As you all noticed, the van arrived Tuesday evening, just as the sun was going down.  We couldn’t check it out completely in the dark, but definitely loaded Tom into it without breaking a sweat and played with all the buttons, knobs, bells and whistles.

Yesterday, we all loaded up in the van, nearly giddy as a child on Christmas morning, to go for our maiden voyage.  We locked Tom’s chair down and buckled up for safety, and headed on our way — with the boys watching TV the whole way!  (Can’t miss the news, ya know… although I don’t know why.)

First we stopped by Tom’s mom’s craft store where we all did a happy dance together since … well, we were all damned happy.  Duh.  Tom went inside his mom’s shop, which he hadn’t visited since he’d been hurt.  He talked to some of his mom’s customers and just generally hung out for a little while.

Then, we loaded up and headed to my mom’s work and grabbed some lunch.  We didn’t unload there, but everyone came out to check out the van and actually meet Tom.  Most of the employees there haven’t had the chance to actually see Tom before, so it was nice for them all to be able to put faces to names.

After lunch, we stopped by Tom’s sister’s work and made her come outside to see the van also.  She harrassed Tom fairly for not coming in to see her office, but I think Tom was a little sore from being up in his chair and didn’t really feel like moving around too much.

The last stop was going over to my sister’s house where I begged Tom to get out of the van to see about widening the door from their garage to their basement – since that would be Tom’s only point of entry into her house.  Tom made it through the door with no issues, so Angie doesn’t have to go through the trouble of getting her door widened… which makes all of us happy!!

We had called Tom’s dad after leaving Angie’s to see if he wanted to see the van also.  But he and his wife were passing some kind of sickness back and forth to each other, so we all decided that seeing the van could wait until another day.  And, although Tom would happily gone to see his Dad, I think he was probably a little relieved.

This van is 230981408 million times better than our old van.  But, Tom hasn’t been up in his chair much lately because… well… there just hadn’t really been a need to get up with the weather sucking so much and there not being any place to go.  So, Tom was a little sore from all the activities.  It sure didn’t erase the ‘kid in a candy store’ smile from his face.  But, he fell asleep as soon as his head hit his pillows, which shows how exhausted he truly was.

We’ve never made so many stops in one day since Tom’s been hurt.  The old van was not a smooth ride what so ever, which made travel painful for Tom.  We only reserved traveling for necessary things, or when Tom was absolutely going out of his mind from being stuck on our property.

Now, I can see lots of outtings in our future.  Its very very exciting.

Maybe we’ll go to the museum.  Tom wants to go to the new Bass Pro shop a couple towns over.  We haven’t seen a movie in the theaters since Tom’s been hurt… Tom hasn’t gone grocery shopping with me since the accident either.  Heck, maybe we’ll go visit our friends about an hour south of here.

As you can see, weather permitting, I think we may not be around the house a lot here soon.  Spring can’t come soon enough!!

Let me first start this by saying that I have no issue what so ever with motorcycles, or most of the people that ride them.  Honestly.  I have some wonderful friends who are bikers.

I, personally, have never had the priviledge of being on a bike.  I don’t think that I would want to learn to drive one, but had thought I would of been lucky enough to ride one already in my life.

Tom even used to own a bike, back in the day, before I met him.

The point here is that my attention has been directed to the fact that, in the State of Missouri, there are no laws about keeping children off of motorcycles.

None.

No age requirements.

No specific safety standards.

Nothing.

And, although I believe nearly every biker out there that would consider putting their child (or someone elses child) on their bike, has no intention of letting the child get hurt… accidents do happen.  All.the.time.

A child, again – in the State of Missouri, is required by law to be in a car seat or booster seat until they are … 60 pounds?  I believe.  Most children are in boosters until they are … (guessing here) … seven years old?

But, on a motorcycle, the child only has to be wearing a helmet, according to Missouri law.

Uhm.

Do you see the issue here?

In a car, which has a ‘protective casing’ all the way around it, the child must be restrained in a safety seat.  But, heck, if wanna take your infant on a motorcycle… thats cool?

Ya know, since they make helmets for infants and all…. (okay, I don’tknow that to be true, but you get my point, ya?)

I definitely think there should be an age restriction for passengers on motorcycles.  Maybe, under the age of 10 shouldn’t be allowed on bikes?

What are you’re feeling on this?

Oh how amazingly lazy I must appear. If only you could see how I’m writing this post… Actually I’m thankful you can’t see. It’s nearly two thirty in the morning and I’m comfortly laying in bed with my itouch resting on Tom’s arm. Which reminds me… Have I ever mentioned to you how much a quadriplegic moves? Interestingly enough, Tom moves quite a bit. Mind you, there is no movement from his waist down, but his arms move (although limited) and so does his diaphram. So writing this on my itouch has been very entertaining. Each time he coughs, my itouch moves inches which makes for some bizzare typos. I can’t help but laugh!

Anyways. I got nothin’, but I had to act like I was doing something here! Ok. I guess I didn’t.

Writing a pointless blog post was better than counting sheep in my opinion. (is it ‘than’ or ‘then’? I always second guess myself on those two.)

Alright. I’m over it. G’night.

Yes, you read that correctly.  I really don’t want a raise.  I mean, okay, in all honesty, I wouldn’t refuse myself a raise.  But, if I’m getting a raise because minimum wage is increasing again…. Then, I don’t want a raise.

Why do we keep increasing minimum wage?  Honestly?  What good does it do?

Can we think about this for a moment?

I understand that people are struggling with their fiances.  I understand that the cost of living isn’t necessarily cheap anywhere.  I understand the general concept of just wanting a larger paycheck overall.

But, if minimum wage increases, then prices must go up in order to accomadate the employees wages.  All prices.  Bread, gasoline, diet coke… prices go up.  Houses, cars, college tuition…

All because we’ve increased minimum wage, and therefore everyone must increase their costs to cover minimum wage.

Ya dig?

Increasing minimum wage, in my opinion, doesn’t do a damn bit of good.

Here in about twenty years, minimum wage will be $35 an hour.  And, of course, a twelve pack of diet coke will cost the same.

What’s the point?

There is none.

The neighbor’s dog, Mooch, isn’t really the neighbor’s dog.  He’s really a community dog.  Since there’s no leash law here, he’s able to roam free along with the other dogs in the neighborhood.

And, although there is a small problem with trash bags being torn open sometimes, overall there aren’t any problems with the lack of leash law.

But, that is neither here nor there.

Mooch is a black lab, and is probably about a year or so old.

He looooooves to play fetch.  Loves it.  His life revolves around you throwing and him bring back.

He’ll bring you anything to throw.

I mean anything.

When all else fails, he’ll take one piece of mulch out of my mulch garden (because there are no flowers, it is a mulch garden… not a flower garden).  That piece of mulch cannot be replaced with another piece of mulch.  You’d think there was no difference?  Well, there must be… somehow.

Anyway, when he has the luxury of a tennis ball, he’ll bring it over to anyone who is outside.  And, he’ll sit it down and look up to you with his big brown eyes and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

He’ll wait for you to kick the ball.  It doesn’t matter if the ball goes 23094 miles or .02 millimeters, he’s super psyched and will retrieve the ball.

And, then he’ll drop the ball.  Etc, etc.

But, if he drops the ball into my mulch garden, I say to him, “Mooch, its in the mulch…”

Then he quickly retrieves the ball, and drops it the two inches further over so its on the sidewalk instead of in the mulch.  Which makes it easier to kick.

Which makes the ball go.

Which makes Mooch happy that he gets to chase it.

And, if he drops the ball into the mulch after he retrieves it, I’ll say, “Mooch, its in the mulch…”

And, again, he picks it up and drops it onto the sidewalk.

I don’t know if he’s really trained regarding this, or if its just coincidence, but its pretty neat if you ask me.

more…

I am super loving my itouch. Was it a practical purchase? Not necessarily. Is it super lots of fun? Absolutely. I think I might use the itouch more than my desktop. I’ve yet to actually purchase any applications for this thing yet, but have found a substancial amount of crap to entertain me for free.

Do you have an itouch or iPhone? Is there an application you have that you couldn’t imagine living without? Let me know what it is … I’ll totally check it out.

PS I downloaded a couple free movie trailers, just to play around, but don’t know if they’re on the itouch or not. They show up on the apple store thingee. Tell me how to work this thing.

Thx.