The Countertop Chronicles

The oldest turned 6 today. I can’t believe how fast they grow. He’s officially not a little boy anymore. Makes me want to cry.

Cool gifts include a Beta fighting fish, which he immediatly named “King of all Fish”. And that’s the only way we are allowed to refer to him.

Also got a zip wire. (Yeah!!!!) And a Nintendo DS and the Complete Lego Star Wars saga game. Too cool!!

In other news, I learned he shared a birthday with Adolf Hitler. Didn’t know that till today. Put that together with the fact that our youngest shares a name with the author of the Turner Diaries and the conspiracy artists are gonna have a field day.

Sitting here, in the arm chair. A 1 year old asleep on my left leg and a 9 week old puppy asleep on my right.

Back about 24 years ago (has it really been that long?!?!?) Ronald Reagan ran this especially powerful ad in his campaign against Walter Mondale.

The punch line: Its Morning Again In America

I was going to draft a post here, about how in the last 24 hours it appears that a hopeful morning has once again come to America. With McCain’s nomination locked up, it spells the end of the Bush era. The Republican problems in D.C. (of which I have written and will write more) that arose directly from their ingrained sense of presumed power and wisdom and disdain for their own Contract With America (not to mention the American people themselves) will now be corrected.

But its not an achievement limited to ridding our nation of the corrupting and devisive influence of the Bush brand of politics. No. As each minute goes by, it hope springs more eternal that the other corrupt political family (and their self important despotic minions) of late 20th century the Clinton’s will also be undone.

Yes. It was going to be a glorious post. But something altogether more astounding happened.

My wife agreed to take our son out of his VERY VERY expensive private school and enroll him - with his friends - in the local public school. Sure its got problems, but they aren’t much different than the crap we’ve had to deal with in his private school (and at least I’m not bankrupting myself to send him there). So, you may ask, what does this have to do with a gun blog???

Well, you see. Two very important dates are coming up.

April 15th Buy A Gun Day (really, you need to check out Aaron The Liberal Slayer’s Blog These Days)

and now
Evil Black Rifle Day

And compliments of this gracious decision on the wife’s part - we will once again have a cash surplus around the house . Look for an appropriate battlefield purchase soon.

I think so.

I was supposed to attend the gun blogger shoot in knoxville the other day, but Friday evening brought one very sick (projectile vomitting) 9 month old which lead to one very sick 5 year old.

So I stayed home to help the mom out and proceeded to lose my keys at some point.

I’ve been looking all day long and haven’t found them yet

So, there I am. Shopping at Trader Joes (and just what is organic honey anyway) with boy 2, standing at the coffee stand and sampling some of the give aways.

Wearing my Celebrate Diversity shirt.

Un provoked, out of nowhere I hear “that is not an appropriate shirt.”

Not thinking it could be directed at little old me I sample some of the bruschetta (tasty, but it could use some olives), when I hear “and you have a baby with you, disgusting.”

At that, I turn around: “Can I help you?”

Not surprisingly, it was an overweight, menappausal liberal hippy mom. “You should be ashamed of yourself, promoting violence like that.”

“I am?? I’m just enjoying the snacks with my son. Maybe we need to re-evaluate who the violent ones are.”. she didn’t care for that.

“What is it with you people and your guns! You …”

I cut her off. “Do you trust George Bush?”

Silence. Wish I had a camera to capture the look on her face.

“When he turns the whole country into Baghdad, or even worse - New Orleans, what will you do??”

More silence

“Think about it.”

And with that I finish my coffee, grab my stuffed grape leaves, and head to the checkout.

I can’t believe I am writing this, but having worked in the general counsels office of a major health insurance company during law school, and then in an organization on the forefront of representing them here in DC, I know a bit about them. Michael Moore is 100% correct when he alleges that the insurance industry is engaged in perpetrating a dramatic fraud on the American consumer.

Now, its not all their fault. Doctors got greedy, and the insurance industry responded.

So what happens?? They both get rich, and the patients get taken.

Now, his calls for socialized medicine are wrong. Whats needed instead is probably better oversight, and enhanced penalties for shady dealings. Its one of the perfect reasons why I oppose, generally, tort reform. Because sometimes, some industry’s need to be taken to the woodshed and brutalized.

(full disclosure, I’m about to sue my health insurance company for essentially denying coverage of my son’s birth and classifying my wife’s hospital stay as a “comfort and convenience” charge - and unlike most of the folks in his movie I can do something about this. I’m a fairly well connected lobbyist, and willing to throw these bastards to the wolves, in addition to being a former trial attorney.)

Well, they moved my wife to the bed next to the window about noon today. The Hip Hoppers moved out (eer, looked more like were thrown out) around 11.

Then, her doctor had some words with the nursing staff and managed to get her a single room (seems the everytime we moved up the list, we then went backwards - in my opinion Dr. Mark Reiter is an incompetant ass)

Finally, its like paradise: nice view and attentive staff. The difference between the cargo hold and the 1st class cabins. Why oh why did they have to wait so long to put us in here.

The quality of her nurse in the new room is 10,000 times better than the crap we had to deal with in the shared room.

This is just like we remembered it.

Mom is in a private room now, different wing different nurses better experience.

Baby is doing well.

Quote of the week - from our new nurses on the evil cult of breastfeeding primadonnas: “they do it cause their stupid and not thinking straight.”

Seriously. It makes no sense. They all need to supplement anyway, its not good for moms

More thoughts

Wife’s comment: This is what I thought Fairfax Inova would be like. I’m never saying a nice thing about this place. (We aren’t the only ones at Sibley who feel this way right now).

Physical condition: wife is exhausted and didn’t sleep at all last night cause her roomates hubby decided it would be a great place to hold a hip hop party at midnight. Sibley’s incompetant staff didn’t do anything to rectify the situation.

I’m hungry and in need of java.

Unix-Jedi, he’ll start off with a single shot Remington boltie and then get a 10/22. Both in 22lr Timing on that is still to be determined. His brother hasn’t progressed to that level yet, and he’s turning 5 this spring.

Back to Sibley sucks

Sure, there is a mini baby boom going on. I understand that.

Stop apologizing for it, and just clean the dam room before moving us into it.

And, we might have a child already, but that was 5 years ago. A little assistance, such as showing us how to swaddle, or maybe help us figure out how to feed the baby or help my wife get up to go to the bathroom.

Blogging will be light for a few days.

Sitting here waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

In the L&D room, contractions are going and my wife’s dilating. Doctor thinks hard labor will start shortly, with the baby showing up later this afternoon.

Some thoughts

1. Did I say the nurses were hot? Smoking. And the ass on the one who was just in here. Yowzers! If I wasn’t a married man …

2. Daytime TV sucks. The View, yuch! Ellen, Yuch! Days of our Lives, ugh! Thank god I have my laptop and some more Steve McQueen flicks (Papilion and The Great Escape).

3. Food in the cafeteria is surprisingly good, if not a little expensive.

4. The other families who were waiting with us since 7 am are still, as of 1:00 pm sitting outside waiting.

5. Aren’t blackberries great? No wifi access up here, but with a crackberry I am good to go!

Doctor showed up and we are in.

Administration here might be crappy, but the L&D rooms are nice and the nurses are very good (and hot, did I mention how hot they are?? At least a few of them and the one in the room right now)

But, it looks like the little one is finally on the way.

Big time, seriously. Heck, the airlines are run better than this shit hole.

Sitting here (now going on 6 hours) and it turns out the problem is twofold.

First, they are overbooking. Just like the airlines. If they don’t have the space, why are they booking inducements and C sections? Its not like being pregnant isn’t difficult enough, but then to have to go through this shit of sitting around in hot (and you have no idea how hot it is, like a fucking sauna) waiting room competing with all the others in the waiting room for hours on end only to likely (as we have done multiple times already) be sent home cause they don’t have room.

The second one is the one which is driving our doctor mad, as well as a number of other medical professionals we’ve communicated with this morning … The administration is cheap and unwilling to pay enough to secure staff. As a result, they don’t have the nurses or even the fucking cleaning staff to be able to serve their patients Tlet alone clean, the furniture is old and worn and the floor is dirty and disgusting and beds have been sitting unused waiting for the maids to clean them).

Speaking of cleaning, someone here mentioned that Sibley was the place were a woman died from a strep infection she caught while staying here, seems that sanitary conditions have been a problem for awehile.

If this is what the best Labor and Delivery department in the DC area is like, I’d hate to see the worst (which we might, our OBGYN is now looking to transfer us to Georgetown Hospital)

Seriously, this place is POORLY run. There is a big local uproar over a proposed office tower (ie: not more hospital beds) that the Hospital wants to build. Promises have been made to the local community, but based on the incompetance we’ve witnessed, I wouldn’t trust these people further than I could throw them.

Seriously, the Washington Post ought to do an expose on how bad Sibley has become.

The people need to know.

It supposed to be the most pleasant experience in DC.

And it was, for our first child.

But this place sucks. Incompetant, understaffed, and it needs to get its act together.

Seriously, we are sitting here waiting, have been here for hours (since early early this morning) in a waiting room full of pregnant women also waiting and its as if they don’t have any staff (or at least any competant staff here). Already, they have sent us home 3 times because of overcrowding, looks like we might be sent to Georgetown or GW Hospital today.

The Post ought to do a big investigative piece on what exactly has happened to this place, cause right now I’ve got to believe its no better (and might be worse) than DC General Hospital.