Calming Influence

There are many things that fall into the role of father, but not a lot of those occur during the pregnancy. In fact, I'm now pretty sure that my only job is to make sure that Mama isn't pissed off.

Well, in church two weeks ago, Steven went into his semi-daily ritual of kicking the living hell out of Bonnie. (On a side note, how she hasn't had a rib broken yet is somewhat amazing and I'm somewhat disappointed that the youngster has not come through on that one…there's still seven weeks, so anything's possible). His kicks were pretty violent, so violent that you could send them bouncing through her dress.

At this point, I decided it was time for Dad to come to the rescue – placing my hand on Bonnie's belly and VOILA! The kicking stopped.

We have now determined that I have a calming influence on the lil Stevie. I can only hope that stays the same over the next 40 years (that would mean I would be 70, which would be a major upset) as a calming factor in his life.

Seven weeks til his arrival…I guess it only gets more interesting from here.

Catching Up...

While the drama that unfolded at the world-famous Island Hole remains our top story, it's time to get you caught up on some of the other stories we're following at the moment.

So, let's start with my funniest moment of the pregnancy.



As you can see, we have taken pictures of Bonnie periodically throught the nine months. Usually the first one is just a normal portrait picture - head to toe. Then the second one is usually from the side, giving us an idea of how her belly has grown.

Well, she's grown. This was the first one we had taken in a while and I had been out of town for two straight weeks when we took it. Upon taking the picture and looking at the viewer, the first word out of my mouth was "damn."

Bonnie isn't happy with Joel at this moment.

Bonnie doesn't hide her emotions or her thoughts and that picture gives you a good idea of how pissed she was. That was until she took a look at it. In a brilliant stroke of irony, the first word out of her mouth when looking at the picture was "damn."

Good times. Good times.

Building Stuff for Steven

To say that I'm not the most mechnical person on the face of the Earth is a tad bid of exaggeration, but not by much. I'm not to proud to admit that there are some things that I can't do.

So when Steven's diaper changing station that Bonnie registered for came in, let's just say I was embracing the challenge and preparing myself for parenthood, which means putting stuff together that you purchase for your kids all the time.

When I came home this week and was greeted by this huge box at the door, I knew we were in trouble.

Why? Because 99.9% of the time, the FedEx/UPS/Postal Service guy never leaves the package at the door. They will either take it to the office at the apartment complex or leave a note for us to come to their center to pick it up.

Not this time. The reason - the box weight 100 pounds! This isn't me exaggerating. It weighed so much that there was no way that I was going to lift it, so it took like 10 minutes to walk it into Steven's room.

Which leads us to today. With a rare weekend with no major events on campus, Bonnie and I decided today was the day that we were going to tackle the project.

Starting at 2:45, the next four hours were filled with trials, tribulations, desperation, fear, angst, love, hatred and most importantly, determination.

Putting the changing station together, or the Poop Shack as I call it, was going to be a 24-step process according to the instructions - which we were going to follow by the letter according to my dear wife.

I did more screwing today than I have in my whole life. It was such a well-manufactured piece of furniture that each screw fit snuggly into the wood, which meant I got more of a workout than I ever imagined I would.

There weren't many problems early. We were moving along quite well until we started attaching pieces together. Our first and really only complication came as one of the screws that is a double-ended screw would not go into its home because the receptor was not in the proper position as its hole in the wood was cut to deep.

Our problem was getting the receptor out, while not warping the cabinet, which was now in the latter phases having attached the drawers to the little cabinet (which I've got feeling will have some of Steven's father brown water at some point).

We tried getting it out with a screwdriver - which was quickly deemed not the answer. We went to the pliers as that seemed to be the answer. We made some progress, getting the receptor back out to the edge of the hole but not fully out.

At this point, we tried a safety pin to get it just outside of the hole. That attempt was quickly thwarted as the pin was twisted and didn't accomplish a bit of good.

We then went to the tweezers to see if it could slip in there, but that was to no avail. After somewhere between 15 to 20 minutes later, I was able to get the receptor out and move on to finishing our project.

Around 6:30, the drawers were installed, the door was attached and Steven's Poop Shack was officially completed.

Despite being exhausted, Bonnie wanted me to pose with the Poop Shack after successfully putting it together.

This guy is not a happy camper.

As I'm writing this, I'm beat. I'm sore and I know that tomorrow is going to be rough getting out of bed to go to church.

To close, Bonnie and I want to thank Mom and Mimi for the Poop Shack. It is absolutely fabulous and is perfect. Thanks again!

BREAKING NEWS: Joel Conquers The Island Hole at the TPC

For everyone, there are moments that define your life.

On Monday, one of those came in my golf game at the TPC at Sawgrass on the world-famous Island Hole - No. 17.

The first player to boldly take the tee in front of a small crowd of about 10 people on the tee had knocked it stiff, putting it to within in 5 feet.

Now, this was no normal hole location. The hole locations on #16, 17 and 18 were all in the Sunday locations.

So, coming off of a disastrous quadruple-bogey on the 16th, I took the tee box with several friends around the tee - putting me in the eye of the storm on the hardest par-3 in the world of golf.

With that as the background, enjoy the drama unfold as our forecaddie Andy tapes the action.

Feb. 26 Briefing

Today's update is about the world of Facebook.

It's the newest drug. It's worse than cocain, crystal meth and marijuana combined into one big super drug.

People are on this thing all day. I created an account last night and spent three hours looking for people that I think I remember from a disastrously hazy part of my life (college).

Once I got through that, I ran through all the people from D-rock. Geez, it was like walking down a bizzaro memory lane because everyone was older. Everybody has their own kids now, starting their own families.

It's a great tool because you can catch up with old friends you haven't talked to years. I chatted with Addy Smoke this morning and I haven't seen her this decade I think - and this was somebody I saw every day for at least 12 years of my life!

I find it wierd that you can lose touch with people that you have been friends with all your life. Lord knows I'm the worst at keeping in touch, just ask my mother.

The one thing that life teaches you is that it's not the places that are special - Decatur, Jacksonville, Troy - it's the people that makes those places special.

My graduating class from Decatur was made up of the some of the finest people I know and as close as we were, I just fell out of the loop as I started my career and focusing towards meeting my goals.

As for the good people from JSU, that has been fun seeing what they are doing now and catching up with some very good friends that I made during the half-decade I was there. Surviving life in Jacksonville makes it where you can be successful once you leave school - because you learn a lot more outside the classroom than you do in it.

Thank you Crackbook!

Hello Stevie!

We welcome little Stevie to the website with his first picture...

Healed

After going through a box of Kleenex, a pack of Benadryl cold and sinus, and a pack of Halls cough drops, I believe that I'm finally over my sinus problems.

What was the problem? Rhino-citis. Take a sinus infection, make it worse, and bingo! You have rhinocitis.

Now, just chilling in the Courtyard in Macon, Ga., living the highU life of being on the road.

I believe the nesting period has begun at our house as we have cleaned out our extra bedroom for lil' Stevie's impending arrival. That means a lot of stuff has been moved into our bedroom, which means I have to clean my area up.

Until next time...

Please shoot me

As I close in on my 10th day of a sinus infection, I have awakened from Benadryl-induced coma long enough to make this post.

First, if somebody could make a vacuum that sucked all of the crap out of your sinuses, I would pay just about any amount of money for it. I've been blowing crap out of nose for at least three days and it shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Second, why haven't they created a medicine that just clears your sinus cavity? Seriously. With all the advances in modern medicine, we can't get something like this.

For whenever you are sick and wanting to find a way to go to sleep, I suggest checking out the Universal HD channel in the afternoon. Yesterday they ran a marathon of Hogan's Heroes and that put me into a deep enough sleep until Bonnie came home and we ate dinner.

To make matters worse, I've got a 48-hour deadline to get better. I go on the road to Macon on Friday morning and the LAST thing I want to do is get on that bus for five hours with the speakers turned up to a near deafening level while we watch some gosh-awful movie.

BTW, I voted for my nephew today and see that he's garnering a large vote total. I look forward to voting again tomorrow.

Little Jack is growing quite nicely I see in the pictures that his mother posts on the website. Here's the $64,000 question...what will he call Donna?

My bet is for Grandma Donna...and I've got a sneaky feeling that lil Stevie will be doing the same.

Enough for tonight...it's time to re-up my meds and retreat to the couch.