Wednesday, January 21, 2015

How to Keep People Out of Jail


So Mr. Clowd has been nagging me about not posting on this blog yet.  I have been racking my brain trying to figure out what I want to blog about, and I got nothing! He finally told me to just write something, so here we go.  Throughout my day, especially while doing something I find unpleasant, I think to myself "if people had to do this while they were in jail, they would never go back to jail." Weird thought, I know, but having five kids has made me lost my mind.  So, back to the jail thing, I think if inmates had to do/handle some of these things, our jails would be EMPTY...


  • I would give them 3 piles of laundry and have them fold them and put them away, only to come back multiple times during the day and destroy the folded clothes and tear them off the hangers and make them start over. Lets face it, laundry is never done and clothes are constantly needing to be washed and put away.  This alone would make me NEVER commit a crime, heck I wouldn't even go 2 miles above the speed limit.
  • I would make all inmates have a kidney stone once a month.  If you have ever experienced a kidney stone ENOUGH SAID.
  • They would be required to buckle and unbuckle multiple car seats at least one hundred times a day.
  • At all meal times they would be required to hold a baby (obviously not a real baby because they are felons) but something that grabs the plate and throws it on the floor, cries all the way through every meal ever eaten, and is harder to hold than a greased pig because of all the squirming.
  • Also at said meals, they would have to clean up at least 3 spilled drinks.  3 is on a good day at our house, so we could up the amount to 5-10 per meal.
  • Walking would not be allowed, they can only duck walk.  If you have ever done Jillian Michael's Ripped in 30 video you can understand how awful duck walking ever would actually be.
  • They would be required to clean up the entire jail just to turn around and find it a total disaster as soon as they are done.
  • While sleeping at night, they would be woken up every hour by someone that needs a drink, someone puking, someone having a night terror and sleep walking, or just someone that is done sleeping. Just for fun we could wake them up every 30-45 minutes.
  • During shower time, they would be required to deal with someone crying, fighting, needing a snack right this second, and they would have to run in and out of the shower multiple times to meet the needs of said people.
  • The last thing, they would each have a pet pig that would have to be bathed and then be thrown into a pile of mud to have to be bathed again and then thrown again into the mud pile. This would continue ALL DAY LONG.
I really believe if this happened in our jails, we would have a crime free world.
Image Courtesy: Pixgood.com

Monday, January 19, 2015

The Eagle Has Landed!

          Over the new year the Clowds had a chance to visit another part of the country that was previously unexplored.  A weekend in the Houston area would not be complete without visiting one of the main destination there, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  It was an inner struggle as the planning of the trip unfolded.  I had a shoulder angel and a shoulder devil arguing with each other.  I always dreamed as a boy of space and rockets and anything that exploded.  That part of me was excited for the visit.  I would finally see all those things that made so many young kids say they wanted to be an astronaut when they grew up.  On the other hand part of me was saying, "What have you done for me lately?"  The grown up in me was trying to spoil it for the kid that still lives inside.  That mean old man was telling me what a waste of tax dollars it was to keep a program alive that had it's greatest moment over four decades ago.
Aye Aye: "Dude, we're in front of the Shuttle. Awesome"
          The outcome of the shoulder angel/devil battle might have come out very differently if this visit have been made without the kids in tow.  As we made our way through the doors and to the tram line that would take us on our first tour of the day the excitement started to grow.  We made our way to the training facilities, and then stopped by the Saturn V building that included information highlighting the Apollo missions.  We watched a short movie about space exploration that included a short clip about the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters.  They have the podium that President Kennedy used to announce our goal to put a man on the moon.  After a picnic for lunch, we finished our day by visiting historic mission control, a look inside the shuttle cockpit, smelling the moon, and checking out the Mars Rover.  It was a full day of exploring NASA.
          I could have titled this post "Houston, we have a problem!"  Even though the exact quote is different from what we heard in the Apollo 13 movie, but I didn't.  I didn't because I saw the excitement the boys had.  The same excitement I had as a boy.  President Kennedy say "We choose to go to the moon... not because it is easy, but because it is hard."  I hope that inspired something in my boys minds.  We don't want to do the easy things.  We want to do the hard things, the challenges that no one else thinks we will ever be able to accomplish.  We put a man on the moon with 2 MB of computing power.  With a group of engineers that had an average age of 26, and did not have the use of calculators.  That shouldn't have been able to happen, but it did.  I don't expect my kids to be perfect, and I hope they know that.  And I don't want them to focus on the negative.  I want them to see life for the possibilities that lie ahead.  I want them to understand that we are afforded freedoms and opportunities in the country that have never been available to mankind.  If they want to fly at over 10,000 mph, and be hurdled into space.  They can!  If they want to write a symphony, solve future energy problems, develop a new procedure to save lives, they can!  But shying away from the hard things will not get you there.  Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.  "One small step" at a time.  I hope that we can teach them that.

Monday, December 22, 2014

Break out the sander

   
     When the cat is away, the mice will... work?  I don't think that is how it usually goes.  But this time it was.  Mrs. Clowd took the kids out of state before Thanksgiving for some family time.  So I decided to surprise her with a new look to our bedroom.  The previous owners had some gogs that left our bedroom carpet disgusting.  We have always wanted to do something about it, and now was the perfect time.  The entire house has hardwood floors under the carpet.  With everyone out of the house I would be the only one that needed to deal with the dust and fumes.


     I have never dealt with flooring at all, but thanks to three former PayPal employees that decided to start YouTube(thanks Mr Hurley, Chen, and Karim), I had plenty of sources to give me guidance.  I had 11 days to get it done, so I felt confident.  But things never work out like that, do they.  I had to travel to a leadership meeting, then there was a thanksgiving party, then diner with some friends.  Those 11 days quickly evaporated into 4.
     I still felt confident though.  Until I pulled up the carpet.  I just figured it would need a little buffing, maybe some sanding around the edges, and it would be good.  But what I found was a little more work than expected.

     On the way home from work on Friday night, I stopped by the local Home Improvement store, well more of a depot than store, grabbed a sander, and got to work.  After a very long night of sanding, followed by more sanding in the morning, it was ready for some finish.

     
     Another long night of applying multiple coats  and voila!  Not professional by any means, but it is a lot better than that nasty carpet we had.  It was nice to see the look on Mrs. Clowd's face, but I don't know if I would every try it again on short notice.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Welcome to Clowd 9

     If being on cloud nine means that everything is perfect.  Then this family is far from cloud nine.  I don't know if these imaginary classification of blissfulness follow the number line into the negative region, but if they did we might be on cloud negative 9 some days.  But if cloud nine means that there is an abundance of happiness, then we can take a nap on that cloud every once in a while.
     We should probably start by pointing out the name of this blog doesn't contain a typo.  Thanks to our nephew Jack our family has come to be known as the Clowds.  Many nicknames throughout history have come from those times when our young, in all their cuteness, have troubles pronouncing words with their limited vocabulary.  Our last name was just too big of a word for Jack, so he referred to us as the Clowds.  I guess that nickname is more rational than the one our 2 year old gave to his older brother Ken.  With a simple name like Ken, one would anticipate little trouble pronouncing it.  But leave it to a 2 year old to refer to his brother, Ken, as Aye Aye.
     A little more about this place called Clowd 9.  Like I mentioned earlier, things on Clowd 9 are far from perfect.  But we try to fill this place with a perfect love.  Mr. and Mrs. Clowd began their lives together shortly after high school.  Along the way we picked up some additions to the family.  Our patch in the sky now contains Easton, Kamdyn, Aye Aye, Cy, and Brooks.  Oh yeah, and we can't forget Tilley.  She is not to be confused with someone who is welcome at all times in the house.  Tilley is our gog(another one of those vocabulary problems for a two year old).  Tilley has chewed up one too many of Mrs. Clowd's household items.  This has landed her in the hot seat, and one slobbery slipper away from a permanent home somewhere else.
     As our family continues to grow, we are beginning to see just how crazy things are about to become.  With this we are faced with the same problems that most families are faced with today; limited time, limited resources, a lack of energy, and a hope that someday things will slow down, and the kids will stop getting bigger.  We will try to share the happy times as well as the sad.  Hopefully there will be lots of fun times.  We hope you enjoy Clowd 9.