Row Row Row your boat

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Monday, January 31, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We left early Thursday morning to southern Utah for a small family reunion. My sister came from Houston, and my brother and his family came from Southern California. We had a great time, and the weather (whether? ~grin~) was pretty good too. They’ve had some flooding down there, and we saw several homes that were in various stages of falling into the river. Some half gone, some just piles of rubble. One house had a sign that read “For Sail. May go fast!” It looked like his back yard was only about 2 feet from his house now. Anyway, by the time we got there, things were starting to dry out, and the raging river looked like it was back to creek size.

One of the things we did while we were there was play laser tag. My family, plus my brother and his daughter went. With several other older teenagers playing, and little son #4 around, my sweet wife and I figured we ought to keep a close eye on him. Each game we took turns just following him through the maze wherever he went. He walked around with a huge vest on, and his favorite toy in the whole world. A gun. He was having the time of his life yelling, “I got you!” whenever he shot someone’s vest and their lights went out.

We also spent a lot of time swimming in an outdoor pool. The temps were in the low to mid 60’s, and it felt a little chilly at times, but coming from 20’s and 30’s for weeks on end, it was worth it. Funny though, my southern California brother wouldn’t have anything to do with the pool. I think the weather’s made him soft.

One last little story. When we got home, my sweet wife went to the post office and mailed the dollar bills I sold on eBay last week. At the front counter, they have a little tree of rubber stamps, and there’s one for the kids that says ‘spoiled’. They always stamp son #4’s hand with it. When my sweet wife and son #4 got back to the car, he said, “Mom, that says I’m beautiful doesn’t it? I don’t like it. Take it off.” And my sweet wife replied, “No honey, that stamp means that you get every you want.” His demeanor quickly changed as he said, “Oh, then I like this stamp.”

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

=-=-=-
Reader Comment Section:

My Mother said there are no spoiled children; only children who are
Loved. She had ten!
~crabby old aunty Kay

All that for a buck and a half?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My sweet wife said that one of her new years resolutions was to be
more generous to others. She had the perfect opportunity today.
When she was at the grocery store the local food bank hand a table
set up collection food. (Smart idea to put it outside a grocery
store...) They were giving away a free t-shirt with a donation too.

This particular store is known for it’s case lot sales. They had a
case of 24 macaroni and cheese for only $3.36 (That’s only 14¢ a
box!) So she bought 10 boxes to give to the food bank (I know, big
spender...)

When they had paid for the groceries, they stopped at the food bank
table. Son #4 insisted on throwing the boxes in food bin. He stood
up in the cart and started chucking them in. He must have looked
pretty cute, because a small crowd started to gather. The food bank
people took notice and came over. “Oh, look, how sweet. Here’s a
University of Utah hat for him.” Then they started taking pictures.
Son #4 loved all the attention. They ended up giving him hot
chocolate, cookies, and my sweet wife free movie passes. As she
started to leave, son #4 said, “Hey, I want my ‘fee’ shirt!” They
happily gave that to him to.

Wow, she got all that stuff, son #4’s picture plastered on some
advertisement somewhere, AND knocked out a new years resolution.
All for less than a buck fifty.

Hey, go out and do something nice for someone else. You might be
rewarded too!

Now we just have to figure out a way to un-spoil son #4...

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

=-=-=-
Reader Comment Section:

Your kids will need spelling lessons, too, so that they can
distinguish between "weather" and "whether."
~Chuck H.

Bloody smooches

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tuesday is Scout night. Son #1 and I went over tonight, and the
troop talked about a campout we’re having in a couple of weeks. We
talked about required merit badges, and other Scout stuff. Then we
ended up playing basketball in the gym. I decided it couldn’t hurt,
so I joined ‘em.

On a fast break, one of the kids tripped on another boy’s foot, and
fell head first, right into my lip. Ouch. I lay on the floor for a
couple of minutes, bleeding, not knowing weather I should get up or
not. I figured for dramatic effect, I ought to stay down. Everyone
came and looked and said, “wow, that’s a huge lip”. It is pretty
big. I’m not sure if I bit through it, or if it just feels that
way.

So, it was home and an ice pack for me. Son #4 was fascinated with
my fat lip. So just before bedtime I asked him if he wanted to kiss
me good night. “NO Daddy! It’s bleedy.”

Of course, I chased him around the house making kissing noises.

My kids are ~so~ going to need therapy when they grow older...

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

=-=-=-
Reader Comment Section:

None today

Stage Fright

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Monday, January 24, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our church has a lay ministry. Or, and unpaid clergy. So, most
people who attend are asked to volunteer time for one of the many
jobs available. For example, I teach the 12 and 13-year-old boys,
while my kids are taught in other classes. It works out pretty
well. There are other jobs too. My sweet wife is in charge of the
congregational music. She arranges for the different hymns to be
sung, and has a special musical number most weeks. I guess she felt
that if she were asking others to do sing and play the piano, that
our family ought to have a turn too. Now I’ve done enough singing
in front of others that it didn’t bother me, but my boys were not
happy. So we picked a simple song that everyone knew, and gave it a
shot. At the pulpit, there’s about a two and a half foot wall that
extends on either side. While we were up there singing, son #4 was
on our far right. About half way through the song, I saw some of
the congregation snickering. A couple of the teenage girls were even trying to stifle laughs. Later, I asked some of the parents
what happened. Son #4 had stood there looking around, not singing,
then caught the eye of someone in the congregation. They said he
very slowly sunk down below the wall, where no one could see him.
Then, a few seconds later, he slowly raised his head up to his
chin, looked around, then slowly lowered it again. He did it one
last time, but first he put his 8 little fingers on top of the wall
for about 15 seconds. Up, then down. Then it was over. At least for
another year or so...

Kind of reminds me when son #3 was his age. He did the eyebrow
dance in front of everyone.
( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/martysjotd/message/407 )

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

=-=-=-
Reader Comment Section:

None today

Little Boy kisses

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thursday, January 20, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The other day my sweet wife was goofing around with son #4. She was
giving him kisses all over his face.

He kept trying to stop her and said, “Mom! If you kiss me too much
you’re going to turn me into a girl!”

Where’d he get that one?

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

=-=-=-
Reader Comment Section:

Ahhhhhhh Marty.. I knew you made the President's Day remark
wrong..but I was just being kind and not mentioning it.. Give him a
break people.. the poor guy has a house full of boys..and a sweet
wife..and not a daughter one to keep him in line and tell him how
it is....(or is that what to do?) hahahaha
debi in ky

Emergency Call from home!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After our choir director died last year, some of the members wanted
to keep things going. So tonight we started up another choir with
members of the old group, and about a dozen members from the new
director’s group. We sounded pretty good, but our numbers are
pretty low. Anyway, my sweet wife and I talked it over, and since
she’s got a great voice, and the kids are ~just~ about old enough
not to burn the house down while we’re away, I took her along for
our first practice. We were still a bit apprehensive about leaving
them alone, but figured we should give it a shot anyway. But in the
middle of practice she stood up, put a finger in one ear, and the
cell phone in the other. I thought, uh oh... what’s going on. Did
someone beat someone else up? Did they actually start the house on
fire, or what? She walked out in the hall, and stayed for what
seemed forever. When she came back, I walked over to her and asked
what was wrong. She smiled and said, “Son #2 called and wanted to
let me know that he pulled 2 teeth out tonight.”

Oh, ok. I wanted to ask who punched him in the mouth to loosen
them, but I didn’t.

The rest of the night was uneventful. Some good talent, but it’ll
take some time to get used to a different director.

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

P.s. Check out another sheet of uncut dollars bill I’ve got on ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3952777211

=-=-=-
Reader Comment Section:

This week was Martin Luther King's birthday, not President's Day.
PD comes in February, around the 20 somethingth. That's because a
lot of the President's birthdays are in February. (Gives a little
boost to astrology).
Love, Mom
P.S. Got an e-mail from Uncle Frank today. The monkey-leopard
joke was his all time favorite.

Uh ... MLK Day? Either that, or you guys in Utah have a different
calendar than we do in Oregon.
~Jerry the Geek

President's Day... Martin Luther King Day... What's the difference,
eh? Just go to Canada and don't worry about celebrating either....
(grin)
~Our Missing Jr. Jokester, Justin

Marty, Never missing a opportunity to correct you and your errors,
Monday January 17 was Martin Luther King Jr. or Human Rights
day. For your Information Presidents day isn't until February.
You really need to start looking at a calendar more often, or stop
sending out the JOTD so late at night. Take Care,
~Doug L.

[11 o’clock isn’t that late? Is it?]

Oh man.....bet you get a lot of emails about your saying it was
President's Day instead of MLK Day Monday. I feel sorry for you!
~Justin's Fave Sister in AZ

[Naw, don’t. Less than 2 tenths of one percent of you mentioned it.
Oh well, at least I know I’ve got 5 readers out there. Of course
those replies were from my mom, a geek from Oregon, an old buddy
from work, and 2 are kids of my neighbor LaMonte the fireman; You
have to ask yourself, how many of those really count (big grin!)]

Pick a card, any card!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Son #4, and his 1-year-old-than-he-is cousin haven’t always gotten
along together. They used to fight like cats and dogs. They fought
mostly over toy cars and trucks, which resulted in a lot of pushing
and shoving. But, it seems they’ve outgrown their differences. The
other day when my sweet wife took son #4 over to his cousins to
play, they played for hours and hours with no problems. Then, when
my sweet wife went to pick him up, son #4’s cousin said, “No! He
can’t go” and slammed the door shut on my sweet wife.


Yesterday because it was president’s day, all of the kids had the
day off. They ended up back over at their cousin’s house. This
time, when my sweet wife walked into the room, she saw son #4
waving his arms wildly saying, “Abracadabra!” really loud. She
asked him what he was doing. He said, “If I do magic, you won’t be
able to see me, and I won’t have to go home!”

Yeah, that always works.

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

Quick, Call the Fire Dept!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Monday, January 17, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In my new position as tech support with the hospital conglomerate,
I support three health facilities about 100 miles away in central
Utah. In that area, there are a lot of really really small towns,
and several large turkey farms. This area of Utah supplies a good
percentage of the turkeys for the entire United States. In one
small town I drive through called Mornoi, there’s this huge Norbest
turkey processing plant, and at the front they have an itty bitty
little store where you can buy anything turkey, for cheap. (On one
trip I even got fresh turkey breast deli meat for 75¢ a pound!)

On Sunday night we usually cook something nice for the family. This
Sunday we decided to have a nice turkey roast. But when I pulled
the turkey out of the oven, I noticed that we had spilled a bunch
of stuff in the oven the previous time we cooked. So I decided to
flip the oven in to self-clean mode. We sat down for dinner, had
our prayer, and started eating a nice Sunday dinner. Then the oven
started smoking. Not just a little smoke, but bad-stinky-make-your-
eyes-water type smoke. So we all moved to the living room to eat.
It got pretty thick, so I decided to open run into the kitchen,
open an outside door, and set out a big fan to blow the smoke out.
I just knew someone would call the fire department.

Not 5 minutes later, Justin’s dad, our neighbor called.

I said, “Oh, Hi LaMonte. I know why you’re calling, and no, our
house isn’t on fire.”

Silence...

“We’re just cleaning the oven, and it’s a little smoky.”

He replied, “Oh, yeah, Um, that’s right. Yeah, I was being a good
neighbor and calling asking about all the smoke.”

And without missing a beat he said, “Oh, and while I have you, I
need to get some information about your pinewood derby cars you
guys are making...”

Hmm... yeah, right LaMonte, I’m glad it was just a smoky oven this
time! (Grin)...

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

Smile!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thursday, January 13, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I gotta take a picture of son #3 tomorrow.” My sweet wife said.
The other day I told you he lost a tooth. We’ll since before
Christmas, he’s been missing his front two, upper teeth. And just
the other day, he lost yet another lower tooth. He has his two
middle lower teeth, but is missing the ones right next to those.
With his upper ones still missing, he looks pretty funny. My sweet
wife said an adult tooth is just breaking through, so she’d better
hurry with the camera.

Smile!

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

=-=-=-
Reader Comment Section:

[about me missing a few issues]

Well It is about time # 1 Mom got on you for slacking off! Can't argue with mom and could not win if you tried! Have a good day!
~Don W.

Hi, Marty! I heard a tip before Christmas that might help you out
next year with Son #4, and the rest of the gang, too. This lady
suggested using small candy canes on the tree and leaving them on
all through the season. Then when it's time to put the tree away,
the kids get to help undecorate, and get to keep the candy canes.
That way, it lessens the separation anxiety!
~Linda B.

[This would only work if no one stole the candy canes off of the
tree!]

But Darling, A logger in 2004 sells a truckload of lumber for
$5000, and Donald Trump wants him as his executive advisor. How
much time did it take the logger to say yes? Thanks, these are
great!
~Brenda M.

Hey, are you busy a week from Saturday?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve been in the Boy Scouts doing one thing or another for over 25
years. The other night, I had one of the ‘higher ups’ call me up
and say, “We’re just checking our records, and wonder if you’ve
been trained as a Scout leader.” I told him I didn’t remember, but
more than likely I had been. He asked when, and I said, “I don’t
remember exactly. A few years ago I guess.” That wasn’t the right
answer. He said, “Well, they’re requiring leaders to be trained
ever two years now.” He gave me the information on when and where
the meeting was. I thanked him and was about to hang up. Then he
said, “Oh, by the way, we’d like you to present part of the
material during the training. I’ll be over Wednesday to bring you
all of the information for your presentation.”

I wonder how he knew I was thinking of things to do a week from
Saturday? Well, I guess that’s one way to make sure your audience
will be there...

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

p.s. My #1 mom came over to dinner tonight. “Hey, what’s up with
the JOTD?” I said, “Nothing, why?” She said, “Well, you haven’t
been doing a lot of issues lately.” I defended myself saying, “I
did skip a few around Christmas, but I did my normal 4 issues last
week.” Then I remembered that I, yes even the owner of this list,
got a “your email bounced” notice from YahooGroups a few weeks ago.
It didn’t affect how I send the emails, but I wasn’t getting them
in my mailbox. YahooGroups will kick you off the list so fast it
will make your head spin. So, if you do get bumped off for any
reason, and you want back on, just send a blank email to
martysjotd-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Yahoo will send you a
confirmation email that you just hit reply and send, and you should
be back up and running.

Good luck!

=-=-=-
Reader Comment Section:

Marty.. a friend of mine at Church has a little fella about #4's
age.. and he does the same thing about the Christmas decorations.
He gets so upset, she has to wait til he's not looking and take
down a little at a time or he goes hysterical on them. They
actually keep a small Christmas tree up in his room all year round.
Go figure!!
~debi~

Santa's gunna be mad!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My sweet wife decided it was time to put away Christmas today.
After she took some stuff off of the tree, and started putting away
the stockings (by the way, thanks Bro-in-law’s-Mom-in-law, these
are the BEST!) son #4 started screaming. He had a pretty wild
tantrum, and was NOT happy. He kept trying to pull the stuff out of
the box and put it back up. Finally he said indignantly, “Santa
Claus is going to be mad and not bring YOU any presents on
Christmas!”

Hmm... I guess we all keep Christmas in our own way, ‘eh?

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

Teeth and Money

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thursday, January 06, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sometimes the tooth fairy is pretty sneaky! Just the other morning,
son #3 woke up and said, “Mom, the tooth fairy forgot to take my
tooth and leave me any money!” He was a little bummed, and hung his
head low as he went into the bathroom.

But than an amazing thing happened. After he was done, he ran back
to check just one more time. And this time there was money under
his pillow! (The tooth fairy is so good...) He ran into the
kitchen and told my sweet wife that the tooth fair ~did~ leave some
money, but that she forgot to take his tooth.

So last night he put his tooth under his pillow again, hoping to
‘trick’ the tooth fairy into leaving more money.

The tooth fairy caught on pretty quick.

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

p.s.
Where did the Tooth Fairy come from? Here’s a short article on it.
http://www.nzgirl.co.nz/articles/1726

Chu-chu

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sometimes it’s not the present that Santa brought your kid that you
thought he would like the best. Sometimes it’s one of the other
ones. In this case, son #4 got a wooden track train set. It wasn’t
his ‘best’ present, but it did the trick. It’s pretty large, and
has tons of pieces, and he’s been playing it non-stop for the last
2 weeks.

Now, he’s being insistent that everyone plays his train with him.
Since the boys went back to school, my sweet wife says that’s all
son #4 asks for all day, “mom, come play train with me.”

So, last year it was a kitchen, and this year it’s trains. I guess
there’s enough testosterone in this house to get him on..... track.
(That WAS pretty punny...)

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

Dancing Movies

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tonight we watched one of the stupidest movies I’ve seen in a long
time. Ok, it was better than dumb and dumber, but not by much. We
borrowed Napoleon Dynamite from a neighbor who actually bought the
DVD. He warned me, “my kids loved it, but it was pretty bad”. It’s
a PG rated movie, leaning towards a G, but the plot was just a
little weird. You have to be in the right mood I guess. However,
17,000+ people give it a B+ average rating on yahoo, but I don’t
think I’d go that high. You can see the yahoo ratings and reviews
of it here. http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&cf=info&id=1808529347

Anyway, near the end of the movie, there’s a scene of the main
character dancing at a high school assembly, and he does a pretty
good job. I guess son #4 liked it a lot, because when the credits
rolled, and they played music at the end, son #4 got up and did a
boogie dance for the family. We kept egging him on, so he kept
dancing. When the music stopped, he flopped down and said, “I’m
tired!”

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

=-=-=-
Reader Comment Section:

I had the same thing happen when my wife gave me my phone. I
thought it was something my son was playing on the computer.
~Steve W.

OH MY GOSH.......I was reading this just now and kept hearing a
beep. I thought maybe somehow you had embedded the beep into the
email but then I realized my speakers weren't on...it was my own
cell phone whose battery was about to die! Boy, do I feel dumb :)
Keep up the good work! Reading about your boys makes me feel
better about my 5!
~Jen R.

[Ok, so I’m not crazy... (for having 4 boys...)]

Marty, I MISSED YOU!!!
you're the greatest baby! (the honeymooners) that was a good show.
To the moon, Alice! to the moon!
~Jill M.

[One of these days Alice... one of these days...]

Hey, what's that sound? Everybody look...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Monday, January 03, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy New Year!

Boy, once you get out of the habit of writing the JOTD, it’s hard
to get back in. But, we’ll give ‘er a shot.

We had a great Christmas, and a happy New Year. All of the boys,
(even son #4) stayed up until Mid-night (even our time zone) to say
happy New Year. Cousin #2 stayed over, and the boys had a great
time. We were all a little crabby the next day, but not too bad.

If you remember, I started a new job with the same company about a
month ago. Well, the other day I was sitting in my office and heard
a ‘beep’ go off. I didn’t think much of it, until after about 20
minutes I finally figured out that the beeping came exactly every 2
minutes. Now, I’m in a medical facility with all sorts of Doctors
and machines stuffed all over the place. And just above my office,
on the 1st floor, is a huge CT or CAT scan machine. With all fo the
medical and computer equipment and servers around, and being the
new guy, I thought I’d better investigate. So for about the next
hour, I watched my watch, ran back to the back of my office, stuck
my head in various places and waited for the beep to go off. I
couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was making the noise. I
checked all of the PCs, the server room, the battery backups, and
all of the medical equipment I could think of. Every time I thought
I was getting close, the beep seemed to move somewhere else. It was
driving me nuts!

Finally I gave up on it and figured I’d have to live with it
awhile. As the day progressed, I needed to use the facilities. (So,
is that how do you say, “I had to go to the bathroom” nice?) I went
down the hall, turned the corner, and down another hall. It’s
actually quite a distance from my office. Now, can you imagine my
embarrassment, as I’m standing there, minding my own business, when
I hear “beep” again...

It was my cell phone, telling me my sweet wife had called almost 2
hours earlier...

C’mon, I’ve only had the phone a couple of weeks!

Enjoy today’s Jokes!
Marty

=-=-=-
Reader Comment Section:

May you and your family have a wonderful, blessed Merry
Christmas. I enjoy your list so much. Thanks for all the ideals you
uphold.

".. and a child shall lead them." Doesn't it make you good to know
some of what you're trying to teach your kids is sinking in? RE:
Son #3 dressing for Jesus' birth. I really get a kick out of puns,
so really enjoyed joke 3. Happy New Year.
~Linda B