it quits.

When I finally got home, I straightened the kitchen for about 20 minutes, then took a shower, and then started work. However, the heat had affected me so much, I worked until about 6:30 this evening, and then crashed in bed for about an hour. Now I'm back at it for a bit before bed.

We watched Blow Out again tonight. This was last week's episode that we missed. The season finale is on tomorrow night...no...Thursday night, I think. Maybe not...whatever. Anyway, we've been hooked on the show, and we're dying to see what happens. Hey, having owned a salon, it's a pretty interesting show.

I can hear Rohan singing in bed from here. Funny.

Most disappointing show for me from this past week: The 4400. I did not want it to be a series, especially one that is almost an exact rip-off of the X-Files. I was a die-hard X-Files fan for seven years, waiting for the truth. Then when Mulder left, I gave up on the truth. If the producers of the 4400 think that they can do the same thing, they can just forget it. They main two characters don't even have any chemistry...there is nothing interesting about them. A show that I think has some great chemistry amongst the two main players: Touching Evil. Now that's a show that I hope comes back for a second season.

Oh yeah, we bought the first season of Reno 911! on DVD. I highly recommend it.

Okay, so I used to dress off-beat when I was younger, and I'm still all about expressing who you are through how you dress, but sometimes you have to look in the mirror and draw the line. I saw a girl at the grocery store the other day who took the cake for the worst accessory ever. She had kool-aid blue hair with about two inches of out-growth, some piercings, baggy pants, bum looking shirt, you know, the usual punk-slacker fair. But the crowning glory was the racoon tail that was hanging down the middle of her butt. I guess if there was any doubt before, I've finally lost touch with today's youth.

As it would seem, I have been busy. Very much so even. Every weekend has been so full of whatever nonsuch, I can't get work done that I've put off during the week. I don't begrudge the weekend activities, as they are almost always full of family and/or friends. It's just that I've been behind in all of my deadlines for quite some time now. I actually should be caught up by tonight though...just in time to get down and dirty on one project that I've been anxious to get back to, since this past March. If things would work out the way that we hope for them to, this would be the only project that I work on for quite some time, as I am to stay on as webmaster. Yes, that would be my wish, but we shall see.

Emily doesn't have long to go til her due date. Yet we have a busy month of birthdays to get through before that. Maybe all of the trudging excitement will induce labor just a little bit early. I'm being pressured to start the name picking process. Of course, we don't know whether it's a boy or a girl, so I'm sure like last time, it will involve both of us sitting at Barnes & Noble with baby name books shooting ideas off to eachother, with the both of us responding,"Ehhhh..." So it goes.

I just heard this on Futurama and thought it most hilarious: "So I ended up here, making pies out of shoes."

That's just great.

This is an interesting piece of news, and even sad in reflection. Rather than focus on the fact that this Confederate Soldier's widow lived to the incredible age of 97, I am drawn more to the story of who she was married to. Even though they were only briefly married during the twilight of his years, her connection to something that is now so far gone in our history, to me is thrilling. It was such a sad time for our country, with wounds that are probably still felt, especially in southern communities. It is a shame that a great majority of the war's stories die around us on a daily basis. Some oral histories, because of their obscurity and remoteness, are gone forever.

My Grandfather was a Cossack, part of the cavalry in the Czar's army before and during the Russian Revolution. This of course meant that he was on the losing side of that ordeal. His life's experiences were so rich, and I only wish that I was not so young, being the age of five years old, when he died. I would have loved to sit and listen to him speak. I remember him holding me and talking and singing to be, but that's pretty much it. One of my Uncles seems to know more stories about his life than does my mother, but if I don't sometime take the time to sit down and catalog those stories, they'll someday pass away forever. Oral histories are so valuable! I'm ashamed that I never begged my mother to teach me to speak, read, and write the Ukrainian language when I was younger. The dialect used by my family will also someday needlessly pass away. All I know are a handful of phrases that I was taught to say to make my Grandfather smile. Less talk and more action on my part is in order, so I must begin my endeavor to learn more about him soon.

In this picture, my Grandfather is on the left, his uncle in the middle, and his brother or cousin in the foreground on the right. The photo must have been taken sometime between 1912 and the Revolution, as he would have been in his twenties.



This is one of the few pictures that I have of me with my Grandfather. It was taken around 1975, with my Mother and Grandmother also in the shot.

Ray Charles was too young to leave this world. In his stead, now there is a void. May he find peace.

Emily and I just finished watching Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator. Everything in this movie was going on when I had just started high school, and skating meant everything to me. I refuse to believe that was seventeen years ago. Nothing else mattered then. We'd stay up all night, try to sleep from about seven in the morning until ten, then get up and go skate until the evening hours. No repsonsibilities whatsoever. It just doesn't seem real. I said that I'd skate forever. Well, forever lasted for about five years. Every once in a while I get on my old board in the garage, and tap around a little. I don't believe I'll ever skate hard again. My knees are blown from those wonderful years that I did. Growing up and skating in a small Mid-Western town didn't touch the scene that was going on out West, and I thought I was missing out. Maybe I was ---or, maybe I was lucky.

My friend Corey blogged this incredible story of Public Ignorance, and it IS the must-read of the day.

It's just absolutely amazing!!! This woman just can't stop herself!!! Courtney Love is her own worst enemy. I'd say to exile her skank self to a completely deserted island, but she'd only find a way to piss of the indigenous wildlife.

Here's the latest beauty shot of the newest member of the House of Cook. In the video that we have (yes, they can do that now also with this 4D technology, which is the coolest) the babies' profile looks so much like Rohan's it's just crazy. Not long to go!

Before this becomes old news, I'd like to throw out a HUGE congratulations to Emily's second cousin Alex Stephens for tying for fourth place in the 2004 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Our entire town of Marion is proud of him, as he has achieved an intellectual accomplishment that no one will ever take away from him. In addition to this, Alex is an amazing person with great character that will undoubtedly go on to do great things. Cheers to you Alex!

Greg at The Smoking Room jokes that the opposite sex may tar him as a "warmonger" when politics hits the fan, but my friends, he speaks the truth, even though it is not the popular version. History, though, will prove it the only version.

In response to a previous comment by Greg, no, I've never heard the Matthew Sweet comparison. About ten years ago, I heard all types, but these days, they're usually not good, as I've put on a few pounds. So I take the Sweet remark as a compliment, although I don't know if he'd like being compared to a blooming Slav like myself.

I smoked some awesome ribs tonight, and my friend Schurl came over to help get rid of them. I used Emeril's Rib Rub like always, and slathered them with a variety of Jack Daniel's brand sauces. I had them indirectly cooking over a pan of apple cider vinegar. Oh, ho, ho! They were incredible.

You know, I really like this song "Leave (Get Out)" by JoJo. Yes, yes, even I fall for bubble gum now and then. One of my favorite songs of all time is "Lady in Red" by Chris DeBerg. I even loved "King of Wishful Thinking" by Go West. Remember that one?!! HA! Anyway, I hope that this JoJo gal (who is thirteen by the way) does not go the way of the trash bimbos like Christina or Britney. Just stick with the voice. If I want flesh, I'll rent some porn.

Oh my. Comedy is found sometimes when I least expect it. During the period of mourning for the death of President Ronald Reagan comes this brilliant statement by one of the world's past number one morons.

Yes, yes...I'm going to bed now.

We went to Six Flags on a whim today. There was a 50/50 chance of showers, but it barely drizzled on us on the way up. It turned out to be a beautiful day, and a perfect one for walking around, as it never got real hot. My Mom, Dad and Sister went with us, so It was definitely an interesting day, for those who know us will understand without my having to go into great detail. As for the rest of you, well, I'm not going to go into great detail...actually none, whatsoever. :) One of the highlites for me: Larissa and I rode a ride called the Slingshot which was just incredible (although it cost 15 buck for each of us). The two of us were strapped inside a type of gyroscope that was connected to two towers by steal cables. We were slung upwards, 225 ft. in 2 sec. with a force of 5Gs. Then it was a bungee like free-fall back down. It was just nuts. For the most part, our day was spent catering to the kids, because we went up mainly for their sake. They had a blast in the water park and in the kiddie land, so it was all good. They also road some of the other rides in the park at least the ones that they were tall enough to get into. I think if we had let Rohan just ride the train all day long, he would have been fine with just that. Emily didn't have the greatest time, since she's 7 months along, and they don't want "expecting mothers" to get on any of the rides. She floated on a tube on one of the water park attractions, and also rode on the Scooby Doo Swamp ride, both of which recommended that she not ride them. There's so much to tell, but as usual this is one of the last things that I'm doing before I go to bed, so I'm pretty tired. Here's a pic of us going down the last part of the log flume. Check out the fear in Rohan's face. Pretty funny.