Author: Josh

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Monthly Maly Letter: Month 19

Dear Maly,

You turned 19-months-old today. The past four weeks have flown by so quickly and has left me pondering all that has happened since my last letter to you. Regardless, you grow to be more fascinating and even more beautiful every single day. I love watching your grow, but the older you get, the faster time seems to fly by.

I think your coolest milestone this month has been the new faces you have learned to make. You now have a sad face, where you purse your bottom lip and drop your eyebrows. You have your surprised face, where you lift your eyebrows as high as they’ll go while flaring your nostrils. And you have your angry face, where you crinkle your nose, lower your eyebrows and crinkle your forehead. Often times when you’re eating, you’ll deliberately employ all of your emotional expressions which clearly indicates that you’re definitely your mother’s daughter and, quite possibly, schizophrenic.

We spent a weekend at your Grandma’s house this weekend. While your mom was getting ready to take Fall photos of you in the front yard, something bit you on the palm of your hand. At first we didn’t think much of it. I somewhat resolved that a fire ant had stung you. An hour later you were still crying in pain. We had no idea what had stung you and had hurt you so badly. Your mom and I both worried that maybe a brown recluse or black widow had stung you. We didn’t see fang marks, so we somewhat set ourselves at ease. It wasn’t until we got back to our house in Austin that the redness on your palm has cleared and we could make out a series of stinger marks on your hand. It was then that we determined that you had been stung by an asp.


The fear of not knowing is what I have learned to be one of the greatest fears for me as your father. I want to be able to fix the wrongs in life for you, and if I don’t know what those wrongs are, I feel useless. Now I know that an asp will hurt you and from here on out, I give you my word that I will forever rid your path of any asps. You can find comfort in knowing that you can go into the fourth grade and when you’re to tell the class what your father does for a living, you can say, “My daddy kicks asp”. And then I’ll have to pay for your speech therapy.

Your uncle Eric came down from Des Moines to spend five days with us this month. Your uncle Eric really loves you and I’m thankful that you’re able to spend time with your extended family. Two extremely valuable things that you learned from Eric during his stay here were “booger” and “danger”. Danger is a good word because now instead of saying, “MALY, NOOOOO!!”, we can say, “Maly, be careful. Daaaaanger!” And then you’ll know that you should stop whatever it is that you’re doing that your mom and I deem as dangerous, and immediately stick your finger into one of your nostrils.

Just this past week you did something that was very cute, yet very frustrating in the same breath. I was taking a shower when you came up to the glass shower door with my eye glasses. You said, “DADDY!! Eyes.” You call my glasses “eyes”.


I said, “Thank you, sugar. Can you please go put Daddy’s eyes on his nightstand?” And you immediately trucked off into the direction of my side of the bed. I went back to bathing myself and proudly thought of my bright young daughter who understands her dad and takes his direction well. It wasn’t until I had finished showering, brushed my teeth and my hair when I walked to the nightstand to put my glasses on. I couldn’t find my glasses where I had instructed you to leave them.

“Maly, where are Daddy’s eyes?” I asked.

You gave me a blank stare. I then looked down at the floor and saw the ear piece of my glasses poking out from underneath one of the throw pillows. I bent down to pick up my glasses and came up with only the ear piece. You had managed to successfully break my glasses.

So Daddy’s eyes are now off limits for you for the time being.

Regardless, I love you today more than ever. I miss you while I’m at work and while you’re asleep at night. I love checking on you before I go to bed and night. I softly rub your head and whisper that I love you. I cherish those moments more than you’ll ever know.

I love you, Sugar.

Love,

Daddy

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links for 2007-11-14

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The good and the not-so-good in cooking

Dinner on Sunday:

Coriander and ancho rubbed smoked pork tenderloin stuffed with beef, pork and serrano tamale with a raspberry, chipotle and pomegranate beer blanc. Yukon, yam and adobo garlic mashers and young green beans wrapped in prosciutto, rested in a reconstituted fig and balsamic reduction.

Dinner on Monday:

Yes, those are pork rind nachos. For those of us “in the know,” we refer to them as “prachos”. Or, pretty much just plain gross. Culinary endeavor strike #231.

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Ms. Sandman

Dear Maly,

I usually write a letter to you on around the 15th of every month. I just couldn’t wait this time around. You have changed so much in just the past few days and I couldn’t resist the urge to convey the whirlwind of emotions that your mom and I have experienced recently.

As always, you’re the smoochy poochie sweet pea that that we pride ourselves in having created. We outwardly brag about you and impose upon complete strangers all that is ever-so-cute about you. I parade you about restaurants and stores with you high upon my shoulders. We indulge in your every whim. We hold you above all else.

Now I think you’re old enough to where I can ask a favor of you.

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY AND REQUIRES SLEEP, PLEASE GO BACK TO BED!!!!!!!!!!

Ever since the end of Daylight Savings Time, you’ve started waking up at 5 a.m. Today was Saturday. Daddy would like to sleep in on Saturday. For a year and a half thus far you have allowed Daddy to sleep in if he needs to.

It will be a few years before you can appreciate what a Saturday is. I think I’m going to wait 12 years before I get you back. When you’re 14-years-old, I’m going to wake up at 5 a.m. on a Saturday, walk into your room in a pair of pink unitard pajamas and with hair disheveled, defecate myself and start crying while holding meowing cat.

And then your girlfriend’s from school who stayed over the night prior for a slumber party will wake up screaming. The neighbors will call the cops because terrified teenage girls will be stumbling over themselves in attempt to vacate the house and there will be me, standing in the doorway in a pink unitard emanating the stench of feces with my comb-over hanging to one side of my head.

The cops will ask, “Mr. Janicek, what happened?!?!”

It will be at that moment when I point to you and reply with a smile, “The end of Daylight Savings Time”

And the adults will all laugh, I’ll mow the lawn and you’ll go to school on Monday and have no friends.

So, please go back to bed, Sugar.

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The end of Daylight Savings Time and the joys it brings

  • Instead of the cat waking up at 5 a.m., meowing incessantly to let us out, he now starts the meowing at 4 a.m.
  • Maly wakes up an hour earlier
  • It’s dark when I leave the office in the evenings
  • The already shitty drivers in Austin who normally, during daylight savings time, drive 5 miles below the posted speed limit in the left lane now drive 10 miles below the speed limit. You know, because it’s dark and all.
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Recent vice

This is me playing Metallica’s “One” on Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the first time on hard mode…

[flv width=”400″ height=”300″]http://www.janicek.com/video/20071030_One.flv[/flv]

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Weekend at Mom’s and the onset of another anxiety attack

We left for Mom’s house early Friday afternoon and arrived in time to head over to Crossroads for fried catfish. After dinner we came home and I bathed Maly and Elise put her to bed. The rest of the night we watched TV and talked before going to bed.

On Saturday morning we woke up early and met Don and Linda at Tony’s in Sealy (a pretty good truck stop diner that I’m surprised I had never set foot into in the 8 years that I lived in Austin county) for breakfast. After breakfast Don and Linda headed on to Kyle for a family member’s wedding. The girls and I went to the new Wal-Mart in Sealy just to check out the new Wal-Mart in Sealy.

We got back to Mom’s house and put Maly down for a nap. Elise mowed the lawn while I ripped out landscape timbers that line the driveway and replaced them with new landscape timbers. I quickly came to the realization that I’ve become a city boy. After only a couple hours of “country work”, my hands were getting red and blistered, my legs were wobbly and my back ached.

Mom took Maly on a tractor ride and to look at the cows. We had roasted venison with veggies for dinner. We watched “Scary Movie” that evening and Mom turned in early. Elise and I stayed up and watched SNL (she fell asleep half way through) and went to bed at midnight.

This morning I went out to the driveway to remove all of the old nails from the landscape timbers. Maly came out and sat on my old skateboard and rode up and down the driveway while exclaiming, “da weee!”

When I was finally done with my landscape timber project, I took a shower and got dressed for our photos. Elise and I had planned on taking pictures to be used for our Christmas cards this year. Unfortunately by the time the camera was set and angled on the tripod and we were positioned on the swing that hangs from the huge oak in Mom’s yard, Maly switched into “it’s getting time to take a nap” mode. She didn’t want to sit still for a family photo. So we put her on the ground and let her play with the swing. She pushed the swing back and forth. At one point she stopped and started rubbing her hands together. Then she started to cry. Then she started crying uncontrollably and inconsolably.

Elise took her inside, thinking that Maly was just being cranky and needed to take a nap. Maly tried to go to sleep but again started crying in pain. Elise got Maly out of bed and tried to console her to no avail. Maly just kept crying in pain and rubbing her hands together. We looked at Maly’s hand and her index finger and palm were red and swollen. He forearm started to turn red as well. I nonchalantly FREAKED OUT on the inside and watched as Elise tried to comfort our daughter. Grandma provided momentary relief by giving Maly some homemade frozen yogurt. I went out to the swing with fingers crossed that I wouldn’t find a brown recluse or black widow spider underneath the swing. Thankfully I found neither. I did see a couple fire ants at the base of the oak tree and internally resolved that Maly just got stung by a rabid fire ant. In the meantime, Elise and Mom gave Maly some Benadryl, which seemed to help a little after half an hour of crying.

We decided to forego letting Maly take a nap at Grandma’s and instead had a quick, late lunch and then packed up and headed back to Austin. Maly slept almost the entire way home (which is very rare).

When we got home, we did our normal nightly ritual of dinner and a bath. Just before Maly’s bath, we were able to finally see Maly’s injury. She had a series of six or seven little bit marks in a very concentrated area of her palm just before where her index finger starts.

That’s when my anxiety attack started. What the hell kind of insect leaves bites like that?!? I knew that it couldn’t have been fire ants. Fire ant bites wouldn’t be that concentrated.

Right now we’re thinking she was stung by an asp. We’re pretty certain it was an asp, but not 100%. The not knowing is what is stressing me out. It’s the hearing my daughter cry in pain for nearly an hour because something stung her. It’s my anxiety that’s got the best of me – we put Maly down half and hour ago I can’t get the notion out of my head that she’s going to have an allergic reaction and go into anaphylactic shock at 3 a.m.

All-in-all, we had a great weekend. I’m just not going to sleep well tonight…

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Monthly Maly Letter: Month 18

Dear Maly,

You turned 18-months-old this week. You’ve been with us for a year and a half now. It’s amazing that a whole year and a half have flown by. It seems like just last week you were taking your first steps when really that was over six months ago. And every night when I check on you before I go to bed I remember the first night after we brought you home from the hospital and how I spent that evening wondering how our lives were going to change. Since you’ve been with us, life has been nothing short of great.

But with the great comes the bad and the things that nobody likes to do. On Monday your Mom and I took you to the doctor for your 18-month checkup. As usual, you passed with flying colors, including the fact that you’re in the 95% percentile for head size. You have a big noggin. It’s a perfectly shaped and beautiful head, but your body is yet to catch up.

At the end of the doctor’s visit it was time for your booster and flu vaccination. As instructed I sat you on the edge of the examination table with your legs hanging over the edge. The nurse leaned her thighs into your legs to prevent you from kicking. Then I got my hated second set of instructions: to hold your arms down. The nurse proceeded to remove the cap from the booster vaccine and quickly jab it deeply into your left thigh. You immediately screamed and tears quickly started streaming down both sides of your face and onto the table just below your ears. I winced and let up on your arms enough so you could feel as if you had some form of retaliation strength. You cried and screamed. The nurse then removed the cap from the flu vaccine syringe and as quickly as the first, jabbed the needle into your right thigh. You jerked, shrieked, screamed and in a fleeting moment you caught my eye and gave me a look that said, “Daaaaaaddy, how could you EVER let this happen to me?!?!”


The nurse couldn’t put the little Tweety Bird band aids on you quick enough. The moment the second one was on your leg, I scooped you up and pressed you as close as I could to my chest and just started talking to you, trying to distract you from the pain.

I went on to work that morning and couldn’t stop thinking about you all day. Not that I don’t think about you all day, but on this particular day I couldn’t wait to come home and hold you again. I wanted to physically be near you so I could protect you and apologize again for having to let you get hurt. Of course by the time I got home that evening, you were completely normal and had forgotten about your morning of being a pin cushion.

This past month you got to ride a horse for the first time. You and your mom stayed at Grandma’s for a few days while Daddy was in New York on a business trip. One afternoon Grandma, Momma and you visited Tim and Wanda. Wanda took you on a horse ride and, from what I was told, you had a blast. I’m looking forward to the next time we go to visit Grandma because hopefully we can go to Tim and Wanda’s house and I can get to see you ride a horse.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever made mention of your teeth to you in the past. Your Mom suggested that I mention your teeth in this month’s letter. Maly, you have teeth. Eight of them to be exact. Well, I’m sure you have more, but they just haven’t managed to start piercing through your gum line to create an ever-flowing river of snot from your nose and a pain-induced crabby attitude that will most likely leave your mother and I wondering if we should have paid for the extended warranty on you.

Eight teeth. Eight teeth that I have a hell of a time trying to brush. For me, brushing your teeth is about as easy as a three-legged cat trying to bury a turd on a frozen pond. Your Mom seems to have a good system. I’m sort of of the thinking, “I’ll try as best I can, but if I can’t I can fall back on her mom.” Plus, the way I figure it, you’re just going to lose those teeth anyway. And the way that I let you play it’s a miracle you haven’t already knocked a tooth or two out.

One of your most recent past times has been spinning in circles. Just tonight your Mom and I stood in the kitchen and watched you spin and spin in a counter-clockwise circle to the point where you fell forward, bonked your head on the refrigerator door’s edge which then launched you onto your back on the kitchen tile. Then you tried to get up and you fell again. Once you regained your balance, you stood up and just started spinning again. You’re funny like that.

A couple of weeks ago your Mom and I took you to a local neighborhood park. We were lucky in that we had the whole park to ourselves. We watched you as you played on the springy horse, the see-saw, the swings and the merry-go-round. But the playground ride that you liked the most is what you excitedly and affectionately refer to as, “Da Wee”. The rest of us know “da wee” as a slide. You call it “da wee” because whenever you go down the slide your Mom and I both say, “Weeee!” as you descend.

Hearing you say “da wee” has got to be one of my favorite things that you say. Your excitement invigorates me. But in the same breath it makes me scared and sad. Scared and sad that before I know it a slide down da wee won’t captivate you enough. Da wee will be borrowing Daddy’s car just so you can get out of the house to be with your friends instead of Momma and me. In the meantime, I embrace every moment I have with you as I watch you grow and enjoy life behind such an innocent and beautiful smile.

I think the milestone that sticks out the most in my mind this month is kisses and hugs. Nothing melts my heart more than when you give me a kiss and then you throw your arms around my neck. Which is usually followed by, “Oosh?!? Bah bye!!” Which is your way of saying, “Get my shoes, I’m going to work with Daddy!” So, having to leave for work in the mornings has been really hard for me the past month. I generally make it a point to forget something in the house just so I have to come back into the kitchen and get another kiss from you.

There’s just some unwritten, unfathomable pride to having a daughter. The bond I have with you is amazing. There are no words to describe it. I cherish each and every moment I have with you. I cherish you now at 18-months and I will cherish you the same at 18-years and even then beyond yours and my scope of existence.

I love you, Sugar.

Love,

Daddy

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Six years

Elise and I celebrated our 6th anniversary this past Saturday. The weekend started with Mom driving up Friday afternoon to visit for the weekend and for some free (and much appreciated) babysitting.

On Friday night, I got home from work and was almost immediately turned around and sent back out to get groceries for the weekend and pizza for dinner that night. When I got home, I cooked the pizzas while Mom played with Maly so Elise could get dolled up.

That night we met up with co-workers and friends to celebrate Jenny’s birthday at the Broken Spoke. Everyone had a great time and at some point, someone realized that this was the first time in years that our circle of friends were together without at least one offspring in tow.

Elise and I stayed behind after the party left. We sat next to each other at a table at the edge of the dance floor and watched people dance. It was nice to just sit back with my feet up and my arm around my wife while we both people watched.

Saturday morning came early as we all got up with Maly. We ate breakfast and then headed out for the Josh & Elise Anniversary day of whatever it is that Josh doesn’t know about.

Almost an hour later we were pulling into the parking lot of Skydive San Marcos. Let me preface this by stating that I love me some skydiving. I experienced a mini anxiety attack. Elise’s plan was that we were both going to go skydiving that day. When we were driving up to the drop zone, I noticed that the parking lot was almost full. I remembered when we were at SSM a year ago and how we spend almost six hours there. I wasn’t looking forward to spending the entire day there again today and I expressed as much as we were parking. So I pretty much immediately set the mood of the day off on the wrong foot, which really upset Elise.

After talking it over for a while, I decided I would jump with her; but if I jumped, I wanted to make sure that the jump counted towards my Accelerated Free Fall license. I inquired at the desk and was told that the jump would not count as I would need to take a class before the instructional tandem jump. So I weighed my options. I thought about my little anxiety attack and the cost of a tandem jump that wouldn’t count towards licensure, and decided to just let Elise jump and pay an extra $100 to have the jump filmed.

Since we got the SSM relatively early, Elise was on a plane within an hour, which was a nice surprise. Mom, Maly and I waved as Elise boarded the plane. We played outside the drop zone for 20 minutes or so before we saw the parachutes starting to float down from a mile up. We watched as Elise and her jumpmaster touched ground and then walked over to where we were standing.

Elise, like me, was at a loss for words. I could tell just by the look on her face that she had a blast, and I’m really glad she got to experience “flight”. I quickly asked if she would consider going through AFF training with me. She said she’d prefer to just do tandem jumps and “let someone else do all the work.” So we went back inside and bought Elise a same-day discount for her next tandem.

We decided to hang out on the patio at the drop zone and have our picnic lunch before heading home. After lunch we piled into the truck and headed back to the house while Maly conked out in her car seat.

When we got home we just hung out around the house. Mom, Maly and I played in the pool on the deck while Elise took a nap. When Elise woke up, we all hung out on the deck and watched Maly play. 5:30 came quickly and it was time for Elise and me to get ready for our date.

We headed into town and got to Starlite a few minutes past our reservation time. Luckily it didn’t matter that we were late because there were only three occupied tables at the restaurant. Dinner was awesome and we had a really nice time talking. Our waiter was extremely friendly and helpful with all menu items and wine selections.

We started with a bottle of Mas de Gourgonnier les baux de Provence, which was an awesome recommendation from our waiter based on the kinds of Cabernet’s and Pinot Noir’s that we like. We were next treated to an amuse bouche of pan roasted veal cheek. Yeah, cheek. And man was it good! I got all cheeky is was so good. Here’s a great write-up on Metroactive on cheek meat.

For our appetizer I chose the Ahi Tartare with avocado mole, shallot preserves and gaufrette potatoes. Elise and I opted to simplify the consumption of this dish by scooping the tartare atop the potatoes (researchers have indicated that ‘gaufrette potatoes’ is a fancy name for homemade potato chips) with both sauces and called them raw fish nachos. Needless to say, the dish was excellent.

For our main courses, Elise had the Halibut with potatoes and buerre blanc and toasted garlic broccolini. I had the 16 oz. grilled veal t-bone with polenta and pearl onion and red plum confit. Both were fantastic, well rounded meals. I’m pretty sure I speak for Elise when I say Starlite is definitely on our list of favorite Austin restaurants. I’m certainly looking forward to returning soon.

After dinner walked a block to the parking garage and drove the Jeep over to my office’s parking garage and then walked to the Littlefield Market on 6th where we picked up a couple four packs of white wine. We then walked over to the OMNI with our swimsuits and went to the rooftop where we sat in the hot tub and drank wine from plastic cups. We had a fun time just hanging out with each other and overlooking central Austin. At 11:30 a staffer came up to let us know they were locking up for the evening. So we went downstairs to change in the locker rooms.

We got home close to midnight and hung out on the deck for another hour or so for a nightcap, to exchange cards and to look at the photos from Elise’s first skydive.

So we had a really, really nice anniversary. It wasn’t a “milestone” anniversary by commercial standards, but I think it was one of our best. Each one is better than the last as each year Elise and I grow closer together, stronger as one and happier together as we experience the everyday milestones.

I couldn’t imagine being happier or more proud of the relationship I have with Elise. I don’t know how I did it, but I sure as hell lucked out.

Josh & El's 6th anniversary

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Dangerous flea prevention products no longer tied to erectile dysfunction

HartzVictims.org started getting Viagra and Cialis story submission spam on August 14th. Since then I’ve been getting upward of 20 submissions a day with links to “Buy cheap Viagra” websites. It immediately got very frustrating because I was then having to login to my database and search for “viagra” and “cialis” and manually delete any and all of those entries in the queue before I could actually moderate any real user submissions.

I kind of leave HartzVictims.org to somewhat run itself, but the spam was starting to get unbearable. Thankfully all stories have to be submitted by me, so no viagra links had been published, but still, it was a pain in the ass to have to login and delete 99% of the content submitted.

After some here and there poking around, I found bbAntiSpam. And it’s the perfect solution for PHP-Nuke spam. I uploaded the two PHP scripts and added one small line of code to my index page. *POOF* No more spam submissions. bbAntiSpam uses Advanced Textual Confirmation which challenges a spam bot or a human to answer a question before the story can be submitted.

I’m really glad that this was an extremely simple fix. And I’m glad to be done with the headache of submission spam.

What I find interesting is that the influx of spam started a few weeks after I setup a HartzVictims.org MySpace account…