PhoneBoy Says

As Frank Zappa said, "watch out where the huskies go."

They are supposedly French. Make your own joke here.

The hosts of this show drink beer while filming. Seems appropriate I should drink beer while watching. :)

The country where I will be for the next week. I will be starting my journey later today. Hopefully the batteries in my devices will hold out that long. :)

What are some of your favorite, forgotten albums that have stood the test of time?
Submitted by PeterGibbons.

Perhaps the most timeless album is Dark Side of the Moon, mainly because it's as old as I am and is continuing to sell very well. Some of my other favorites include:

• Peter Frampton: Frampton Comes Alive
• They Might Be Giants: Flood, Factory Showroom
• Eagles: Their Greatest Hits, Hotel California
• Supertramp: Breakfast in America
• Pink Floyd: The Wall, Animals, Obscured By Clouds, The Final Cut
• Roger Waters: The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking
• David Gilmour: About Face
• The Beatles: Abbey Road
• Frank Zappa: Joe's Garage
• Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
• Van Halen: 1984

There's probably a bunch I am missing here.

You may have noticed a few posts "disappeared" from the front page. They were some old posts I had migrated over from phoneboy.com. I had to change the date on them so they were "chronologically correct" and thus appear in the right spot on Vox. My apologies for the confusion.

Took advantage of the day off and the nice weather and dragged the kids to the zoo. Snapped a couple of pictures. Unfortunately, we didn't have a ton of time today as house hunting kind of got in the way.

What do you like to make or order for brunch?

Without a doubt, Eggs Benedict. Though you can keep the English Muffins and even probably the Canadian bacon. I just like the poached eggs and hollandaise sauce.

My mom tried to make fresh hollandaise sauce a few times. It was quite a production if I remember right and I don't recall if she ever got it "right." Then again, anything made with a boatload of egg yokes is going to taste good, even if it doesn't look right. It's sort of like my wife's Fettuccine Alfredo, which is also quite a production, and also tastes good, even if it doesn't always look right.

Mmmm… food. Artery-clogging food.

My wife went out for a evening with other moms, as she does on a regular basis. She ended up finding a couple of interesting houses near her friend that would be a step up from what we're living in now. It would be a bit further south in Gig Harbor, but I don't consider that a bad thing.

This whole road/fence thing in our current house is going to be a problem if we continue to stay where we're at. The fence the land company is putting up right now isn't a fence, but rather a "privacy screen." So while it might keep the headlights out of our windows at night, it will do nothing to actually keep my kids from running into the road, which matters to me a hell of a lot more than headlights shining in our bedroom window. Getting a proper fence put up is proving to be damn near impossible thanks to the lovely CCRs we have to deal with.

In any case, I see some house hunting in our immediate future, especially given we've got a three-day weekend.

One thing I do near the end of a calendar year is figure out how much vacation time I have to take and, well, take it. My employer gives me a ton of vacation days that I have to take--or else I don't get any the following year. I am allowed to bank two weeks, which I do. The problem is: everyone takes Christmas off and I don't want to be one of those people. Also, Christmas is a nice time to work because, well, things are "slow" at that time of year. I can actually get things done. :)

The best compromise is to basically work four days a week until the end of the year. This along with previously taken vacation time usually works out. This year, however, it doesn't, and I need to take even more time off. Fortunately there is a week where Jaden only goes to school half-days all week and that sounds like a good week to take off. That along with Thanksgiving Week end up being good weeks to take off. That gets me just under the bankable limit.

Since Monday is a school holiday for Jaden, it will mean some extra kid time this weekend. Yay, vacation!