Sounds hot, don’t it?  “Dirty Secrets“?  No, it’s just that while everyone is hot-to-trot about those Black Friday sales, it’s all just a lot of hoopla.  Personally, I’ve never ran to the store in the middle of the night to get a bargain (if that’s what you want to call it), and I never will. Sounds like a plain old scam to me.

Here’s a Black Friday reality check: Of the hordes of pre-dawn shoppers who line up for hours outside stores on the day after Thanksgiving, most will not bag the best bargains that appear in merchants’ circulars.

Look at the fine print that appears next to an advertised “doorbuster deal” at the bottom of the page in this year’s circulars.

It will either say “While supplies last,” “Minimum 2 per store,” “No rainchecks” or “All items are available in limited quantities.”

As of yesterday, I completed work on my last audit of the year, so now I’m “free.”  I say “free”, because I’m going to obviously help out whoever I can, but I’m basically unassigned for now.  Time to do research, help out anyone who needs it, and studying. Studying? Heck ya.  As I roll into the rest of the year, it’s a great opportunity to study and catch up on my continuing education credits (CPEs), back to studying for my CISSP, and learning new things.  It’s also a good time to unwind and start using up the rest of my vacation time.

First order of business, I celebrated.  I bought steaks on Sunday, in preparation for a celebratory dinner.  Monday night, I marinated them, and had them ready for some grilling.  Tuesday night, I asked a friend for more tips on grilling, as I didn’t want to screw up my steaks.  Too late.  I’m not sure what happened, but it all went awry. 

The good news was that the mashed potatoes and the mixed veggies made inside the house before grilling the steaks came out great. However, once I broke out the grill, it went downhill. The left burner wasn’t working properly, so I had the middle and right only to use. I had them up on high to get the grill to 400 degrees.  I put the burgers and steaks on, and came back in 8 mins to flip the steaks and burgers in 8 mins, but they had mostly charcoaled to a crisp on one side.  Out of four steaks and three burgers, one steak was pretty bad, but the other 3 steaks were salvageable.  The burgers were charcoaled to cinders.

Part of the problem was probably that I was trying to grill by a dim outdoor light and a flashlight. Once the steaks were medium-well, I brought them in, and my wife and I spent some time slicing off the charcoaled portions. Still edible, but not the greatest.  I had to throw out the fourth steak (the most charcoaled), and all of the burgers. It was a learning experience, as I’ve never grilled steaks in the dark before. I was a bit depressed, but my wife cheered me up, and we later ate ice cream and watched TV on the couch after the kids went to bed. This week, I gotta check out what’s wrong with the left grill burner.  Next time, I’m going to grill when there’s still light outside.  Grilling by flashlight wasn’t fun.

Second order of business, I took today (Wednesday) off. It was a wonderful day of unstructured time. I dropped the kids off late (9am), ate breakfast while watching TV, and chilled out.  However, in just a short while, I remembered that I’m not a “do nothing and enjoy it” type of person. I get bored, listless, and generally…. feeling guilty.

I did some handyman (handy husband?) stuff in the kitchen to fix and organize the drawers/cabinets that had loose knobs — no easy feat as you have to empty and take apart the drawers to tighten the knobs.  Since I was doing that anyway, my wife had recommended last night that I clean them up while I’m at it.  I did that too. Organized the junk in the drawers that have accumulated like detritus since we moved here in 2005.  I had fun using my cordless drill/driver.

I also vacuumed, reloaded the dishwasher, cleaned up the stove, removed all the infant stuff we don’t need anymore, laundry, took out the trash and recycling, and some other stuff I think. I also made dinner before I picked the kids up in the evening! It was a busy afternoon, and that’s how I like it.  I really do enjoy my free time when I’m accomplishing something!

That post title should be read with your best Dr. Frankenstein impression.  We have fish again. As you may remember, we had a mass ritual suicide in the aquarium back in the beginning of August. Now that Doug helped me by cleaning up the tank, we’re basically ready to jump back in the water, so to speak.

After church on Sunday, we did a run to a local PetSmart in the area, and picked up six new tropical community fish and tall/medium-sized plants.  I figure let me set this tank up right — plants to clean the water and provide shelter (less stressful fish), and fewer fish in the tank to keep it nice and roomy. Let’s see how it goes this time around.

The aquarium is a buzz with life again

On Saturday night, we packed up the kids into the car, and drove to the Marakesh Restaurant in Parsippany to meet up with the gang to celebrate recent birthdays for Heidi and Pradeesh.  Others had been here before, but it was the first time for us. Marakesh serves Moroccan cuisine, which I was a little worried about.  The last time I had moroccan cuisine was at a moroccan restaurant in Rutherford NJ 7-8 years ago.  It was so bad, I had sworn off the entire cuisine.

The food here at Marakesh was much better. We were situated in these large booths around teeny-tiny tables, which was a little awkward, but maybe more authentic?  Well, when in Morocco…… (or at a Moroccan restaurant in Parsippany.) The highlight was the belly dancer, which they feature as the live entertainment every Friday and Saturday night.  She was swell. 

Pictures are already posted online, so enjoy!

Heidi dancing with Gabby the belly dancer

This has been floating around on the Interweb for a few days, but I only watched it last night.  Can I say that she seems to be tool?  Is that even applicable to the female gender? In any case, she’s fake.  Sitting there hocking her book on Larry King Live – feh.

First off, I salute all of our surviving U.S. veterans, and commemorate those who have passed on. You have done a wonderful service for all of us.

I was off today, which was very nice. The kids were both at school today, and my wife was off making the bacon.  I had nowhere to go today, it was rainy, and I was perfectly comfortable hanging around at home.  After dropping off the kids to school, I watched some tv, I cleaned up the kitchen, the guest room, and the kids’ room. I also did the laundry, and vacuumed the entire house.

My friend Doug came over around 1:30pm, as he need some help rebuilding his laptop with his new copy of Windows 7. We ordered some Domino’s pizza for a late lunch, watched some tv, backed up his data to my PC first, rebuilt his laptop, and copied back his data last. We unfortunately ran out of time to install his applications, but I guess he’s on his own.  He, in turn, cleaned and scrubbed my aquarium tank, and so the aquarium is up and running again.  Now, we just need some fish!

Finally, my wife and I fed the kids, gave them bathes, and got them to bed. I’d call this a most productive day, which are my favorite kinds of days.  Yes, I actually like productive days over lazy days, as I feel like I’ve truly accomplished something.

It’s like a dream come true. Joshua is, I think, officially a Star Wars fan. He’s only 4.5 years old, but I think I can get continue my corruption, er, I mean, nurture his budding love for geekiness.  We’ve been watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars (I did say that it’s been pretty cool.) As I understand it, it’s the highest-rated show on Cartoon Network right now, and for good reason. The latest episode, Landing at Point Rain, was a phenomenal, engaging, action-packed war episode. I mean, it was really good.

We’ve also watched Star Wars Episode IV (A New Hope) and Episode V (The Empire Strikes Back) which are slightly over his head, but he asked a lot of questions.  He obviously didn’t get it all, and I did some minor fast-fowarding, but I kept him engaged in the main storyline.  I also made sure he thought Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Chewbacca are all pretty cool.  I think he just likes R2-D2 a lot. He’s already asking when are we going to find out what happens next in Episode VI (Return of the Jedi.) I was happy that at a birthday party a week ago where they had a Prince & Princess theme, he was amenable to the idea his sword was a lightsaber. 

This year, I’ve been embracing my inner geek. All these years, I’ve been too self-conscious to admit to it, but it obviously often showed.  Now, I feel secure enough to let myself…. um, be myself, I guess. I’m a geek.  Nothing wrong with that.  Why be a half-ass geek?  Go whole-ass, I say. Be the techno geek.  The sci-fi geek.  Why not, after all?  There are others out there like me.  As a matter of fact, Wired.com has a Geek Dad column, written by someone just like me. Enjoy it. Love it. Live it!

If I can make my kids enjoy sci-fi too, hey that’s great.  Their journey towards the Dark side will be complete.  I just hope they can get still dates in 10-15 years.

Isn’t this whole thing just crazy?

I saw where this was going about 5 seconds into it.  Still, you know, this has to be happening all over the world in similar situations.  Life is messy and tough, isn’t it? Brothers stars Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Tobey Maguire. I might want to see this movie. I don’t know.  I’ll think about it.

I love pumpkin picking

Saturday morning, we met up with my sister-in-law and her family at our house.  We drove down to Wall, NJ to visit Atlantic Farms, which has a small petting zoo.  We’d been here before back in October 2008, and I t hink Josh has been to another one recently on a school field trip.  Still, I don’t think kids ever get too tired of petting zoos.

When we got down there, there were no long lines or crowds of people, so we were actually a little nervous that there was no petting zoo, but there was.  I guess today wasn’t a specifically promoted day. Kids had a good time, and I saw basically the same farm animals from last year, like that cow with the big tongue that wants to lick my face. Josh had a good time, as his cousin Sophia was here.  Lily had a somewhat more trying time.  She went “baaa” at a sheep, the sheep returned the “baaa”, and she got scared. She eventually calmed down, and got into the whole petting zoo thing by throwing corn in the general direction of an animal.

Dinner with Doug & Kathy

In the evening, we drove up to my NY to drop off the kids to my parents for the evening.  After that, we immediately drove up to see our friends Doug & Kathy to hang out and dinner.  We ate at a surprisingly good Greek restaurant — “surprisingly” good not related to the quality, but that it was situated in a strip mall on Rt. 17 in Ramsey, NJ. I know Greek cuisine is big on seafood and lamb, but I stuck with a great tasting chicken platter. 

Worst present you can ever get me?  Seafood and/or lamb.