Random crap with Uno.

[Unorthodox]

Don't know if there's an answer to that. 

Dad's family all worked for the railroad, which is a lot more brawn than brain work, but they are deceptively SMART, if not schooled.  I think dad's dyslexic, but he don't talk about it.  Just seeing some of his writing...

Mom's family...I honestly don't know too much about.  Grandpa had many jobs, and very eclectic, but died very young.  Grandma worked hard as a widower to keep food on the table, and had a very wild youth, though I'll never know the full extent.  Flings with baseball players and being a "Soda jockey" for a private club during prohibition among them. 

Uncle is smart, aunt is...well, she married an abusive jerk and made increasingly poor decisions after that.   

Mom would be a good journalist, but she wants to be a novelist.  The brief time she was actually stable, she was quite bright.  But most my childhood she had hormone problems, and now she's on a concoction of drugs that has neutered her mental acuity. 

My siblings have never had to work for anything, and thus lack of effort covers a lot of potential. 

Older brother is theoretically a genius in a very specific field.  He got handed a job at the store he now owns when he hit 16, teaching guitar lessons.  Went to school as an electrical engineer and moved on to doing repair work at the store.  He designed what he claims was a revolutionary sound system in his late 20s/early 30s (honestly, I can't tell much difference).  Sold the concept to Peavey, which marketed it through Van Halen, who older brother got on stage with as a result.  Offered a job to go design stuff for them, decided to stay behind to eventually own his own music store, which he did...and then let it go down the crapper while blaming everyone else.  He doesn't like the business of dealing with his employees, which he leaves to the vituperator who shouldn't be allowed in that role. 

Something went really south between my brother and the former owners.  I don't know, but suspect the vituperator was involved heavily.  There's been lawsuits and all sorts of ugly, which forced them to declare bankruptcy, though the store is open again now, I'm not sure how sound it is financially. 

Younger brother is VERY OCD.  Dropped on his head as a baby (literally, I think staring at the skull and brain scans of his head when I was age ~5 has something to do with the skull obsession now), and suffering 2 additional concussions in childhood have likely knocked something loose.  He also picked up the Thornock stubborn streak something fierce, and is completely allergic to work.  Offered managerial position at Target, but he refused and quit because he didn't want to change his days off.  He teaches drums at the store what would be considered part time in a normal world, and is otherwise a stay at home dad.   


Gubment work is all about rules and regulations, though.  Alls I do is make sure everyone plays by the same rules (often including the gubment).  I'm naturally a bit perfectionist, so it suits me in that way.  Doesn't really take a lot of brain power, though.  Thus the hobbies. 

[Buster's Uncle]

A touch of OCD can be a great boon, especially if you can turn it on and off when you need to...

Your dad's family sounds a lot like my dad's family - who are a bunch of sharp, sharp, ignorant/uncooth folks.  Mom's people are far less loud, and less loudly smart, but more subtle, probably deeper, thinkers -they go in for puzzles and what I call 'sorting games', which inclination is a major component of the artistic streak- I superficially resemble Daddy's people more, but got a lot of gifts from both sides, as did my sister and brother.

How about your kids?

[Unorthodox]

Kyle is in several AP courses and gets in trouble at times because he coasts.  If he'd put in a touch more work he'd easily have straight A's instead of B+.  His temperament is more hEt than I, likes to be around people, but also takes things very emotionally. 

Alec is too much like me.  Almost entirely unmotivated by school, the problem is getting him to focus and not wander off on some random tangent or into his own world.  Socially awkward, he internalizes everything and keeps it all bottled up till the eventual explosion.  It's a dangerous trait I had to learn to manage.  Whatever he decides to apply himself to, he'll excel at.  It's getting him to apply himself. 

Talia's school experience is so different than the boys with the Chinese program, it's hard to say right now.  Easily, she is the best behaved of all of them, so the elementary school system adores her so far.  She enjoys art much more than the boys ever did as well, and will take to something new in that arena and focus on it for some time.  She's started figuring out redstone in minecraft on her own as well.  That's not exactly always EASY. 

[Unorthodox]

Working off some nerves this morning, it hurts my hand to do details this little, but I can when I want, just took it slow.  She's don 90% of the painting to date, but it was handy and available and wouldn't make a big mess when I had the builder coming over. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Nice work.  The DOD-themed painting is just right for that design of skull.

Off work early today for remodeling business, then?

[Unorthodox]

off work all together.  Base works every other friday. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Mentioning where doesn't bust security?  Wanna delete some?

[Unorthodox]

It's fairly common around here I think half of Utah works on/for the base.  Which is why the base closure lists are always watched so closely on local news. 

[Unorthodox]

Numbers looking good for moving forward with the house.  So moving the fish tank today.  Joe bunking with Alec for construction.

[Buster's Uncle]

Joe's the fish?

You're not putting up any of the workers, surely...

[Unorthodox]

Joe is the 8 tear old fish, yes. 

laughing at the largest net at the pet store, we caught him with a 5 gallon bucket and transported/let him wait while we moved the tank in an 18 gallon.





I've never tried to move the tank like that before (used to have a second tank that could house the fish for a few days while the tank got all safe at the new location), so don't entirely know if it will kill Joe or not. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Is he an Oscar, or old goldfish, or what?  Something about that tank says salt to me a little...

[Rusty Edge]

I remember that Joe is the Oscar, or a cichlid of some kind.

Notice that the cats and the fish are Halloween colors.

[Buster's Uncle]

Ha.  Black and orange - so they are.

Salt then - I thought that funny tail and big dark face looked familiar.

[Unorthodox]

Notice that the cats and the fish are Halloween colors.

I hadn't noticed that. 

No salt, he's an Oscar, which is amazonian.  The logs in the tank are actual amazonian wood to maintain the proper PH.


The only reason he's an oscar is the boys fed my angels magnetics and poisoned the tank,  and I couldn't afford more angels, but I had it set up for the amazon.  So, that left me with oscars as what I could afford.  Didn't realize they could be so long-lived at the time.