I thought I was doing good in my picks last week so it was with a not so humble heart that I sat in front of my computer writing out the names of the four people from American Idol that I knew were going home this week. Well, I have been humbled.
For a recap this week we say goodbye to...
Jason Yeager
Alexandréa Lushington
Alaina Whitaker
Robbie Carrico
So I do believe that I will be a little more careful in my picks of who I think is hitting the read each week. I like being right. I hate being wrong. This week I was sooo wrong. Next week? We'll see.
Until then here's hoping that the contestants get some rest, get some practice and start sabotaging David Archuleta because that guy is going to be running away with it.
As I sit here getting ready to see how right I am in the American Idol vote-offs I am reminded more and more of how much I am not liking my blog layout anymore. It is still pretty (thanks to the folks at JustSkins.com for putting this theme, Webby Blue, out). But I think it has outlived its use.
After some Googling (because really, who uses Yahoo! anymore?) I came across a few designs that I think I may try to mimic.
I think this will be the last time that I blog about American Idol as it plays out. I like it, but it just takes too long and is almost impossible to do with five kids in the house. To that end, enjoy this last of my running evaluations about American Idol.
Carly Smithson - Not good at all. She sounded like she wanted to scream the words not sing the song. As bad as the boys did yesterday none of them did as bad as Carly did tonight.
Syesha Mercado - She has a smooth voice but this song did not seem to be the right for her. She can sing as good as any girl on the show but this performance did not at all unleash the performer in her. She sang it. That's all.
Brooke White - Not a bad performance. Even with the guitar she sang very well. Not entirely an original performance but it was still very well sang and very well performed.
Ramiele Mulabay - I think she did a pretty good job with this song. She sang it well. She didn't perform it like it was hers, but she did sing it well and in a singing competition that can go far. I think she'll be safe but this performance will be forgotten by tomorrow.
Kristy Lee Cook - Not my favorite performance, though it was a very well sang song. I am still wondering when someone is going to do like David Archuleta did last night and take ownership of the song they are singing. Great vocal but lacked a lot of spirit.
Amanda Overmeyer - This girl can rock, but tonight it seemed like her performance was a little scattered. She can sing, she can perform, but tonight it didn't seem to come together for me. It was rockin', but not as well as I could expect.
Alaina Whitaker - Entirely too plain of a performance. She didn't sing it very well, she didn't perform it very well and she didn't do anything special with the song. It was an easily forgettable night for her and, if she makes it to next week, she should count her lucky stars.
Alexandréa Lushington - Yeah, I don't think so. Not sure what that was all about but it is not really the level of performance that wins this competition.
Kady Malloy - Wrong song, wrong night. I thought she was bad last week. This week I think it is her last week.
Asia'h Epperson - Wow, did those shrill shrieks really come out of her like that? That was the most awful performance of the entire competition so far, including Hollywood week. Goodnight Asia'h. I think this is the end of the line for you.
Well given the way tonight went, I think I can select my front runner. Much like Melinda Doolittle last year, David Archuleta is the singer to beat this year. Girls going home this week are...
So I decided to follow American Idol as it was unfolding. I saved my comments and thought I would post them instead of the more brief recap that I normally post.
Michael Johns - Not my favorite performance of his. In fact I think this is the worst one his performances yet. It was pitchy, forced and sounded like he was struggling through the entire song. Maybe a better, more rockish type song would have helped him out this week?
Jason Castro - Probably one of his better performances. I like his use of the guitar and how he takes control of the songs vocally. My only problem with the guitar is that American Idol is a singing competition not a music competition. So while he can strum a mean guitar I a still left wit a desire to hear him sing. And I still think he needs to let loose a little bit. It was way too safe a performance.
Luke Menard - Yeah right. Nobody can do Freddie Mercury. It just doesn't happen. I didn't like this dude last week and I don't like him this week. It was cheesy, silly and not very good. We'll see if he'll be around to screw up next week.
Robbie Carrico - Not bad Robbie. Not bad at all. I think the song fit his style and his performance appeared almost professional. I think he cut loose a little bit and I think it may score him some points. His voice is not as rough as a traditional rocker (Jim Morrison, Eddie Vedder, Jimmy Page) but he did a good job in my opinion.
Danny Noriega - Why am I reminded of a Season 2 Clay Aiken impersonation? This kid has to go. He is not singing, he is replicating an original song. Ok, we get it. You have a silky soft voice. No matter how much you try to make love to the camera (or that microphone - that's right, you heard me) you are not American Idol top 3 stock. In fact I would almost put money on you not making it to the top 12.
David Hernandez - Man, that was disappointing. He tried to make it his, but screaming once in the middle of the song and changing the ending didn't help his cause. I liked his Hollywood performance way better than this. He made the song his, but not in a good way, in my opinion.
Jason Yeager - Dude, when is someone going to make the song their own and perform it? I don't anyone wants to see someone sing someone else's song. Adding a little something to the end or throwing a loud vocal somewhere in the middle is not going to do it. This performance was la-di-frickin-da.
Chikezie - From a performance perspective this was my favorite of the night so far. This was a personal performance (at Simon maybe?) and he sang the heck out of it. Way to go Chikezie. I think you sold yourself into next week with this one.
David Cook - Come on dude. Ditch the guitar, let the players play and the singer sing. You're voice sounded bad even over the loudness of the guitar. I don't know. Is this your last week here? Perhaps with a little stronger vocal this week you could have wrapped up a complete performance.
David Archuleta - At first I thought that he chose the wrong song. Then when you hear him sing it his way you realize he hit it out of the park. I was wowed by this performance. It was top class from start to finish. Is this our next American Idol.
Overall I think my two favorites this week were David Archuleta and Chikezie. The two I think are going home: Danny Noriega and Luke Menard?
This afternoon, at about 2:15, my family and I got back home from the hospital.
Just the sound of that takes me back to each of the five times my wife and I came home after delivering a new baby. The process was very similar except for the part where the social worker came in to make sure my wife and I are not unfit parents. Oh yeah, and the part where the hospital was so eager to get rid of my litter that they actually walked my son down (actually walked next to my wife as my she walked with my son) instead of wheeling him down in a wheelchair. Mmm, and the part where they fed a two year old the same food they would be server a 38 year old prison inmate.
But for the most part everything went swimmingly.
Of course, the entire ordeal wore my entire family out. After we got home we ate lunch then almost immediately sent everyone to bed. And just about everyone needed the rest.
I was tired from a limited amount of sleep last night. My kids were tired of dealing with a cranky father. My son was tired of being poked and prodded. And my wife was just sick and tired of being sick and tired.
The good news from all of this is that we have learned a valuable lesson as a family. If you want to spend the night in the hospital, get a really cool buttless gown, watch all the coolest TV shows on your very own personal, hanging from the ceiling TV, then leave the kitchen unlocked, move a chair over to the counter, stand up on it and try to ingest as many over the count and prescription medications as possible.
Though personally I would rather spend the night playing the Wii and wooping my kids' butts at some bowling or tennis.
The call was frantic, the tone, fearful. It was about 10:30 in the morning.
"I have to take Aaron to the emergency room. He got into the kitchen cabinet and got some of the medicine and they said I have to take him to the emergency room."
After calming my wife down a little bit, and trying to decipher the words coming back, it was made clear to me that my 2 and half year old son had somehow managed his way into our locked kitchen, moved a chair from the table to the counters, climbed the chair, stood upon the counter and opened an overhead cabinet, reached inside and grabbed a few medications that were in there and managed, somehow, to open two childproof lids and peel the backing of tablets that are not meant for children.
I know this sounds like something cooked up by Colonel Hannibal Smith of the A-Team, but sadly, this entire idea was cooked up by my two and half year old son.
The boy can climb. He can develop execution plans quickly and he executes those plans just as quickly. If he were a CEO right now his companies would be billion dollar companies.
But alas, he is just a toddler. And when he goes executive things usually go to hell in handbasket on greased rails with hair on fire. Today was no exception.
The aftermath of this situation was troubling, expensive and tiring. My wife had to prepare all five kids to get out of the house when she originally did not intend for any of them to leave the house that early. Then she had to pack them up (quickly), load them up and get to the hospital. Then she had to register my son with all the other kids in tow while trying to figure out where we were going to get the $100 to pay the co-pay for this "incident". Then, after my son was called in, she had to manage all five kids, one of which was freaking out because he was in the emergency room, while answering questions from the doctors.
As if this wasn't bad enough she also had to handle the kids while my son was poked and prodded so the doctors could determine what course of action to take. Because the incident involved medications that could potentially have poisoning or respiratory implications, the doctors didn't want to take any chances so they decided to administer activated charcoal to my son to absorb any medications that may be in his system. They also decided at this time that my son needed to be admitted to the hospital for overnight observation.
Quick side bar: Have you ever tried to force a 2 year old to eat powdery chunks of activated charcoal? Neither had my wife. And apparently neither had the doctors. Ultimately it took chocolate sauce and a very forceful nurse to force my sons mouth open while holding his face still and "injecting" the mixture down his throat. That must have been a pleasant experience for my son, huh? And don't forget, mom was trying to keep him calm during this whole ordeal. Nice for her too, huh?
I had asked my wife to call me to let me know how things were going. Knowing how Kaiser Permanente handles emergencies, and given the fact that my wife's cell phone was sitting on the counter at home, dead, I figured that two hours was more than enough wait time before calling.
So at about 12:30 I called to talk to her and she informed of what all was going on, that my son was going to be transported by ambulance to the hospital in Hayward and that she and the kids were getting hungry.
Knowing this I decided that I needed to get to the hospital.
I drove a little faster than I normally drive and managed to get from Concord to Fremont in about 25 minutes (not bad, eh Mario Andretti?), picked up some food for my wife and kids, and headed to the emergency room. I met up with my wife in time to walk with her and my son to the first X-Ray exam after which we came back to an awaiting EMT team waiting to transport my son to the Hayward hospital.
After taking my girls to a friends for the time being, I got to the hospital. My son had just been admitted and as I got there I was walked through some of the preliminaries of the night. A few minutes later and administrator came in to explain to us how things would be working and that when we were discharged we would be asked kindly for the $500 for the admission.
From this point on things were a bit of a blur for me. I stayed with my wife and son until about 6:15 when I left to pick up our daughters. I brought them home, took care of some family business that needed sorting out with the girls and prepared ourselves for bed.
Now that I have some time to sit and think about all this I can't help but wonder what parts of this could have been avoided by simply making sure the kitchen gate lock was locked, or making sure the cabinets were locked or making sure that the medications were somewhere else.
I know that hindsight is always 20/20. But foresight can be an invaluable tool in keeping things safe and effective. So though I am glad that my son received the treatment he did, and I am glad that we were able to spend the night in a hospital without a $10,000 bill when leaving, I am a little irked at the thought that a weekend away for my wife and I was spent with my wife and son spending the night at a hospital together.
The good news is that my son is fine and should be coming home tomorrow. The doctors want to make sure that he doesn't exhibit any negative health indicators through the night. Given the way he was acting before I left, I am almost certain the doctors will be asking him to leave first thing in the morning.
I have spent the better part of the last three days trying to get the last six weeks worth of blogs brought up to date. I go through these spells from time to time where things get behind. I try to keep them within a few days but this last time was rough.
I suppose it is all for a good reason though. My wife and I have recently discovered a renewed commitment to one another that has us essentially living through the honeymoon we never took. It has been an awesome four weeks that I wasn't sure would ever come upon us. We have fallen in love with each other all over again and have been able to express our love, feelings, issues and conflicts with each other without getting to the point where were are making accusations against each other but are, instead, working to hear and feel each other to work toward a solution of repairing the situation so that we can get closer to one another.
I wonder why we didn't think of this sooner? Oh yeah, because we were both fixated on being right, being heard and having things our way. No, marriage is not a Burger King. Sometimes you take what is given to you.
But I digress. It was not my intent to let my "life on the intarwebs" slip into the dark abyss that is the forgetful husband. No. Indeed my intent was to keep up with everything as though it was business as usual. But it wasn't business as usual, so things went wobbly and posts did not get posted.
To that end I wanted to make sure things were still up to date. I know that there are like three people that really follow this blog (and I appreciate all three of you) but for me, well, I find solace in writing things that happen in my life daily. Some things are downright funny. Others are plain stupid and should probably never be written down, let alone blogged about. But it is a sort of therapy for me to get these things down so I can read through them later.
So I have done that. I have gotten myself back up to speed. It has taken a while, but I am about that point where I can blog once a day and have it be the day that I am on. That feels good.
But something has left me feeling a little unsettled. Am I being honest when I update my blog posts like I have here? Is it OK to post three weeks of posts in an afternoon? I mean, I generally keep track of things that happen throughout the days and generally share them as I remember them or as I have noted them, even if they are not on the day that they happened. But I guess what I need to know is, is it wrong for me to update late? I have felt a little dirty doing it. I feel almost like I am pulling the wool over the eyes of my three readers.
So part of me feels accomplished that I have caught myself up. And part of me feels dirty that I blogged an entire month worth of posts in the span of a few days. I just want to be caught up. Is that wrong?
Anyway, since my three readers haven't mentioned anything about my absence or my seemingly lightning fast updating, I supposed I shall just run with it. At least I am up to date.
PS If you happen to be one of three readers, drop me a comment some time. I'd love to know that you are all still alive.
So the first performance and first vote have been rendered and it is with sadness (and a teensy bit of joy) that I say goodbye to:
Garrett Haley
Colton Berry
Amy Davis
Joanne Borgella
The only thing I can really say about this season, to this point, is thank God there is no Sanjaya around to mess things up for the few people in this competition that can actually sing.
Until next week, here's hoping that song choice and performance style become profoundly more important to the contestants.
The girls took the stage tonight and I was amazed at how bad they sang. I am not sure if it was the 60's theme or the fact that they were nervous or what. But the ladies did terrible tonight.
I cannot pick a favorite based on tonight. Syesha Mercado did a very good job, but didn't open it up like she should have. Ramiele Malubay was a hit with the judges but still did not throw out any type of WOW factor. Of the two thought, I think Ramiele was the better of the two that I thought were the best tonight.
I can say there are a handful of worsts. Kristy Lee Cook, Joanne Borgella, Amy Davis and Kady Malloy all stunk up the stage tonight. All of them had pitch problems, confidence issues and singing inconsistencies. I am certain that the two girls getting voted off tomorrow will be in this group.
The other girls were bad, but in a normal opening night sort of way. They sang a little off key, seemed a little uncomfortable and were generally not the best. But I supposed that is to be expected for the first night.
So, tomorrow should be interesting. I am thinking that just about all the girls will be sweating it out. Of them, I suspect that these two have the strongest reason to be sweating it out:
Joanne Borgella
Amy Davis
I hope, for their sake, that I am wrong. But I don't think I am. We'll find out tomorrow.
