Randman's World

My darling wife, darling son, and I were at Oak Park mall today. Funny how we go shopping for stuff for mommy and me, and end up with a bag full of Charlie stuff.

Anywho, while in JC Penney, my wife is looking in the women's clothing, and stops next to another lady at a rack of clothing. My wife points at the blouse on the rack and says to me, "I'd feel stupid if I were seen wearing this".

I look over at the women, and notice the look on her face. Then, I look in her hand, and realize that she is holding that same blouse, along with several others, to go try on.

Of course, I'm trying to not laugh, and quickly walk away, while my wife is following me saying, "What, what's so funny?"

It took all I had not to look at the lady and say, "It looks good on you, though!"

Many of you may not know the story of how we met Noemi (pictured above, with her son, Simon), and the wonderful thing she did for our family. When I was going to fly to Russia on my first trip to meet Charlie, the tickets were extremely pricey. I had called for an "adoption rate", and was told (mistakenly) that it could only be booked at the airport counter. So, I went to the airport, and eventually met Noemi, who was a representative at the Delta counter. I told her what I was doing, and she worked for an hour trying to get a less expensive flight, including trying to use my miles, etc., but with no luck. Finally, I bought the expensive ticket.

Later that day, Noemi called and offered a buddy pass for me to fly to Moscow. That's a free ticket, folks. Why? She loves kids, and wanted to help us bring Charlie home, and hated that I had to spend that much money. So, not only did I get a free flight, it was a business class flight to and from Moscow. Even during my problems in Moscow when the flight was cancelled, Noemi was on the phone with Kim, explaining what had happened, and trying to find a way to get me home. Then, while I was in JFK in New York, and the New York ticketing agent wouldn't help me get listed on a 2nd flight, Noemi got me listed for the flight from Kansas City. While talking with a Delta pilot, who was trying to get on the same flight, he said, "It must be nice to have a guardian angel on your side".

Then, on the flight that Kim and I took, Noemi was there again with the buddy pass. So, business class again from KC to Moscow. She tried to work her magic on the flight back, but it just wasn't to be (plus, we were really tired, and didn't want to wait another day), but she tried so hard. There is no way to express how much she meant to us in these flights, the money we saved, and the upgrades to business class.

Noemi has moved on from Delta to another more secure job, but she will always be an important part of our adoption story.

Last night, after a fine dinner of Spaghetti, Charlie, Mommy and me settled down in the livingroom. I had set the TIVO to record Sesame Street, as Charlie seems to enjoy Elmo.

I really wanted him to see Elmo, as his Aunt Donna had just sent him a 3 foot stuffed Elmo as a Christmas present. So, we are watching Sesame Street, and the episode has Elmo meeting Rosita for a play date. Unfortunately, they keep missing each other, and can't get together. At one point, they begin singing a very sad song about "does anyone want to play with me".

Charlie was frozen. He was watching the show, and when Elmo said, "Doesn't anyone want to play with me?" Charlie reached for the screen.

Finally, Elmo and Rosita find each other and give each other a big hug. At that moment, Charlie squealed and began clapping.

Mommy and I just looked at each other, and said, "He just understood that story!" It made us both cry.

I went to the Doctor on Monday for a couple things, one being to have some skin tags removed under my arms. For some reason, I had 8 of them, and, while not dangerous, I just didn't like having them there. So, he numbed them each up (8 shots in your armpits are not fun), and then snipped them off, cauterizing the wound.

Jump ahead to today. I have 8 infected burn holes in my armpits. Wearing deoderant really irritates them (but is a necessity if I want to continue sitting next to people in my cube), and the normal movements of my arms also makes them sting like the dickens. I've tried Neosporin, but it isn't doing anything. I just tried some stuff from the office medicine cabinet called "Burn Away". Wow, is that an accuarte title. I put some on, and "Burn Away". My arm pits are now on fire.

Sorry for the graphic posting, but this sucks. This photo is the best approximation of what I'm feeling right now.

NORAD has a great website, that will help track Santa Claus on his Christmas flight.

I love the fact that they are using this not only as a fun tool for kids to track Santa, but also as an educational tool on what NORAD does. I've heard it said that this is a waste of government funds, blah blah blah. But really, this is such a fun thing to do, and it's educational. Plus, it looks like the people involved are having a lot of fun. Probably need the stress relief from their extremely important job.

The way they began tracking Santa is a fun story, as well.

50 years of tracking Santa. Thanks, NORAD!

Since I told my sister, Donna, about my blog, I thought I would throw up a couple of photos of us as kids!

My friend Pete has a great blog, which I read. He has one of the mapping plug-ins that shows where people are from who have loaded the webpage (just like I have, down in the bottom right.)

While looking at it, I realized that two of the dots were me, when I was over in Russia. The upper is Moscow, and the lower is Astrakhan, where Charlie is from.

When you go to Portrait Innovations, they give you a CDRom of all the photos taken during your session, so you can come back and buy more. The quality isn't good enough to print from, but they can be posted. So, without further adieu, I present the outtakes.

A smile from Charlie and Mommy, but no one else.


Cute photo, if Charlie wasn't growing out of Mommy's Chin.


Any parent can tell you the truth in this photo.


Charlie striking his Spiderman pose.


"I know what your thinking, did I fill six diapers, or only five. Frankly, in all the excitement, I've lost count myself. Do you feel lucky, punk?"

My co-worker, Mickie, got her property tax bill recently. Her property tax went up from $1,072.00 to $4,500.00 in one year. WOW! Jackson county says it's because they reassessed her house, and it's worth more now. I've heard of a housing bubble, but this is ridiculous. Of course, the assessors office doesn't care. They blew her off, saying that there was nothing she can do. Even went so far as to blame her because she had been paying less than the amount of tax she should have been paying for the past few years. Like Mickie was supposed to call them, and say, "Are you sure I'm paying enough tax, because I feel that you are not correct!"

Rocketboom featured this website, and I loved it. Very cool computer generated videos, synched to computer generated music. Very fun to watch.

"I'm funny how? Funny like a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh?"

-gun shot-

-bites your hand-

thanks to cuteoverload.com

We went to Portait Innovations today and had holiday photos taken. Needless to say, we spent some money, but got some cute photos. I really wanted one of the entire family, and am glad it turned out so well.

We call this one the "smelling your own diaper" face!

So, after a lot of thought, I decided that I do, indeed, want an MP3 player for Christmas. I decided the other day when I was burning a few CD's for the car, and realized just how wasteful and silly it was to burn CD's, when I could just get an MP3 player and play it through an FM modulator. So, I did my research and decided to get a Creative Zen Nomad.

I'm still glad that I told my wife not to get an Ipod Nano. They are more expensive, have less storage space, and are more fragile. The Creative has 30gb, and a decent track record (Mickie has a Creative and likes it).

So, I ordered my Christmas present last night (with the wife's blessing). Got a good deal, so I'm happy, the wife's happy, and Charlie is always happy.

Tonight was a good night. Charlie was in a great mood. He was running back and forth between Mommy and Daddy, giving kisses, hugs, and blowing kisses (a new thing).
Then, while giving him his bath, something weird happened. Mommy was in the kitchen using her food processor. The sound terrified him. He looked really frightened, and started crying. She would stop, and he would still be crying, but you could tell he was listening. When it started again, he really screamed in fear.

I told Mommy to stop. Charlie was crying and shaking. All I can figure is that something in the orphanage had the same sound, and it scared him. I’ve sure never seen him frightened before. It was heartbreaking.

But then, some love, a warm bottle, a couple of songs, and no more food processor, and he was fine. He went to bed, and sang for about 10 minutes in his crib before nodding off.

Guess we got to get rid of Mommy’s food processor.

(Dont' know what happened to this post the other day. Thanks to Pete for pointing it out!)

I was just checking my stats on this blog, and noticed that 38 unique people visited this blog on Monday. WOW! I don't think I know 38 people, let alone 38 who would be interested in my blog.

Looking at the info, it looks like many were looking for info on movie trailer guys, several were looking for my fantasmic ringtone file, and some came and went quickly (obviously, just clicking around).

Amazing thing, this internet.

Alright, already. We get the message. You want more photos of Charlie! Stop with the emails. Stop with the phone calls. No more carrier pigeons. And, whoever sent the stripper gram, nice job! (Actually, no one has asked for this, but we don't care!)

Charlie, doing his best Billy Idol imitation



Charlie meets Santa Claus, Again



Charlie sitting on Mommy's lap, enjoying Juggling Jeff (a juggler at Breakfast with Santa)



And, last but not least, so that our first child (the furry one) doesn't feel left out, here is Binkley getting a few precious moments of rest, while the "Squawking Thing" (as he calls Charlie) is napping in another room.

Recently, Charlie was walking around the living room. As he is prone to do, he stumbled and fell, hitting his head on the seat of a little electronic toy keyboard he likes to play. Of course, I scooped him up and loved on him until he quit crying (I've found singing the Rubber Ducky song calms him quickly). He stopped crying, so I put him down. He walked over to the keyboard, kicked the seat, and walked away. I laughed for a good five minutes.

We are wondering if we are starting to see some of the terrible two's a little early. We really don't mind, but we are seeing more tearless crying (or as Dr. Boris in Moscow called it, "Drama Queen tears").

Truthfully, life is great. The two best parts of the day are when we go in to get him up in the morning, and he greets us so excitedly, and then, singing to him while I feed him his final bottle of the night, and he snuggles up with me. Man, there's nothing better. This little guy is lots of fun.