All that she wants is another bab-eh eh eh eh

If you haven't yet heard, that wife of mine is all knocked up. So, pending a paternity test, it looks as if I will be a dad around August. I will use this forum to express my feelings from time to time. All preggers related updates will be made on this entry. I intend to update them around the time of each doctor visit, starting with the day I found out. For a complete baby blog, visit http://www.sonesbaby.blogspot.com/


Hey, guess what!?!?!

So I will always remember Thursday, December 4th, as the day I received my Garmin GPS from Amazon.com. I know what you're thinking: "Chad, why do you need a GPS? You're like a walking compass." Well, I routinely fall in the traps of trendy technology and marketing ploys. I arrived home that evening after just completing the highlight of my day, the 90 minute commute. I walked into the house saying "Dude, Tracy, come look how cool this Garmin is. It can tell me where I am, it can locate hotels, it can love, it can even...." That's when I noticed Tracy standing with a look of concern. My immediate thought was that she had broken my 2006 Rose Bowl DVD and she was going to have a new black-eye to explain to the neighbors. Luckily, it was something far less serious. Tracy proceeded to relay that she had just tested positive on 2 preggers tests. Up until this point, I had no idea that she was even late or that this was something that she had thought was occurring. Still, I became excited, we hugged, and she kissed me (reminding me of how drop dead gorgeous she finds me).

Several thoughts began swirling in my head. When will this zygote be born? Would my child prefer to play in the NFL or be a rockstar? Hasn't Tracy been drinking a handle of Tequila a night for the past 6 months? If it's a boy, will we name him Darren Woodson Sones? If it's a girl, will we name her Toni Romo Sones? If it's a hermie, will we name it Michael Hutchison Sones? It's a truly exciting time and that's the day I began my long journey into fatherhood.



Wait...that's an Ultrasound???

Over the past 3 weeks I've suffered from Migraines, a nasty stomach virus, and the Shingles. I can only assume that I will battle Smallpox and Polio in February. The good news is that my knocked up wife only caught my nasty stomach virus. Judging by the sounds I heard coming from the bathroom, I became concerned that she had already hatched our child without knowing. So Tracy went in for a check-up without me this week, but I couldn't help but to recall our first check-up.

Upon arrival to our first meeting with the Doctor, I felt a bit out of place. His office is located within a Women's clinic and I felt like all the women inside were staring at me and judging me because I had the wrong type of anatomy to be in this building. Still, I fought through it with the anticipation of seeing my fetus for the first time.

After some brief small talk with our doctor, he asked Tracy to please remove her pants. My initial reaction was to stand up and punch him in the forehead. Then I thought "he's not a bad looking older man, I'm open minded, let's see where he's going with this." But he then explained that we would be doing this Ultrasound in the form of a TVP. As a medical recruiter I was all too familiar with this procedure, better known as the Trans-Vaginal Probe. He proceeded to lube up a giant wand that I knew I couldn't compete with. As the procedure began, I gave Tracy a quick wink and a mischievous smile.

At the first glimpse of my fetus, I stood up and yelled "my child has no legs and looks like a shell-less snapping turtle!" The doctor then calmed me down and explained that it hasn't developed all it's parts yet. It's heartbeat was beating faster than Jason Zantjer's in a field sobriety test. The rate was around 170 per minute which often means girl but we'll see. We go back in a couple of weeks and get to do an over-the-belly Ultrasound which seems less exciting for Tracy but more relaxing for me.

Snow Day!!!

As a young Chad, nothing made me happier than a snow day at school. Looking back, I'm not sure what was so great about it other than sleeping in. All I can recall is watching reruns of Happy Days, infomercials, and several shady looking characters got me pondering an education from DeVry. Still, I really hated school so it was a nice time waste.

This past Wednesday I learned that snow days are just as popular in my book as they've ever been. I woke up Wednesday morning with thoughts of playing hooky. I was extra relaxed but sticky from 10 hours of sleep and a nocturnal emission. I was really excited about this since I had only managed a couple of hours of sleep the night before due to a nightmare. I sometimes have nightmares about a device created by my neighbor when I was 11 years old. His name was Jeremy and he was a lot of fun to hang out with except for his weapon of choice, the "thingy." The Thingy was a snorkel that was wrapped in electrical tape on one end. Anytime you would ignore your backside and leave your anus unprotected, Jeremy would make an attempt to painfully check your oil with the Thingy. Actually, I think the Thingy may deserve it's own blog entry and I'd rather not talk about it.

I turned on the news to peruse all of the day's closings due to icy roads. I held my breath after Lamar High School, but then up popped Nimitz High School. What the hell? Where was Medical Contracting? At this point, I realized I must begin my journey to Dallas through the frozen tundra of highway 183 and my dream of a snow day was shattered.

Around 10 am I slid into my office parking lot like Rudy in a 280 Z. My close friend and soul mate, Jason Dangles, arrived at the same time. At first I thought he was being extra careful in the ice as he took baby steps towards the door. I then realized that Dangles was walking with a limp. He looked sort of like Dr. Gregory House minus the charm. I was concerned that this was an old water polo injury that was flaring up and he would finally be forced to get those ass cheek implants he's been talking about. Luckily he had just pulled a muscle the night before while performing his weekly kegal exercises.

Once I got to my office I stared at my computer for an hour thinking of all the children having fun building anatomically correct snowmen in their front yards. Instead, I had to put off the appearance of an adult and pretend to be motivated by financial gain and professional advancement. So what's my point here? Well, I don't really know. But I know I like snow days and I hate working on snow days. Oh, and despite an Oscar worthy performance by Chris Elliot, I hate the movie Snow Day.

And the winner is....

After 32 total votes, here are our winners:




#3

Jayson Parties Like a Rockstar



This photo was taken by Jake Webster in Pawtucket, Rhode Island this past March. The Cut Off had just played at a really cool venue called the Blackstone and ended up crashing at a condo across the street. At this point in the night it was about 4am and 10 degrees outside. Jayson drank about 7 White Russians and his belly was upset from all the dairy. After jumping out of a freezing cold shower, we stuck a cigarette in his mouth and snapped this photo.





#2

Zantjer look-a-like in Barbados



This photo was taken on a boat tour in Barbados this past October. Hutch first spotted this imposter swimming in the ocean. He climbed back onto the boat explaining that he had just seen Zantjer's twin. I was a bit skeptical until the man joined us on the boat and I saw the striking similarity. The only problem was the lack of glasses...then he put on glasses. The tricky part was getting close enough to take a photo without him noticing. I guess that's why it's such a great photo.





#1

Zantjer Creeps out a High School Girl



This photo was taken at Corbin's going away party back in January. Ironically it was one of the first photos taken in 2008. After drinking too much and hanging around in a circle of high school kids in the backyard, he decided to talk to some ladies. I felt so sorry for this poor girl, he made her so uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure she appeared on the back of a milk carton a few weeks later...Ian Kinsler bless her.

2008 Photo of the Year

Here are our nominees for the 2008 Photo of the Year. Please email me your top 3 choices in order. List them by rank and name, I will announce the winner on Friday. Some of these are funny because of the photo, others because of context. Remember, your vote counts.

Down And Out Downer


Bloody Dangles Can't Swim


Jayson Parties like a Girl


Jayson Parties like a Rockstar


Robi likes Fun


Zantjer look-a-like in Barbados


Squid Gets Thirsty


Bringing Back Short Sleeves with Ties


Boyd Walks Shirtless through the Fox & Hound


Le Tigre Hutch


Bong Rip Jake


Sauce Gets Thirsty


Pants joins that new "club"


Kyle Parties like a Rockstar


Kyle Gives off too much Sexy


Denton Pals


Jayson has a heart of Gold and Face of Rubber


Beers Make Hutch Happy


Winking Squid


Hutch is always Happy


Before she was knocked up


Partied to Death


Dangles hunts...something?


Squid and Dangles have moves...Katie has a new disease


Dangles Creeps out a High School Girl


Squid is Mean


Seriously, the Squid is Mean


Camp Beardo


Karl Barnell...Marlboro Man


How is this funny?





Let me hear from you people.

Dog day morning

As you may or may not know, I commute about 44 miles each way every day. This provides me 3 hours alone in the car everyday, or 15 hours a week. That's about 780 hours a year....or 32 days a year. You get my point. Some days are better than others and I'm constantly fighting the onset of depression. Any sort of interesting event that occurs outside my car becomes my own personal Zoloft. If 2 weeks pass without anything exciting I began contemplating suicide by slapping my face against the steering wheel. The only thing that keeps me from going through with it is the unstable scenario of the air bag simply going off causing me to let out a girlish scream and rear-end someone. Then I'd just show up to work with a Zantjer-style forehead carpet burn and the only thing damaged being my pride.

This past Friday, I was in a particularly good mood on my commute in. Fridays are always happier because the weekend is right around the corner, we dress casual at work, and I zone out for 8 hours (not to mention I get on an AOL chat room with Hutch every Friday so that we can cyber).

So here I am cruising toward the freeway on Rufe Snow when I notice the car in front of me come to a stop. I immediately start prairie dogging to see what was going on. Sadly, I noticed a dead, boxer-sized dog in the middle lane. This, unfortunately, is nothing out of the ordinary, but what happened next definitely is.

I noticed a middle-aged woman walking through 3 lanes or traffic towards the dog. At this point, all 3 lanes are completely stopped and observing this woman. My initial thought was that she worked for Animal Control or something and was going to bag up the carcass. She looked sort of like a female Steve Buscemi without the cool points (because we all know Steve is the epitome of cool). Still, Steve doesn't make for an attractive chick. Then, I noticed her clothes and realized this was no government worker at all, this was a homeless broad. I also noticed that she wasn't carrying any sort of shovel, bag, or even gloves. She then leaned over and grabbed the dog by it's freaking tail and proceeded to drag it across the 3 lanes. No gloves or anything! I looked in the car next to me and watched a mom's jaw drop as her child pointed out this event. Many thoughts were spinning in my head as I was trying to figure out why she would do this. Was she merely a good samaritan doing a solid for our fine community? Was she checking to see if the dog was still alive? Then it hit me and I literally said out loud, to myself:

"Oh no, this lady is going to eat this f-ing dog."

Moments later, she dropped the dog along the curb and walked off. I let out a sigh of relief but my confusion sustained. And while I still have no idea of her agenda, I am pleased that I witnessed it. Just thought I'd share this with you. I hope this story will provide you with something to ponder on today's commute home.

Save the rainforests.

AAArrrrrrrr you interested in this too?

So I've recently developed a fascination with Pirates. And I'm not talking about in a creepy way like Mike Leach, and I'm definitely not talking about Bobby Bonilla and Andy Van Slyke. No, I am of course speaking of these wild ass, modern day Somali Pirates that are ruling the Gulf of Aden.

For the past couple of weeks I've noticed headline after headline about these characters on Yahoo news. Some of my recent favorites:

Nov. 18th - "Somali Pirates seize super tanker with 100 million gallons of oil (AP)"

Nov. 19th - "Indian Navy sinks Somali Pirates' mother ship (AP)"

Nov. 20th - "Pirates demand $25 million for seized tanker (AP)"

Nov. 21st - "Pirates make $150 million this year (AP)"

My question is how does one become a successful pirate? It seems to me that these pirates have somewhat of a monopoly on this market. Everyone knows competition is good in any free market. Believe it or not, sales are a bit down and I'm not going to make $150 million this year, but I like money. I'd like to have $150M. So how does one establish himself in this market?

Sure, I could work my way up the ranks but who wants to do that? I'd spend my first couple of years swabbing the poop deck, reinforcing the plank, fighting off Scurvy, and David Blaine knows what else. Eventually, I'd have to put a knife in the back of the captain and gain the respect of my fellow swashbucklers.

I could start my own pirating outfit but I'm not convinced that we would be as successful. While I consider myself more intelligent than your average cock-eyed Somali pirate, I think I'd be lacking in the categories of savageness and shear evil. I'm also not a big fan of having a peg leg and I find parrots annoying. Eye patches are pretty cool I guess. The downfall of my crew would be my insistence that we only battle using swords, cannons, and the occasional musket. Or maybe the fact that I would only accept gold treasure for ransoms.

Anyways, here's the article from today....I'll keep everyone updated on this continuing story.

NAIROBI, Kenya – Somali pirates have collected more than $150 million in ransoms over the past year, Kenya's foreign affairs minister said Friday, calling on ship owners not to pay when their vessels are hijacked.

In the past two weeks Somalia's increasingly brazen pirates have seized eight vessels including a huge Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil. Several hundred crew are now in the hands of Somali pirates.

"We are advised that in the last 12 months, ransom to the excess of $150 million has been paid to these criminals and that is why they are becoming more and more audacious in their activities," Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula said.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Friday that the Saudi government was not and would not negotiate with pirates, but what the ship's owners did was up to them.

Meanwhile, the world's largest oil tanker company warned that it may divert cargo shipments, which would boost costs up to 40 percent.

Frontline Ltd., which ferries five to 10 tankers of crude a month through the treacherous Gulf of Aden, said it was negotiating a change of shipping routes with some of its customers, including oil giants Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and Chevron.

Martin Jensen, Frontline's acting chief executive, said that sending tankers around South Africa instead would extend the trip by 40 percent.

Bermuda-based Frontline plans to make a decision whether to change shipping routes within a week, Jensen said.

"It's not only our costs, but also those of the people who have a $100 million cargo on board," Jensen said. "We're not going to make a unilateral decision so we've been debating this with our customers."

A.P Moller-Maersk, the world's largest container-shipping company, on Thursday ordered some of its slower vessels to avoid the Gulf of Aden and head the long way around Africa.

The Copenhagen-based company said it was telling ships "without adequate speed," mainly tankers, to sail the long route around Africa unless they can join convoys with naval escorts in the gulf, group executive Soeren Skou said.

The company didn't say how many ships would be affected by the decision, but said it usually has eight tanker transits in the area per month. The company says it handles 16 percent of the world's container-shipping traffic.

And Norwegian shipping group Odfjell SE on Wednesday ordered its more than 90 tankers to avoid the Gulf of Aden because of the risk of attack by pirates.

A Russian frigate, meanwhile, was escorting nine ships in the pirate-infested waters off the coast of Somalia, Russian news agencies reported. They included a Russian vessel and eight other commercial ships flying flags of Liberia, the Marshall Islands and the Cayman Islands.

The Somali pirates have the support of their communities and rogue members of the government. Often dressed in military fatigues, pirates travel in open skiffs with outboard engines, working with larger ships that tow them far out to sea. They use satellite navigational and communications equipment and an intimate knowledge of local waters, clambering aboard commercial vessels with ladders and grappling hooks.

They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and grenades — weaponry that is readily available throughout Somalia.

On Thursday, the African Union urged the United Nations to quickly send peacekeepers to Somalia but that appeared unlikely anytime soon. A U.N. peacekeeping operation in the early 1990s saw the downing of two U.S. Army helicopters and killing of 18 American soldiers. The U.S. withdrew and U.N. peacekeepers were gone by 1995.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to authorize its sanctions committee to recommend people and entities that would be subject to an asset freeze and travel ban for engaging in or supporting acts that threaten peace in Somalia, for violating a U.N. arms embargo, and for obstructing delivery of humanitarian aid.

Get educated America

For a long time I have been an advocate for radical change in the US educational system. We spend way too much time being educated in useless subjects. Why do I need to take calculus or philosophy in order to make sales calls to hospitals? I really think we could weed out a lot of unnecessary school at the high school and college level. Why not put more emphasis on subjects that appeal to each individual student? Maybe a kid who wants to be a doctor can start focusing on pre-med school at 16 or 17 and not have to mess with taking French class, economics, speech, etc. While I had a longer run than most, we all still spend a ridiculous percentage of our life being prepared for life, not living it.

Again, I recognize that I was in for a long time, but I finished college at 25. So, when I am 49 and starting to ponder the thoughts of retirement, I will still have spent over half my life being educated. And if we're being honest, most of the things we learn exit our minds shortly after passing the course. Can you recite the iambic pentameter intro to Beowulf? I certainly can't, so why did I have to memorize it for English my senior year of high school?

So it's not exactly what I'm aiming for but this is a good start. A few days ago I was wondering if I've ever met anyone from New Hampshire...I haven't but I think it may be because the state has things figured out. New Hampshire has a very strong Libertarian population and they seem to explore ideas that are sometimes thought of as outlandish. Anyways, here's the article:


Should Kids Be Able to Graduate After 10th Grade?


Once implemented, the new battery of tests is expected to guarantee higher competency in core school subjects, lower dropout rates and free up millions of education dollars. Students may take the exams - which are modeled on existing AP or International Baccalaureate tests - as many times as they need to pass. Or those who want to go to a prestigious university may stay and finish the final two years, taking a second, more difficult set of exams senior year. "We want students who are ready to be able to move on to their higher education," says Lyonel Tracy, New Hampshire's Commissioner for Education. "And then we can focus even more attention on those kids who need more help to get there."

But can less schooling really lead to better-prepared students at an earlier age? Outside of the U.S., it's actually a far less radical notion than it sounds. Dozens of industrialized countries expect students to be college-ready by age 16, and those teenagers consistently outperform their American peers on international standardized tests. ( See pictures of the college dorm room's evolution.
With its new assessment system, New Hampshire is adopting a key recommendation of a blue-ribbon panel called the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce. In 2006, the group issued a report called Tough Choices or Tough Times , a blueprint for how it believes the U.S. must dramatically overhaul education policies in order to maintain a globally competitive economy. "Forty years ago, the United States had the best educated workforce in the world," says William Brock, one of the commission's chairs and a former U.S. Secretary of Labor. "Now we're No. 10 and falling."

As more and more jobs head overseas, Brock and others on the commission can't stress enough how dire the need is for educational reform. "The nation is running out of time," he says.

New Hampshire's announcement comes as Utah and Massachusetts declared that they, too, plan to enact some of the commission's other proposals, such as universal Pre-K and better teacher pay and training. Still more states are expected to sign on in December. And the largest teacher union in the U.S., the National Education Association, is encouraging its affiliates to support such efforts.

Some reform advocates would like to see the report's testing proposals replace current No Child Left Behind legislation. "It makes accountability much more meaningful by stressing critical thinking and true mastery," says Tracy.

No date has been set for when New Hampshire will start administering the new set of exams, which have yet to be developed. But to achieve the goal of sending kids to college at 16, Tracy and his colleagues recognize preparation will have to start early. Nearly four years ago, New Hampshire began an initiative called Follow the Child. Starting practically from birth, educators are expected to chart children's educational progress year to year. In the future, this effort will be bolstered by formalized curricula that specify exactly what kids should know by the end of each grade level.

That should help minimize the need for review year to year. It will also bring New Hampshire's education framework much closer to what occurs in many high-performing European and Asian nations. "It's about defining what lessons students should master and then teaching to those points," says Marc Tucker, co-chair of the commission and president of the National Center for Education and the Economy in Washington. "Kids at every level will be taking tough courses and working hard."

Right now, Tucker argues, most American teenagers slide through high school, viewing it as a mandatory pit stop to hang out and socialize. Of those who do go to college, half attend community college. So Tucker's thinking is why not let them get started earlier? If that happened nationwide, he estimates the cost savings would add up to $60 billion a year. "All money that can be spent either on early childhood education or elsewhere," he says.

Critics of cutting high school short, however, worry that proposals such as New Hampshire's could exacerbate existing socioeconomic gaps. One key concern is whether test results, at age 16, are really valid enough to indicate if a child should go to university or instead head to a technical school - with the latter almost certainly guaranteeing lower future earning potential. "You know that the kids sent in that direction are going to be from low-income, less-educated families while wealthy parents won't permit it," says Iris Rotberg, a George Washington University education policy professor, who notes similar results in Europe and Asia. She predicts, in turn, that disparity will mean "an even more polarized higher education structure - and ultimately society - than we already have."

It's a charge that Tracy denies. "We're simply telling students it's okay to go at their own pace," he says. Especially if that pace is a little quicker than the status quo.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081107/us_time/shouldkidsbeabletograduateafter10thgrade