DadJack.com Blog

This year has started with some Jamie, Jack and Stench News (Well, not Jack news and not the three of us together, but there is news!)

First, Jamie (White) is returning to the airwaves! She will be joining BJ and Howie on ALICE in Denver, CO.  This is doubly exciting for me, one because I’m glad to see Jamie working again and two because it’s good to actually see a radio station adding staff and not firing or down-sizing.  KALC will be airing the new line-up with Jamie starting Monday January 9th.

Second, Stench’s son has his first MMA fight on January 14th!  He will be fighting at the Normandie Casino on the 14th and tickets are $50 (click link for details.)  Also, we are very close to being able to hear the radio show Stench produces on L.A. Radio… They will be on mornings soon, I’ll post when they officially announce.

As for me… Not much going on, but I am so happy for my friends!

The kids and I had a very nice holiday season, spending Christmas in Burbank and ringing in the New Year in San Diego…  Now it’s back to reality.  There is a depression that sets in after the holidays, all the hype and expectation and then it’s just over and everything returns to the way it was.  I’m hoping the job market gets better for me and many of my friends who are out of work (And I think we’ll see a little bit of improvement… It’s an election year, even if falsely, they will try to make things look better).

Look for a book review early next week (I took a break from reading over the holidays) and more of my usual posts.

Happy New Year and Rock On, Jack

Last Thursday I lay in bed trying to fall asleep, the kids playing with Grandma in the living room, knowing the next day would be my last at work. As I tried to drift off I thought about past “lasts” and how more often than not we don’t know they’re coming. Some arrive quickly, without warning, others slowly evolving.

I don’t remember the night before we were fired from the morning show, I know we were on Christmas/New Years vacation, but I didn’t lie in bed knowing I would be fired the next afternoon. I don’t remember my last night truly being married… I remember the night before my marriage legally ended, I prepared a shirt and tie, gathered all the necessary papers and tried to sleep knowing the following morning it would, with a few words from a judge, be over. A marriage is one of those things that disintegrates slowly, so pin-pointing the last night we were truly a couple is almost impossible.

Some lasts are exciting, the last day of high school, knowing that when you wake the next day your whole life will change.  That energy of the unknown and hope is something I will never forget.  And there are those planned lasts like actually planning on changing jobs, the last night of being single before getting married or the last night in a home before you move.

So as I lay there in the darkness, kids laughing and running around, I know that would be the last night I go to bed as the Executive Producer of The Insana Quotient and hope that it will not be long that I am resting my head preparing for something new.

I have been using some of this unwanted down time to get caught up on some recent releases I hadn’t had time to watch, this week Red Box has a great deal, each day you can text DEALS to 727272 and they will send you a special offer… so far I have received a free rental the last two days, you can’t beat that.

Stench is out of the hospital and back on the pod!  He was in the hospital almost all of last week suffering from diverticulitis.  He seems to be recovering well and is back to true form.  Alina has been having medical issues too, so we wish her a speedy recovery… Without Alina who would we torture on the pod?

Have a great rainy spring day (If you’re in L.A.).

Rock on, Jack

Here’s what the flipvid and I caught at Alina’s Birthday Party Saturday night at The Four Season’s in Beverly Hills.

Life is unfair… We’ve all heard it, heck we’ve all experienced it.  In the past year and a half I’ve had more disappointment than I care to recount, but you hate to see your kids realize this is how things go.  You don’t want them to be spoiled, but you also don’t want to see their little hearts broken.  So you try and handle the big ones as gently as possible… “Why can’t you and Mommy live together?” “Why did your Grandma in the wheel chair go to heaven?”  And trust me, I’m not perfect, I answered them the best I could.  But it seems lately there have been a wave of tiny disappointments, the type that put a damper on the fun you were looking forward too.  Oddly, they have really surrounded food.  I told you all on the CRN (and Twitter… and Myspace) how Mc Donald’s screwed the kids on the Happy Meals the other night…  The toy is the draw for those otherwise boring meals, so when they leave the kids with a box only containing the crappy food it’s a let down.  Then we went to Denny’s and they changed their kids menu, no more mini-hot dogs (Lucy’s favorite) or grilled cheese (A Bing must have), they were bummed, but I explained that sometimes they need to change the menu.  Then last night, Bob’s Big Boy… The Bob’s that has been Lucy’s favorite place to go since she was old enough to have an opinion, the place she and I would go for a “Daddy and Me” dinner while her Mom worked, the first real place she recognized on sight (Which ended our meals at Mo’s, it’s across the street within eyesight of Bob’s, so Lucy would have no part of being in the hood and not hitting BBB.)  When I asked them where the wanted to go eat last night the vote was 100% Bob’s.  We walked in, Lucy and Bing requested different color balloons and then we were sat by the “Bob” inside.  Two kids menus and one breakfast menu (I like their eggs)…  And no more hot dog on the kids menu.  I know hot dogs are unhealthy and generally full of gross stuff, but it was what Lucy ordered there for the last 4+ years.  She was really bummed, but I think I was more upset… I know things change, we get unmarried, we grow older, we lose things, but why this?  Why ruin the thing my children and I look forward too, an evening of laughs and full tummies at our favorite place.  Lucy was a trooper, after quizzing the server on where the hot dogs were she ordered plain noodles she looked at me and said “at least we can have fudge cake.”

We will have other favorites and menus will continue to change, but on that Monday evening on a warm August day we lost a tiny family tradition.

Rock On, Jack