Are people on vacation? Sounds ideal.

I'm still trying to live down the shame of accidental inappropriate posting the other day. But still - I can't resist coming back ...

... and a vacation would be lovely, wouldn't it?

What did you accidentally inappropriately post? I miss all of the fun when I leave for a few days!

We were out of town for the weekend, but we're back now.

Sadie, go to the topic about Greyhound and click on the original link that Leighbie posted. I just clicked on it, super funny!

LG, it is quiet on hear today. Must be from all those babies being born!

Shhhhh... super-papa! Like I said, I'm trying to live it down.

Leighbie, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I found it quite funny!

Well, if we ever do start an Offsprung commune I'll volunteer for village idiot.

Ah, no worries. At least you didn't link to this:

http://tinyurl.com/6yvkq6

It at least makes sense that the tough titties would be stuck on your clipboard when you went to paste a different link.

Leighbie, I'll cover for you on your days off. Dingbattery comes naturally to me.

It has seemed quiet around here. I should be cleaning, sorting, etc for my impending move. I hope that if I stare at things long enough, they'll sort themselves. Very Mary Poppins.

I was in Denver for a work conference (sat in the airport for hours! Sadly not on a M-F) and am trying to get my stuff together to get this last main revision done.

I noticed too that conversation has slowed down, like a lull in a real chat.

I am going on vacation in 2 weeks, to S' parents' cottage, where my daughters and I will meet his parents for the first time. I'm a combination of thrilled and petrified.

No vacation here. Not even a staycation. Too much going on at work before school starts. So it's more of a stayemployedtion.

Our vacation consists of moving. But our plans changed about five minutes ago. AHHHHHHHH!

It looks like we're moving to a real city. I've never lived in a big city. I'm too redneck for Chicago, I fear.

total aside - Capp - are lawyers 1099's or employees? I wanted to ask when we were discussing health insurance, since it seems you pay rates similar to self employed folks.

Holy smokes, Doublebooked. That's huge. Huge.
I'm sure they'll fall in love - instantly. Those girls are magic!

Slow??? I'm still reading up from this weekend. Whew. I hate to miss anything. But lately I've been taking breaks on the weekends from the phones, blackberry, computer, anything that might ping. My sanity needed it. I already feel more at center.

As for vacation... me and El Destructo (the surfer has to work) will be taking all of next week off. I'm planning days at the beach and parks. Lots of momma and El D time. I can't wait.

Mamawho are you serious? Your plans changed that quickly?

Seriously. A job that DW interviewed for, but never thought he'd get, came through. Just like that. He's pacing and dancing with the dog right now.

Boo... hiss... no Austin! (Chicago is AWESOME though. I am jealous).

Darn it McG - I wish we could have hooked up (not in that way).

I've also thought that it's been quiet around here recently. Perhaps it's the heat.

Yeah, it was a bummer you weren't around. Luckily the airport has free (if slow) wifi and I had the NY Times.

August is going to be crazy for me, but today I have a sore as hell lower back (again) and am unable to do much of anything. We have the MIL coming to town in mid August and right when she leaves (the same morning) we leave for San Francisco for the week.

Much like you JTC, The Husband gets very little time off these days. He's been working insane hours (like 14-17 hour days every day). And when we go to San Francisco, we are going to be *with him* while he works a show all week. We should see him Friday - he got that day off of work. We'll see how many cell phone calls and email checks that actually entails.

The son is excited as can be that we are finally, finally going to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium. The words obsessed with sea life don't cut it in describing him.

Then we'll have a few days until the end of summer - so sad!

Leighbie, I'm an employee. Depending on the legal form of a firm (LLP, LLC, PC, etc.), most partners may be more in the nature of self-employed. (One of the partners here was recently grousing about what would happen if the payroll tax were expanded. Because he's effectivly self-employed, he'd have to pay more than 12% additional in FICA/Medicare tax on whatever is taxed above the current cap. Add that to the 39.6% that will come back if the cuts expire, and suddenly he's looking at a marginal rate of more than 50% for federal tax alone and an inability to take most deductions! Ouch!)

The reason we get cruddy rates is that we're a small pool, and the firm only subsidizes the employee. Our costs are almost entirely because I extend coverage to my family.

This weekend was 1st kid's birthday. I was at the beach all day Friday, Saturday was spent prepping for and then hosting party, Sunday I ran all the errands that got preempted Saturday. I've been too dead the past several evenings to do more than sit on the couch and drink wine.

I'm also preparing for the storm headed our way (please read with all sarcasm you can muster). Our local stations is talking about it as if Jesus is coming.

Hmm interesting - so since you're an employee Capp - can you still deduct the full premium amount on your taxes? If not, that blows.

Kiwi - F'ing weathermen and their f'ing weathergasms. I swear they're never happy. It could be 70 and sunny and they'd bitch about how cold it is, or 112 and they'd complain about how we're so hot and dry and everything is going to die and then if we get even a hint of rain they talk like we all need to grab our children and get to high ground. Stupid Houston.

Kiwi - is that going to actually hit here? I thought it would stay further on the coast?

No vacations for us. And I will be with the kids on my own here and there. AlphaGeek's travel schedule for the next few months includes Singapore, San Francisco, Prague, and Norway.

Ha! - "weathergasims" Ellie you crack me up!

This weekend was super-busy for us, too. We went out for Brazilian BBQ and drinks with friends (and no kids- yay!) on Thursday. On Friday we hosted a dinner for family visiting from out of town & had about 20 local relatives join us as well. Saturday we has GIrl6's best friend and her family over for a BBQ and drinks. Then Sunday was my FIL's bday. He lives in a convalescent home, so we picked him up to hand out for the day, as we do every Sunday, then we took him to dinner at his all-time favorite place, Red Lobster.

I've still been checking in late at night and usually just lurk to see what I've missed during the day. We're going to the Laugh Factory tonight, so I'll probably be on here at like 1 a.m. just to see what I've missed. DaddyMartini looks at me like I'm crazy when it's that late and he sees me logging on.

Kiwi, Ellie - when Rita was inbound, Ft Hood shut the hell down, and had emergency messages from the commander on a loop for 72 hours on the base TV stations. Ft Hood is 3.5 hours inland - we didn't even get a flippin' breeze! But we did get an extra-long weekend. It was funny watching many of the foreign "war brides" clear out the commissary because they didn't realize that the base was not in ANY imminent danger. They were simply heeding the warning given to them.

Yeah, no vacations here. Maternity leave should seem like a vacation, but I'm dying to go to the beach or mountains or SOMETHING!! But, what can you do with unpaid maternity leave (well, 10 weeks of it anyway).

I go back work on Aug. 26. Maybe that will seem like a vacation. Sad. But hey, my au pair--the one from Colombia is coming today. Should be interesting...

MNM we'll get rain but the threat will be mostly to inside the 610 loop because it is just a bowl. You're far enough north that you'll stay dry. I will advise you to fill up your car as soon as possible because they'll probably raise the cost later tonight or early tomorrow because "there was damaged in the gulf" (yank yank).

Lady Grey~ Hope everything works out with the au pair!

Mamawho are you still in Ft. Hood. My best friend is stationed there.

Kiwi - I'm 20 minutes away now, in Belton. We used to live on base. What unit is your best friend in? DW was in Public Affairs at the 1st Cavalry Division Headquarters.

A hurricane would even approach Norfolk and the fleet would scatter to the Atlantic. If you got left behind (on purpose, if you got left behind accidentally, you were basically screwed), the quietness of the area was amazing.

Got left behind once, went to sea four times. Not even once did the hurricane even come close to Norfolk.

I'm a bad friend because I never pay attention to when he goes on(at length) about his army stuff. I know he's a master sargent but that's about it. I realize how not helpful that is because there are about a million soldiers in Ft Hood. I've been up there before and that place is pretty nuts. As far as I know he's never lived on base since being transferred to Ft Hood(he was in Germany before). Him, wifey, and kids have a house off base.

Kiwi - does he have a yellow patch with a horse head on it, like in Apocalypse Now, or a patch with four ivy leaves on it? He might also have one that looks like a blue three-pointed star.

When I've seen him in his green dress uniform he has an orange patch with a horse head and a diagonal black strip on it on his left arm.

Yeah. the weatherfolk in L.A. like to do up the dramatic graphics/music combo, usually something like "STORMWATCH '08" when there's even a possibility of a hint of a tiny little drizzle ANYWHERE in the L.A. basin. Coming from Seattle, I find this freaking hilarious.

I've been off kilter with earthquake/eclipse energy since last week, unable to put two words together, and now my sister's coming into town for a visit, I have my nose to the grindstone trying to get a bunch of work done before then.

I'd LOVE a vacation but not sure Minnesota to see distant in-laws in a few weeks qualifies. Still and all, it's away from here. And there's a chance I could see fireflies, so it's all good.

Kiwi - he's 1st Cavalry.

My folks are here visiting us for 2 weeks. We're going everywhere but have mostly fished and played the beach. It has been awesome. Next week we're either driving down to Virginia Beach or over to the Eastern Shore of VA.

Thank you Mamawho next time I see him and he starts talking Army I'll be able to make him think I've been listening. :)

McG, good luck with the new move. It sounds awesome!

I only skimmed the comments so I know someone has a hurricate maybe coming, or maybe a local news weathergasm... good luck surviving whichever it is.

And no, I haven't been on vacation, just feeling "blah" with not much to say. Which kind of sucks.

Heh Ruth, you definitely skimmed. Mamawho is moving. I am staying put for now.

D'oh!! Sorry guys! Congrats Mamawho on the move, and sorry McGlory. Now I've replaced Leighbie as village idiot and she can once again post with impunity!

See, it doesn't take long for things to change around here, does it?

Oh man, the days when I'm super swamped at work and not even able to check in on OS is when a fun post like this happens.

Congrats to Mamawho on the move.

Hope all of you with the severe weather survived it okay. I spoke with my brother-in-law, who said in Chicago they were told to literally batten down the hatches. Everything ok though.

Kathy...I LOVE it when it rains in LA for nothing other than the news freak out. I've lived here for 13 years and I still find it amazingly funny.

Kiwi - I mentioned to my husband you likened the EdouardDeathWatch 08 to the second coming of Jesus and he chortled. Loudly. Then we had a nice long conversation about Stealing Jesus, which is a new phrase in our house. "It's Jesus! You stole him! Kidnapping!"

We're stupid.

mamawho, Congratulations on the job and move! The prices in the Chicagoland housing market have finally started dropping, if you're looking at buying a house. As cities go, I like it, and I'm not really a city person.

DaddyGeekBoy, I'm outside Chicago and we got hit pretty hard. That was one of the scarier storms I've been in. Spent a while in the basement with the sirens going off, and my house got struck by lightning! It's okay, though, all the pipes grounded it or however that works. We have a bunch of BIG branches down outside, but luckily no major tree, car, or house damage.

Uh, mamawho, don't read that part I just wrote about the crazy weather here, okay? Okay.

i've been lurking a bit, took on some extra work and had to nearly kill myself to meet the deadline. I'm a glutton for punishment... and money.

Every now and then i feel like i need to ask you all something, but then i hesitate and it sort of goes away.

It feels a bit like that Barbie game on the C64, when Ken would ask her on a date, to say the pool, and just as she was ready, he'd phone her and say "Plans have changed, would you like to go the movies?" while she's standing there in her bathers and flippers. That's my life lately. Just as i get ready to ask what to do about, say, long haul travel with a 14 month old kid, Ken phones, and says "Hi BoL, plans have changed, would you like to go to the movies?"

Julia - I was reading the news last night and the first story I landed on was "Tornado Warning in Chicago, blah blah panic panic, Wrigley something." I immediately knew we were definitely moving to Chicago, and my learning of the move brought the tornado warning to Chicago. I am a freakin' tornado magnet.

I'm from Oklahoma. Have you seen Twister? That's my childhood. Except for the bad accents, ours are cooler.

Thanks for the heads up on the housing market.