attended jury duty today at the new york state supreme court and was picked to serve on a trail that should take 3 to 4 days. the strange thing about this is that i am serving with a fellow wou grad who is attending brooklyn college for his master degree... it is such a small world. now i am wondering, what are the odds of two wou grads (school graduates about a 1000 students a year) serving on the same jury in brooklyn ny. let me know if you can figure out how to calculate this.

still trying to figure out the gop's pick for vp... other than being really hot, i cannot figure out why they choose her. here is a good clip from the colbert report about it: http://www.hulu.com/watch/32967/the-colbert-report-sarah-palin-for-vp also on the colbert report my wife and i had a good laugh over this interview: http://www.hulu.com/watch/32978/the-colbert-report-better-know-a-lobby---atheism (queue it up to 1 minute into the video)

would like to thank my good friend and his wife (b & d) who came to the twins b-day party and gave them toys-r-us gift certificates... this has resulted in us owning some big a$$ pink stroller (twin e's gift and increases our total number of doll stollers to 6) and what i thought was a cute pink cash register, complete with a scanner and microphone, for the clone. we opened it up today when it was delivered (i was home with the twins as mrs. timber had a long dentist appointment) and set it up. then for the next two hours (no exaggeration) we had to hear her yell over it's loud speaker "anyone want to buy anything!" over and over and over again. it was finally to the point where she would say it, i would say no. one-track would say no. twin e would say no. about 15 seconds would go by and then we would hear, "anyone want to buy anything?!" i almost ripped the batteries out of it but thought i would give it two days before ruining her fun.

phelps... the man, the myth, the legend. since watching him win his 8th and hearing "phelpsian" for the first time, i have been trying to use it as much as i can, which may be annoying my wife a little. i am going to start working it into my emails at work and see if anyone gets btw. that being said i watched the interview with his mom and bob costas the other night and after hearing him go on about getting picked on and what not when growing up i thought, "it was high school, everyone got picked on... forget about it! you won 8 gold medals and this sh*t is what you are thinking about? you should be thinking about the medals, the money and the woman you are going to pull when you get back to the states you big sally!" i was a little disappointed after hearing that interview.

if you have hbo, watch generation kill. it is awesome and had me and my wife debating over it was better than band of brothers. the things that that group of men actually did in open humvees in iraq is simply amazing, check that, phelpsian. hbo also has a bunch of the behind the scenes stuff on demand which is great to watch also as it interviews the actual people that are portrayed in the show and they say how the show is right on with what went on. take the time to watch it, you will enjoy it a great deal.

we took our annual trip to oregon and a great time, few highlights...

• sunriver was a great. hung out with my brother and his family, rode bikes, played a lot of tag and chase, made some great meals, watched a lot of deer, played with my nieces a lot, saw that my oldest niece has a lot of the same personality quirks that my oldest have which made me a feel a lot better that there are other very cautious girls that flip out when they get water on their face and don't have a very high pain threshold.
• seeing my sister-in-law 8 months pregnant with twins was quit impressive as from the belly up she didn't look different at all and had a lot of energy for being so far along.
• sunriver was a lot easier than in past years as the kids are older, but surprisingly i think the adults are getting older also as we don't really drink and are always tired... made me fell pretty old.
• normally while at home the clone doesn't really stop talking, but put her in a car she doesn't say much at all, which made car rides rather enjoyable and peaceful, until my niece L2 joined us in the car... that girl doesn't stop talking and does a lot of "uncle, look. look. look." i tried to explain i couldn't look, but that didn't do much good.
• after getting back from sunriver we had the twins birthday, which was a bash! i mean there was a piñata, two, ya two bubble machines and horseback rides. we even had enough pizza for everyone to eat pizza for the next two days... which they did, still have not eaten any pizza since then. plus it was topped off with a kickball game for the ages... which after the first inning didn't include any of the kids, just the men. surprisingly kicking a ball for a distance is harder than i thought, and involved me hurting muscles in my ass that i didn't know i had.
• took a lot of naps under the oak tree in my parents backyard on two princess inflatable sleeping bags. it was very relaxing and enjoyable... although i kept sleeping off of them.
• we all went to the beach and stayed the night which was fun, expect for dinner which was my fault. i decided on keeping it simple and just eating at the hotel Italian restaurant, the only good thing was the drinks. little story about the drinks, the waitress was a 40 year old smoker that looked 50 and had a great smoker voice, so when i heard her say, "oh he makes the best long island ice-teas, you will love them" i thought, "this is probably going to be the strongest drink i have had... jackpot!" and i was spot on, i could have set the drink on fire and after two of them i was almost, almost, drunk enough to eat the terrible food.
• it was a really nice to see everyone and spend time with them, and that made it hard to leave and come back to brooklyn. after getting back in the groove of things we are doing ok and glad to be here... and looking forward to our next trip.

yesterday around 3:30 the family, plus one-tracks friend kt all set off to coney island to see the brooklyn cyclones take on the aberdeen iron eagles, here is a quick rundown of the night

• arrived at coney island and went on some rides. one-track took her first ride on the tilt-a-whirl, as kt really wanted to go on it... surprisingly she didn't get sick and actually liked it.
• the twins went on their their favorites, the helicopter, the carousal and then the whale ride. the clone always starts to shake with excitement as she approaches the carousal. she really likes to ride horses, even fake ones.
• the sky started to cloud up as we finished the rides and started the walk down the boardwalk to the stadium, which got me and mrs. timber a little worried as there wasn't too much cover at the stadium.
• we arrived, the ticket takers gave me a hard time as i was wearing a yankee jersey to the mets single a affiliate... i didn't care though. we took potty breaks and then headed for some food. after getting our food we sat down at a picnic table and started eating as fast as we could seeing how the lightening could be seen in the distance.
• it started to rain right as we were finishing up so we all shoved our faces with last bites and ran to the small covered area. mrs. timber and i pulled out our umbrellas and we all huddled, with everyone else as the monsoon started. it really reminded me of what you see penguins do in "walk of the penguins" and "happy feet" except nobody offered to move to the outside of the human wall to take their turn of soaking up the rain... so those of us on the outside got a little wet. the twins and kt didn't mind the thunder and lightening at all... one-track though started to cry (see video).
• as the thunder and lightning crashed above our heads everyone cheered with each lightning bolt. and then when the p.a. started playing songs like "purple rain" and "blame it on the rain" everyone had a good laugh.
• it finally stopped raining, the sun came out and the game started. the twins, bless their hearts, loved it. they loved the food, the music, the players running around, the clapping and cheering, mean while one-track and kt fought over the gameboy and never paid any attention to the game.
• we left after the third inning as mrs. timber had not dried out and we had actually been at the stadium for 3 hours, which was about 2 hours longer than i thought we would last.
• on the way home we stopped by the pizza place on the corner and started talking to some friends of ours and when they heard we were at the game they said, "man you must of got wet, the street was like a river when the rain hit. it was a monsoon." we nodded and said, "yep, we got wet." all in all it was a good night though.

having kids you end up seeing a lot of gross stuff, such as dirty diapers, accidents in underwear, vomit, spit up... but nothing gets to me like backwash in a water bottle. this morning we went to the bakery, got some muffins and bagels and a bottle of water. knowing the clone has a backwash problem i got a straw as this usually prevents it. one-track took a drink then twin e and then the clone sucked up some water let it sit in her mouth for 3 seconds and then spit it back through the straw. it is so gross to see muffins chunk and spit floating in the bottle... it just really upsets me. of course she got the whole water bottle to herself, so maybe that was her plan all along.