Category Archives: /dev/null

random stuff, without categories

Happy Anniversary, 15 Years of Love…

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My bride wrote about our courting on her blog. She got it right, but let me add some stuff from my perspective (and because if I don’t she’ll cream me).

The first ‘date/meeting’ was at Marakesh (a Morracan restaurant) in Mission Valley, which is a good 20 minute drive from Pacific Beach where I shared an apartment when I wasn’t on the ship. Also PB (as it is affectionately known) was about a 20 minute drive to work in the morning, and muster in the Navy is usually 7:00 AM, which means park by at least 6:00 AM, walk down the pier to the ship, scramble up ten stories of ladders (they don’t put passenger elevators on those things) get dressed, then back down to get the POD (Plan of the Day) from the XO (Executive Officer) at Officer’s Call before greeting my Division for muster. So yeah, I had to leave a bit earlier than I’d have liked. But I fell in love with her that night. Look at that picture over there, her eyes and smile still captivate me, can you blame me?

And I do remember who lost that Superbowl the next day, in those days tradition was the Buffalo Bills would shred the AFC then pitifully lose the Superbowl against the NFC Champion, often it was the Cowboys that had the privileged, but I believe that year the Redskins had the honor.

It is also of note, apart from cruises, trips or business and family we haven’t spent a night apart since that first weekend. There have been up times and down times, times of uproarious laughter and deepest tears. But through it all, my bride has stuck by me, and I’ve tried my best to pamper her in the way a Princess should.

You see, back in the dark days before the internet, we had ‘handles’ on that 32-line BBS. Mine was pretty plain, being the senior Ensign (kinda like being the oldest Freshman) I had the honorary title of ‘Bull Ensign’ so I chose ‘Bull’ as my handle. Angie changed hers about as much as she changes her Facebook photo, but usually it was some concoction of ‘Princess’. We went to a few of the San Diego Connection parties, their Halloween bash was a celebration of Geekiness, and another party we had to leave early because … well… it WAS California, and we’re talking about a lot of geeky singles. I think there was a CSI episode loosely based on a SDC party.

Now we’ve decided to start playing softball in the fall on the co-ed team. Which also brings back some memories of our courting days. I used to play for the ship’s softball team, and drug Angie along to watch, and she met a few of the other girlfriends and wives. One night, I made an error (I know SHOCKING, right?) at second base, and was getting mad at myself, and one of the wives yelled out, ‘Shake it off, Bull!’ but in a really strong Jersey accent. So when you come to a softball game this fall, and I mess up, you’ll probably hear Angie yell that.

Oh… San Diego memories. We can talk about shopping for rings in Horton Plaza. Proposing again for the second time, correctly this time, outside of Sea Port village. Living in her mom’s apartment in the IB (Imperial Beach, home of John from Cincinnati), moving into our cramped studio apartment on G-Street across the street from Sea Port Village, the same weekend we drove to San Leandro to deliver her Mom’s stuff.

Its been quite a ride, baby. Can’t wait for the following 35 years. 🙂

beware the cinco de mayo…

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Also what do 3, 3 and 9 have in common.

Cinco de Mayo means birthday in the Stueve household. Danny turned 9 (9?!?!??!? yep, nine!) So we went to our increasingly traditional birthday dinner joint, Pei Wei, which given the traditional holiday atmosphere in the southwest on this day was surprisingly empty when we hit the joint shortly after 5PM.

Quick dinner, and back home to open presents, drum machine and lego blocks what else does a 9 year old need. So an hour or so of drum sounds and 30 minutes of putting together Indy Jones lego set, and then it was time for me to take 3 of our kids to the after dark pediatrician.

Yeah, you heard right, 3. The non-birthday Stueve’s staged a mini-revolt and wanted a medical review. After we stormed the waiting room, and then gave the nurses a chance to practice triage techniques, we holed up in an exam room to await the doc. In our case it was a nurse practitioner, and after two swabs and a positive ear infection, we grabbed our three scripts for antibiotics and headed for the pharmacy. Yep, we hit the bacterial trifecta: MJ – strep (win), Brenna – ear infection (place), and Lauren – uncategorized infection (show) (aka pre-strep).

So Jonny will take tomorrow off and sleep all day with three sick kids, and the birthday boy gets to go to school by hissef. I wonder if he’ll mind walking? 😉

Have you noticed…

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A disturbing trend in trying to market new shows on the local television networks. The past couple of Wednesdays its been hard to miss. Usually the promotion starts in the news hour, with promises of special events later in the evening. Last night it was on FOX, but it had nothing to do with American Idol. Then after the news hour, they devote large amounts of coverage to this ‘event’ and even breathlessly break to commercial promising new bigger revelations … after the break … The problem is — hardly do the revelations really reveal anything new, careful watchers will not be surprised by the revelations, in some cases they may have already turned off the show, that is how predictable its become.

I can handle all that, I’m a saavy watcher of television, and I understand with the writer’s strike there is a lack of quality programming. But falling back to this reality genre is such a predictable ruse, and its got my 11 year old daughter, totally captivated by the drama, unable to sleep as the ideas these shows (and there is no escaping them they are on all the local networks) germinate in her mind.

Its not even good television, like Lost or The Office. Just the predictable dreck that the networks always start previewing in the spring. Maybe we should just do something else. Anything would be better than this… screen shots after the fold.
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Name the Oceanic SIX

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My guess is the six includes Jack, Hurley and Kate. As to the other 3, I haven’t the foggiest, but I’m going to go with Michael (just because I saw Harold Perrineau’s name in the credits, and if Desmond can’t navigate away from the island, I doubt Mike and Walt will be able to as well), Juliet and Desmond (because they have people to come back to).  Mike was in the casket.

Lost dead pool candidates:

  • Rose
  • Bernard
  • Claire (and baby)
  • Walt
  • Christian Shepherd
  • Benjamin Linus
  • Sawyer (he put his foot in it with his “I’m always surviving” schtick.