An update...

It's been a fun and spastic week and a half since getting laid off.

I haven't had anymore face to face interviews, but lots of calls, which is encouraging. Most are for Denver or out of state jobs, but a few are local. I have a face to face interview tomorrow afternoon. I am not too jazzed about the job, but it'll pay the bills. There is another agency working me for a spot in south Denver. Nothing official yet.

Other things going on...

Movies I have seen in the last 2 weeks:

Superman - I went into it very skeptical since the commercials painted the all to familiar cheesiness factor into it. Yes, it did have a little of the cheese, but not at a bad level. We saw it in the IMAX theater in 3D, which was an interesting treatment. The plot had some good twists that had me surprised. Kevin Spacey was AWESOME as Lexx Luthor.

The Devil Wears Prada - I took MS and her daughter to see it. They've been advertising this one pretty hard in the trailers, but from what I saw it seemed like much more than just a dumb chick flick that no one over the age of 18 would enjoy. The characters were very fun, even the bitchy assistant. The writing was quite good with plenty of laughs throughout. Stanley Tucci is awesome as always. I recommend it!

Pirates 2 - I had some doubts that this would be as good as it's predecessor, but those doubt were washed away very quickly. This franchise runs a very fine line of an action comedy, that works surprisingly well. Johnny Depp is awesome! The other returning cast was quite good including a couple of the now mortal pirates from the fist installment. Very funny stuff there too. A must see!

Click - This movie was so overly advertised that I did not want to see it. I tend to like Adam Sandler movies, but the amount of advertising was absurd. All that being said, Kevin went to see it with a friend when I was still working and Erik was at daycamp. Erik was upset that he didn't get to see it so I told him that I would take him without Kevin. I was better than I expected, but not much. Kate was one of the best parts of the movie. Always gorgeous. A definite rental.

I am all movied out for the week.

I agreed to buy my friend Mike's Honda CRF70 when I get a job. He is moving to Idaho and doesn't want to take it. Taylor grew out of it 2 years ago, and his daughter has a Honda 90 ATV. No, they aren't spoiled. Mike was mostly keeping it around for when we went out to their property so that there would be one more bike for one of the kids to ride. He taught Erik to ride it last year.

Friday Erik and I went up to the mountains camping and riding ATVs and motorcycles with mike and his family. Kevin is still restricted from riding, but he was going to some motocross event down in Walsenburg, CO with the ex's boyfriend anyway (I need to vent about that sometime... maybe at the end of this post).

It rained for the majority of the time we were there, but we still had fun regardless. We got a couple short runs in on Saturday when the rain let up for a while. These rides were made extra fun by the fact that every pothole or bump in the trail held some water. There are a couple expected puddles on these trails that this time were quite huge. I have a quad that has no problem getting through them, but Mike and his wife got bogged down a bit. Erik only rode his bike on an easy run, and he did very well except for a couple spills. It always kills me to see him get banged up. He has a nice bruise on his thigh as a trophy of the weekend. He is kind of proud of it.

Today I took the kids up to Water World. We took my unadopted son, Taylor (Mike's kid), as well. I was thinking it wasn't going to happen because I woke up feeling like I was going to be sick, but that feeling passed. Then as we're driving through Denver to Thornton (northern suburb of Denver) I saw the rain clouds starting to peek over the mountains. We've been getting a lot of rain lately. I warned the guys that we might not get a lot of time at the water park with those clouds rolling in. They quickly made plans on which slides to go on first to make sure they got the best ones out of the way. It's really quite comical to listen to then brainstorm.

We got in a few great runs, and the clouds were starting to block the sun. It was about lunch time and I hadn't eaten since last night since my stomach was upset. I said one more run before we get lunch.

I figured by the time we finished eating we would be running for the car, but that didn't happen. The clouds were staying back. We finished lunch and kept riding every slide and spent quite a bit of time in the tidal wave pool. Always fun.

Unfortunately, the SPF 50 sunblock that Taylor brought was not waterproof like the stuff I took. Kevin was using Taylor's and even after 2 coats of that stuff he still got a nice burn. He's feeling it now. Luckily I put the waterproof SPF 30 on me and Erik a couple times. I still got a bit cooked on my shoulders, but not too bad.

MS leaves on her Europe trip with her girlfriend tomorrow. I know I don't talk about her much, but we've been dating now for 4 months. She is a great lady. We spend only 1 or sometimes 2 days/evenings together per week. Mostly on the weeks we don't have our kids.

Last Thursday there was kind of a meltdown. I have an ongoing computer gaming night every Thursdays with my friends from work and other friends that join us from other parts of the country. Well I didn't realize that last Thursday was the last day prior to her Europe trip that neither of us had our kids. We had seen each other on Tuesday and had plans to see each other this past Sunday with our kids. Well she got upset that my gaming night was more important than her. Well maybe not more important, but that I would rather do that than see her that night.

I don't know if I did the right thing or the wrong thing, but I cancelled getting on-line with my friends and headed over to her house (unannounced) to apologize for making her feel less important.

That fixed the immediate problem, but have I set a precedence for how I should react to future conflicts? Maybe I am over reacting. ARGH!

As for Kevin and my ex's boyfriend. I am getting pissed off about this guy. I don't like how he only does things with Kevin. It's almost like Erik doesn't even exist sometimes. But then the guy asks Kevin if he wants to do some cool thing on a day that he is supposed to be with me. Kevin in turn asks me, and if I don't have anything planned I would be a real shit for not letting him go.

I am going to have to tell Irene that this has to stop. If he wants to take Kevin somewhere during my week he should ask me first before talking to Kevin. I want Kevin to have fun and experience these cool things, but to have Kevin ask me is undermining my ability to put my foot down. I feel like I am being manipulated. I'll probably wait to put my foot down until after I get permission to take the kids to Michigan for Christmas :D