Dave Mancuso dot Com

I updated my template, but hmmm–now it went back to an older style–kind of. I don’t think I’ll mess with it more tonight.

At least it’s not as bad as Crazy Apple Rumors. There’s something cracked about that guy, but he makes me laugh.

I noticed that I’ve already had 6 spam comments on this blog in the one hour since I rebuilt the site at the new location. I’m targeted for spam.

Lucky for me MT-Blacklist is around. I installed it and de-spammed the website in ten minutes.

Yee-ha.

You, know, I read a statistic that 1 out of every 12 emails today is spam. I think that number is too low, actually.

…I met my wife Denise.

Life is good.

Living in the Mancuso household means knowing that your carbon monoxide detector works perfectly, since it goes off every morning at six am when you take a hot shower with its attendant steam.

Certainly helps wake the kids up, though.

I thought I’d mentioned it on the blog, but it’s all a blur from back then. My dad just got back to work after being off for a while. The second stent operation was a success, and he went down to Florida to recuperate. He couldn’t fly, though, so he had to take a train. He could barely restrain his joy at taking 24 hours to make a trip that usually takes 3 hours on his airline, but he managed somehow.

My dad now has six stents in various arteries. I think he’s about “stented out.” His doctor said that if he were any other patient, or if they were any other practice, stents wouldn’t have been an option. I have to hand it to my dad, though. He insisted on, and got, a successful stent procedure. This means that he’s never had to go through open heart surgery, which it about as invasive a procedure as you can get.

I don’t know if my dad was really ready to go back to work yet, but he’s a lot better off now than with three major arteries amost totally closed off. He looks better, too. People still think he’s my brother rather than my father (I think that’s more a reference to his youthful appearance than my early aging, white hair aside).

I’ve mentioned theremins before, but TechTV’s The Screensavers had Bob Moog (pronounced like “mode,” not “mood”) on tonight. He demonstrated a theremin (actually, a theremin virtuoso musician played the instrument). Dr. Moog is selling the instrument on his website, and a kit model is only $349, which is a steal.

When I was at 30th Street Station, outside, waiting for the SEPTA train, I noticed that all the steel girders had these weird little strips of spikes all along them. They were like little stalagmites sticking up. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that they were put there to keep the pigeons off the griders. Sure enough, on the few girders without spike strips, several pigeons were roosting.

That’s a lot better solution than the recorded cannon boom they play at the Park City Mall to scare birds away. That freaks you out if you don’t know what it is.

Part Uno
Me: (Singing a song to Denise that she didn’t know.)
Denise: Don’t give up your day job, Dave. Hey–I wanted to tell you something. What was it? I can’t remember, but it was important.
Me: Well, apparently not as important as picking on your husband and telling him not to quit his day job.
Denise: Ha-ha, Mr. Funny Man.

Part Deux
Me: Drew, you were answering some tough questions at music class today–good job!
Alyssa: But Daddy, he never answers questions.
Me: He did today.
Alyssa: Yeah, but he only answers questions if the parents are around.
Me: Well, Miss Tattletale, I saw him answering questions, so I’m giving him a little praise.
Alyssa: No way, Daddy! He didn’t pray at all! Even once!

Part Tres
Me: (Trying to settle Alyssa down at the dinner table–I make the clap, clap, clap-clap-clap sound her kindergarten teacher uses to bring the kids to attention)
Alyssa: (Looks at me and laughs, but doesn’t respond at all)
Me: Alyssa, you know that sound, right?
Alyssa: Sure I do, Daddy.
Me: So what do you do when I clap like that?
Alyssa: Nothing, Daddy.
Me: Why not?
Alyssa: Because you’re not my kindergarten teacher, that’s why.

Part Quatro
Drew: I want that, Daddy! And the other one too–and the Transformers toy and (ad infinitum, ad nauseum)
Me: You know the family rule, Drew–“You can’t have everything in the world you want–where would you put it all?”
Drew: Um–I could make room in my closet.

Denise found this on the floor tonight, a to do list from Alyssa:

Hmmm. This from the kindergartener who is just learning to read. She’s apparently learning (or teaching herself) how to write and spell now, at least phonetically.

I’m not sure how she’s going to make the tent, though. If I leave the sewing machine out at night, maybe we’ll find out–she’s pretty resourceful (or stubborn, however you look at it). Like father, like daughter!

I lent Jeff and Lisa the van last week and the dropped it off at Dad’s on Wednesday. I decided to take the train in to Philly to pick it up–that way I avoid dragging Denise, the kids, and a second car along for the ride.

It’s interesting going to Philly this way. It was pretty fast, despite a couple of stops. Only an hour and a half, and I was in 30th Street Station. This train station is huge. The ceiling in the main lobby is a couple of hundred feet up–the room is so big that some pigeons are flying around in here, mistaking it for a roost or something. No one pays any attention to them.

Huh. Oh well, off to Ridley via the Septa rail system. Funny–the last (and almost only) time I went on that route I ran into Kim Fatzinger, who told me about poor Rick Stefanowicz passing away. That would be, um, 1988 at about this time of year.

Time flies.