Coomey.net

I have seen some screwed up stories in my time, but this one really takes the whole freaking bakery. According to this CNN story, a four year old boy (you read it right... four!) shot and killed his five year old sister with a .45, and also critically wounded his seven year old brother.

If you read the story, you'll notice:

1. The parents had a loaded firearm in the house.
2. The loaded firearm was kept where a four year old could get to it.
3. The kids were home alone. Ages 10, 5 and 4.
4. The boy obviously found shooting people to be a pretty 'normal' behavior.

According to the police, the child is in no danger from a prosecution standpoint. Makes sense... he's only four. They mention that the mother may face charges for leaving the gun within reach and/or leaving the children without supervision.

Am I the only one here who thinks these parents (why no mention of the father being held responsible?) should be strung up by their ears for a public execution? I understand that they are grieving over the loss of their child, and for the irreparable damage done to their son, but this is absolute lethal parental neglect if I ever saw it. What if the child killed was mine or yours?

No doubt that this will be turned into a situation where it's the "gun's fault", and not the poor grieving parents, and all guns should be banned. Bull$*!t!

Christ I am pissed off.

Congratulations to Matt and Maureen (Mo) Brambilla (you know Matt as Ralman on coomey.net) on the purchase of their brand new home. Looks like Matt's is going to have to get "re-educated" on the use of a lawnmower and snow shovel. Sucker.

They are just a stone's throw away from the Coomey compound out in Oxford. Big difference from Marlboro, here's hoping they survive. I hear they don't like them city folk out there in "Ox-fihd".

Congrats!

That's right. The Liam-boy is two today. What an incredibly fast, fun-filled two years it's been.

His birthday party is tomorrow (September 20th) here at our house at 2:00. Be there or be square. You may even get to see his Luke Skywalker impression, or even his neat "take off my own diaper and pee on the floor" trick. Fun for all ages. Oh yeah, his birthday also coincides with another terrific holiday.

Happy birthday, big guy.

Unbelievable that it's been two years since 9/11. It was one of thos events in which we will always know where we were when we first heard about the attacks. I was working in Burlington at Verilytics, and first heard in my car, on the Mass Pike. I was flipping through the radio dial and happened to catch Howard Stern mention that a plane flew into the WTC. I, like probably thousands of other people, thought it was a small propeller-driven Piper or something. Then I heard that it was a passenger jet. Whoa. I called Tina and told her to turn on the TV. She did. She told me how there was a giant gash in one of the buildings. Then she said "The building just exploded!". She turned the TV on just in time to see the second plane hit the south tower.

I got to work and everyone in the building was in the lobby in front of a bank of TV's, just wide-mouthed watching everything. It was amazing, the entire day was like that. Nobody at their desks to get information, because you couldn't reach any of the major news web sites because they were completely overwhelmed. We actually had a meeting with our new CEO about the events, mostly because we had a sales guy in New York at the time and nobody could get in touch with him. At one point, I looked down at my watch and saw the date on the face: '11 SEP 01'. I immediately knew that we'd never look at that date the same way again. And at the time, it seemed like such an normal, unspectacular date.

Luckily, we didn't know anyone who was killed that day, but I always think of Tara Creamer. She was a TJX employee on one of the planes who lived about 1/2 mile away from us. If memory serves, she had 2 small kids. I don't want to think of what her husband had to tell them.

So, where were you when you heard?

God, I love the Amish.

Simple folk really, with their butter-churnin' and carriage-ridin'. I never knew it, but the Amish like to have fun and play pranks too. It's only fun, however, until someone loses an eye. Or a life.

I stumbled on an article on CNN.com that almost made me wet myself laughing. I won't spoil it. Go have a look for yourself.

What a trip. We had a truly incredible time at Disney World. They really do everything top-notch there. I took about 200 pictures over the week, and they are up in the Photos section of the site. Enjoy. Here's a few hilites of the trip.

We went to 5 seperate parks in all: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney/MGM Studios, Animal Kingdom, and Typhoon Lagoon, in that order. Every park has activities for all ages, even Liam! He had a blast! The Tower of Terror at MGM ruled, but what really stole the show was the Mission: Space ride at Epcot. It's a realistic space launch and Mars landing simulator. Barfbag not included.

We met a guy named Tony who was there with his daughter. They are from Liverpool, England. Very nice folks. Tony was actually born on the same day, in the same hospital room as Julian Lennon! Wow. John Lennon bought his dad a drink on that day.

Poor Zoe was afraid of almost everything. She totally freaked out in the Haunted Mansion at Magic Kingdom, and at the very mention of the Tower of Terror. She also got scared at the Fantasmic show at MGM. At the end, she bawled for Mickey because he "saved the day and she loves him!" It was heartbreaking. It's important to note that she had an absolutely great time though. Liam only cried about getting off the Dumbo ride.The wave pool at the Typhoon Lagoon water park was just awesome. The little ones even had a water slide that was their size.

Phoenix at age 10 is FEARLESS. She went on everything, Tower of Terror, Mission: Space, Dinosaur!, Test Track, Space Mountain... you name it, she experienced it. I was impressed. She also made some new friends too.

All in all, it was an expensive trip (we once paid $150 for lunch at an authentic Italian restaurant in Epcot), but worth every penny, because of the way Disney pulls out all the stops. We'll be doing it again next year for sure.