Observations of Earth

I got Nothing

2006-12-06T12:06:00.000-08:00

Ok I just keep staring at the screen and it keeps staring back. I think I'm going to take a little hiatus on posting on my blog until I can get my mental juices flowing again and get beck to a normal schedule at work. The good news is that now I will have time to start visiting your blogs again. :) See ya in the funny papers. Love Rick.

Forgiveness redux, Santa's DWI, and things you shouldn't eat.

2006-11-30T09:05:00.000-08:00

When I wrote about forgiveness last time I forgot one thing. One of the ways our minds protects us is that as time passes it pushes bad memories and circumstances farther back into our brain. This lessens the pain and dulls the sharpness of what happened. When we don’t forgive, it keeps the memories in the forefront of our minds at all times and doesn’t allow time to do its healing work. You see forgiveness is for us, not them. Don’t know why I wrote that.

So, there is, I am told, a song called “Santa Got a DWI” (driving while intoxicated). As the story goes, my friend, her husband, and their small child were driving home from grandmother’s house and heard this song.

Flashback to earlier that evening, getting ready to GO TO grandmother’s house. Everyone is in the pick-up truck and the father remembers he has forgotten the child’s Christmas present that’s supposed to be from Santa. So he goes back in to get the present and on the way grabs a beer out of the fridge. On his way back to the car he sets the beer down on the TV…Right next to the milk and cookies they left out for Santa.

Upon returning home, the parents come into the living room to find the child staring wide-eyed and pointing at the beer on top of the TV. “What’s Wrong honey?” they asked.

“Mama,” replied the child. “I know why Santa got a DWI. He’s been getting into our refrigerator and drinking Daddy’s beer.”

Remember Mistletoe and Poinsettias are poisonous for pets and kids (you shouldn’t be eating them either). J

A stinky Christmas tradition

2006-11-28T14:00:00.000-08:00

My mom and dad have this rather disturbing holiday tradition. Other people have mistletoe, caroling, and, eggnog but not us, noooo. We have Christmas Poo. I don’t know how it all got started, but from what I’ve been able to piece together, it seems that for Christmas one year, one of them received from the other (which one did what is still a matter of dispute), a Christmas Poo. And by Christmas Poo I mean to say that said gift was a very realistic, very lifelike, in the ewww don’t step in it sense, rubber doggie turd.

Now the disturbing part of all this is that, every now and then, this thing keeps turning up in various strategic and surprising, if not always embarrassing, places. It has been known to strangely materialize in peoples’ shoes, gift boxes, shower drains, pockets, hats, etc.

Now my father loves peanut butter pie. My mother knows this. My father, however, rarely gets peanut butter pie because my mother also loves my father and as you can probably tell from the name, peanut butter pie has a tendency to clog up peoples’ arteries and contribute to their becoming, as we say in the business “breathing impaired.” Well, my father, Dad, as I like to call him, and I, are a bit alike in the sense that we both sometimes do things that we like but that are at the same time not always in our best interest. So it happened to be one day that dear ol’ dad was in a restaurant having lunch. And after having eaten his fill and then some, dear ol’ dad discovers that lo and behold, said restaurant’s feature dessert for the day just so happens to be the fabled and ever elusive peanut butter pie. Being full, and not able to eat another bite, and also remembering scenes from Monty Python, dad, in his wisdom, decides to get the peanut butter pie in a to-go box. Upon arriving home he promptly refrigerates the unmarked box on the lowest shelf under the pizza box, just behind the three day old casserole dish and well out of mom’s sight.

Fast forward to 3a.m. that night. Dad quietly sneaks down the stairs and into the kitchen. Salivating like crazy, he opens the little Styrofoam box, anticipating peanut butter pie but finding instead, that’s right, rubber doggie poo. It was widely reported that the sound of sobbing could be heard coming from the kitchen.

Another time Dad is at the place he does business with the people with whom he does business. They are all standing around in a circle talking, and when Dad opens up his portfolio, and out falls the very realistic looking poo. Finding my mothers new hiding place mildly amusing and thinking nothing more about it, right in the middle of conversation, Dad bends down, picks up the poo, and puts it in his pocket. In his own words, “Come to think of it now, they were all looking at me kind of funny.”

No, I'm not dead. :)

2006-11-21T07:58:00.000-08:00

My Last Day Off Work Was:October 28. The higher ups, in their infinite wisdom, have now increased my hours. No time for little things like eating, sleeping, housework. Much less Important things like blogging. I'll be back around next week. Love Ya'll miss ya'll.

Justice

2006-11-18T07:04:00.000-08:00

A taste of life

2006-11-17T09:10:00.000-08:00

One time I was at the bakery in a grocery store. There were these two little kids, a boy and his little sister, standing there,pressing their little faces against the glass, looking at the cookies. They couldn’t have been more than five or six.

The lady behind the counter asked if they wanted some cookies. You could tell they did by the longing in their eyes, but the little boy said “No ma'am, we don’t have any money.” It was the saddest most pitiful little puppy dog face I’d ever seen on a kid. It made me smile.

Without missing a beat the lady gave them a big cheerful smile (I selfishly grabbed a piece of it for myself) and said, “Money? That’s ok sweetie you don’t need any money, I made these two just for you.” (yes she actually talked about money as if it was it was something to be disdained. Another wonderful gift. I stole some of that one too.) And she gave two cookies to the little boy.

That made me happy. It also made me happy when he gave a cookie to his little sister first, before he hungrily devoured his own. Just a little glimpse of the man I hope the little boy will become. I walked off with a big smile and a distant look, forgetting what I had come for in the first place, but taking with me the two stolen gifts from the baker, cheerfulness and generosity. And one from the kid, hope. It tasted way better than any cookie.

Is this A Normal Conversation?

2006-11-16T09:49:00.000-08:00

ME: Mmm, hey, that air freshener smells good.

MONICA: You know I read somewhere that a new restaurant just opened up somewhere around here, and they serve calf fries.

ME: You would get an air freshener that smells like sugar cookies when we’re on a diet.

MONICA: I don’t understand how anybody eats those things.

ME: It smells like vanilla. Next time I make sugar cookies I’m going to use extra vanilla.

MONICA: I mean just thinking about it makes me sick. Ewww.

ME: Cause that would make them smell like…What?! What are you talking about?

MONICA: Calf fries. You know fried calf testicles. Who would want to eat them? Why? What are you talking about?

ME: Sugar cookies…Well, YOU eat snails.

MONICA: You mean Escargot? But that’s different.

ME: They're snails!

MONICA: Yeah but at least they're not testicles. I don’t see how guys eat them. I mean biting one in half,(Makes biting motion with her teeth) doesn’t that just make you cringe?

ME: (Me getting uncomfortable look on my face) well it does NOW. Look, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

MONICA: OK… Besides, we can’t have sugar cookies anyway. We’re on a diet.

I would just like to add that Monica is being a "Kiss Nazi" today. I keep chasing her around the house trying to get a kiss, but she has a little cold and says that she's afraid that she'll give it to me, But I don't get sick very often so I don't care. I've gotten close a couple of times but she's too quick. I go in for the lips and I get the cheek. It's so sad. :(

Go ahead, say something about the picture. You know you want to. :) It's ok she gave me permission to post it. (besided I don't need permission, I'm the boss in my house. Isn't that right Honey?)

Five: The candle incident.

2006-11-15T11:03:00.000-08:00

Well, not much to tell really. I don't see why Mario wants me to Blog about it since he was there in the first place. I took in so many people over the years It's hard to remember who, what, when, and where, but I know why, because I'm an old softie who can't turn away strays. As I recall there were two other guys living with me at the time who were between places. Bull and Daniel(was that his name Mario?). Anyway I can't remember his name but we'll call him Daniel.

As to the fire; Let's just say that there are very few things more disconcerting than getting up on a cold morning, after having just put on your bathrobe and fixing that first cup of coffee, than to hear a loud banging on your front door, and after answering said front door, to find a fireman in full gear holding an honest to god fireman's axe, and politely saying in a very calm nonchalant voice, "Excuse me sir, but could you please come outside and move your car so we can get the fire trucks into the driveway? Your garage is on fire."

After spitting my coffee all over the poor guy I said "Hold on!" and ran through out the house frantically looking for my keys. As I recall Mario was all this time sitting on the couch with a look on his face. I don't remember exactly what that look was now, but I will after I think about it for a little while, and it had better not have been amusement or there will be consequences. Oh yes, there will! You hearing me bro?

Anyway, when I came out, still in my bath robe, I was met not only by three fire trucks and the corresponding contingent of firemen that go with them, but also an entire street filled with my neighbors from the whole block looking at me with a mixture of disapproval and sympathy. Yeah, I might as well have been standing there in my green froggie boxers screaming like a little girl, because I wouldn't have been more embarrassed if I had been.

When the fire was finally out, the fire investigator was questioning me as to what might have caused the fire. I had a pool table in the garage and the last ones in there were Bull and Daniel, late the night before. I also seem to remember that they had a citronella candle burning to keep the mosquitoes away.

Well, I wasn't about to rat them out right there to the fire investigator, so I was making up some cock-and-bull story(hey give me a break I was young and scared) about no one having been in there for at least a week and that it must have been faulty wiring or something, when just about that time Daniel and Bull both come out to see what all the commotion is about. When they saw the giant lump of ash and charcoal that had once been my garage, they both looked at me with wide-eyed innocent faces, and said right there in front of the guy, "It wasn't us Rick, honest, we put that candle out!" And right then and there, as if on cue, a fireman walks out of the smoke and debris in my garage, like he was freaking Chuck Yeager from "The Right Stuff" or something, and holds up for the whole world to see, a partially melted citronella candle, and says, "Here it is boss. We found the cause of the fire."

I think we got away with a lecture about lying to a fire investigator and candle safety. I paid a small fine and avoided my neighbors for the rest of the time I lived there. And that my friends, to the best of my knowledge was "the candle incident". (Mario, please correct me on anything I might have missed or got wrong. It was such a long time ago)

Did you see the size of that chicken?

2006-11-14T16:12:00.000-08:00

Do you know why I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a spiritual realm?

Because the sheer volume of exactly the wrong things happening at the exact wrong time today is too staggering to be coincidense.

No my friends, someone or something is jacking around with me.

To be perfectly fair, there are days(most days as a matter of fact) when I am extremely blessed.

But today is a test.

Today I was shaken, just a little. Nothing big in the great scheme of things mind you, just little frustrations and nagging distractions.

When a glass is shaken, whatever is on the inside spills out. They say it's the same with people. If that's true I'm afraid that it doesn't say much for me, because what I spilled wasn't what I'd hoped was inside. I had hoped for a little more grace, a little more patience.

It shows me how far I have to go though, so I guess it's a good thing.

I'm not writing this for sympathy, but as I discovered earlier this week, spilling your guts in black and white helps. Writing it out helps to define the problem. Sending it out to real people holds you accountable.

Today wasn't about bad things that happened to me. It was about how I handled them.

Heh, I feel better already. I guess confession is good for the soul. :)

Thanks for listening.

Part Four: Eddie and Scott, Froggie Boxers

2006-11-13T07:30:00.000-08:00

You have to read all the way to the end to get the pictures.
"Eddie the colorful one" writes in and says; "You could blog about froggie boxers, and where to get them...hehehe..."

Scott "the great commentator", true to his name, comments, "You could write short biographies and critiques about professional pugilists and call them "Boxer Briefs."

Well guys, It seems that since becoming a big time celebrity everyone wants to know about my boxer shorts. I've been recieving emails from around the world. I don't have time to answer all of them (especially since most of them are from guys) So, since ya'll are part of the inner circle, I'm just going answer you guys. I'll deal with both of your topics at the same time.

Well Eddie, You see it's not as easy as one might think to get Glow-in-the-Dark-Red-Eyed-Tree-Frog Boxer Shorts. I mean one might think you could just go down to the local Rain Forrest Cafe and buy a pair...but you can't so don't even try.

No my friend the truth is that to get a pair of Glow-in-the-Dark-Red-Eyed-Tree-Frog boxer shorts, you have to make them yourself. Scott and I used to run a little business making and selling them. Together we would travel half way around the world and back collecting the necessary materials. Our adventures took us from the deep amazon basin to the giant circle of loop 820. Alas we went our separate ways when the Eagles split up. You see he liked Don Henley and I've alwasy been a big Joe Walsh fan myself. And well, it was just too much of a strain on the partnership, but that's another story.

Ok Eddie, if you want a pair of Glow-in-the-Dark-Red-Eyed-Tree-Frog boxer shorts for yourself here's what you have to do. Ummm... hmm, let me see here...(I'm not making any of this up mind you; It's just been a while since I've made them and I'm having trouble remembering the exact details) Ah yes...Now I remember.

First buy yourself a ticket to Zimbab-bolivia-duras-aguy in South America. Then you have to track down sixteen, not 15, and not 17, but 16. Red-Eyed-Tree-Frogs. And not just any Red-Eyed-Tree-Frogs but Pugilistic Redeyed treefrogs. Got it?

You see, pugilistic redeyed tree frogs are fighters, and when them little suckers get to fightin with each other up there in the trees well, they just keep going at it until one of them gets knocked out and falls to the ground. Yep that's what happens alright. Then all you have to do is gather them up in your treefrog gathering bag. (what's that?, Well of course you need a treefrog gathering bag. How else you going to gather up treefrogs.) One word of caution though, When you have them on the ground, whatever you do, make sure their out cold and not just pretending (they love to do that) because, believe me brother, going a couple of rounds with one of them suckers deep in the Amazon is not how you want to be spending your evenings. Then all you have to do is take them right back across the border. Easy right.

Ok well maybe it's not that easy, You see in order to GET them back across the border you have to hire a legal assistant to fill out briefs. The locals just call the frogs boxers, so the briefs are of course "boxer briefs" (Scott knew this all along, that's why he put that in his comments, so I could work it in to the story...*ahem*... I mean true eyewitness account of my first hand knowledge). The officials there are sometimes corrupt so you may have to bribe a few of them. The going amount is usually about @500,00,000,000 spendolas (their form of currency) which is equivalent to about $1.35 in U.S. dollars.

Anyway, when you get them back, you have to build cages for them and (take it easy, you're almost half way done) Then go catch as many fireflys (Lightening bugs, says Monica, anyway, catch a few of these) as you can and pinch off their little glowing tails and start feeding them to the treefrogs. In order for the undies to glow properly, the frogs must stay on this diet for at least three months.

After the three months has passed you take the frogs and bonk them on the head with a frog bonker. Then, once you're sure they're dead you take a clean pair of white boxer shorts and an ironing board. Place the frogs in various positions on the boxer shorts (you have to at this point pry their little froggy eyes open and put a little froggy smile on their faces), cover them with a damp towel and Iron them on to the boxer shorts. The "juice", as we call it in the profession, provides the glow in the dark qualities. As to the smell, well that usually goes away after a few weeks. These shorts, however, ARE NOT made for strenuous activity. DO NOT SWEAT in them as this tends to bring back the odor and in rare cases reconstitutes the frog. And you REALLY don't want a pugilistic tree frog coming back to life in your boxer shorts cause them little thingys hanging down there ain't punching bags. Here is what the finished product should look like. This is a picture of ME IN the Glow-in-the-Dark-Red-Eyed-Tree-Frog boxer shorts.
(warning: This is only for the brave and stout hearted)

What?

Cannibalism

2006-11-12T15:37:00.000-08:00

OK real quick, there were some little birdies outside my window here at work today, and they were looking up at me like they were hungry. All I had was some chicken so I broke it up into small little pieces and fed it to them.

Then I realized what I had done. Oh my goodness. I was feeding CHICKEN to BIRDS! Ewww.
Morality and right and wrong aside, just the yuck factor alone was really creeping me out. I went and scared them all away, but most of the chicken was eaten by that time.

Now their all just sitting out there looking at me. I think they liked it. What have I done?

(just in case anyone is taking me seriously, I don't really give a rats behind about the birds eating chicken, although I did really chase them away I'm just working for like the bazillionth day in a row and my mind is wandering. Tomorrow it's back to the topics ya'll wrote in about. Monday it's glow in the dark froggie boxer shorts yeaaahh.)

Interlude

2006-11-11T15:04:00.000-08:00

I often wondered how she put up with him all these years.
.
You know, I loved the guy, but sometimes he was a cantankerous old man. He got cranky if his dinner wasn't on the table on time, and if he thought you were wrong about something he would let you know in no uncertain terms, no grace and no tact.
.
He saw the world in black and white, no grey at all. Which is ok unless you're wrong about something. Then what do you do in your little black and white world.

He didn't like me too much at first, but that all changed once we got to know each other. Good thing too, because he married me and Monica. It was the last wedding he ever performed.

Today is his wife's birthday. It's the first time she's been without him since before either of us was born.

She's been crying, on and off, all day long .

I often wondered how she put up with him all these years.

As I watch her go around the house, keeping busy, trying not to let anyone know how sad she really is ... now I know.

She really loved that old man.

Three: Toadman, The Terrible Truth

2006-11-11T08:08:00.000-08:00

Our Friend from Washington state, Toadman writes in to ask: Please PLEASE help me with this one...I'm stranded in a void of unknowing and wallowing in a morass of despair over this..."Is it just me, or do all the new flavors of Doritos kinda taste the same?"

Well toadman you should be worried, because for you and 4399 other people the answer is; Yes, yes they do.I hate to be the one to tell ya this Toadie, but you 've been abducted. That's right abducted, and not by those cute little alien critters either;

No my friend, I'm afraid the truth is much much worse. You've been abducted by the Keebler Elves. That's right, Keebler Elves, and there's a reason their products are all "animal friendly". It's because they don't use any animals to do all their testing, they use humans. And you my friend were Guinea pig number 1.

I was there the day they brought you in (*sob*). It was horrible. They rolled you in all strapped to a gurney, blindfolded and scared. I remember feeling a twinge of pity for you because I knew what horrors lay ahead. At first it wasn't so bad; they started out with "Cool Ranch" flavor. They popped one in your mouth; you chewed it up, thinking "hey this isn't so bad." You even smiled and let out a little "Mmm, yummy!”

But then they kept going. I couldn't watch, so I put my hand over my eyes and just peeked between my fingers. Next was "New Blazin' Buffalo Doritos", then "Spicy Nacho", followed by "Salsa Verde" You were just munching away as fast as they could feed them to you. But then you realized the horrible truth; they weren't going to stop.The rest was a nightmare. One flavor after another: "Ranchero", "Black Pepper Jack", "Fiery Habanero", "Toasted Corn", "Taco Flavored", and on and on they went until you passed out from the excessive saltiness.

The elves all laughed their cruel mocking laugh and shouted "Unleash the flavor!" (The Doritos new slogan, and yes I went to their website for this post)That's when the true cruelty began. They brought out the new experimental flavors, “Marshmallow and Steak”, “Peanut butter and Jelly with Mayonnaise” and new “Extra Cheesy School Cafeteria Tuna Noodle Surprise” flavors.

When you finally woke up you were naked in a field with no memory of what had happened. Just the terrible uncertainty of going through the rest of your life answering the question, “Hey dude, what kind of Doritos do you want?” with an apathetic, “I dunno, they all taste the same to me.”

I’m sorry toadman but that’s the truth. How do I know? (hanging my head in shame) Because I used to be a Keebler Elf. Yes, it’s true. But in my own defense, I thought I was going to be doing an internship with televangelist Pat Robertson. Who could have known that Pat Robertson and Ernie Keebler were really the same person.

Whoa

2006-11-10T09:03:00.000-08:00

Maybe I'm just fascinated by silly things, but you guys just gotta check this out.

Part two on the “give me an idea and I’ll blog about it” series:

2006-11-09T11:19:00.000-08:00

angusmacinnes writes, "how about a disertation on the Tower of David in the time of the Kingdom of Jerusalem?"

Well Angus, a disertation is a bit too academic for me, so how about a nice story instead.
(this is long and not funny at all. just a story)

“OOOF!” David landed hard, sprawling on his back in the dust. He lay there for a few seconds trying to shake the stars from his head. Slowly, he sat up and tried to look around but there was something in his eyes, stinging, blinding him. He drew a hand across his brow. There were traces of crimson mixed with the sweat. He was bleeding. David looked around trying to remember where he was and what it was he was supposed to be doing. “Come on, get up. You’re not hurt that badly.” The voice sounded familiar somehow but David couldn’t seem to remember who it belonged to. “I said, get up! David, do you think an enemy will stop trying to kill you every time you get knocked on your backside, or you get a scratch,” a blurry figure stepped into his field of vision and bent down so they were face to face. He spoke softly, mockingly, “or when you’re tired?” It was Angus. Now he remembered, weapons training.

Angus was their instructor this morning. He had been teaching the initiates how to defend themselves when they were outnumbered. David and three other initiates were playing the part of the attackers and Angus was the defender. Their plan was to rush Angus and overwhelm him by their superior numbers. Quinn had been the first, charging from the front, but Angus easily parried the tip of his sword and sidestepped as Quinn’s momentum carried him past and he was sent flying into a wall with just a little shove. David circled around behind while Angus was busy dispatching the other two initiates. His back was turned and David thought surely this would be an easy kill. He raised his blunted practice sword and prepared to deliver the telling blow, it would be the first that a student had landed on Angus Macinnes, ever. But as the sword came down, there was a glint of steel, a blur of motion, and suddenly David found himself standing face to face with Angus.

That was the last thing he remembered before waking up in the dust. As his vision cleared David looked around and was relieved by what he saw. At least he wasn’t the only one lying on the ground wondering what the hell had just happened. Quinn, Slade, and Darien were also laying there looking for the herd of wild horses that must have just run through the training area. But David was the only one Angus was yelling at. "Get up!" he demanded again. Slowly David stood, getting his balance back. “That's a good lad,” said Angus. “Now, so that you will remember to keep your balance next time, give me another hour and then you can go.” Angus pointed over to a pile of stones standing next to a partially built tower.

The building, which had been commissioned by the king, was to become the new stronghold in case the city was overrun and overlooked the weakest point in the city's defenses. It was to have been built by the king's own stonemasons but Angus had persuaded the king to leave the building of the tower to him and his students. Whenever one of the initiates made a mistake during training or needed to be disciplined, they would have to spend countless hours carrying the heavy stones to the top of the tower, slowly building it as they went. Everyone was sent to the tower a few times during their initiate training before they became a part of The Order, but lately, David had been spending so much time lugging stones up and down the ramp that his fellow students were beginning to call it "The Tower of David"

.“But Angu...uh, I mean, Master Macinnes,” David protested, “we’ve already been practicing since before dawn and we haven’t even had breakfast yet.” “You’re right” said Angus turning to the others, “You can go now until eventide. We’ll meet at the grove before sundown, dismissed. As for you David, it's the tower for you. Two hours. Now go.”

David clenched his teeth until his face turned red. Not only was he being punished more severely than the rest of the initiates and for no reason, but Angus had also embarrassed him in front of the others. How was he supposed to ride and fight alongside these men one day as a member of the Order when none of them would respect him by then? David rounded on Angus, blocking his path. “You know this isn’t fair!” he said, “Nothing I ever do is going to be good enough for you is it? You work me twice as hard as the others and I get half the praise. The others get to go on patrol or out with the hunting parties and I get to muck out the stables but I have never complained. All of the other Masters say I am one of their finest students and that they are pleased with my progress, but you, you’re never satisfied! What do you want from me?”

Angus, who seemed to be taken aback by David's words, appeared to be considering what he said, and then he leaned forward and spoke into David’s ear, “I – Want – You – To – Work – On – The – Tower – For – Three - Hours.”

David leaned back, incredulous. Angus hadn’t heard a single word he said. Well damn him and his tower. “No” said David, “I won’t do it! The other Masters will never let you g---” Suddenly, a hand was around David's throat squeezing it so he couldn't breathe. Angus held it there just long enough to get his point across and let David go, gasping. When next he spoke, his words were soft and lethal. “You WILL do what I tell you, and you will do it to the best of your ability, and you will do it now! Or you will be expelled from the Order. Make no mistake, I am the Master here. Now go to the Tower. FOUR hours! And one more thing laddy, you will never, NEVER, speak to a Master of the Seven Secrets in that manner again! Do you understand me?” David and Angus stood, each glaring at each other, for what seemed like hours, locked in a contest of wills. Finally, without a word, David turned and strode angrily toward the pile of stones.

Angus, watching as he went, was lost in his own thoughts when he felt a familiar hand on his shoulder. It was Lystaren. Angus sighed and spoke without turning. “You think I was too hard on the boy?” Lystaren spoke softly to his old friend, “Maybe you were. He is still just a boy. He doesn’t understand why you are so hard on him.” Angus turned and faced his friend. Lystaren was startled to see his face worn with care and tears running down his cheeks. “Yes,” he said softly, “he is just a boy, but a boy who must learn to become a man much sooner than others his own age. And that,” he pointed to where David was carrying stones, “that tower will be the beginning.” Angus took his friend by the shoulders, “One day, Lystaren, he will lead us all. One day, he will rule the nation and the Order. One day, he will be King.”

Part one on the “give me an idea and I’ll blog about it” series: Psycho v. Rick

2006-11-08T16:44:00.000-08:00

(Psycho at her computer typing)
“Third, make up your own damn shit like evuhbody else.*muahBrothers.”

She finished typing and sat back, reclining in her chair, savoring the few moments of peace between patients.

(half a world away)
“Oh no she didn’t!” thought Rick, upon reading her comments. And in a flash he was in his ninja suit and out the door heading to Psycho’s secret lair.

When he finally arrived, there was a patient in Psycho’s office but Psycho herself had slipped away briefly to answer nature’s call. Slowly, ever so slowly Rick crept up behind the patient and slipped an air mask over his face, turning on the airflow to the bottle of nitrous oxide, and placing a blowup doll in Psycho’s chair. Cautiously, he removed a small tape recorder from a hidden pocket in his ninja suit and pressed play. It was actually a recording of Rick reading all of Psycho’s previous blogs aloud, in a woman’s voice, but being under the influence as he was, the patient never knew the difference. Little did Rick know that while he was intent on distracting the patient with laughing gas, Psycho had snuck around behind him. She brought him to the ground with a quick kick to the back of his knee, driving the three inch spiked heels of her $650 pair of handmade Italian leather shoes deep. “Now look what you’ve made me do. I’m a freakin pacifist” she said as she shattered a jade statue of Buddha over his head. Then she stopped in her tracks as she recognized him. “Rick?” she said,(recognizing him because his "ninja suit" was actually a Johnny Depp costume) “What are you doing here?” Standing up and trying to regain some of his dignity, Rick said, “It’s high time you and I had it out Psycho. Meet me down by the beach at dawn (he said not knowing if she lived anywhere near the beach). You choose the weapons.” Shrugging, and not really knowing what he was talking about, but being full of fire and ready for a challenge as she always was, she said” Sure thing little brother. I’d be happy to kick your arse tomorrow on the beach and teach you to mess around with me” “Fine then!” Rick said, suddenly not so sure of himself.

(Dawn. The beach.) Psycho walks languidly down to where the water meets the sand. Rick is standing there waiting. “She’s dressed in a silk kimono,” thinks Rick, bringing to mind his repertoire of cool looking martial arts moves, “It’s to be swords then.” But as she draws nearer, he notices one of her thralls is walking behind her carrying a folding table and two satchels. “What’s it to be then,” Rick asks as Psycho walks up and looks at him smirking, “pistols?” “Ha! You should wish for such an easy end” Laughs Psycho. She snaps her fingers and her thrall sets up the table and places two laptops on top. “I choose blogging !” “What !? Blogging?? Now that just don’t make no sense at all. How are we gonna…” “Oh shut up. Just sit down and start blogging, you’ll see.”

“Ok.” says Rick, sitting down nervously.

Psycho cracks her knuckles and types “Buddhist” And suddenly, *poof* Ol Buddha himself appears on the beach wearing a sumo diaper and charges Rick Threatening to crush him beneath his massive girth..

Hmm, “Christian” types Rick. And none other than the Son of God himself appears.

“Jesus Christ!” exclaims Buddha, pointing, and falls over dead on account of he has a bad heart.

Psycho’s eyes narrow and she types “Liberal” And the entire newly elected Senate appears and *poof* Jesus disappears with a committee vote.

Hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, Rick types “Republican” hoping to get Ronald Reagan but instead *poof* up pops Arnold Schwarzenegger, which takes a while because Rick’s computer is using up all it’s memory just trying to spell check “Schwarzenegger” and the senate almost reached poor Rick(who suddenly remembers that it’s the ides of march) intending to stab him to death, but at the last second Ol Arnie pulls a machine gun and fires off thousands of rounds not hitting a single thing but luckily Arnold in a last defiant act yells “Kali-four- nee-i-a!” And all the senators run off in horror with their hands over their ears at the sound of Arnolds terrible accent. Rick laughs.

Taking a deep breath, and fixing Rick in a stare so cold it freezes his blood, Psycho types “tighty whities” and then after a brief, meaningful pause, “three sizes too small.”

Rick screams like a girl and doubles over in agony, accidentally hitting the delete button in his pain and confusion and Arnold fades away his lingering voice delivering just one last line of bad acting “I’ll be back”.

This titanic struggle went on for two days. Lightning flashed and keyboards melted as their smoking fingers moved in a blur of motion, each trying to get the upper hand. When finally Psycho, being the wiser of the two, stopped typing, looked at Rick, and slowly typed “Lobster?”
Rick considered a moment and typed ”Steak.”
Their eyes met and at the same time they both typed “Lamb”

The rest of the blog was history;

“Red wine, or, white?” “Why red of course” “Music?” “Yes that would be lovely.”
But something was missing. Brightening, Rick typed “Monica” and there she was.
Grinning and arching one eyebrow in a most naughty and malevolent way, Wendy pecked a few letters on her keypad and *poof* (CHOOSE ONE: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sean Connery, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Jake Gyllenhall, Will Smith, or fill in the blank ___________) appeared. But even as he materialized out of nowhere, Wendy looked at him with disapproval. Shaking her head, she typed “Duct tape” And “brains to go with that body” *BAM* Now he was the perfect man.

It was a lovely evening and they all lived happily ever after.

I need help

2006-11-08T08:09:00.000-08:00

First some administrative announcements: OK so yesterday instead of being where I thought I was going to be, happily blogging away at work, I was sitting on a runway in a truck, by myself for 8 hours. This all because one of our *ahem* "products" failed to take off and instead started smoking and making funny noises. So anyway TODAY I WILL be at a computer at work and will finish visiting with ya'll there. I've finally finished responding to all your comments in the previous three posts and linking pictures to my last post. BTW, That is the best way to go with BLOGGER. If you have pics. just post them to FLICKR and link them to blogger that way you don't have to post them a thousand times before they finally take and THEN BLOGGER loses your entire post. END OF ADMIN ANNOUNCEMENT

Ok so this is where I need your help if you would be so kind as to oblige me. You see I'm the kind of person who isn't a very good talker. I am however a great responder. That is, if you and I were to sit down in a room together in real life, I would probably be nervous and not have anything to say until you said something. Then I could respond intelligently if not always intelligibly to what you had to say. But I am horrible at just going up to someone and starting a conversation I never know what to say. So here's the problem. My inability to start a conversation is bleeding over into my blogging. I'm staring at the screen and I got nothing. Here's the deal: If you give me something in the comments of this blog, A topic, question, issue, random thoughts/items, whatever you want (nothing is taboo); I will blog about it. Not all at once of course but one at a time at about the rate of one a day. It may not be good, but I will blog. If ya'll don't well then you are just going to have to read more ADMIN ANNOUNCEMENTS and believe me I could drone on like this for days. I realize that it's kinda cheating getting you to do some of the work for me but the ol synapses just aren't firing right now. Hmm maybe I need some sugar, I'm not allowed to have any on my diet, but Monica is still asleep. Doah! she just woke up, I gotta go before she reads this. Oh yeah, and no smart ass comments about the title of this post (yeah right).

the real monster house

2006-11-07T09:35:00.000-08:00

After high school I used to live in a house with two friends and fellow bachelors Kevin and Lee. It was a small (about 900 square feet) house, and was in generally poor condition. This is a pic of me standing by the front door (notice the paint and dirt? Well it only got worse)As you can imagine with three guys living there just out of high school, well, let’s just say that when it came to dirty clothes, dirty dishes, and general cleanliness; the standard of hygiene was not quite what it should have been. In fact it was downright nasty. We had rats, slugs and mice. All cozily nesting I’m sure in the mounds of dirty laundry heaped about the house, and eating, quite well might I add, from the left over food on unwashed plates also located (conveniently enough for the critters), in strategic locations throughout the place.

How did we know we had slugs? Well it just so happens that we came home one day and on the front porch there was a slivery trail leading from the front door into the house and onto a plate of food that had been left in the living room floor. My friend Lee, obviously an expert in such matters, nodded sagely and deduced that it was indeed the trail of a slug and proceeded to track, not entirely in form unlike a Mohawk Indian, which greatly impressed Kevin and I, the slug. “Hmm,” he said. “It came into the house and into the living room and ate some of the food from this plate but that’s where the trail ends. I wonder where he went from there?” Now there was still some moldy food on the plate about the size of a small egg. We figured that maybe we should clean off the plate, you know, to prevent future occurrences of slugs. After all we weren’t completely uncivilized. So Lee, being the resident expert, had picked up the plate and went into the kitchen, when we heard a very unman-like scream. Kevin and I both rushed in to see what was the matter and found Lee dancing around like a little girl and OH MY GOD it seems as thought the egg sized piece of food left over on the plate wasn’t food at all, unless that is you eat escargot, because that was the biggest damn slug I had or have since ever seen in my entire life. Kevin and I joined Lee in the little girl dance until we composed ourselves enough to scoop up the thing into an old paper cup (conveniently located nearby) and carry it outside. We vowed never to tell anybody about the slug or that we had done the little girl dance. And we never have.

How did we know we had rats? Well if you’ll notice in the picture of Kevin, sitting with his head on Kevin’s lap is a little Boston terrier named Bullet. It just so happens that I was sleeping in one day, laying face down on the couch, the one that Lee is sitting on in the picture, (I slept on the couch)when Bullet jumps up and lays down by my feet for the warmth. Bullet always does this when he thinks it’s time for me to get up, although it’s usually later in the day before he feels the need to do so. Anyway following the usual ritual I pin him down on the couch with my feet, he nips at them and he wrestles around with my feet until I finally get up. Well I notice Bullet is being unusually rough this morning. So in order to get myself where I can turn around onto my back and see what the deal with Bullet is I put my hand down on the floor….and onto Bullet. Still being groggy, it takes a couple of seconds to register, in my sleep fogged mind, that Bullet can’t be in two places at one time and that we only have one Bullet. It also hasn’t occurred to me that I should be panicking at this time. “Well then,” I think, “If that’s not Bullet then what is it?” Now you know those moments when you’re half way between sleep and consciousness when all of a sudden you remember something you were supposed to be up doing, or that you’re late for a meeting, or that something is happening that requires your immediate attention, and you get that little shot of adrenaline to your heart and jump up and are immediately awake? Yeah, well that’s what happened. I looked down, and still pinned under my feet was the biggest, ugliest, red-eyed RAT that I had ever seen. I screamed like a girl. Kevin and Lee came running in to the living room and when they see my situation, decide that the wisest course of action is to harmonize with me in screaming. Well, I thought that they had panicked but in reality they knew what they were doing because the sound of all three of us guys screaming made the rat run away, and they laughed at me for screaming like a little girl. Miraculously I was not bitten once. We all vowed to never tell anyone about the rat incident and about us screaming like little girls. And we never have.

Ok I have to go get ready for work now and rub my wife’s shoulders because she has a headache. I’ll be where I have access to a computer at work so I’ll finish posting about how we knew we had mice, reply to ya'lls comments, and then comment on ya’lls posts later on today.

Later Love (I stole that from Scott)

It's a cryin shame when life keeps a man so busy he can't even blog

2006-11-06T08:59:00.000-08:00

Hello there yall', sorry i haven't been around lately but real life is seriously interfering with my blogging (and sleep) lately. I have to take a nap now. In the mean time if you want to, look around in the archives. Or if you want to do something fun, try spinning around like you used to do when you were a kid and then walking a straight line. Come on you know you want to do it. Go ahead. I won't tell anybody, promise. Love yall miss yall. Be back ASAP! Rick

Why My Back Door Won't Shut Right.

2006-11-03T07:13:00.000-08:00

“But why did you have to kick the door down? Why didn’t you just go over to the neighbors house!?” Monica is asking me frustrated and almost in tears. This is just before we were married and I’m living in what is to be our new house while she is still going to school and living in Denton. We’re standing there in the house, looking at the back door which I had just kicked in a couple of days earlier, and man is she ever pissed.

OK now picture the screen getting fuzzy and wavy and fading to black. That’s right we’re having a flashback…to a couple of days before this conversation.

It was the middle of winter and I was working the night shift. I just got home at 7A.M. after a long cold night. As was my usual custom I stripped down to my boxers and was preparing for bed by fixing my usual after-work snack (peanut butter and jelly with iced tea) when I spied crawling across the cold tile of my kitchen floor, a spider. And not just any spider but a BIG BLACK HAIRY ONE! (At least I think that was the scientific name for it). Well, I hate spiders. I mean HATE. But at the same time I am usually loathe to kill anything just for the sake of killing. (I mean don’t get me wrong I’ll shoot and eat just about anything, and if I do accidentally run over something or squish a bug, it’s kind of like an “aww shit” to me but I usually won’t lose any sleep over it. But I will almost never kill anything just because, except cockroaches. I really hate cockroaches!) Anyway, I can’t have a SPIDER running around in my house; he could crawl up into my bed late at night and get under the covers and bite me in places where I don’t want to be bitten, so I scoop up the little feller with a piece of paper and carry him out my back door to dump him in the backyard where he can live out the rest of his little spider days in peace. (Yeah I know I said it was a big hairy spider but that was when he was in MY KITCHEN. When he’s out in the back yard he is a cute little spider.) So I’m out there standing barefoot in my boxers on my patio in about 34F degree weather, releasing the spider, when all of a sudden the central heating in the house kicks on…and sucks the door closed.

Now, I am not totally untrained in the arts of self defense. I am a guy. I was in the army. I am in decent shape. I collect knives and swords. I also have a gun. For these reasons and because of what just happened, the door being sucked closed; I usually keep the back door unlocked when I am home. My fiancé at the time, (Monica), however, apparently decided that it was unsafe for us two poor defenseless men (my roommate Mario and I) to be living in a house with the back door unlocked. (Although to this day she swears it was Mario; who now come to think of it swears it was her. Now I’m not taking his side over hers. I’m just saying that after a year of us living together he had never locked the door before and that my now wife has one of the best and most amazing memories of anyone I know, but that that memory can also be incredibly selective at times)

Imagine my surprise, then, when I heard a click and discovered I could not get back in my house.

So there I am in boxer shorts with glow in the dark red eyed tree frogs on them, bare foot, in thirty degree weather, my nipples hard as rocks, (ha! just wanted to see if you were paying attention there, forget I said that last thingy), with about two hours before Mario gets home from his job. I’m looking at the door, looking at the neighbors house.

Ok now back to the conversation.

“But why did you have to kick the door down? Why didn’t you just go over to the neighbors house!?” Monica is asking me...

You know, there are some things you just can’t explain.

useless junk

2006-11-01T16:05:00.000-08:00

Pardon me for saying so if you happen to shop there, but in my humble yet accurate opinion, if everything in every Garden Ridge store in the entire world were heaped into a giant mound of useless crap, soaked in kerosene, and set ablaze as a flaming offering to the god of all useless crap, the world would not have suffered any great loss. (My wife loves the place by the way.)We were there just the other day shopping for something or other and ran into these (this one's for you psycho) :

I mean come on! Just the sight of one of these makes me want to go punch Santa Clause right in the face. Who in the H E double hockeysticks could possibly look at one of these and say with a straight face "Ooh, look honey, a purple christmas tree! Wouldn't that go great in our living room?"Then there's this:

All of this stuff is made in China by the way. I can hear it now, some poor guy in a Chinese gulag forced to make these things for twelve hours a day because in his opinion it was a bad thing when the Chinese Government decided it was ok to execute his neighbor by firing squad without a trial and then send his family a bill for the bullet, saying "this has got to be some form of cruel punishment to stand here and paint these things all day. Surely no one could be buying these things. I'm mean it's all useless junk. They tell me they are sending this to the United Stated and making huge profits, but I don't believe it. It's just more propaganda. It has to be."

Ok sorry there, didn't mean to get all political on ya. Speaking of political though does it seem incredibly politically incorrect to have a Pinata in the shape of a monkey like they do at Garden Ridge? I mean what are we trying to teach our children? "Hey kids if you beat a monkey long enough and hard enough with a stick, he'll eventually burst open and lots of candy and toys will fall out." And then there's a Hawaiian dancing girl pinata. Man, don't even get me started. ( I don't really care if people go around beating on monkeys with sticks. I'm just trying to be sensitive;).

In other news I'm thinking of marketing a new diaper for politicians and babies who poop a lot. I'll call it the Heavy Doody diaper...Doody...get it. Oh just leave me alone!

On that note you just gotta read this.

rock and a hardplace

2006-11-01T13:12:00.000-08:00

Alright so I lied. But I’m at a really good place at work right now and by good place I don’t mean emotionally. I mean good place as in I’m somewhere with few people, little work to do, and a computer. So now it’s just you me and the FBI, CIA, NSA and whoever else is listening. I’m gonna blog. You know what really drives me crazy? Well I’m glad you asked. It’s the fact that the word blog is not in Microsoft Word as a word. I mean what the? Just because Microsoft didn’t think of and copyright BLOG so they can come out with a new more expensive less practical version every year, hey that’s no reason to be discriminatory. Don’t be hatin Mr. Gates.

Ok so my whole understanding of this genetics thing is XX and you’re a girl; XY and about 1 in 1000 XXY and you’re a guy. That’s the way I have always understood things to work on a genetic level. So when someone who is a guy XY (ok please don’t be offended at this. It is just my opinion and is leading up to a story) gets an operation to look like a girl, XX, but is still genetically a guy XY, it is generally an unhealthy thing to be living as something you are not genetically hardwired to be. I say this because it is my company’s current policy to endorse the practice of men getting operations so they can look and act like women but while they are still genetically men. They even pay for parts of the procedure. This has caused a little confusion here at work. At first there was some initial discussion as to which bathroom these individuals should be using. They wanted to use the women’s bathroom but the women said hell no. So it was decided to designate two of our existing restrooms as gender neutral and as a result I have to use a restroom on the next floor because I’m a male and haven’t had an operation. What gets to me is not that I have to walk a little farther to go to the bathroom but that society is catering to this.

Ok this is my argument for this mindset being inaccurate and unhealthy. From what they have told me the reason these individuals give for having the operations is that they FEEL like members of the opposite sex and have never fit in as the sex they are, even thought their genders are in fact already genetically determined.
This would be akin to someone saying they FEEL like Napoleon Bonaparte and don’t feel like they fit in with this century. They therefore insist on their workplace letting them dress up in a nineteenth century French army officers uniform, paying for plastic surgery to make them look like Napoleon, and changing the name on their badge to “His Royal Highness”.

The TRUTH is that they are not Napoleon and pretending to be so is unhealthy. The TRUTH is that these individuals are not women and that pretending to be so is also unhealthy, both for society and the individuals.

OK having said that, it is just my opinion. I disagree with the mindset that promotes sex change for the sake of feelings. HOWEVER, just because I disagree with someone doesn’t mean that I would treat them any differently. We could sit down to have lunch together and talk about anything under the sun and never bring up our differences and if they were brought up, we could discuss them like any two people discussing something they disagree on but who still respecting each other.

I said all that so you know where I’m coming from and that my reaction was not out of meanness but rather from shock and not knowing quite what to say.
Yesterday was Halloween and I was at work. Three of us were standing around talking about nothing in particular when my two coworkers suddenly stopped talking, and were staring wide eyed at something behind my back. I turn around to see what had happened and…It seemed that “Jane” a very large woman (and by large I mean 6’4” 250lbs with muscles) who used to be a very large man had poked his head into our office. Now in my defense when I turned around all I saw was just a head peeking around the corner. Jane had recently dyed his hair a bright shade of red and was wearing horn rimmed glasses and about three times the amount of paint on his face that it took Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel.

You know, I would have been able to keep my composure but then he said (in a purposely scary voice): “I hope you gentlemen will have a MOST intriguing Halloween!” I was like a deer caught in the headlights.

I’m sorry. I tried. I really did. But so many things were running through my mind at that moment, I just couldn’t speak. I was thinking everything from “Well it most certainly is now!” to “aren’t I supposed to be giving him some candy”, “To say something you idiot”

Finally I managed to squeak out, “Ok you too Jane.”

Man, I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings, but I mean really? How do you respond to something like that? I just keep picturing Jane at home crying and confused. Like I said before I just don’t think it’s healthy to try and be something you aren’t, and it makes me sad.

BLOGGER CAN JUST LICK MY PITS

2006-11-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

Ok it is now official I have just spent four hours, FOUR FREAKING HOURS, trying to upload pictures for a post that needs to have pictures in order to make sense. Now I have to go to work and haven't accomplished anything today. My question is how can anyone who runs a world wide website contuinue to function with such complete incompetence! Thank you blogger you have taken an enjoyable passtime and turned it into a freaking pain in the behind. There will be no post today or any other day I have to spend more than 10 min. on a post due to technical difficulties. So no posts = one more vote for changing to another system! That is all!

Vacation report

2006-10-30T06:59:00.000-08:00

…so there we were driving down the road on our way to Kansas, munching on some peppered beef jerky, which as anyone who has ever traveled anywhere knows, is an absolute essential on any road trip with more than one bathroom stop (not necessarily peppered beef jerky but dried beef in some form or fashion), when a small piece of either the jerky or pepper fell off the chunk I was eating at the time and fell somewhere on the console between the two front seats. A quick cursory glance at Monica to make sure she wasn’t watching, she wasn’t, and I invoked the five second rule, which states that any food falling on a relatively not too dirty surface may be quickly snatched up and eaten, because as every guy knows, five seconds is not enough time for the said food to become seriously contaminated with any kind of harmful bacteria, virus, parasite, or toxin. In the event that the food is exceptionally tasty and the surface is clean enough and cannot be gotten to within the five second time limit, the ten second rule may always be invoked in extreme cases. So there’s this little black dot on the console which I naturally assume is my stray piece of beef jerky. Monica is looking out the window, so I figure I’m going for it. I quickly snatch up the little black dot and after sucking on it for a couple of seconds and getting no salty taste, bite down on it with my two front teeth feeling this kind of gritty texture that immediately tells me that this thing in my mouth is not a stray piece of beef jerky. What was it? I don’t know and I don’t want to know.

Well, we made it to Kansas and saw everybody and got my cousin, Jodi, married off and it was wonderful. The groom, whom I had never met before, was a farm boy from somewhere in Illinois, or Iowa, or Indiana or something like that. You know, one of those “I” states. He seemed like a nice enough guy and everybody cried when he read his handwritten vows to my cousin. Just the same though I thought I’d better go ahead and threaten him just a little when no one was looking, you know just to be sure. I almost felt bad about it. But they got hitched without a hitch and at the end of the ceremony all the brides’ maids and groomsmen danced down the aisle to Phil Colin’s “You Can’t Hurry Love”. All in all not a bad day.

On the way home we stopped at a Marie Callender’s restaurant, which is a very yummy place to eat because they use whole cream in everything they cook and add a about thousand calories in just for good measure. Anyway what I was going to tell you was about this conversation I heard in the men’s room. I was using the urinal when I heard voices coming from the stall. It was a father and young son. The father was teaching his son how to go pee pee. Why he was doing this in a public place I have no idea. But I’m glad he was otherwise I would have never heard this:

Father: Ok hold it like this. Ok there you go, now aim it in the middle. Ok go ahead.
(Sound of trickling water, then silence.) Are you done?

Kid: No. Not yet.

Father: Well, stop pinching it off. (Giggling, then the sound of trickling water again, followed by silence) Are you done now?

Kid: No.

Father: Stop pinching it son. It makes you stop peeing. (more giggling, long sound of trickling water then silence.) Are you done now?

Kid: Yeah, I think so.

Father: (Silence the some kind of ruckus) Whoa! Stop! Stop it son! Pinch it off. Pinch it! Pinch it!

Hello yall, it’s good to be back.

Been missing ya'll

2006-10-27T08:21:00.000-07:00

But Several posts have already been eaten by the blogger monster. I'm going to Kansas and will return to take up arms against all things blogger on Monday. See yall then. Will say Hi to Dorothy, Toto, and my cousin Jodi for yall. Love.

Hey

2006-10-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

I'm eating pancakes before bed. And their yummy! Night ya'll.

thinking out loud

2006-10-24T19:29:00.000-07:00

I think it all started with the internal combustion engine. Some poor shmo thought, “Hey, I can get one of those new fangled tractors. That way I can get my 10 acres plowed in two hours and have the rest of the day to spend with my family.” Little did he know that everybody else went out and bought a tractor also. And since there was now an abundance of food available, the price went down and the farmer was now getting the same amount for plowing 100 acres as he did for 10! He now had to plow 100 acres and do all the other chores that come with it, just to keep up with the others. So now he's spending more time, doing more work, with better technology, but for the same amount of pay.

Such is the way we have come to use technology. Instead of using it to make our lives easier, we use it to do more, produce more, live faster. We sit around pushing buttons while our bodies atrophy and cry out to be used. Instead of using our minds to solve practical problems and come up with real solutions we do market projections and stock predictions trying to guess the future. Our minds burn out and our bodies waste away. Our technology had evolved faster than we have. It has the potential to accomplish wonderful things…or do great harm. Maybe we should have stopped when the Romans invented plumbing, but you know, just without the lead pipes. Or maybe we should just slow down and learn how to best use what we have. I don’t know. The only true wisdom I have is that I try to start everything with “I think” and end it with “I could be wrong.”

I’m allergic to Bengal tigers.

Real life conversation:
(Dad and, get this, 4 year old son are in the kitchen cleaning together. In the middle of scrubbing the son stops and looks at his father)

Son: You know dad, my work is my pleasure.
Dad: What?...What did you just say?
Son: My work is my pleasure.
(And he just goes back to scrubbing like he didn’t utter something profound)

How do you suppose that happens? How does a four-year-old, forced to do chores instead of being outside, running around, find contentment in scrubbing the kitchen. Do you suppose he’s been reading Richard Lovelace’s, “To Althea, from Prison”?

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

Dang it, if a four-year-old can do it, so can I!

I could be wrong.

The Town of My Heart

2006-10-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

This was written in response to scott's post today. Gotta run.

The town of my heart is called Wingnut Groovy; it’s kinda like Walnut Grove from Little House on the Prairie, but with hippies instead of hicks. Its a cozy little community of about 20,000 people of all races and cultures nestled in the mountains right on the eastwest coast and close to the forrested plains bordered by the high desert. The people there are mostly good, honest, and hardworking folk. They are mostly serious minded but they also know how to laugh (both at themselves and at each other) and have a good time. Most days are spent either skiing, surfing, hiking ,climbing, shopping, playing chess, reading, or doing any of the simple but satisfying jobs that keep the town running and that pay you just enough to buy what you need for you and your family with a little left over to have fun with. Most of the town’s energies, however, are not spent on industry, but rather on their main resource, people.

When townsfolk get mad at each other they settle their disputes with pillow fights (instead of guns or knives) or in extreme cases by dueling with cattle prods. Then, when it’s all said and done, the winners have to buy drinks for the losers and they talk about it over lunch.

Our mayor, Simon, is one of the poorer, but among the happiest and wisest, men in town. He mostly just tends his herb garden and sits around in his rocking chair, rocking away on his front porch, waiting for people to come ask him for advice. To which he answers, much to his own amusement, “Simon says…”

Cops? We don’t have any. The good people of Wingnut Groovy know how to handle justice themselves. None of this mob mentality, mind you, but they all have common sense, and if fifty people saw a guy kill someone or rape a lady or messing with a kid? Well, then there you have it. They just go out and shoot the bastard. Some call it revenge, they call it justice. For lesser crimes they make you work off payment for your deeds on neighboring farms and ranches and no one talks to you until you have served out your sentence. When your times up, though, the whole town throws a party in your honor welcoming you back to society and everyone gives you a hug. (Believe me you feel pretty shitty after that)

Almost everyone in Wingnut Groovy goes to church, even if they are not religious. They don’t go so much the sermons as they do for the friendship, not to mention the pot-luck dinner and the games held outside, after church. The preacher knows this, but he doesn’t mind. He’s a patient and sly old dog and knows a few of them listen to his sermons anyway. He and the town atheist are best friends.

When something tragic happens the whole town bands together and brings food or pitches in with some money or skills. In Wingnut Groovy no one is ever alone in a crisis unless they choose to be.
I’d like to tell you more about my town but I've spent my morning's allotted time writing your blog instead of mine. Thanks Scott. You’re welcome at Wingnut Groovy any time.
Oh, and happy Labor Day New Zealand!

Free at last! Free at last!

2006-10-22T19:45:00.000-07:00

I AM OUTTA HEAR! Special shout out to all you guys for gettin me through this day. I know it wasn't easy for ya'll either. Love you guys!

Darlin, Put the biscuits in the oven. I'm a headin home!

On second thought

2006-10-22T19:22:00.000-07:00

The last guy that did something like that here was investigated by the FBI. Ok I'm bored again!

Bingo!

2006-10-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

OooH Yes! I just spotted a bright yellow suggestion box. Hold on I'm going to print off all your blogs and put them in. Be back in a sec. He He heh.

This is what I've resorted to, Haiku (I wanna go home!)

2006-10-22T18:40:00.000-07:00

Haiku, Haiku, Hai
Little Japanese poem
Doesn't even rhyme

Ok now see what you've done. NowI'm writing bad Haiku. This is all you guys fault for not blogging on the weekends (with some notable exceptions, thank you berry much!) or not having a blog at all. That's right I blame you. (not really) Thousands of years of Japanese culture and history are about to go out the window and it's all on your shoulders.

the next thing

2006-10-22T16:32:00.000-07:00

I had to come rushing back here...like I said spaghetti gives me gas. It's Sunday and hardly anyone is here, so to clear my head and get away from that bird, I went walking around amongst the cubicles, singing, not very softly(or well), might I add. It's dark in there and only half the lights are on, so I figure I'm alone. Did I mention spaghetti gives me gas? Yep, I let one rip. It kinda echoed. Well, reverberated is more like it. You know shook the walls. So do you think I was really alone? Hell no. First I heard giggling, then laughter, and then heads started popping up. I got the h-e-double hockey sticks out of there. I don't think anyone saw me. Whew, that was a close one. (In the interest of honesty, I guess I should be telling you that this actually happened quite a while ago, but it fits in so well with what's happening today I had to tell you about it...just play along OK? BTW you should be reading this in reverse order from the bottom of today to now) See ya in a little while.

Still bored

2006-10-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

So I'm sittin here at work eating spaghetti and this bird is staring at me through the window, and he looking at me like he's hungry. "It's spaghetti, not worms" I keep telling him. But I don't think he cares. I'm getting scared. Spaghetti gives me gas. I'm so sorry if you're having to read this but I'm bored and can't think because I'm at work. Yeah, It's a rule they have. I should stop blogging now, but I'm not going to. See you when the next thing happens. Yeah, It's that bad.
:)

one of those days

2006-10-22T13:29:00.000-07:00

You know they should give the condoms contract to whomever makes the safety seals on vitamins... because it takes an act of God to get through them. I'm having one of those "shouldn't touch anything sharp or electric" kind of days. But what the hey? It's Sunday not very many people are on. I'm blogging everything. At work. HA!

I'm an Idiot: Part 1 of 50,000

2006-10-22T07:11:00.000-07:00

I once pepper sprayed myself just to see what it felt like. Don't ever do that. It wasn't fun. I'm an idiot. :)

Kitty Toys

2006-10-20T11:22:00.000-07:00

I don't usually reprint emails but this one was so funny I just had to share it with you guys. Gotta run, late for work! Enjoy.

The accident occurred mainly because I had given in to my wife's wishes to adopt a cute little kitty. Initially, the new acquisition was no problem
Then one morning, I was taking my shower after breakfast when I heard my wife, Deb, call out to me from the kitchen. "Honey! The garbage disposal is dead again. Please come reset it." "You know where the button is," I protested through the shower pitter-patter and steam. "Reset it yourself!" "But I'm scared!" she persisted. "What if it starts going and sucks me in?" There was a meaningful pause and then, "C'mon, it'll only take you a second."
So out I came, dripping wet and butt naked, hoping that my silent outraged nudity would make a statement about how I perceived her behavior as extremely cowardly. Sighing loudly, I squatted down and stuck my head under the sink to find the button. It is the last action I remember performing.
It struck without warning, and without any respect to my circumstances. No, it wasn't the hexed disposal, drawing me into its gnashing metal teeth. It was our new kitty, who discovered the fascinating dangling objects she spied hanging between my legs. She had been poised around the corner and stalked me as I reached under the sink. And, at the precise moment when I was most vulnerable, she leapt at the toys I unwittingly offered and snagged them with her needle-like claws.
I lost all rational thought to control orderly bodily movements, blindly rising at a violent rate of speed, with the full weight of a kitten hanging from my masculine region.

Wild animals are sometimes faced with a "fight or flight" syndrome.
Men, in this predicament, choose only the "flight" option. I know this from experience. I was fleeing straight up into the air when the sink and cabinet bluntly and forcefully impeded my ascent. The impact knocked me out cold.
When I awoke, my wife and the paramedics stood over me. Now there are not many things in this life worse than finding oneself lying on the kitchen floor butt naked in front of a group of "been-there, done-that" paramedics. Even worse, having been fully briefed by my wife, the paramedics were all snorting loudly as they tried to conduct their work, all the while trying to suppress their hysterical laughter......and not succeeding.
Somehow I lived through it all. A few days later I finally made it back in to the office, where colleagues tried to coax an explanation out of me about my head injury. I kept silent, claiming it was too painful to talk about, which it was. "What's the matter?" They all asked, "Cat got your tongue?"
If they only knew!
Why is it that only the women laugh at this?
Hope your week is better than his!!!!!!!!!!

Bad Feng Shui

2006-10-19T23:20:00.000-07:00

I think it all started a long time ago, before we were married, probably even before we knew each other. Either our house was built on an old Indian graveyard or there's a fault line, where two parallel universes meet, that runs right down the middle of our bedroom and splits our bed into two equal halves. I’m more inclined to go with the parallel universe fault line theory myself. I mean come on, “Indian graveyard” yeah right. How likely is that?

Anyway, how else could you explain such a freakish phenomenon? The temperature in our house right now is 74 degrees Fahrenheit. This, according to many sources, is the best temperature to keep a home so that both the men and women living there will be comfortable. My wife is currently wearing flannel pajamas, and under a sheet, a blanket, and a very thick comforter which is folded over double. She says she is freezing. I, on the other hand, am in my boxers and under a sheet. I am hot. (Not hot as in sexy hot, but hot as in what you are if you’re in the middle of the desert wearing a fur coat and roasting over a bonfire). It’s an arrangement we’ve both learned to live with. There’s just no getting around it. Any cooler and she swears she’ll turn into a popsicle. Any hotter and my head will burst into flames like Michael Jackson doing a Pepsi commercial.

You know there’s a funny thing about parallel universe fault lines though. No matter how hot or how cold they make the outer edges of the bed, the area running right down the middle always stays extremely comfy. On good nights that is where we meet, she and I. I wrap my arms around her and we fall asleep together, right there, where two universes collide and join, mine and hers. The two become one.

Good night ya’ll. Sweet dreams.

Howdy ya'll

2006-10-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

Just wanted ya'll to see how my wife saved me.

After I was chased up a tree,

and into into a pirahana filled river.

By this Dog.

She's my hero.

Forgiveness from a Christian Perspective

2006-10-19T01:02:00.000-07:00

Friend: How do you forgive someone who’s done something like that to you?
Me: How do you not forgive them?
Friend: What?!!!
Me: Do you think that person is out there right now worried or concerned that you haven’t forgiven them? Do you think your unforgiveness is affecting them in the least?
Friend: No, not really.
Me: Is it affecting you?
Friend: Yes
Me: How?
Friend: I’m having problems sleeping, eating, it’s burning me up inside.
Me: Is it making your life better in any way whatsoever?
Friend: No.
Me: Then what good is it doing you not to forgive? When you forgive someone, you forgive them for your sake, not theirs.

*Harboring unforgiveness in your heart is like you taking poison and then expecting the other person to die. Unforgiveness doesn’t hurt the other person. It is, however, deadly to you.

One characteristic about unforgiveness is that it is a root problem. A root problem is one that leads to other problems in life. Just a few of the other ways unforgiveness can affect us are: Depression, bitterness, insensitivity, tension, stress related disease, frustration, anger, negativity, passivity, self-righteousness, rigidity, rejection, fear, defensiveness, and other emotional problems. Unforgiveness doesn’t mess up the other person’s life. It messes up your life. Once the root problem, unforgiveness, is taken care of we can begin to deal with the other problems. It's like a thorn in a festering wound. That wound cannot begin to heal until the thorn is removed. When we forgive someone it’s like removing that thorn.

The second characteristic of unforgiveness is that it produces bitterness, and bitterness is something that will grow in your heart until spreads into every area of your life and begins to destroy it. This may take years or even decades but it will spread and it will begin to eat away at every corner of your life until it reaches even the places that are well guarded and that we think we can keep safe. That is why forgiveness is so important.

When we have been wronged we expect something from those who committed the offense against us. We expect remorse, an explanation, recompense, payback, justice, for them to try and make up for what they did and a thousand other things. Forgiveness IS NOT saying that the offense committed against you is right and that what the person did is OK. Forgiveness is choosing to release an offense or expectation from those who have wronged us. It is simply refusing to pass judgment. When we judge we destroy a little part of ourselves.

With forgiveness we let God be the Judge and believe that he will provide justice.

In refusing to forgive another we are not only damaging ourselves but we are assuming the God’s position in another person’s life. The root of all unforgiveness is pride. Pride says “that person owes me and I’m not letting go until they pay me.” Forgiveness says “I release you into the hands of God. I forgive you and am moving on with my life.”

So then, the question remains, “How do you forgive?”

Well, some forgiveness is easy. We simply choose to do it. But what about the really hard offences committed against us; the truly horrible ones?

First forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling. In my life I have had to choose to forgive people. I did not feel like I had forgiven them but I made the choice to do it anyway. Once I started living like I had forgiven them through an act of will and by the grace of God, the feeling of forgiveness came later, and I was able to truly and completely forgive them.
Secondly, I have to say that with something like this it takes the grace of God to forgive. Without his help it’s almost impossible. So I would begin by asking God to help forgive the person(s) who wronged us, and how to go about it.

This is how I do it.
1)Recognize that unforgiveness and bitterness are “missing the mark” and are damaging to my life.
2)Ask God to take them out of my life.
3)Ask God for a new heart towards the person that offended me.
4)Choose to forgive that person and release them from my judgment.
5)Unforgiveness and bitterness will keep trying to come back into your heart. Do not let it, and what you can’t do by will power ask God for help with.
6)Ask God to meet unmet needs and unfulfilled expectations.

Oh, and one more thing about unforgiveness. It affects your outlook on the future. Don’t let the past hold you hostage for the rest of your life.

Stoplights, Security Guards, and Engineers

2006-10-16T14:20:00.000-07:00

Where I work you have to show a badge to get in. Drive up to the gate, show the guard your badge, and get in. Sounds simple, right? Wrong! The geniuses I work with (usually the ones whose cars I’m directly behind) drive up, roll down the window, and hold out their badge; directly behind their driver-side mirror where the guard can’t see it. Or they hold it backwards and wonder why they don’t get waved in. Or, at the last minute they remember, “Oh I have to show a badge to get in here (just like every other day you’ve been coming here for the past 10 years Einstein)” and starts frantically digging thorough their glove boxes or floors of their cars, while still driving mind you, directly toward the guard and adjacent line of cars that keep piling up because of the guy in the front of the line who has his badge turned backwards and refuses to roll his window down to ask the guard why he doesn’t get waved through but insists instead on angrily shaking his badge up and down in an effort to make it more visible. These are the people I work with.
*sigh*
We make things that fly and carry people.
Just thought you should know.

So, I’m sitting here before work, by a traffic light, eating a sandwich and taking notes for my blog. (Note: this actually happened over several weeks of me sitting here every day but I changed it just for continuity of the story) I have this strange affinity for traffic lights because they are a great equalizer. The person in the brand new $71,000Lexus LS has to stop just like the person in the $200 1976 Ford Pinto. That just makes me happy. I don’t know why. What am I taking notes on? Well it seems that otherwise normal people act somewhat strangely at traffic lights.

Take this guy who just came to a screeching halt in front of me for example, evidently he’s in a hurry because after having to stop, he started waving his arms around and saying, uh, make that shouting, something unintelligible, as if pleading with the light to change. I mean this guy looks fairly intelligent (before he started waving his arms and shouting I mean). I’m sure he knows that waving his arms and shouting at the light won’t make it change any faster. Why is he doing that?… unless he’s a magician of course, in which case waving his arms around and shouting makes total sense because he's probably trying to cast some sort of spell. If he is one though, he’s not very good because that light isn’t doing anything.

(NEXT)

This one is a lady, she’s evidently decided that instead of wasting time at the red light she is going to be productive…and put on eyeliner. This makes me cringe because I can’t help but keep thinking what’s going to happen if she gets rear-ended …which might just happen because the light just changed to green and she hasn’t noticed and, oh jeez, the guy behind her just honked his horn and she almost poked out her own eye. I can’t decide if I should be concerned or just keep laughing. Oh good, looks like she's ok.

(NEXT)

This next guy has been sitting here for about five minutes. He’s pulled up too far and his back tires are on the white line where the front tires are supposed to be when you stop. As a result he’s totally missed the sensor that makes the light change and is waiting patiently. He looks like the decent upstanding citizen type. I wonder how long it’s going to be before he decides to run the light…. (Waiting)….Oh good the light finally changed because someone else drove up behind him and tripped the sensor. Ooooh, BONUS: he’s turning into where I work. I’m going to have to catch up with him later.

I found the guy later in the factory:

Me: Hi
Him: Hi
Me: I don’t believe we’ve met before. I’m Rick
Him: Hi Rick I’m (an idiot) uh, “john”
Me: Glad to meet you John. Say you’re an engineer aren’t you?
John: Yeah that’s right.
Me: Good, maybe you could help me with something.
John: (Cautiously) uh, sure. What is it?
Me: You know that traffic light out by the main gate? It seems like that thing last forever when it’s just me but when other people drive up it changes almost instantly. I was wondering, is it broken or am I doing something wrong?
John: (relieved) Oh that, no it’s not broken, you see there’s a sensor under the……

(I swear to Melvin God of Leaves, I didn’t laugh. But I actually saw a light bulb turn on over John's head.)

P.S. This morning I filled up a glass with ice and set out my daily vitamins.
I then put the vitamins in my mouth and proceeded to wash them down by drinking from the glass. Much to my surprise nothing was happening. My wife started laughing and said, “Honey, there’s no liquid in that glass.” Mmmm, I can still taste the vitamins.

Willie and me.

2006-10-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

This is a comment I left on Psycho's site but I'm running low on time so here it is again

Ok, this is what really happened. Me and Willie were just trying to get back to Lukenbach, Tx, and Willie says to me, "hey Rick you hungry?" And I say "yeah man I ain’t had nothing to eat since Shreveport" but Willie says, "Man me too, but I’m broke, you know, cause of the IRS and all." and I say "hey man, no problem I got $1.37, just pull over to the side of the road here and we'll buy us some beef jerkey and gather up some of these here wild mushrooms from off the ground and make us a stew.” So that’s what we did. And while the stew was a cookin ol’ Willie pulls out a big fat joint and starts ta actin like he’s Puff Daddy, P-Diddy Combs and I says “hey man you can’t be smoking that.” And Willie says “relax man, it’s for my glaucoma.” And I says “yeah right” and he starts digging in his pocket and says, “naw man, really I have a prescription, here look.” And do you know what? I’ll be dang if he didn’t have one. And while the stew was a cookin I started feelin kinda relaxed and dizzy and I got the munchies cause you know what, I didn’t realize it until it was too late, but I was sittin down wind from ol Willie, yep. I was getting kind of bored waitin on the stew and all, so when it was done I says to Willie “Hey Willie you want to eat this on the bus?” And ol Willie says “Yeah, I just can’t wait to get on the road again.” And we both looked at each other and started laughing. So we loaded up the stew, and the mushrooms and, Willie’s glaucoma medication on the bus and headed down the road and Willie was actin all wild on account of he done eat some of the stew and I guess we done got us some bad beef jerky cause it made him act a fool and wouldn’t you know it? He threw the prescription for his medication out the window. Yes sir and that’s when the officer pulled us over.

Interview with a preacher (reprinted)

2006-10-14T22:28:00.000-07:00

Warning! This post is preachy in the Christian sense. I did not write it. It is an interview with Rick Warren. If you don't want anything to do with christians or christianity, DO NOT READ THIS. Having said that, if you read and disagree, please feel free to comment. Just don't say you weren't warned. Also, I think this has something good for everyone, even if you aren't christian. Oh and it's long.

About Rick Warren ( REMEMBER HE WROTE-PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE) You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having "wealth" from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, "Purpose Driven Life " author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California.In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren,

Rick said: People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you 're just coming out of one, or you 're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness. This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, "which is my problem, my issues, my pain." But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others. We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people. You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy " It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72. First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle none bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free. We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)? When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.

Maintenance

2006-10-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

You know I've often thought that wedding rings should be made of silver instead of gold. Because silver, unless you take time out to polish it every now and then, becomes dull and tarnished; just like a marriage. On that note, I've taken the day off to spend with my wife. We're going to a wedding. TTFN!

For Gil

2006-10-13T07:30:00.000-07:00

Michael, I don't know if you can win this fight. I do know that we both have a hope and faith that makes winning or losing irrelevant, because, in the end, this is a battle we all lose. What matters to us is that we fight, and how. Cancer can't kill you buddy, the death of the body is not the end of all that you are. But if it's all the same to you; Why don't you stick around a little longer, OK?
This is for you.

LIFE

Oh that you could hear the applause of men and angels
For that man who,
When beset by the powers of darkness
Stands, weathering the blows in silent dignity.
And God cries Rage; rallying his troops.
“Blessing!” ”Honor!” “Glory!” and “Power!”
And the Son calls forth compassion, and love…
That healing ointment.
And the Spirit, the Great Comforter,
Proves judgment once again,
And bolsters that mighty man,
Who for Right, risks all, counting all for naught.
And braving the fiery darts,
Charges through the mire,
Ignores the wounds,
Disdains the scars,
And stands victorious at last;
Laughing, loving, living,

…Preparing for the next battle.

I don't know what you guys are referring to but

2006-10-12T14:57:00.000-07:00

I was talking about Mr. Happy Snail from my third grade reading book.
Bunch of weirdos.

Pardon me but...

2006-10-11T19:23:00.000-07:00

Is it just my imagination or does this map of Dallas/Ft. Worth look like what I think it looks like?

welcome to my mind

2006-10-10T00:48:00.000-07:00

It's 2:42 am and I can't sleep so i thought i'd try a little freewriting. You know where you type whatever comes out of your head and don't go back to correct any of your mistakes or edit what you write in any way. Is's actually kind of dangerous. You never know what 's going to come out. Yeah I know after the buffalo hunting post i said that I'd never try it again but i don't care.

one time my dad was trying to put a tarp on a boat and strech it really tight and when he was pulling on it his haand slipped and he hit himself in the jaw and almost knocked himself out it was really funny. well not at the time but now it is. I'm not drunk just in case you were wondering. I haven't been drunk in several years if you don't count the time I drank some jack daniels to help me sleep but I hadn't drank in so long the two shots on an empty stomach had the room spinning.

i don't think anyone's going to read this but i don't care im just typing for the fun of it and for myself to see what my thoughts are really like when I don't sensor them.

I have topee be back ina sec.
hi im back why the hell am i typing in the middle of the night i should be reading a book or something. boy this is really boring am i this boring when im not trying to be interseting? Man that is a really depressing thought.

My wife and I bought a nasal cleansing pot basically its a pot you put saliene solution in and pour it up your nose to clean out all the junck upthere so you can breathe. She says she's had it done before and its wonderful but I just can't get myself to tryit. You know what the funny thing is? There this picture of a model on the box showing you how to use it and she's pourng water up her nose and smiling like she's having a really good time which i'm pretty sure she's not. oh and the waters also coming out of the other side of her nose which is funny. here why an I telling you about this? I'll just scan the picture hold ona sec. well that sure as hell didn't work out like I wanted it to hlod on. Ha! There that's more like it. Isn't that funny? Why would someone aspiring to be a model pose for a picture like this? Seems like pretty much of a career ending move to me don'y you think?

You know I really shouldn't post this because it doesn't make any sense but now I guess in the intererst of honesty I really kind of have to. Ha ha I just read this and I spelled censor sensor man I can be really stupid sometimes. What I'm wondering right now is if I should type something really strange. I wonder what it is that people will remember abouthis post and comment on if anyone gets through reading the whole thing. I wonder if I should lie to make it more interesting and say something like I have three testicles which oh shit I just said and can't take back now. I winder if that's what people will remember even though it's obviusly not true well not obviously for obvios reasons. man am i a bad typer tyipst or what? now wonder it takes so long to make a post. anyway isn't that picture funny.

ok one more story and then im going to bed. this ones true by the way. one time my step mom, not the one I have now but the other one was in a church service during a retreat in the mountains and they were having communion but they didn't have any crackers so they used a tortilla instead is that how you spell tortilla? anyway, someone got the bright idea to sing a hymn slowly i mean hymns are slow anyway but i mean even slower which was a bad idea because my mom fell asleep and then they had communion and when my dad passed her the tortilla(sp?) it woke her up and she didn't know where she was and instead of taking a little piece off which is what you are supposed to do, she started munching down on the whole thing right there in front of God and everybody. It was funny. you know i shouldn't tell yall this right now because i could blog about these things later but its too late now and i have to pee again and my wife jst woke up and asked what i'm doing from the next room and i said about to pee so hold on for a sec. ok im back and i wonder if i'll remeber any of this in the morning and i wonder if i have a tumor but that is scotts joke and arnold swchrtzenagers joke first so its not really funny when i say it. I wish someone else was up and blogging right now so I could have something interesting to read but i just checked and youre all asleep so I'm going to bed. inna godda davida baby. hasta la pasta.

Note to self

2006-10-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

When getting up around 2 A.M. for a late night ice cream snack remember to put said snack back into the freezer NOT refrigerator.

P.S. If however your get up early enough so that ice cream is not entirely melted and are able to clean up mess, do not blog about it. Your wife will find out.

p.p.s. This is all Shari's fault.

The Best Man Won

2006-10-08T18:04:00.000-07:00

Quoting Han Solo from the original Star Wars: “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.” Yes, to my everlasting shame, those words did actually come out of my mouth. I said them as I swaggered into a tent to talk to Sgt. P. looking to pick a fight. (Well, ok, maybe not a fight in the general blood drawing sense, I was actually more like picking a debate, which is what Sgt. P. and I did to pass the time)

Now Sgt. P. is a member of PSYOPS division of the army. His job is to f--k around with people’s heads, and he is GOOD at his job. Mostly it’s the enemies’ heads, but sometimes, just for fun’ he used us for practice. “Just keeping myself sharp” he’d always say. Yeah right.

He was my mental nemesis on this deployment. Well, I say nemesis; he was actually more like my mental Shaolin Kung Fu master. He consistently spanked my ass at everything from practical jokes and yo-mamma rips to chess and philosophical debates. I put baby powder down the barrel of his rifle and he drew a pink target on the back of my body armor. I switched his sugar for salt and he laced my toilet paper with pepper sauce. *sigh* such was the nature of our rivalry. But we were also friends.

Now any kind of comfort food out in the field is like gold. First of all you have to buy, pack, and carry on your back anything you take with you out to the field. Then you have to keep it safe from rain, bugs, and getting crushed. Finally what ever you pack is all you have until you get back to civilization. Sometimes a good Oreo cookie can make the difference between sanity and a trip to go see Mr. Happy Doc, so when I had a problem with someone stealing my Oreo cookies while I was out on partol, it was Sgt. P. who helped me catch the thief. He told me to take the first few Oreo’s out of the pack and scrape off all the cream filling and then replace it with toothpaste. It worked like a charm. The toothpaste was sweet, so by the time the guy realized something was wrong he already swallowed a good amount. All I had to do was keep an eye on my guys to see who had diarrhea the next day. See, I told you he was good. I made the thief do 20 push ups for each Oreo he stole.

Anyway, as I came into the tent, Sgt. P. looked up at me and said, “I know you didn’t just come in here quoting Star Wars.”
*Sigh* Here we go again. (I sit down to the unfinished chess game we have started, both the mental and the real one sitting in front of me) He moves. Pawn to e4

“Yeah you heard me, all you PSYOPS guys do is sit around thinking of ways to confuse the bad guys, we’re the ones who go out and do all the work.” I said patting my M-60 machine gun. (Now if you're picturing me like Rambo, I guess I should tell you that I'm kinda short and pudgy and the M-60 was so heavy that it made me waddle. So maybe you should picture a Penguin in camoflauge instead. That would be more like me than Rambo. And for those of you who know me in real life, stop laughing) Pawn to e5

(Him baiting me): “So…you’re saying that the sword is mightier than the pen? Is that correct young warrior?” Note: Young warrior = wet behind the ears snot nosed punk, which was pretty accurate at the time. Knight to f3

(Me falling for it): “Yeah, basically, when it comes right down to it, in the end, if things aren’t going his way the warrior can always kill the philosopher.” Knight to c6

Him: “but with which weapon, my young warrior, will you kill his ideas, his thoughts, his legacy?” Bishop to c4

(Dang! He used Yoda speak. I hate it when he does that.) “Well you see um…
It’s not the idea that’s…What I meant was…You took my words out of…” My mouth snaps shut. I know when I’m beat.

“Oh, and Cpl. Brandon?” he says with impeccable timing.

“What!” I snap irritably.

“Checkmate”

“Damn”

I walk off into the sunset, munching my Oreos.

Reciprocity

2006-10-06T23:56:00.000-07:00

OK. OK. OK. Will you please stop it already? I can hear all the psychic screams of all you FEMALES out there sayin' (read in a high pitch nagging voice) "He's always telling stories about his poor little sweet defenseless wife. Why doesn't he ever say anything embarrassing about himself?(reference last post)"

It's driving me crazy!

OK you want dirt? Here it is. (hanging his head in shame)

I...

have...

a super hair follicle.

That's right a super hair follicle. It's on my right leg, just behind my calf. And it's nasty! How I never noticed it in thirty five years I'll never know. When we first found it, the hair growing out of the back of my leg was about six inches long. I pulled it and it keeps coming back super fast. Like a boomerang or a bad metaphor. Like in a couple of days.

OK so there you have it. I hope you're happy. (hand over his eyes crying)

(peeking, smiling)

The blind driving the blind

2006-10-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

Driving down a very crowded Dallas highway headed to something or other, my wife, Monica, and I are busily poking and tickling and slapping and pinching away at each other over some minor issue. Suddenly the world goes dark, I can't see anything.

ME: (after about three seconds of being stunned, unable to move) ...WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!!??!

MONICA: (removes her hand from over my eyes)...(looking sheepish) Sorry, I forgot we were driving.

Revisionist history. No, really, this is true.

2006-10-05T12:32:00.000-07:00

My wife and I just recently took a trip to St Louis Missouri and went to the famous St Louis arch, or as it's more properly known Gateway Arch. While we were there we learned some interesting facts, such as; Did you know that the arch was originally intended to be a wealthy buisness man's monument to himself? It seems a Mr. Kroc had become rich from the people of St. Louis but more than money, Mr. Kroc wanted a symbol that would make people all over the world remember his buisness and his name, and ensure himself place in history. Thus he began construction on his monument. Unfortunately though, in the middle of building his legacy, Mr. Kroc's buisness took a slump and he ran out of money. The original project, which was supposed to be plated in 14 karat gold, was only half finished. Not knowing what else to do Mr. Kroc and the city of St. Louis reached a mutually beneficial buisness arrangement. The city agreed to buy the unfinished monument at a substantially reduced cost and to plate it with stainless steel rather than gold. They billed it as the Gateway Arch, a monument to the pioneering spirit of the people of St Louis . And in return Mr. Kroc would cut his losses and never reveal the original purpose or plans of the monument. This plan served both the city and Mr. Kroc well and the truth about remained a secret for many years. That is until Monica and myself discovered the original blueprints in a dusty basement in the city's catacombs. Now, I'm not supposed to share this with anyone but here is what the original monument was supposed to look like. Shhh. Don't tell anyone OK? Thank you Mr. Ray A Kroc.

a feverish look at the lighter side of puke

2006-10-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

OOpsy! Forgot to place the warning about this one... but then again if the picture isn't enough, well then, I'm afraid you just aren't very high up on Mr. Darwin's list sorry.

Sorry about the picture, but it was one of those great moments when everything just falls into place. We(my battlebuddies and I) were in Korea just outside Camp Casey when this guy came walking around the corner and started puking all over the place. Fortunately, having some medical training, and recognizing the signs of alcohol poisoning, I was prepared. I realized this is one of those moments when all the preparation and training of one's life is about to be put to the test. Unfortunately, just when I was on the brink of action, my photography skills materialized out of nowhere and kicked the hell out of my medical training. I whipped out the camera and quick as a flash-BAM, YES! was able to take the picture while there was still a stream of puke coming out of his mouth. Man, am I good or what? Yes, we did get him to a medic and he was just fine blah blah blah. But the important thing the picture right? I mean sure, people have all these great pictures of trees and sunsets and mountains, but I mean come on, really, how many people do you know with something like this in their collection. If my wife would let me I'd mount it above the fireplace.

ANYWAY, since I've been sickly lately we thought ah what the hell, we'll blog about that too. Oh dear are we referring to ourselves in the plural? We are aren't we? Dang! Now I'm/were schizophrenic too. *Sigh*

So! My wife and her sister, my sister-in-law, where raised in a very strict religious indy fundy (that's church speak for Independant Fundamentalist Baptist) family. They weren't even allowed to go to the movies or to wear pants until they moved out of the house. (I mean, don't get me wrong, they DID wear skirts and dresses, they didn't go around naked from the waist down. It's just that they couldn't wear pants. Sorry, just felt like I had to put that in there to avoid certain people's smartassedness in the comments section. Not that I mind smartassedness, I kind of like it, but if I've already thought of something one might comment on, trying to be said smart ass, and don't head it off at the pass, its not going to be very funny when I read it again in the comments section now is it? ) Did I mention I have a slight fever?

OK so my wife, being several years older than her sister; got out of her house experienced the real world for a while and married myself, (poor thing), a couple of years before her sister turned turned around (this is what it looks like when I just keep typing during a fever and am too lazy to go back and correct mistakes. just typing and typing and typing); I mean turned eighteen, and was, herself, emancipated.

So what do you think Monica and I did the moment Kristi (the proverbial sister of the story. Not a wicked step sister. On the whole she's pretty cool. Although she DID write that nasty little snippit about me on my profile. Totaly untrue by the way.) turned 18? That's right we took her little behind out to the movies. It was great. We saw the Matrix and she loved it.

Well, mostly she loved it. In hindsight, it probably wasn't the best idea in the world to buy her everything she wanted from the concession stand. You know, movie theater food on her first time out? Not good. Let's see at the final count I believe she had: Fried mozarella cheese sticks, a bag of Reeees' s Pieces, popcorn and Nachos.
Upon returning home she promptly threw up the afore mentioned toxic conglomeration of assorted movie fare.
I told her "ha! let that be a lesson to ya kiddo, that what you get for going out to the movies. It's a sinful place." Of course I was kidding and she didn't mind. She said it wasn't that bad really, the popcorn butter made it come up pretty smoothly. That got us onto the topic of what types of food were good and bad to throw up. (if one absolutely HAD to throw up that is. I'm not suggesting it would be fun to just sit around and puke up ANything) At the top of the list was pepto bismol which, we decided pretty much tastes the same coming and going, Followed by Ice Cream in a close second place (that is, we decided, if nothing else was eaten and summarily vioded at the same time.) Towards the bottom of the list was meat of any kind due to the grease factor, and I personally volunteered that great grandaddy of all things you DON'T want to puke. Pepperoni Pizza, because if eaten hot, it comes up, all together, in one great ball of cheese, crust, grease, and pepperoni, and if you're lucky half will remain in your stomach while connected buy a thin thread of cheese to the other part hanging out of your mouth.

Why in the H E double hockey sticks am i blogging this in the first place? I'm blaming the fever and hope it will stand up in a court of law. I dread pushing the "publish post" button. I dread the comments I'm going to get on this one. I'm going back to bed and try not to throw up. Oh well,
Pray for Rain
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
Carry on bravely, I'm outta this fire trap.
(closing eyes, face in a grimmice, hand trembeling edging toward publish button...

Eat Your Heart Out David Letterman

2006-10-02T02:58:00.000-07:00

Top Ten things I love about Blogging:

1.You can basically tell someone to f--- off because they’re a dirty blankety blank and then question their ancestry, but as long as you put a little smiley face after your comment… its OK.
2.In blogging you can be quick witted, even if it takes ten minutes. In real life…not so much.
3.You know people by their thoughts and ideas not their faces.
4.The god-like power of comment moderation.
5.You get to choose your own name and a cool avatar.
6.Having an online journal of your life that your kids can read when they get older.
7.Naked blogging! I’m doing it right now and no one knows. (eeeewe)
8.You can get prayers and warm fuzzies from all over the world.
9.Its funnier than the Sunday comics and sadder than the evening news; all in the same day.
10.Having good friends you’ll never see.

Top Ten things I hate about blogging:

1.Being afraid that if you don’t post or comment soon something terrible will happen.
2.Having to be near a computer every few minutes so you can see if anyone has posted or commented.
3.Federal agents knocking on your door because you were kidding around on your blog.
4.People don’t want to tell you things because they’re afraid you’ll blog about it.
5.Blogging about things people don’t want you to blog about and them finding out.
6.Getting up an hour early so you can read all your favorite blogs without your spouse thinking you’re addicted to blogging.
7.Staying up late for the same reason.
8.At least once in your lifetime you’ll probably get in trouble at work for blogging
9.Checking someone's blog over and over when they haven’t posted in a long time.
10.Having good friends you’ll never see.

What do you love...and hate about blogging?

Ode to Oakleys

2006-09-29T08:03:00.000-07:00

I work outside sometimes.
I’ve been wearing sunglasses all day.
As midday fades to dusk,
I take them off
And I am shocked by what I see.
Vibrant colors Red, Blue and Purple.
An evening sky set ablaze by the hand of God.
And suddenly I realize
Maybe I’ve been wearing sunglasses all my life.

Sometimes light is too bright
(Sometimes the truth is too hard.)
And we must wear shades
To dull the harshness of reality
To ease the pain of the past
But we can never forget
To seek the light again
To take off our shades
Lest, "shades", is what we become

Children of the Corn

2006-09-28T06:47:00.000-07:00

Looking through our pantry the other day, my wife and I made the most amazing discovery. (Well, I thought so, she didn’t.) We have a clear jar full of cornmeal which just happens to have been sitting there for the better part of a year. I wonder if this is still good I said as I picked the jar up and gave it a shake. And guess what? That’s right. Weevils! Wonderful wonderful weevils, alive, crawling everywhere. There are hundreds of them in there if not thousands. They’ve been in a completely sealed container for over a year. No extra air, no water, nothing but weevils and cornmeal. What wonderful survivors! Somebody said that the eggs are already in the cornmeal if you keep it long enough they will hatch. Monica wanted to throw them away but nooo, not on your life buster.

This is my little weevil world and I’m keeping it. I’ve tagged all the little suckers and am keeping track of them (much in the same way our government does to us) by what they do, where they work, and what they watch on TV. That’s my TV of course. Don’t be silly, Weevils don’t have TV’s. I sit them in front of the TV and they tell me what they want to watch by spelling it out with their bodies. It’s pretty neat except this one time (in band camp?) I accidentally left them in front of the TV during a Murphy Brown rerun they almost killed themselves spelling out “TURN IT OFF” “TURN IT OFF” over and over again. It wasn’t pretty.

I want to see how long they will live, as individuals that is, not as a collective community. That’s where you come in. I’ve named a little weevil after everyone I work with, who reads my blog, is in my immediate family, and is on my phone list. That’s right if you’re reading this right now there’s a weevil with your name on it. And guess what? The best part (for me, not you or your weevils) is that I’m the weevil god! (notice I use a little “g” so as not to offend big “G”) Monica says I’m sick. I call it cheap therapy. So ya’ll be good out there. The life of a little weevil is depending on you.

P.S. just for fun I tried pushing peefer over a cliff but it didn’t work

Want to know why?

Weevils wobble but they don’t fall down! (groan)

Antelope: 1 Cheetah: 0

2006-09-27T06:46:00.000-07:00

So I was chasing my wife around the house the other day trying to pinch her on the butt when all of a sudden the little minx zigged.

Trying to follow her, I too zigged when what I should have done, being considerably older and less agile, was zagg.

And so, I ran smack dab right into the wall, almost braking off my big toe in the process.

It really hurt.

So, while I'm rolling around on the floor in pain, where is my beloved wife?

She's standing over me laughing so hard she can barely speak.

At first I'm angry at her because she's laughing at me, then I start laughing with her, even though my big toe is starting to turn pruple and, I'm fairly cartain, is about to fall off.

Monica is in tears by now and we just sit there laughing for about fifteen minutes.

What a wonderful gift us humans have; to laugh in the midst of our own pain.

I wish I knew why we do that.

I wish I could share this gift with others.

Robin Williams on golf

2006-09-26T06:52:00.000-07:00


Robin Williams explains the origins of golf.

Superman Had An "S"

2006-09-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

I never really had a tattoo, but if I got one it wouldn't be THAT, and even if I did get that, it sure as hell wouldn't be on my forehead. I'm thinking this as I look at the middle of my steering wheel. I'm driving down the highway going just a little above 90 mph, which is quite a feat considering my car, Marshmellow Thunder , has an engine about the size of a large sewing machine. Why was I going 90mph? Well, the song Kryptonite came on the radio. I was driving along at a steady 60mph and singing "If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman!" at the top of my lungs and headbanging like we used to do in the 1980's; the next thing I know the engine is making a loud whining sound and the front of the car is vibrating. I look at the speedometer and it's reading 90mph and the little needle is shaking. At this point, instead of slowing down like any normal person, I'm transfixed wondering what would happen if I had a wreck going this fast. My first thought while looking at the steering wheel is, "Oh good, it's got an airbag." but then, I see the little Toyota emblem in the middle of where the airbag is supposed to come out. It's made out of hard plastic and I'm thinking "No way! If the airbag deploys surely that thing doesn't come out straight at the driver. I mean they think of things like that, don't they?" I look back at the Toyota emblem. (insert first sentence of the post here) I can just see myself walking into the dealership with the two interlinked circles imbedded in my forehead and the smarmy little sales manager comes over and sees my forehead and realizes who I am and says (using the moviephone voice):"Oh! Well hello there Mr. Brandon, I see we've had an airbag deployment Ha. ha. See there didn't I tell ya Toyota's are some of the safest cars on the road. Yessiree, if that had been a Ford or a Chevy you'd have been eating steak through a straw right now." Then seeing my not amused expression he switches tactics, "Look at it this way Mr. Brandon; its great advertising for us AND you get $50 for every referral!" The next thing I know I'm laughing as I hold his head under the water in the men's toilet screaming something really cool. But no that'd never happen right? Because the engineers would have thought of that. *sigh* Then again I work around a lot of engineers.
So now I'm driving down the road, looking at the steering wheel, rubbing my forehead and wondering what kind of super hero could I be with a giant "T" imbedded in my forehead?

ComeUnion

2006-09-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

Share your thoughts with me.

SHARE, ..............YOUR THOUGHTS.........WITH ME

Share your thoughts with me?

onetwothree times, already,
____________________ have I said,

"share your thoughts with me"
_______________________and you have yet to answer

____So whatever. ____________

Whatever, however whenever forever
.........................................................................they,
.................................................................................may,
.........................................................................................be.
Won't you?
.............Please, my friend(s)

Share(take/give) Your(inside/you) Thoughts(heart/soul) With(striving/together) Me(inside/me)

L. thanks for the inspiration
You too Mr. ee cummings

The Dangers of Free Writing

2006-09-21T16:43:00.000-07:00

Buffalo hunting used to be one of my all time favorite hobbies. I say “used to be” because until last Tuesday I had completely given it up. You see, for a while, I was a vegetarian and thought it was wrong of me to kill something just for the pleasure of killing and not eat the meat. I even had a good run at being a vegetarian, (almost two years), that all ended last week when I inadvertently ate some animal crackers. I was devastated. But then I figured, hey, since I’m not a vegetarian any more, why not go buffalo hunting again. So that’s what I did.

Now, the tricky part about hunting buffalo, or tatonka (pronounced Ta-TONK-a) as us Native American Koreans like to call bison, is knowing where to find them. This is especially difficult when one lives in the middle of the city. However, being a long time hunter/tracker of bison myself, I fortunately know the habits of the elusive Urban Buffalo. Some of them can be found at various theme parks and museums posing as stuffed animals. Please, do not be taken in by these so called “stuffed” buffalo. They are very much alive and are among the most rude and pernicious critters known to mankind. They often kick small dogs and steal candy from children when no one is looking. One of their favorite tricks is to wait until a human female walks by and poke her in the butt with one of its horns thereby incurring her wrath, usually in the form of a good slap across the face, on the nearest human male. The buffalo are all greatly amused by this and find it very difficult not to laugh after having pulled it off successfully. So the next time you see a stuffed buffalo and he seems to be smirking, it’s not just your imagination, he is laughing at you.

Another place one is likely to encounter city bison is in apartments. At least one herd can usually be found in nearly every apartment complex. They are nocturnal animals and graze at night on the weeds that grow up through cracks in the asphalt. During the day they hide behind hedges and up in small trees. To the untrained eye, these buffalo are nearly impossible to see as long as they remain perfectly still.

The reason I mention this is because I almost missed an entire herd one night while I was out hunting by the Eagle Mountain Apartment complex over by Boat Club Road.
To tell the truth I would have missed it but for the faint glimpse of white amongst the hedges. Could it be? No. That’s impossible. My heart nearly stopped. Standing in the middle of a grazing herd was the elusive white buffalo of Native American Korean legend. As the story goes the one who kills a white buffalo will gain the power to rally all 230 remaining members of the “running-bear-wan-park-do” tribe thereby bringing about the Golden Age of Korean Indian civilization and driving the white man back across the sea from whence he came. Man, this was my big chance.

Loading my slingshot, I ran in amongst them, the herd scattering, dust and buffalo snot flying everywhere, obscuring my vision, filling my mouth. Swallowing so I could breathe, onward I ran. My only concern was killing the white buffalo. But when I got closer, I noticed something strange about its behavior. He wasn’t running at all. He was just standing there looking scared and confused. When I got even closer I realized it wasn’t a buffalo at all. It was my friend (who wishes to remain anonymous) all dressed up A.S. (a) WHITE buffalo.

“Dude,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

“Man, am I glad to see you!” said my anonymous friend. “I don’t know what happened. I was at Taco del Mar eating a burrito and minding my own business when I was jumped by a bunch of hippy looking dudes and girls with hairy pits. They said they were from P.E.T.A. and that they were here to teach me a lesson. The next thing I know they put these horns on my head and strapped a buffalo tail to my ass.”

Shaking my head, in disgust, I commiserated with my friend. “Sorry dude, that must have been rough. Did they glue all that fur to you too.” I said ending my sentence with a preposition.

“Well, not exactly,” my friend said embarrassed. “That’s just me. I been meaning to have that hair removal procedure done but, the insurance, you know. They squirted me down with super soakers and rolled me in flour. “Maybe living with the animals for a while will teach you a lesson, bunny hater!” They spat in my face as the sped off in the P.E.T.A.mobile.”

“Yeah” I said as we stood there in awkward silence.

“Yeah” he said.

“Um, well maybe we ought to get you home”

Then his eyes glazed over and he seemed to forget who he was.

“Ya know,” he said grunting like a buffalo. “I don’t think I want to go home. I think I like being a buffalo. And I THINK YOU”RE A BUFFALO HUNTER” he said while lowering his horns and creeping menacingly closer.

“Whoa, buddy it’s me, Rick, your friend. What’s wrong with you? What did P.E.T.A. do to you?”

Then he charged. I ran as I had never run before. He ran faster. My legs were getting tired from running and my fingers tired of typing.

“I’ve got to end this story soon,” I said to myself, “before it gets really stupid”

So, reaching into my Danger Bag I pulled out the only thing that could save me:

… (um trying very hard to think of something that one can use to stop a charging buffalo.)

…bubble wrap. If there were any shred of humanity left in the raging buffalo that was my friend this would bring it out. Throwing down the bubble wrap and typing for all I was worth I finished the story. It worked. A silly grin came over my friends face as he sat down in the dirt to play with the bubble wrap. I went home, resolving never to attempt free writing again. I don’t know what ever happened to my friend.

Epilogue: In certain circles of Native American Korean lore it is whispered even to this day that a lone hunter, in the suburbs of Fort Worth, on a night when the air is still and the silver moon shines full, if he listens carefully, can still hear the sounds of the white buffalo.

*pop* *snap* *pop* *pop*

note: if anyone reading this is a member of P.E.T.A. I apologize. I'm sorry. (that you're a member of P.E.T.A.! Ha!)

So there I was...The Lying Game

2006-09-18T11:01:00.000-07:00

On the heels if Shari’s little “finish my story” post, and seeing how fun that was, I thought we could all play a little game we used to play in the army to pass the time.
The object is to see who can tell the best lie. The rules are thus:

1) It has to be a lie
2) The lie has to start in media res
3) The first line has to be, “So there I was…”
4) You have to use three random items chosen by somebody else (honor system) in your story.
5) It has to be open ended; no resolution (This is because, in future games, you have to start with the lie from the previous game)

Ok, as an example, and because I’m running low on imagination today, here’s a lie I used to tell (Note they don’t have to military lies this one just happens to be):

So there I was… summer of ’71, standing on top of a rice paddy dike in the middle of the Da Nang valley, surrounded by two hundred of the meanest little Vietcong pygmies ever to follow the Ho Chi Minh trail, me in my underwear with nothing but two chem-lights, my dog tags, and an out of date condom. Suddenly a helicopter appeared out of nowhere. When it passed real close I could see the pilot. It was my faithful companion Dusty the Wonder Dog flying in to get me. Despite having lost the use of one paw to a giant Vietnamese tunnel rat, he provided me with close air support, keeping the enemy at bay with twin fifty cal machineguns. Man, you should have seen the pygmies fly. I tried to signal the helicopter with chem-lights but the pygmies hit it with a rocket proppelled grenade and Dusty went down like a Microsoft windows application, with an explosion that blew the underwear right off my body. The crash killed poor Dusty. That was just too much! It was just like in the movie Lone Wolf McQuade with Chuck Norris. They can beat you to a bloody pulp, kill all your buddies, and even murder and rape your woman, but when they mess with your dog, you’d better watch out. As the little Oompa Loompa commie bastards from hell surrounded me, I sharpened the edge of my dog tag on a rock to use as a weapon and put on the condom for protection. Was I scared? Hell yeah I was scared. …Scared one of them would get away.

Ok So that was my lie. What's yours? I can't think of any prizes right now except I'll be forwarding all the best lies to my buddies still in the army so they can see what smart people (good liars) you are. Besides I'm kinda chicken and don't want to have to pick the best one. I'll leave this up til next Monday. Whatchu got? Come on baby, lie to me!

The "F" word: Long and Laborious

2006-09-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

I was going to regale you today with a superb lie about how I single handedly saved a company of navy seals in the Da Nang valley (NAM) back in '71, but since there were so many unexpected comments bout the "F" word in yesterdays post, I thought I might put my two cents worth in. Da Nang will just have to wait.

First let me say that I don't have any thing against the usage of any words, cuss or otherwise. As pointed out in the last post comments they are just words. And, as many of you know, I use these words on numerous occasions both for their shock value and the appropriateness of their usage in in certain situations. My only problem is this, and it is also why, I personally am sometimes cautious in their use.

I believe that words are, so to speak, just thoughts with clothes on. When we have a thought we want to convey to another person, we match that thought, with certain meaning and "wrap it up" in what we call a word. It comes out of our mouths or keyboards and enters into another person's ear or mind. They "unwrap" the word and it is absorbed into the mind as a thought.

Hopefully what I wrapped up in a word and what you unwrap is the same thought. This is called good communication.

Ok now, sometmes when I say FUCK (or so many other things), what I wrapped up is definetely not what the other person receives, due to upbringing, religious beliefs, past experiences, etc. That's one reason I am cautious.

Another is my own heart. It's one thing to breifly think something about a person, but to wrap that thought up in a word and send it out through the gate of my mouth and share that thought with the object of the thought, is quite another.

I am not saying it is ok to think bad thoughts about another person and just not tell them. That would seem to be hyppocrtitcal. What I am saying is that I can't always control what pops into my head briefly but I can ALWAYS control what I allow to come out of my mouth. It seems to me though that the words that I speak would do better and come out sweeter if I kept them in my head a little longer and tempered them with time and a little consideration.
(not that this has anything to do with FUCK, but I'm just freethinking about communication here)

As to my last post and saying fuck. I don't give a rats ass about saying the word or anything else in general. But the reason it weighed on my conscience last time was that it was directed towards people. What I said was:

"To all you soulless bastards who hate color and music, and who shoot the wounded and hurting; whose god is the bottom line: “Fuck you.”"

The title of the post was "A Sudden Burst of Anger" and to be sure that's what it was., and as such I believe my feelings were genuine and valid. However in reflection, It seems to me that the "soulless bastards" are truly the ones who are in prison and are in need of WHATEVER
I don' know what you want to call it; goodness, pity, kindness, understanding ,whatever. I don't feel bad about saying "fuck you", I feel bad that I truly meant it and that it was directed at other human beings that are struggeling just like me, but just haven't reached the point I have in some areas of life. In other areas of life I'm not where thay are and I fail miserably. That's why I was apologizing. That, and because of what it does to me.

"What we live with we learn

What we learn we practice

What we practice we become

What we become has consequences"

Ok sorry so somber, next post later today will be something more fun: The Lying Game. Come play with me won't you? :)

Don't make me come over there.

2006-09-17T11:06:00.000-07:00

Whatcu lookin' at? Homey don't do weekends yo!

I'm at church apologizing for sayin' F/U so much.

A Sudden Burst of Rage

2006-09-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

Modern Day Prisons part 1: CUBICLES. Cubicles are bad news. They’re actually made from a rare cloth that sucks the life force right out of your body. That’s how they power the lights you know. Those fluorescent lights that keep the brain from producing endorphins. Yep, it’s one of the most ingenious prisons they’ve ever come up with. Most of the people don’t even know they’re in prison or what they’re in for. The bad thing, the really cruel part, is that they don’t have the right to your life force. They can’t get it unless you sign the release. They start by staring at you when you show a spark of individuality or do something “different”, like laugh, (this is usually followed by a rolling of the eyes). Then they overload you with work, nothing too physical, but it weighs on the spirit like nothing else. Mixed in with constant repetition, this technique has been known to drive even the Green Berets of joy and passion to their knees. They wear you down day by day until, at last, you go out with a mighty whimper, screaming nothing. Not angry, or laughing, or sad.

To all you soulless bastards who hate color and music, and who shoot the wounded and hurting; whose god is the bottom line: “Fuck you.”

To everyone else:

Live, damn you, live!

This post dedicated to Dylan Thomas, John Paul Jones, The Last Act of Defiance, and Bob…Yeah, that Bob.

8 Seconds

2006-09-13T22:53:00.000-07:00

It was a dangerous beast to be sure, full of anger, hatred, and all sorts of evil. My God the stench! The saddle was loose, very loose, and the ground was wet. Sweat broke out on my forehead. Do I dare, I thought? I never wanted this, but I was forced into it. I have to, there’s no going back now. And then, throwing caution to the wind, I closed my eyes and took a mighty leap onto the great beast landing square in the loose saddle and held on tight with both hands. Yahoooooo! I screamed as the monster bucked and thrashed. At first I was brave, matching every growl and snort of the beast with my own howls of rage and determination. But then I realize this thing isn’t playing. It’s out for blood. I’ve got to get out of here or things could get messy really fast. I try to get out of the saddle but it was loose and the ground was wet; slicker that whale shit on an ice flow. My feet slipped and I fell back into the saddle with a grunt. Damn! I should have worn my boots, they’re made for situations like this. No, there is no escape. I’m in this to the bitter end. I steel myself for battle…Man, I have got to get that toilet fixed one of these days.

Small Family Emergency

2006-09-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

Bad News: My father was bitten by a copperhead while going pee pee out in the wilderness yesterday.

Goodnews: They're not going to have to lop it off. (His hand that is. That's where he was bit.)

Update: Seems like they aren't going to have to snip any fingers either. Other than obvious side effects he's doing well.

Love you Dad, Mom.

P.S. Next time look before you leap! (so to speak) :)

The Old Ball and Chain

2006-09-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

“You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals. So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel” I’m singing this in the shower really loud and off key. Why? I don’t know. I really don’t like the song but the tune is kind of catchy. Anyway it gets me thinking about this documentary I saw once about the mating habits of peacocks. It seems the male peacock uses an elaborate mating dance and his beautiful tail feathers to impresses the female, thereby gaining permission to mate with her. So, my wife’s right outside putting on her makeup and doing girly stuff and I’m in the shower thinking about peacock mating rituals and about how well it worked for the male peacock, and I think; Cool, I’m going for it! (This might be a good time for you ladies to skip down a few lines.)

Aha-HAI-ei-Yah, I shout, leaping naked from the shower, beaded water flying like diamonds from my violently jiggling love handles. (I picture this all happening in slow motion.) After landing, I’m a veritable whirling dervish of love and excitement, dancing around and around doing my best imitation of the South Jamaican Eskimo Love Dance. I finish it all off with a triple pirouette and stand there, looking at my wife expectantly, wide eyed, nostrils flaring, bobbing my head up and down, letting out a mighty “WHOOP! WHOOP!” (Sharpened chopsticks are on the left for those of you who wish to poke out your mind’s eye at this time)

Now, how all this love and attention could possibly fail to elicit the desired response is quite beyond me, but as it turned out my wife had never seen the afore mentioned documentary, and therefore didn’t realize how incredibly turned on she was by the whole thing. She gives me a look that completely deflates my ego (among other things). But I’m undeterred. Persistence in all things, that’s my motto. “WHOOP! WHOOP!” I repeat.

“You’re not funny you know.” She says.

“Oh yeah then why are you smiling”

“Because you’re a dork!” she says, and kisses me on the cheek.

She’s right you know. I am a dork.
I don’t mind, though, because she still loves me.
She makes all things better.
She keeps me young.

They say Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived. Well, I don’t know about that but he sure knew about women. He had over seven hundred wives. Or maybe he just knew what was in his man’s heart when he looked at the one he truly loved. About three thousand years ago he wrote what I feel when I look at my wife today:

“This is my beloved and this is my friend”

God I love her.

P.S. Next time I’m using peacock feathers!

requiem

2006-09-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

...finally raining today. I can't help but think it's the tears of a nation.

Karma Chameleon

2006-09-08T17:28:00.000-07:00

What comes around goes around. That's Karma in a nutshell.

Normally, the only contact I have with our little flying friends is when I’m blowing off their little feathered asses with #8 birdshot from my 12 gage shotgun and frying them up for dinner, but this was different. Just outside our window at work, a baby bird had fallen from its nest and was now being viciously attacked by a blue jay. My co-worker and I both looked at each other and then back out the window. “Oh hell no!” I say as we start for the door. We shoo away the blue jay and examine the little bird. He’s hurt badly, barely alive, a pigeon, I think. We set him down in a shady patch of grass and bring him food and water, which he hungrily consumes. After eating, he just lays there, too weak to even move. “You know he’ll be dead by tomorrow.” I say. “Yeah I know,” says my co-worker, “but I’m going to bring some bird food anyway and we’ll see what happens.”
Well, he didn’t die the next day, or the day after that. We feed him by hand every morning and care for his little wounds as best we can. My co-worker even builds him a little shelter made from sticks and grass. We named him Jake. The weeks went by until, one day; we came out to discover that Jake was nowhere to be found. We wondered if an animal had gotten him or if he finally grew strong enough to fly off on his own. Regardless of what had happened, Jake was gone. My co-worker and I both felt a pang of sadness about Jakes departure. Empty Nest syndrome you know. (Aww, boo.) The worst part of it was not knowing whether Jake was dead or alive.

You know, they say that after you’ve had a bonding experience like that with an animal, you will always be able to recognize it even if it looks just like all the others of its kind, even after long periods of time.

It’s been two weeks.

The reason I bring this up is because I saw Jake today.

He took a giant shit on my car.

Could someone please explain this Karma thing to me again? Cause I ain’t feelin’ it! (He said cleaning his shotgun).

Pink Blues

2006-09-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the dark tenor of this post but hey they can’t all be light and airy? Right? Man o man this is going to be a bad one. And I don’t mean bad as in “oh, that wasn’t very good” kind of bad. I mean bad as in “Dear Melvin God of Leaves that tasted like pure evil” kind of bad. The worst thing is knowing it’s going to be bad but not being able to stop. Nope, no freewill here, this tidal wave of literary blagh is coming on like the proverbial irresistible force or like the Juggernaut in the X-men cartoon. See there? It’s started already.

I’d like to stop typing now, I really would but I can’t, you see, this one is Karma, Predestination, Kismet, or Destiny, or the Will of God, hey, choose your poison but whatever you call it, this is it. This particular twist of fate started when I committed a SERIOUS spiritual faux pas this morning. Instead of my usual prayer and meditation time I listened to an entire Pink Floyd album. I know, I know, what the hell was I thinking? I don’t know but in my defense I was up early and there was no one there to stop me. It was a Momentary Lapse of Reason, just One Slip.

Now I’m thoroughly depressed. I was going for Comfortably Numb, but Pink Floyd never stops at comfortably numb you always get depressed, especially if you listen to a whole album, then it’s just Goodbye Blue Sky. I don’t recommend it for your morning devotionals. So here I am writing a bad blog and trying to shake myself out of it but The Dogs of War, they don’t negotiate. I am so sorry for this. Guess it’s just One of My Turns. My advice would be to Run Like Hell.

Anyway, as I go out into the world today I’m feeling upset, angry and mean. I feel like clubbing a giant panda to death using a baby harp seal or kicking puppies and, ripping the wings off of butterflies. Yeah I know that’s horrible but that’s what’s inside right now.

So what do you do with something like that? I don’t know but I seem to remember something that applies here: “Nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean.” It may be a Jewish saying, not sure though. The point is: it’s ok to have a bad day but beware what you say and do when it comes around. That’s where the real damage is done. I think Edward Rowland Sill summed it up best:

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,

Go crushing blossoms without end;

These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust

Among the heart-strings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept-

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung!

The word we had not sense to say-

Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;

But for our blunders - oh, in shame

Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

My hope for today is not to hurt anyone or speak unkind words as long as my foul mood lasts. On second thought, that’d be a good goal everyday. Bleaceehhh! I’m saying it but I ain’t feeling it. Maybe trying to convince myself. Hope you're day is going better. Sorry for complaining. Pray for rain.
Shine On You Crazy Diamonds

Gap Theory

2006-09-06T06:01:00.000-07:00

It's not that I'm getting older mind you or even that I feel older. It's just that there's, well, a gap between younger people and myself. It's a communications gap, a paradigm gap. I don't think it existed between me and the generation that preceeded me or at least I don't think the gap was quite as wide as it is now. And I'm beginning to notice it a lot more lately.

Conversation 1:
New Employee, P.Y.T.(pretty young thing) at work: No, no you see I have to park up front where I can see my car.
Me: Why is that?
PYT: Well, wouldn't ya know it? This is my first rental car and the guys at the rental place forgot to give me the little remote clicker thingy.
Me: Yes, and...
PYT: Don't you see. I can't lock my doors!
Me: *sigh* Oh, I see. Well, you be sure and keep a good eye on it then. We wouldn't want it to get stolen.
PYT: Yeah, I'd hate to look stupid on my first day.

Conversation 2
My co-worker and I are helping to move his daughter (PYT#2) into her new apartment.

PYT2: I called the cable company and they said it'll be a couple of weeks before they can come out and hook up my TV. I don't know if I can go that long without TV.
Co-worker: Tell ya what. You go finish arranging your apartment and we'll see what we can do.

My co-worker and I go down to the local electronic store and by a set of rabbit ear TV antenna. We come back to the apartment, and hook them up. It's not cable but all the basic channels work.

PYT2: (comming out of her room) What's that on top of my TV?
Co-Worker: It's an antenna. You see the picture? You've got TV now.
PYT2: Well, neat, thanks. Uh...how much does it cost?
Co-worker: Cost? Nothing.
PYT2: You mean they just they just give it away free like that! Man, and I've been paying for cable all this time? I'm going to call all my friends and tell them about this!
Me: *sigh*

Conversation3
My wife and I were having a conversation about the Space Shuttle. Keep in mind that my wife is 10 years younger than me. (it's ok, she's in her twentys).

Me: I remember when they first built the Space Shuttle. It was kind of a big deal.
Wife: No you don't. You're Not THAT old.
Me: Yes, I do. I watched the first flight of the Space Shuttle in school.
Wife: Ha! See, now I know you're lying. You weren't even born yet.
Me: what are you talking about.
Wife: You were born in 1971.
Me: Yeah so?
Wife: We didn't go to the moon until 1969!
Me: *sigh* Yeah, you got me on that one.

Hats Off To You Sir!

2006-09-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

Part of me thinks ; Well what did he expect? Sooner or later the law of averages was bound to catch up with him. I mean come on, anyone who gets that close to dangerous animals for that long is bound to wind up dead right? I always said that one of those animals was going to kill him...and now one has.

And now I'm sad. And about the Crocodile Hunter of all people. I mean, don't get me wrong, the loss of any life is tragic, but I didn't know the guy. I didn't even particularly like his show. I thought what the guy did was stupid and dangerous. I just didn't think I'd be so sad when it finally happened just like I knew it always would.

Was what he did dangerous?
Yes.
Was it stupid?
Yes.
But was it also brave?
Yes.
Did it capture the human spirit and make us sit on the edge of our seats?
Yes.
Was it the stuff of stories and legends?
It will be.

I think what he did was foolish and not worth the risk. Then again there are those who think stepping outside their door isn't worth the risk.
They live their whole lives inside...and in fear.

People think a lot of things aren't worth the risk. Flying, Rock Climbing, Skydiving.

Loving, Sharing, Hoping...living.

Was it worth it? I don't know.

I wonder what his wife and kids are going to say. I mean I know they would rather have him back, but would they want him back as someone other than himself? What if he were more cautious. More careful. Less passionate. His flame a little less bright but the man himself still here with us now?

The Obituaries said he died doing what he loved. We all should be so lucky. So many of us glimpse the things we love from afar, only wishing we had the courage to do them. Never filling the holes in our heart. Choosing safety rather than life. Is it better to, perhaps, die doing what you love? Or to live a long life having never dared? I wish those who have passed on could send us some of their thoughts and advice, but they can't. The only thing we have is to look at the life they have lived. I wouldn't have done it like he did, but then again I have different passions, different loves. Will I ever dare to pursue them as he did his? I hope so. For myself, I think we could all use a little more Crocodile Hunter in us. Here's to you Mr. Steve Irwin. Hat's off to you, sir! Goodnight, wherever you are...

A Picture or a Thousand Words.

2006-09-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

Ok so here I am all ready to publish all our pictures on flickr and link it to this site, but now that I have everything ready, I find that I'm hesitant to do so. I mean I kinda like the Jack Sparrow look. What's that? Oh sorry. That's CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow. Besides I'm thinking half the fun of blogging is getting to know a person solely by their thoughts and ideas. On the other hand though, it would be nice to share my wifes and my, real life with people too, via pictures. What do you think? Not just about my blog but about pictures (in as far as pictures of the actual people go) vs. words and ideas only in a blog?) Lemme know.

P.S. I am also having problems losing posts (not trouble because I'm trying to lose them and can't but trouble BECAUSE I'm losing them.) Any suggestions or help from you experienced bloggers out there would be appreciated. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that it's God messing around with me cause he didn't like the "Multiple Orgasm's" joke. :)

The Man Bag

2006-09-03T12:36:00.000-07:00

Warning: This post is extremely boring. Why? Because I'm bored and if I'm bored blogging, you're going to be bored reading. That's just the kind of guy I am. :)

Hang on to your whoopy shorts boys and girls, that's right, we're going to take a little inventory (of my work bag that is, not our lives or our emotions or anything useful like that. This is supposed to be boring remember. My marketing strategy here is to appeal to your voyeur tendencies . No, no of course I wasn't referring to you. I was talking about the other people reading this, but definitely not you.)

So, I'm sitting here looking at the bag I take to work everyday and it occurs to me that you can tell a lot about someone by all the stuff they carry around. The bag itself is sort of a briefcase/laptop/portfolio thing-a-ma-jobber It's big and black and carries all kinds of stuff necessary for daily survival. I like to think of it as my "grab and go, all purpose, emergency, McGuiver, danger bag". My wife calls it a man-purse. Sigh. Did I mention it's big and black?

Ok so here we go (he says turning the bag over on the table. Yes this is actually my blog for today.) Let's see what we have here:

1 Franklin Covey medium size organizer.
1 bottle Purell hand sanitizer.
Handcuffs (no key)
1 Copy of Treasure Island (paperback).
2 packages assorted fruit flavored gummy animals, 1 bag microwave popcorn.
1 cell phone.
Pens, a stubby pencil nub (eraser chewed off), and a Sharpie permanent marker.
Letter from friend. (unanswered. Hey I'm workin on it!)
Thumb drive, note cards, and countless little scraps of paper with notes scribbled on them.
3 salt water taffies, 1 jelly nougat, 2 packs hot sauce, 1 vendor pack of peanuts.
Pocket knife, nail clippers, leatherman multi-tool.
Nalgene water bottle (empty)
Starbucks insulated coffee mug (full, extra strong, lots of cream lots of sugar)
Notes for book (unfinished, the notes and the book)
1 chopstick for stirring said coffee, 1 fork, 1 spoon, 1 butter knife.
assorted maps (I love maps. Some might even call it a fetish. As a matter of fact some do.)
$1.60 in change, band aids, foam ear plugs, compac mirror.
1 King James Bible, Copy of the poem "Ulysses", byAlfred, Lord Tennyson.
1 compass (stolen from the army), 550 cord, duct tape.
Whistle, pliers, multi-tip screwdriver (with multiple tips).
Flossers, triangular bandage (large), deoderant, Naproxen (Advil , cheapo knock off brand)
Composition notebook, old ziplock baggie with 3 animal crackers(inedible).
2 loose peanuts(also inedible, at least I wouldn't try, but you can have them if you want).
1 DVD of Vision Quest (80's movie with Matthew Modine).
1 container of stir fried rice (fresh and edible).

Did you actually read the whole list? If so, I'm impressed.

So, what does all this say about me? I don't know except that maybe I'm bored. I'll let you decide.

What's in your bag? (he said afraid to ask).

Pride and Prejudice

2006-09-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

It was a little cafe in the small town of Licking, Missouri. When we walked throught the door everything stopped, everything. Conversations ceased, people stopped eating, and waitresses stopped serving. Everybody was staring at us as if Jesus himself had just walked through the door. I swear I heard dueling banjos in the background. "Howdy ya'll." I said to break the tension. Silence. Slowly everybody goes back to what they were doing. This is why I hate small towns, You're always a stranger until three generations of your family have lived and died there without ever having set foot outside of the city limits.

We wolf down our breakfast, which was actuallt quite tasty, and start to leave when we hear a voice from the corner table. "Where are you folks from?" asked a little old lady with smiling eyes. Except for her eyes she looked to be about a hundred and twenty. "Ft. Worth, Texas ma'am." I reply.

"And what brings you up here?"

"Well ma'am my parents just bought some property out in the country and are planning to move up here. We just came to visit them."

She takes my hand in hers and gives it a little pat as she smiles, "We're glad to have you folks up here. I know you'll fit in just fine."

Before you know it there were people all around us shaking our hands and patting us on the back, welcoming us to their community. And the little old lady, she gave each of us a hug before we left.

Mmmm...a good warm breakfast and hugs from a stranger. Maybe small towns aren't so bad after all.

Plane ticket to Missouri: $201.
Breakfast in a small town: $6.95.
Losing your prejudices and preconceptions: Priceless.

Plagiarized Love

2006-08-31T07:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, I totally stole this from something I read a long time ago, but it’s too good not to share. So kudos’ go out to Mr. Anonymous wherever you are. (please don’t sue me)

They were two immigrants in the mid 1800’s. There was just one problem; neither one spoke the others language, but, as they say, the language of love is universal. They fell in love and got married. Both of them spoke very little English and they had a hard time communicating. So it was with great difficulty then, that she made him understand she had to go away on a lengthy trip to visit her relatives. While she was away, he found an old English dictionary and though he didn’t quite understand grammar or syntax, he found the words he was looking for.

He wrote: “Everywhere in this house is the lack of you.”

She came home on the next train.

My Mona Lisa

2006-08-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

Warning: This post contains graphic descriptions about the ravages of war. Please do not read this if you know it will disturb you!

She haunts my dreams. Why was she smiling?

Bosnia 1998. I'm a soldier this time. He's young; not so young as most though, but compared to me he just a kid. Looking out from behind his eyes I see the world through the invincible eyes of youth. It all looks shiny new. Yeah, I know this look. This guy's immortal. He's never going to die. He's young and fit and full of fire.

He's driving through this shithole of a country in a humvee trying to dodge all the potholes in the crater-filled dirt road, he looks up...and suddenly there's a cold fist in the pit of his stomach.

He's seen some god awful things in this place. The Sava river stopped flowing from the dead bodies choking its shores, mass graves litter the countryside, landmines and their hapless victims, none of it really bothered him much before, but this, this damn near killed him.

She was just a a girl really. She couldn't have been more than twelve or maybe fourteen. It was hard to tell. She was walking up the road in a pink dress. At least I think it was pink. Time sometimes makes the colors fade.

God only knows what she had been through. I don't. She had been wounded though not recently. No, these were old wounds, just scars now really. She had been horribly burned, like someone had taken the Barbie doll from her hands and held it over the flames too long. She looked melted. Her face was disfigured beyond belief and she had only whisps of hair growing here and there on her head.

But it wasn't her scars that made him stop. It was her smile. Why the hell was she smiling? What did she know, this little melted girl, that could give her such joy? Wasn't she scarred from the other kids making fun of her? From knowing that she would probably never have a lover? Hadn't anyone told her she was supposed to be bitter? What kept her heart from turning to stone? Why was she still smiling?

It wasn't the transitory half hearted smile of someone who passes you by on the street. Her smile came from the heart, shown in her eyes, lit up this grey, cold, god forsaken country...and his whole world.

He stopped and gave her a ride. It was against regulations, but the road was long, and she had already been through enough. He didn't give a damn about regulations anyway.

She smiled. She said thank you. He almost started fucking cryin, but instead he just swallowed hard, said your welcome, and smiled back.

Her smile haunts my dreams. I wonder where she is now. I hate her you know. I hate her because my life is nice and quiet now. But she comes sometimes in the stillness. In my thoughts. And reminds me of things I thought I had forgotten, and of a joy I do not understand. I hate her and I love her.

I don't know who you are. I never got your name, but I hope you are still smiling out there wherever you are. I hope you are well, my Mona Lisa.

Just In Case

2006-08-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

Monica (Mrs. Observations of Earth) and I are off to Missouri until Tuesday. Till then read the archives. (I know there are only two posts. Just read them over and over again.) Oh, and just in case we go down in a blaze of glory (which won’t be very glorious because if we go down I’ll be screaming like a little girl and have lots of fecal matter in my pants) It’s been a great three day run. Blah, blah, blah…feed Jake and all that.

Assimilation or Eternity with a Boy Band

2006-08-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

And now for the weather:
Hell: 98 F
Ft. Worth Texas: 105 F (as of yesterday, really)
To be totally honest there was some confusion as to whether 98 F was the temperature in hell or if the people there were just forced to listen to the group 98 Degrees for all eternity (which would be like WAAAY worse). The only thing everyone agrees on here is that it is hotter than hell in Texas.
Good morning ya'll,
I was going to say thank you to everyone who e-mailed and posted for the warm welcome (btw, e-mail friends I know this blogging is new to ya'll but please post next time. That way everyone will get to see what smart asses you are .) , but that was while I still had a warm fuzzy about blogging. That is until I figured it out. That's right, I've thought about it and thought about it but there's no getting around it. The similarities are just too amazing to ignore. I mean, really, I can't believe I didn't see it before: B-L-O-G , B-O-R-G. Coincidence? I think not. There's only one conclusion. Yep, I think I've been assimilated. (besides toadman and shari have as much as told me so) That would explain all the new hardware and the urge to wear black all the time. To tell ya the truth I don't see what the big deal is. Assimilation really isn't that bad. I know everybody's all like "aaahhhh, dear God no, it burns, it burns, my flesh, my eyes, nooooo. Ha! Wussies. Well, I mean after that it's not so bad. The new appendages are so cool kinda like being your own swiss-army knife/ leatherman multi-tool. And the voice, please. I've been doing renditions of Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto and Electric Aveneue all morning. My wife says it's "annoying" but I know when she says that she really means "cute". In fact the only bad thing about being Borg is going to the bathroom. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Oh, and to all you guy borgs out there, I have a question. What's that little lever down there for?( you know the one I mean) I'm afraid to pull it. Ok, I have to go now. It's almost 8:45am and I have to go assimilate my wife before she gets up. What? Oh, now that's just wrong. you've got dirty minds. That's not what I meant at all :P. Again thanks to all. It warms the cockles of my little half-human, half-machiene, model # 115-926, cyborg heart to kown you're out there.(can't beleive I just wrote an entire blog about being a Borg. Yeah I'm a geek)
That's ok. I know "geek" really means "stud-muffin".

Genesisesess

2006-08-23T13:14:00.000-07:00

No, that wasn't Guinness for all you beer drinkers out there. I was going for the plural for Genesis meaning "beginnings" (since this is my first post on my first blog) but I became befuddled which actually happens quite a lot. I just didn't want to get a bunch of drunken Irishmen thinking they had found a kindred spirit. NOT that I have anything against the Irish... or even drunken Irishmen or drunken Irishwomen for that matter or even beer drinkers in general or people who don't drink beer.
Uhm...I tell ya what, let's get this legal stuff out of the way right off the bat. This Blog does not discriminate against elves, hobbits, humans, rabbits or other furry woodland creatures, regular people, irregular people, snakes, bugs, bats, birds, vegetarians, vegans, carnivores, herbivores, or omnivores, animals, vegetables, or minerals, no not even the very models of modern major generals, regardless of their race, religion, gender, veteran status, or sexual orientation, strange beliefs, bad haircuts, multiple tattoos, or whether or not they like Oprah. Possession by the Prince of Darkness is however frowned upon and while not necessarily a disqualifier your comments will be moderated. Oh dear am I in trouble already? Let's start again shall we? Welcome one and all. And now to the post proper:
Damn you bloggers! Damn you all. (And I say this with much love and respect) I used to be a productive member of society, that is until a "friend" whom shall remain nameless (Scott) one day said, "hey Rick here's my website if you want to read some of my silly writings and pictures and stuff" Well they weren't silly. They were wonderful and awful (as in something that is full of awe, not bad) and then there were of course links to other blogs which were, if not just as wonderful, (although I must admit I may be just a bit biased) close to it. Well let me tell ya it was "On like Donkey Kong" (yeah I'm a product of the 80's) I'm now a blog junkie and waste (according to some) much time exploring the amazing and sometimes frightening worlds of your minds. It doesn't seem like a waste of time to me though I must admit it doesn't get the laundry done or the lawn mowed or the bills paid, or help me to lose a few extra pounds. I see it kind of like Chocolate or hamburgers, bad for the body but oh so good for the soul. So my soul says thank you for the nourishment. The responsible part of me says damn. I never understood all you silly, geeky, no-life, waste of time, interesting, disturbing, mean, cool, fabulous, incredible, amazing, wonderful bloggers. But please forgive me. That was before I knew you. Yeah I used to make fun of Bloggers.... Now I are one.