Weekend Warriors and Things You Missed

     I know that a lot of you who have been following everything that I do with supreme dedication have been very disappointed for the last two weeks. I know that I have neglected you because of things that have been going on and how busy that we all have been. Even now, I am thoroughly distracted with cooking supper, watching TV, and getting things done on here. I have been working countless hours fixing up a division that needs fixing and remodeling an office that was in serious need of attention.
     Now, that I have done most of the things that I have done in the office, things have slowed down just a bit. I still have more stuff to do in the office, but the administration side of it is mostly complete with a few minors changes here and there. I have been a busy little beaver. Now, I won't take all of the credit because the LPO has been a big factor in what we have been doing. He has had some ideas that I have made into fruition and we have been working together to get everything done. I'm actually supposed to be walking around and doing surveillances and discrepancies on the boats and buildings, but since I have been working hard on the office, I have upgraded my station from Grunt to Safety Division Yeoman. It is an okay job because now I just do paperwork and I let everyone go out and do that work.
     Friday was a fun day for me because I had to go and talk to my Parent Code Division Chief. Normally, I work for my shop 67G, which is the Sonar Repair shop. We deal with the actual system maintenance and upkeep for the boats whenever they call for us. It was time for my Mid-Term Evaluation on Friday and I have been thinking about staying with Safety Division for the rest of my time here at IMF. Apparently my Sonar Chief has a real beef with the Safety division. I am only allowed to stay until March, when the actual evals come out, unless of course my current LPO for Safety and the Safety Chief can convince him to let me stay until June. It sucks when you are the one doing the hard work and no one appreciates you.
     This would have been up sooner but I got distracted by watching the Power Rangers Season 1. I'm talking original Power Rangers before they went all modded and shit like they are nowadays. Nobody likes the new Power Rangers show. Of course once the kids went to bed my beautiful one made me give her the XBox remote so that she could put on Doctor Who. Not a bad show, but I was watching the Power Rangers and reliving my childhood of watching horrible special effects and laughing. Too bad she doesn't have the same sense of stupid humor that I do.
     My wife is now looking up Halloween costumes for the children and trying to make sure that she gets the right thing even though the children will probably change their minds between now and when we actually get them. Apparently I get to be the Doctor and she will be the Tardis. I'm not opposed to this because it is one of those themed things that I guess she is wanting to do. I'm just excited to take the children trick or treating. Free candy that I get to sort through? Done Son!! Who doesn't like free candy. What does boggle my mind is that the stores already have Christmas crap out. Honestly? Let's through one holiday at a time before we start bringing stuff out for the next holiday. That will be another one of those rants that will be rambled off when I get the chance to do it.
     I'm actually thinking about syncing up my calendar to my wife's so that I am aware of everything that is going on with her so that I don't have to ask her anymore and maybe it will make things easier for me since I will finally know what is going on. So much to do with so little time. There is always something going on at our house even when we don't have to leave our humble abode. Cleaning up after four children and a painstaking and tedious task. Yes, I know, my fault for that one. Well at least half of them. I know what causes children and we are not looking to have any more. No more little Wickids running around in this neighborhood.
     Well, I was going to have this done right around the time that I finished eating dinner, but the TV distracted me and the reliving of the youth was rather enjoyable. I'm so happy that we have XBox Live Gold again so that we can watch TV shows and movies for pretty much free. It all depends on what you are looking for and what it is you can find and enjoy. I wasn't a huge fan of Doctor Who when my beautiful one first started watching it, but now I can sit and enjoy it even if I'm not always paying attention. My multitasking skills have improved. I can watch a football game, or any show for that matter, play on my phone and still tell you what is going on. It makes me happy to be able to do that.

     Until next time Wickid Readers,


Wickid

End of the Weekend??

Already?!?

     I remember that as a kid I used to adore Sundays. There was football and whatever else my dad decided to put on the TV when there wasn't a NASCAR race on. It meant Sunday dinner that was always so filling and so delicious. It meant the smell of clean laundry and time spent folding clothes. My dad and I would get up in the morning and read the paper, mow the yard, and wash vehicles. Then we would end the day on the couch and the recliner, kicked back watching sports. Oh so many years later, I still do most of those things, but I don't do them with my dad anymore. Instead, I do those things with my children. Granted there are a few changes to my Sunday routine, but all in all it is relatively the same. We get up, have breakfast, get a couple Sunday papers and enjoy the little time we have to do chores before all of the morning football games start. I am very happy to report that all of my boys love watching football and they are very competitive when it comes to their teams. I unfortunately drew the short end of the stick with the team support because the kids tend to root for mommy's teams. At some point or another I hope that the power shifts to me and the kids root for my teams. I can only hope.

     Another significant reminder that it is the end of the weekend revolves around the children going back to school the next day. Here in Washington, school starts the first week of September and as of right now I couldn't be happier. I have to older boys that are school age. They both attend the same school but they are two years apart. There is nothing wrong with them being two years apart. I'm glad to have half of my children in all day school so that my wife can have some peace and quiet at home with the little boys. Although, with the current state of The House of Wickid, it seems that my three year old is starting school next week (week of Sept. 15th) for two days out of the week. It makes me happy knowing that he will be in school for six hours out of the week and making things a lot easier on her. She will only have to deal with one child during that time. Think of all of the things that she can get done while the kids are out of the house and learning. I can think of a lot of things that she can do. She will do what she can and I don't expect her to be all Superwoman and do everything in a three hour time span. That would just be plain impossible. I can barely do three things in about three hours. She is so much better at multitasking so I'm not too worried about her.

     It is a shame that Monday follows Sunday. If there was a different name for the start of the work week, people would hate that day instead.There are plenty of Sundays where I just get the urge to sit around and do nothing. Those days are typically during football season because I tend to get sucked into all of the football games and then all of a sudden it is dinner time. Why is it that the week drags on and on until Friday? It seems that once you get to Friday time speeds up so that you have what feels like 12 hours to get 48 hours worth of stuff done. There must be some space time continuum thing that happens as a result of everybody having a weekend off. We seriously need a day between Saturday and Sunday. Let's call it Funday! That would be awesome. Mondays come and go, but we hate them just the same. If only there was a way to either skip this day or find a way to make it shorter. I think that a lot of the problem and hatred that Monday gets stems from the fact that people stay up way to late on Sunday even though they know they have to be up early the next day. I myself am a victim of this notorious crime because it haunts me even to this day. My mind refuses to shut off on Sunday night when I lay down. I always start making my weekly plan while I lay there fighting to get to sleep. The Sandman deems it necessary to skip my house when he is delivering his sleeping dust. Why he would do that is beyond me, but he is very rude! 

     End of the weekend or are we at the week's end? You tell me. We here at the House of Wickid enjoy the fact that the week is coming to a start and that school is tomorrow for our children. We shall see you next time here on The Arena. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Wickid

Birthdays and Saturday Night Radio!

     Today is a fabulous day in history. Yes, today I entered the world and graced everyone with my presence! Not to be conceited or anything, but I am just awesome! I had a pretty decent birthday today. I got to spend the day going from store to store trying to find pants for my oldest child who needed new pants for school. Not such a fun time if you think about it from a general perspective, but I did get to spend lots of time with my family and I had fun. Afterwards the wife and I ended up at Olive Garden so that we could have a quiet dinner together. Picked up a friend and took her shopping so that she could have some food for her and her boyfriend. Nice people that we are, I had no problem doing this. I was on my way taking her home so that my beautiful one could start on the laundry since I won't see her until tomorrow evening. I was on Highway 3 heading towards Silverdale and I had this state trooper come flying past me. I said, "He needs to pull someone over in front of me. That would be awesome!" No sooner did I get this phrase out of my mouth, he switched his lights on and pulled someone over. I was super excited! It practically made my day. Even though I totally forgot to go to the store to get chocolate milk for the children. I was too excited to come home and do what I am doing now. Reliving my daily events with you, the dedicated reader, and chairdancing while listening to my Uncle +Chuck Bisbee's radio show. I even got a birthday song from him and I have been enjoying a pretty awesome playlist tonight. I even got to listen to Macklemore's Thrift Shop song. Now I normally don't listen to the radio. I have been told that this song has been on the radio for the past few months and I have seen people post the video on the various social network sites that I peruse. I use G+ on a daily basis and I wake up and check it like the morning newspaper. I am addicted to it and I don't care. Other than spending my time on here giving you the details and views of things I enjoy, I play on the G+ talking video games and other topics that I enjoy. I belong to communities like Skyrim and Borderlands 2 and a few other gaming communities.

     So I have spent the last hour and a half or so listening to some great music from the Uncle and enjoying the last hours of my birthday before I head to bed. I did enjoy the phone call that I got from +Chuck Bisbee  concerning my other Uncle +tim kimbrough at 0730 this morning. Well, 0730 my time. It was good news to hear that Tim is doing okay and he is now home and resting. Well I do hope he is resting because he needs it. I have video game needs that I need him to fulfill when he is rested and better. Borderlands 2 is calling my name and we need to go through and demolish some bandits and shit so that the death toll will continue to rise. Something about watching a head explode makes me happy.

     I thank you all in advance for the birthday wishes and I had a great time today. I am going to enjoy some time with my beautiful wife and maybe if she is really lucky, I will rub her feet because I am just so awesome like that. By the way, Bruno Mars has a fantastic voice. The song currently playing is Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars. Never heard one of his songs either. I guess I need to get back to listening to the radio and listen to more than just the classic rock and rock stations. Definitely need to expand my music horizons.

     So from all of us here at the House of Wickid, we will see you next time here on the Arena!!

Wickid

TV Shows and Movies

     Who remembers any of the TV shows that they used to watch when they were children? I know that I remember a lot of the stuff that I used to watch, but I don't remember all of it. I wish that I could see a lot of those old shows that used to appear on the TV. It seems like the TV just isn't what it used to be. I was born in the 80's and grew up through the 90's. I remember things like Rugrats, Rocko's Modern Life, Ren & Stimpy, All That, Kenan and Kel. My list could go longer, but boring you with trying to remember all of the old shows that you used to watch wouldn't be fun. I remember when the Power Rangers were just that, Power Rangers. Not this new stuff that involves expanded names. I remember Tommy was originally the Green Ranger and he had that kick ass dagger that was also a flute to call his Zord to him. It always reminded me of Godzilla when it would pop out of the water. I didn't like watching VR Troopers, but I remember that it used to come on. I know that a lot of you folks are being quite reminiscent right now and going through your TV toolbox that you have tucked into your brain. It is nice to see those shows as the flashbacks that they have become.

     Now, TV is all about "reality shows" that aren't really a reality. Who wants to watch people being stupid in front of a camera? Who really wants to watch some famous rich person attempt to find love only to end the relationship that their significant other worked so hard for? I remember seeing the ones called "The Bachelorette" and she was looking for the perfect guy to spend the rest of her life with. You can't figure that stuff out in an eight week program based on a few dates. It's practically impossible! I know that "love at first sight" can happen, but in all honesty, how often does that really happen? You have to live and learn and figure out how to work things out in a relationship. TV shows like that ruin the whole idea of TV to begin with. I know that we all went through the phase of "reality TV" when it was a new thing. Some of the shows were getting stagnant and we needed a new direction to keep the general populace entertained. It has come to the point that people are watching shows like "Honey Boo Boo". Why would I watch a show about a bratty little kid who does talent shows or whatever it is that she does. Who cares?!? To me it seems like this is just a ploy for a family to get some money by letting a film crew into their lives and letting the film crews just air everything. I don't mean that the film crews air everything. They do the editing and whatnot to fit the show into it's allotted time frame. Now this isn't to say that I'm just going to sit here and complain about TV shows and "reality TV". I watch TV shows that are interesting. Well, at least to me they are interesting. I tend to watch the cooking channels and Food Network. I watch things like Restaurant Impossible, Chopped, and other things where I can watch people do some amazing things with food. I also have tuned into and followed shows like Revolution, Under the Dome, Twisted, and a few other things like that. I guess you could call them dramas. I'm not a real connoisseur of the categorizing of the TV shows into their appropriate genre. Another show that tickles my fancy is a show called The Big Bang Theory. I don't always know what they are talking about because they use big science-y words that I don't understand, but I can understand some of the things they are talking about and I do know funny. I happen to like my comedies and this is one of those ones that I purposely try to watch as often as possible. I also like to watch Ridiculousness and Wipeout! Those two shows always leave me in stitches and its those types of shows that I love the most.

     On to the movies! I know that there are a lot of movies out there and listing anything remotely related to a movie would be futile. There are so many movies that I love and watch on a frequent basis. I have spent so many hours awake watching movies just for the sake of watching them. I can't tell you how many times that I have just sat on the couch or on the boat doing a movie binge knowing that I needed to go to sleep so that I could be awake for work. Now, I will say this: Not all movies are good movies, but they all deserve a watch to determine your opinion. There are some movies that I will wait until it comes out on DVD before I even go see it because they trailers and the commercials for the movie don't quite sell me on watching it in theaters. I haven't spent a lot of time in the theaters watching movies because I prefer the comforts of home and the boat when I had to be there. I can't even begin to tell you the amount of hours I have spent watching movies on the boat. I would spend four hours in a twelve hour off watch period watching at least two movies before I would go to sleep. Depending on the day and when I had watch, I could watch up to five movies with my buddies before I decided to go to sleep. Unfortunately, I would also spend another two hours laying in bed on the boat watching another movie before finally being able to fall asleep. Hell, it is to the point that I only watch what I record on the DVR at home and mostly watch movies. I have been through my movie library at home more than twice. There are some movies that I can quote by heart while just sitting here typing this out to you. There are just not enough hours in the day for me to watch all of the movies that I enjoy. Enjoy some movies, pop some popcorn and just relax on my couch.

     I hope that you have enjoyed this edition of the Arena and my rant about TV shows and how it has become worse than what it was when I was growing up. Think about your movies and enjoy them as often as possible. Watch them until the disc will no longer play in your DVD or Blu-Ray player.

Wickid

Back to School Fever!!

     It is that time of the year again dear people of the Arena! It is time for the little children and big children alike to head back to school. I am so excited to know that I will have half of my children in all day school by the end of the week. The house is quieter and tasks around the house are made much simpler when you only have two children to worry about. In fact, I am so excited for them to be returning to school that I have taken up the idea to head back to school myself. I have a few forms to fill out so that I can see about getting some extra help from good old Uncle Sam. There are many reasons why I love my job. This happens to be one of those reasons. The benefits alone make up for the horrible hours spent on a boat and the moving every three years to a new place and starting over again in a new house and new location.

     As of right now I plan on doing a degree in General Studies to start me off. If I can, I plan on moving in the direction of creative writing so that I can get better at writing these editions of the Arena for you, the reader. I am also hoping that it will help in the writing of my books so that I can get my ideas and imagination out to the general populace. I haven't been working on the book as of late because we are still getting used to the routine here at the House of Wickid. It is getting a lot easier to do things around here and if you can believe this I am sitting here watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and not even paying attention to the keyboard. I used to be one of those hunt and peck type people that had to look at the keyboard to see what I was doing. After spending loads of time playing PC games, I have stopped looking at the keyboard most of the time that I type. It is a little easier to do this on a desktop computer that it is on a laptop because there is so much space between keys. I am looking at doing both online and in class courses so that I can get some time away from the house and focused on school. I figured that if I just do online courses, I will just get distracted and not do the schooling. I have a plan for now, I just have to do the happy thing that they call research into what it is I want to do. It seems like all jobs now require college degrees of some sort to get into the high paying realm. I won't be into the high paying realm of employment until after I retire, but the college degree will help a lot with the advancement. Speaking of advancement, I was SUPPOSED to take my E-6 exam today. I say SUPPOSED because I didn't take it. The people running the exam didn't have an exam for me so I have to talk to the ESO (Educational Services Officer) to get him to order me a substitute exam so that I can take it at a later date. Hopefully, I can make it off this exam and be one step closer to my career goal.

     I know this really isn't directed towards anything in particular, I just felt that I needed to express my joy at the children going to school and getting myself back into school. That is all from the Arena. Catch you next time! Same bat-time, same bat-channel!

Wickid

Street Fees and Housing Issues

     I have had a car since I was roughly seventeen years old. I have had to renew my tags for nearly a decade. Today was a day where I had to renew my tags for my car yet again. What should have only cost me about 46 dollars ended up costing me almost 70 dollars. When I asked the lady who was helping me why it was so much, she responded as such: "Sir, you live in Bremerton and we are required to charge you 20 dollars as a street fee since you have to park on the street." I looked at her and I responded like this: "Ma'am, I live in Jackson Park, which is owned by the military until October. I park in a parking lot. I understand that I live in Bremerton, but living in a housing community that provides parking lots, I should be exempt from "street fees" that don't apply to me." Needless to say I ended up paying the twenty dollars because even though I park in a parking lot, the fact that my address is in Bremerton is reason enough for them to charge me. I guess I just paid for someone else's street fees since I will not be parking on a street at anytime while I live here. Who knew that something so stupid could be used as an extortion principal to get some money. Why don't they just ask and then waive a fee when it doesn't apply to people. Everybody that lives in Jackson Park has to pay "street fees" for not parking on a street. We should be exempt, not because we are military, but because PARKING ON A STREET IS SOMETHING WE DON'T DO!! I guess it doesn't matter because they will charge you out the wazoo for it anyways.

     Now, this rest of this is all about Housing Issues. Not just from the people that own the Housing Community, but also about the people currently living in my house. We shall tackle the people living in my house first before we worry about what it is that the Jackson Park people do.

     As most of you may know, I have an extraordinary amount of people living in my house. Most of you will say that I am stupid for having my house feel like it is a hotel rather than the house that it was meant to be. Most will even say that I brought this on myself. For those that know me know that I will do everything in my power to help people out because it is the right thing to do. Faith in my humanity should be restored because I am a nice person that doesn't like to see the less fortunate go without if I can help it. Those that are aware of the situation know that I have my in-laws staying with me because they have run into a few problems that they needed help with. Back in March of this year, my mother in-law came to live with us while we were still in Georgia. She has some issues that I won't make public, but just know that she wasn't happy with her living situation and it led to her having to move in with me. She has been living with us for the last 6 months now. Well, close to six months now. IN that time we have provided food and shelter to her free of charge or as close to free of charge as we could. Once we returned to Washington and she returned to work, we have started asking her to help with the groceries and since she was already taking care of the children, that continued to happen. She knew that once she moved in with us she would become a sort of live in nanny. She did her job without too much complaining and she even went to work on a daily basis. After we got back here, her plan was to move out on her own and get her own place again so that she could get her life back in order. After a few arguments and a couple well placed Craig's list ads onto her Facebook timeline, she finally got the hint that we wanted her to move on with her life and get her own place again. Now, I have been talking to her on a daily basis since we got back here and have been asking quite frequently what her plans were for finding her own place and moving out and yada, yada, yada. The words that she used were that "she was too broke to look for something so she stopped looking until she had saved up money." Anybody that knows me knows that I will only help you out as long as you are also helping yourself. Once you stop helping yourself I also stop helping you. Needless to say, she got into a huge temper tantrum because we were taking advantage of her and we were being mean and we never talked to her about anything and we should have discussed this with her in private and she felt like we didn't love her and that we were just being mean horrible people. This conversation lasted all of about five minutes after I tried to tell her that we did everything we could to be as subtle as possible and not make the subject as pronounced as she was making it. Yeah, we probably shouldn't have gone public with the Craig's List ads on her Facebook, but after months of discussing her plan with her, I was getting tired of doing this the nice way. My beautiful one has been living with a massive amount of stress and bottling it and taking it out on me because she is really to nice to say anything to anybody. I am the mean one so I get to handle all of the confrontations. Simple enough for me. I would rather everyone hate me because I'm the "bad guy" in all of the situations. It wouldn't be such a big deal except that my mother in-law has this huge amount of pride that she carries around with her. After my sister in-law Meagan calmed her down, because she refused to talk to us, she made it home and spent her final night with us on I believe Thursday. She is now currently living with friends that have taken her in and she has apparently found a place that she can afford. Funny thing about all of this is that we have been helping her and supporting her through all of her issues and it took her a bit of lost pride to realize that we were right all along. She will probably never admit this, but the "tough love" that we showed her has helped her grow just a slight bit. We still have two out of three of my wife's sisters living with us however, they are helping around the house and actively looking to better themselves, so the issues that we have with them living here are a little smaller since they have chosen to help themselves and us.

     I'm not sure how many people have lived in a housing community. I know that most military personnel that choose to live in base housing instead of out on town live in a housing community. We happen to live in Jackson Park. They are getting taken over and bought out by Forest City Residential, which is also the same company that owns the houses on the Bangor base. There is no real issue with using the facilities that are provided to me because I do enjoy the fact that right now, I don't have to worry about the maintenance, nor do I have to worry about an extra bill to remember to pay. At some point in my career I do plan on buying my own house and enjoying the rest of my life not having to pay rent, but instead a mortgage. Until that time I will happily rent knowing that everything is taken care of via the military. Now that that has been said we move on to the issues that I am currently having. Since everyone is required to have fire alarms in their house so that you can be alerted to a fire, I give you this piece of advice. DO NOT and I repeat DO NOT get the photo sensor fire alarms for your home. We USED to have them here in our home, but after multiple false fire alarms and screaming children because of it, we finally had maintenance replace all of our fire alarms with generic simple non photo sensor fire alarms. For those who are wondering why I see this as an issue, just listen. These photo sensor fire alarms are very touchy and even the slightest little piece of dust will set them off. When a little fragment of dust gets caught on the fire alarm and starts moving around and behaving like a "fire", it will set the alarms off and they will continue to go off until the dust unlatches itself from the alarm. We had finally had enough of it and after 10 false alarms, I finally got maintenance to change out my fire alarms. We were sitting on the couch watching TV with nothing on the stove and the oven was off. There would be no reason for the fire alarm to go off. Other than that issue with the fire alarms and our house just being too small to hold even just the wife, me and the kids, I have no real issues with my house. We even called the Forest City people to see if we could get into a bigger house since we qualified for one and we were told that we were supposed to be getting one when we got here. Hopefully, with the fact that we have a special needs child and we are concerned for the safety of his temper tantrums and his ability to have his own quiet room, we are hoping that they will work with us and we will get a bigger house.

     I hope that you all enjoy the latest read from The Arena. We will see you again next time.


Wickid