Macumber Macblog

I haven’t posted some of the photos or news from February and March. We were still getting snow in February and there are a couple of funny shots of Jackson with snow clots stuck to his fur.

Melissa and I attended a wedding for some friends of ours on Valentine’s Day and we had a nice time. It was the first time we left the kids alone with James as overseer.

Most importantly of all, in February we were starting to see the end of Winter and all of us had cabin fever hoping for Spring to come soon.

The rest of the February photos are here.

written by mark

The girls held a concert in the basement yesterday and Melissa filmed them on the Flip. Here is Kayleigh getting her groove on.

Kayleigh Singing

Sharon Singing

Stella Singing

Sharon applied makeup to Stella and Kayleigh to glam them up a bit. Don’t worry. I would never allow them to leave the house like that. I am not looking to parent the next Jon Benet Ramsey.

They do like to dress up and sing along to their kiddie-pop though. They are Disney Channel kids. I was an MTV kid. They will grow-up to be a lot saner than I did.

written by mark

Last night Justin and I went to go see Alice In Chains at the Louisville Palace Theater. I bought their latest album, “Black Gives Way to Blue” back in December and was overwhelmed by it. I spent the better part of Christmas vacation learning “Your Decision” and trying to get the lead down on “Check My Brain”. I was in that mode where I was listening to the album over and over and was telling a buddy how I thought it was my “record of the year”, when he informed me that they were coming to Louisville. I never listen to the radio anymore so I don’t catch the concert announcements. By the time I went to buy tickets they were sold-out. I noticed that they were playing at the Louisville Palace Theater and had never seen a show there before. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss opened their world tour at the Palace Theater and I had known it was a fairly small, renovated space that had previously been used for plays and small musical productions. When I found out that it only seats 2700 people I was pretty sure I needed to pull out all the stops to get some tickets. As luck would have it, I found a pair of front-row seats on StubHub and just couldn’t pass them up.

It wasn’t hard finding a home for that second ticket.

Justin said he would kill me if I sold it to anyone else and he came down from Cleveland for a couple of days and we caught the show together.

I remember clearly when their second album (Dirt) came out and that sort of visceral connection I felt with it musically and thematically. Many of the songs were about addiction and depression but in a lot of ways it was just a blues record to me and I loved wailing to it. I was in college and was starting to get interested in playing guitar again and before long, with Garth’s help, I would be playing a lot of AIC songs (badly). I had already been listening to AIC’s first album “Facelift”, and grunge was a movement in full force. Heroin was making its comeback and claiming more than its fair share of young artists, particularly those in the Seattle scene. Then came Kurt Cobain’s suicide, Layne Staley’s struggles and how he shared them in his lyrics and how the music media gossiped about his heroin problem. By the time Layne died, the grunge era was well on its way out. In the aftermath of Kurt and Layne, as if their passing wasn’t bruising enough, it also struck me as tragic what it did to their friends and band-mates. It seems Dave Grohl used the losses as a life lesson, as if it were a call to kick life in the ass before it kicked his. Dave went on a creative tear like a man living on borrowed time. He started a family and became a positive force in the world of music. But guys like Kris Novoselic and Jerry Cantrell seemed to sort of step back and lick their wounds (I don’t know, this is just my impression). In Jerry’s case it was particularly hard for me to take because he was always such an original composer and his playing always had that bluesy feel even though he was characterized as a grunge player. Jerry had also picked up more and more vocal duties for AIC over the years and I thought that there was no reason that Alice In Chains couldn’t move on without Layne and keep making music. Jerry’s solo records after Layne’s death were interesting but they didn’t get picked up much by the public or by radio. I don’t know if it is was grunge backlash or that people wanted him back where he belonged, fronting Alice in Chains.

Anyway, last night was cathartic for me. It was good to see them together again, drinking water, hitting every note, playing tight. William DuVall has his own voice and style but he can belt out all the Layne Staley vocals on the old stuff. Not some caricature of “sex, drugs and rock n’ roll”, but as a group of friends doing what God meant for them to do. I fist bumped Jerry Cantrell and I managed to get one of his guitar picks as a momento. I shook Mike Inez’s hand. I thanked them for coming to Louisville and for playing the best show I have ever had the privilege of seeing.

Click here to see all of the photos Justin and I took with our camera-phones.

written by mark

January felt transitional for me even though it was largely uneventful. We did have several snow days which the kids thoroughly enjoyed and took advantage of. Our neighbor Dick (my good buddy) has an excellent little sledding hill at the back of his lot that runs right up to the creek that lines his property. The kids put in some good work on that sledding hill. However, they did decide not to heed my advice about bailing-out of the sled if they were heading fast toward the creek and couldn’t stop. They assumed the creek was frozen enough to support their weight and I suppose it was the first couple of times they tempted Mother Nature. But at one point our neighbor Ben plus Kayleigh and Stella ended up breaking the ice, getting soaked and coming home as Popsicles. I had a fire going 24×7 for about one week at one point and eventually only stopped long enough to let things cool off (burn off) and vacuum out the ashes. The kids used the fireplace to thaw out from sledding so it worked out. We had a lot of wet boots and clothes too.

My customers released a lot of pent-up demand from the holidays that kept me extra busy at work – which is good but it also made January a blur. Not being able to do much outside (aside from some shoveling) had me dosed with cabin fever. I don’t get the winter blues but I do miss golf and every time I walk past the bikes I get a slight ache in my loins. TMI I know.

Melissa and I are both working through some of the books we received as gifts. I don’t know that she is using the Kindle much now since she has several real books stacked-up.

The kids (and adults) enjoyed getting their Christmas box from Uncle Justin. Stella wasted no time in pasting tattoos all over her body from the kit he sent her. She seems to like putting on makeup quite a bit too. I don’t feel either of these bode well.

All the January photos are here.

written by mark

Today is the last day of December and the last day of the 2000′s. Several writers have commented in the last few weeks about what a decade of upheaval this has been. I agree. The most dominant impression I will have of this decade is that it gave me three daughters. I know upheaval.

We had a wonderful Christmas. My mother-in-law (Suzanne), father-in-law (Glenn), sister-in-law (Skeez), brother-in-law (Glenn), my brother-in-law’s fiance (Lena) and their boxer puppy (Braddock) came for Christmas. We had so many gifts to exchange and so much opening to do that we had a morning and an evening session on Christmas day. I was running on four hours sleep Christmas morning (don’t ask) and was able to grab some shuteye between the two gift exchanges. My camera battery ran out of juice before all the unwrapping was complete. It was epic.

There was a lot of good food through the weekend. I am still plowing through all the leftovers which is awesome because I am good on a microwave.

I think everyone received everything their hearts desired and there was definitely a spirit of gratitude – well except for when Sharon had a meltdown because she thought Kayleigh got a Nintendo DSI and she didn’t. We let her wallow for about 10 minutes and then she managed to locate a gift under the tree that contained her DSI. Order was restored in the universe.

I am looking forward to the next decade – one day at a time.

All the December photos are here.

written by mark

In November I turned 40. Leading up to the 9th I was pretty busy with work. Justin turned 38 on the 5th and he, Mom and Dad came down for a long weekend to hang-out and harass me for hitting middle-age, as well as celebrate Justin’s birthday. Melissa and I gave Justin some bowling shoes for his birthday because he has been bowling every week with some friends and enjoying it. I received some very nice gifts as well. I got some golf gear (shoes, towel, golf shirt), a book I had been wanting and a very sweet Kansas City Royals authentic 40th anniverary jersey. I think I am going to get George Brett’s number tackle-twilled on the back. Anthony sent a kickass Italian Deluxe pizza down with Justin. I kept it hidden aside and devoured it the weekend after my birthday. It was awesome.

Over the weekend of their visit we went bowling, played golf and watched football. Justin made an outstanding Italian dinner for us all on my birthday. It was a very nice time and I made it through turning 40 without any major embarassment. I am glad it is over. In the weeks leading up to my birthday I found myself involuntarily thinking about the past way more than I care to. Not always looking back in a bad way – but generally looking back and wondering where it all went, how quickly time is passing now and how it seems to accelerate and get away from me even faster now. There was the usual amount of self-pity and regret I suppose people suffer when they spend time with their heads in the past. I had to keep yanking myself back into the day to work on doing the most with the moment in front of me. I really don’t want the kids to grow up. I don’t want to get old. I don’t particularly care to die anytime soon. The usual stuff, being not-so-gently reminded that I am not God and I am utterly powerless over the march of time and just about everything else.

Thanksgiving was awesome. It started off with a bang. Suzanne came to visit us for the four-day weekend and when she arrived on Wednesday night she harmlessly enough laid her suitcase out in Stella’s bedroom. At some point in the evening, Jackson discovered her open suitacse and proceeded to chew the lid off one of her medication bottles. Jackson then ate a three month supply of synthetic thyroid. We didn’t realize it until Suzanne was getting ready for bed and looking to take her nightly pill. At this point Jackson was well on his way to digesting, if not absorbing, all the pills he had swallowed. I took him up to Peewee Valley Veterinary Clinic and met Dr. Ross up there at about 11:15pm. Dr. Ross was great. She looked like she had just rolled out of bed. We induced vomiting (the shot included morphine among other things) and Jackson promptly barfed up a nice collection of small plastic beads from the girls’ craft sets, a bunch of cranberries, a completely unblemished dog biscuit (he must have eaten it whole) – but not a single thyroid pill. His heart rate was at 210 beats per minute but the morphine knocked it back down to about 100 beats per minute. Since the doctor was worried the pills had made their way to his intestine, we proceeded to hold him down and give him activated charcoal through a syringe. His little white beard was covered in black charcoal. He was shaking from the thyroid “speed” and his eyes were starting to droop from the morphine. Jackson’s first overdose! It would have been sad if it weren’t so funny. I strongly identify with a dog that will eat damn near anything and has a policy of “the more the better” when it comes to mood-and-mind-altering substances. Anyway, Suzanne shot a photo of him in full junkie-dog slendor and I need to get a copy of it from her. And seriously, we are very relieved that he was alright. The emergency vet visit also didn’t cost me and arm and a leg, which I had been girding myself for.

On to Thanksgiving! Suzanne helped Melissa create the most outstanding Thanksgiving dinner we have ever had. We played Trivial Pursuit (I was winless, Suzanne kicked our asses in the last game). We watched football. Melissa and I were also able to go out for a belated anniversary dinner while Suzanne watched the kids. We took the opportunity to do a little Christmas shopping as well.

All the November photos are here.

written by mark