Telemarketers

We have all seen their numbers show up on our caller ID only to be followed by a "UGH" and a roll of our eyes. We hesitantly pick up the phone and have to say hello like 20 times before the goofwad on the other side finally says, "Hello, Mr. So-And-So." This is where it all goes wrong. Those few seconds of quiet on the other end when I am saying, "Hello....He-LLO.......HELLO" is when my blood begins to boil. I mean come on, if you are going to call my house at least have the decency to be ready when I answer the phone. GOOD GRIEF.

It's like when you go to a fast food restaurant and you pull up to the drive-thru and your in a good mood. Ya know, those times when you are about to get your favorite burger and fries and you can already taste it. (Teale's mouth is most likely watering over a Big Mac right now.) Anyway, you pull up and a voice comes through the menu sign thing saying, "May I take your order please?" NEVER take the person on the other side of this menu sign thing seriously when they ask you this the first time. It never fails that I go through my whole spill with special orders and everything............and THEN there is the dreaded moment of silence when you start to wonder if this menu sign thing has just hung up on you. Have no fear, it did not. Soon you will hear the voice again. It may or may not be the same voice you heard before, but it is a voice nonetheless, and they say, "Can you please repeat that?" Are you SERIOUS? Your once happy demeanor turns sour and you would WATERBOY that menu sign thing if you weren't so stinking hungry.

I digress. Back to the subject at hand. Last week our lovely home received a call from one of these ever so friendly telemarketers. Teale and I are sitting on the couch watching t.v. and minding our own business when the phone rang. If you are wondering where Harper was, well she was already in bed! Want to know why she was in bed? IT WAS 9PM. GRRRRRRRR. So we are watching t.v. when the phone rings and our caller ID pops up on the television. I look at Teale and say, "You've got to be kidding me!?!?!" The conversation with the aforementioned Goofwad went something like the following. Mind you, my blood was already a steady gazillion degrees when I answered the phone. I will be known as CCC (Calm & Collected Chad) and Goofwad will be known as (GW) below.

CCC: Hello?
CCC: HELLO?
GW: Hello, is this Mr. CCC?
CCC: YES!!!!!
Teale: (In a quiet, whispering yet stern voice) Chad, CHAD....shhhhh, Harper's in bed. (This let me know I needed to take this conversation to another room.)
GW: (While I'm walking to another room) Mr. CCC, my name is Mr. GW and I am with Dingbat Inc. I'm calling to let you know that we are in your area this week running specials for carpet cleaning, washing.....
CCC: (Finally, I make it to our bedroom and shut the door and stop GW mid-sentence) SIR, DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?
GW: It is 3 minutes till 9. (He was very aware of this, so apparently they have until 9 to call you....BEWARE)
CCC: WHY IN HEAVENS ARE YOU CALLING ME SO LATE? I HAVE A CHILD IN THE BED FOR PETE'S SAKE?
GW: I had no way of knowing that, sir.
CCC: COMMON SENSE SHOULD TELL YOU NOT TO CALL ME SO LATE IF YOU DON'T KNOW ME. THIS IS AN UNREASONABLE HOUR TO TRY AND MAKE YOUR SALES PITCH. DON'T EVER CALL THIS HOUSE AGAIN. ::::Click:::: (I hung up without waiting for a response, which I now regret. I should have waited to hear his excuse.)

In reality, I know he was just doing his job. I know the company he works for is who had him make that call, but it is absolutely ridiculous to be receiving telemarketing calls so late in the evening. Maybe, just maybe, they won't call back. :) Doubtful though.

OH and I have been known to give the phone to Harper when one of these folks call as well. And if any of you who read this blog are telemarketers, please don't take offense to it. Just don't call my house and we can live happily ever after. :)

Father's Day Blunder

So yesterday was my first father's day with child in the house, and in all honesty I had forgotten until we got to church. It's tough to remember these things on a Sunday morning when you are frantically trying to get ready and get to church, which I might add we were actually on time for for once. :) We get there and I go to my class and Teale goes with Harper to hers. All is normal. Then after class.....you know, the time between class and service when I should have been introducing myself to visitors and the such.......I go and sit in my assigned seat on my assigned pew and soon after Teale and Harper come out. Harper's kind of mellow at this point and her daddy decides he wants to see her laugh, so to old faithful he goes........throwing her up in the air. This NEVER fails. She will always squeal with delite. This time was no different than any other time UNTIL.......until I threw her up one time and caught her a little too close to daddy's face. My mouth was wide open in laughter and as I brought her down my tooth met her forehead. As you can imagine the D.R.E.A.D.E.D. silent cry started (this is when you know true pain has been inflicted). Soon after came the scream and the evil eye from mommy. Ok, so it wasn't an evil eye, but at this point I pretty much feel like the worst da-da-da-da-da-da-da ever and I'm a little over sensitive and embarassed, so give me a break ok?!? As you could expect she reached for mommy and mommy was able to make the tears disappear in like 2.2 seconds. I think I'm gonna call Guiness.......has to be a record. Don't worry though, there's no longer a tooth mark on her head and I have finally convinced myself that she doesn't have a concussion, nor does she have permanent brain damage as a result. Is there a worse feeling than knowing you have just inflicted pain upon your child......not in the form of discipline? Anywho, I'm sure we will chalk it up to bad luck and be flying through the air by the end of today. :)

On a separate note, I want to say thank you to Teale and Harper for a wonderful Father's Day. They purchased a running trainer for me for Father's Day. I have been working with him on increasing my speed for about a month now and I'm starting to see results. They also gave me a box of Sour Patch Kids.....YUM.....and a bag of Starburst Jelly Beans........DOUBLE YUM. It was a great day. Words are not sufficient to express the blessings that God had bestowed upon me.

CBS Canceled 'The Unit', Voice Your Displeasure

I received several comments both on this blog and personally regarding their displeasure with CBS canceling 'The Unit'. The last comment I received on this blog mentioned a way to contact CBS to voice your unhappiness. I decided this was post-worthy and thought all of you guys might like to have this information as well. It is nothing more than a link to CBS that allows you to give a short statement of your displeasure. I know it probably won't mean a hill of beans to this station, but if nothing else it gave me an outlet to vent my frustrations.

The gist of my statement to them went something like this:
I want to take just a moment of your time to voice my displeasure with the fact that CBS has canceled 'The Unit'. This is one of the only shows on television that my wife and I actually sat down and watched the night it came on TV. We just simply could not wait for the next episode. The characters became very real to us and the show portrayed real world problems that face our brave soldiers. To drop a show that averages 9 million viewers on a Sunday night at a 9pm time slight must be beyond my comprehension. Many of those Sunday nights it started even later (around 10pm or so) due to the Sunday Night Football Game. I can't imagine you have anything else (other than football of course) that can come even remotely close this many viewers on this night and at that time slot. It is my personal opinion that given a better night (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or even Friday), it would see ratings get an even larger boost. I know I am only speaking for two individuals here, but I thought someone at CBS should know of the disappointment that my household (as well as many others I assume) have with your station. We now choose not to watch local CBS affiliate because of our disappointment. I know we are only a drop in the barrel, but please realize you have now lost two viewers.

If you would like to contact CBS to voice your opinion, click the following link http://www.cbs.com/info/user_services/fb_global_form.php, choose 'The Unit' as the show, enter your name and email address, and then write a short statement of disappointment. Also, if you don't mind, leave a comment here. I would like to personally know how many of you contacted CBS to help us try to save 'The Unit'. Now get out there and be a radical for once.

Vote.....Vote......Vote II

Hip Hip Hooray! Harper won her first round in the Babies Gone Wild "cutest baby" contest. She is now in the semi-final round. Voting is currently taking place and will conclude Sunday evening at 6pm CST. Because she is now competing against lots of other babies who also won their first round gallery, we NEED your vote(s). Yes we have figured out how to vote multiple times, as long as you have multiple email addresses. Click here to go to Teale's blog to see how to vote. Whether you live in the Birmingham area, or wheter you live 3000 miles away from us, you can still vote. Teale and I appreciate all of your votes. It will be so exciting to see her on the cover of Alabama Baby magazine if we can pull this off. As of right now, we are WAY WAY WAY behind.

Here is a thought, if you have nothing better to blog about today, you could blog and send all of your readers to Teale's blog at chadtealeandbaby.blogspot.com to show them how to vote. You don't have to, but I'm just sayin.....

Proud Daddy...................check

Competitive Daddy.........check

Look at this picture and tell me, "Is there any doubt that my little MoJo should win?" :)

'The Unit' Canceled

I had to take just a moment to voice my displeasure over the fact that CBS has canceled one of my all time favorite shows, 'The Unit'. If you have never watched this show, you need to run out and buy season one and get started. Better yet, if you have Netflix, order a season at a time and sit back and enjoy. If you enjoy shows like '24', you will LOVE this. I know this post was short, but I just had to let the world know that I was very upset that CBS has canceled this show. CBS better be happy they are the SEC network and show the SEC game of the week during football season or I would have a good mind to never watch them again......well at least until another show I liked came on. :) It is my hope that another network will pick this show up and give it a better time slot than the 9pm Sunday night time slot it had. :Fingers Crossed:

Vote.....Vote......Vote

We have entered Harper into a "cutest baby" contest that a local radio station is hosting. She has to win this round to get to the next round, but whoever wins overall gets their photo on the cover of Alabama Baby Magazine. How cool would that be? What we need is your vote. If you don't live where we live, that's fine. Vote anyway. Spread the word and tell everyone you know to vote. :) If she wins this round, I'm sure you will see another post like this one in the near future. If you visit Teale's blog, she has made it SUPER EASY for you to vote. It may take 1 minute of your time.....max. Don't forget to click on the link they send to your email box to confirm your email address. If you don't, your vote won't count. Click here to go to Teale's post and vote away.

Whazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzuppppppppppppp

I know you all remember the old commercials where everyone yelled "Whazzzzzzzzzuppppppppp?" to everyone else. On the phone, at a friends house, talking to your mom, whatever. Yes it was a commercial for an alcoholic beverage, but it was funny. Well I have walked around for a while now saying that to MoJo. I don't know why I do it......well yes I do......I did it one day and she smiled so I have done it ever since. On a side note, isn't it amazing what we will do just to get a 1/2 second smile out of a child? I always look at Teale and say, "Ya know, we didn't use to be this goofy." Now we make all kinds of sounds and faces that I didn't even know were possible....just to see our daughter smile. I've never played peek-a-boo so much in all my life. Anyway, I guess me saying Whazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzupppppppppppppppp has caught on. Like father, like daughter. Just sayin.

I guess it could also be her best Michael Jordan impression.