The Blog of Bert Jones

So, I haven’t really written in awhile. So I thought I better add some­thing, before the few readers I do have, decide to leave.

Hmm… where to start.

I go into it with my mom on Wednesday night. I’m not gonna go into the whole thing, but basi­cally it was about money and we cleared up some stuff I reminded her I am not a mind reader. If she needs new clothes or some­thing, she needs to tell me so I van budget that in.

Ear­lier in the day I got into with my sister too. That I don’t want to talk about, but… well… yeah.

I’m am helping Dominic with his Pinewood derby car. As soon as I have a chacne I will snap a photo and post a link to it. It is SWEET! We did a good job.

I showed him how to use spray paint, he picked out what decals and theme he wanted and I got them printed for him. It is all white, with Red, White and Blue decales. On the side is this graphic we found that starts out as a bald eagle’s head then merges into blue and white flames. Very cool! He has RWB patri­otic wings on the hood and his car number on the top and back. Very stream­lined design. All we have to do is a few more coats of clear gloss enamel and then attach the wheels. I have to find out if decals can go on the wheels. Prob­ably not though.

Family Christmas is at Amy’s sis­ters house up north. So, I still have a lot to do before I leave on Friday.

Been playing World of War­craft. I have three alts that are all at 25. I try to keep them all at the same level. This way I will ahve three alts that all get to level 60 at the same time! The expan­sion comes out next week! I so can’t wait! My main Ele­phaba will be lev­eling to 70 first. Then I wil ljump back to my alts. I just gotta figure out how I am gonna get her through the Dark Portal. I haven’t been there in awhile, so I am unsure if there is still a crap-load of level 61–62 demons there.

What elese… Hope­fully soon my scrap­booking article will be in the Wall Street Journal. We will see. I did get my albums back and they did take some shots.

I fianlly cat­a­logued my comics with this cool pro­gram that hasd a mas­sive library it con­nects too. I just had to enter in the issue number! They also have one for books, games, movies, etc.

Speaking of books. I found a site called www.librarything.com. THIS PLACE IS COOL! They con­nect to Amazon.com and a few other to com­pile this large online library. I cat­a­logued all my books in 45 min­utes. All I had to do was enter in the ISBN number and I was done! Now I have a cat­a­loge online that I can access from any­where! And it lets me show you a few of my books in the side bar… very cool! Worth checking out if you have a lot of books!

Not much else for now… May write more when I am up north!

See you all later.

In my iPod (NEW…I even list why!)

• Super­model (There Ya Just Been Rocked Mix)…RuPaul: I love this ver­sion. It has 80s FUNK all over it. It starts out space-aged, then goes into some 80s kind of Rockin mix. So very RuPaul! “You Better Work Bitch. I have been playing this all night on Repeat. Thank god I am wearing hea­phones and Amy isn’t at my work. She would throw some­thing at me for playing it over and over again.
• Aquarius…Special Edi­tion: I just love how this chick just belts it. And I can SO sing this song!
• Body to Body…Cher: Makes me think of Amy. AND IT IS JUST SO DAMN DANCEABLE! If your quiet, you can even catch Mikayla dancing to this when I play it.
• Take Me Out…Franz Fer­di­nand: I first heard this in Guitar Hero. I love the one place where it does this kaliedo­scope of notes. My fin­gers go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Really fast. Its a cool song too!

In case I missed anyone, Here is our Christmas Card for this year:

And our “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” one:

And one of me:

And of course, my funny pose:

As usual, all photos were taken by me and the Christmas Card is a Bert Jones Orig­inal! Enjoy!

Well, it has been quite awhile since I wrote last. And, I guess, a lot has hap­pened that has kept me busy.

Let’s start youngest to oldest.

Riley is get­ting pretty big. He can stand him­self up on things. He crawls VERY fast. The roomba is his friend. He will sneak over there and turn it on when­ever he can.

He is also get­ting in a lot of his teeth. He also gives this great big cheesy grin. Matter of fact, it is the same cheesy grin that Dominic and Mikayla had when they were younger. The one where they scrunch up their whole face and all you see is a big toothy grin. I love it. I could stare at that face the rest of my life and be content.

He also loves the com­puter even more now. He will play pogo with grandma or Amy, or watch me play WoW.

He still takes his naps with me in the after­noon when Amy sneaks him in bed with me. I never know he is there until he wakes me up. If Amy gets him before I wake up, then they come in around 2:30 and wake me up. There is nothing better than having your baby boy sit­ting next to you on the bed, gently pat­ting your back to wake you up and going “da da da da”

Mikayla is just like her mother. All atti­tude. But cute atti­tude. And she is still my baby girl and still a little princess.

She is still in dance. Unfor­tu­nately we don’t know for how long she will be able to stay in dance. She is cur­rently in Pre-Comp. But after that she would go into a com­pe­ti­tion line. Trouble is, it is EXPENSIVE! So far this year I think comp line has paid about $400 in dues, and that is just since Sep­tember! They still have more to go!

Dominic is doing pretty well in school. He still will have his moments where he likes to screw around and not pay atten­tion, but we are working on those. He and I have nightly talks. Some­times we talk about what­ever he wants to talk about and some­times we talk about what I want to talk about and some­times it is to talk about serious mat­ters (like behaving).

Courtney is doing great in school. Smart as ever, still in the Tal­ented and Gifted Pro­gram at school. She does have this knack for turning in home­work late. So we are working on that one.

My mom is doing pretty well. She is known around here is the beddie-time grandma. It is her job to put Riley to sleep at night. I think the record is 2 sec­onds. She lit­er­ally picked him up, he rolled over to look at her and out he went. He seems to sleep better at night if grams puts him to bed. Some­times though she has to wear him out by playing pogo with him or watch some TV. It is there spe­cial bonding time together.

Amy is busy as ever. It is Girl Scout cookie season and being the Ser­vice Unit Cookie Coör­di­nator for the entire Cen­ten­nial Ser­vice Unit (60 troops this year). It is her job to make sure everyone gets their troops order in on time, train the “cookie moms”, and orga­nize all the paper­work. I helped her out this year by putting together a Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion for her to use, so she could make sure that all the trainees (in three dif­ferent training ses­sions) got the same information.

I am doing so-so. Working third shift does take its toll. I am always tired. I feel like I never get any­thing accom­plished at home. I still am on the Board at our coöper­a­tive. And still the Communications/Marketing Com­mittee Chair­person and Com­mittee Rela­tions Advisor. Not easy work, I am con­stantly busy.

I have been going back and forth with the deci­sion if I want to run to be on the board again this Feb­ruary, or not. And if I want to stay involved in my com­mittee or not.

• The pro is that I get a say in what hap­pens where I live, I get to be a part of some­thing grand (in its begin­nings too!).
• The con is that it takes up so much of my time, some of my neigh­bor­hood friend­ships have dete­ri­o­rated, I get frus­trated with the in fighting and drama.

So I try to figure out if it is really worth it. I know that there is no one else who could do the jobs I do. No one is as orga­nized as a sec­re­tary as I am. No one has the skills (let alone the design pro­grams) to do the cre­ative work that I do to try and make this park more professional.

It is also hard being in the ‘public eye’, since I am such a pri­vate person.

I hate not having free time and being lazy, like I used to be. Every waking moment is filled with things to do.

But any­ways. Enough of that.

Not sure what else I should write. I want to write more, but finding the time is exhausting. I have so many things I want to do. Lose weight, eat right, write more, home projects, office projects. The list goes on and on and on.

In my iPod:

• Aquarius — 25^th Annvier­sary Edition
• Take Me Out - Franz Ferdidnand
• Vaca­tion — Connie Francis
• Eldest — Audio­book (Eragon Book 2)
• Hurt — Christina Aquilera